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Showing posts from 2012

No Longer A Place for Second Thoughts.Forward!

To Ride is To Borrow Wings When you're a writer, you are basically a retailer of ideas. Ideas are your stock. The writing is your product. So, your inventory costs are very low. Used to be, you needed a typewriter, paper, some envelopes and some stamps. Now, you need a computer and a decent internet connection. And lots and lots and lots of time. Which is always expensive in anyone's accounting. But for writers--even though you can sneak in a paragraph in the morning before taking the kids to school, or change a word before you go to bed at night--it takes an astonishing amount of time to whittle words into sharp little points that drive your idea home. Even the worst, most prolific novelist really makes pennies per hour when all is taken into account. But even years are not always enough time to make a good writer into a great one. Ideas--however good--sometimes moulder away in the mind's warehouse--slouched over in dull, lumpy shapes on musty couches, taking up s

The Hunt

The Goodwill Find o' the Day: 19th Century or early 20th century riding bowler with trolley for hooking onto your hunt coat collar to keep it from flying away. Its crown is cracked. The grosgrain silk is rusty and the felt is a bit moth-eaten. I overpaid for it. But I love it. It has a certain macabre slyness to it that hints at memories of other places and cooler weather and rakish sensibilities. There were no hurt feelings at these foxhunts, no guilt about blood sport, no politically correct sensitivities. There was just good sport, lathered horses, dead foxes and good bourbon in silver cups.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS SHIRT????

WANTED!!!! I am a victim of my own organization. This shirt has been hanging around for a year. It has become part of my critical mass of inventory. It is an Italian made man's shirt by Dolce & Gabbana. I thought it would sell. It was a sure thing to sell. It didn't sell. For three months, it didn't sell. In September, I cleaned out old inventory. Some I put on final clearance prices. Some I must've pitched. I don't remember which category this shirt actually fell into. Because I sold it this week. And now I can't find it. I turned my storage upside down. I moved through that closet like a piece of farm machinery. I ran to the Goodwill and combed the aisles in the hopes of finding it--or something godawful like it. I did not find it. (Though I found some other good stuff while I was there...) So I sat and drank coffee and thought and looked at the mess I had made. And began picking the stuff up that I had flung about. Carefully. Piece by pie

Hippique-Hippik-Outdoor Fun for the Whole Family

Outdoor Fun for a Family Like Ours Finally! A W fashion spread with useful fashion ideas!  What appears to be a congenial, multi-generational outing on what looks like a  gorgeously grim autumn day practically smells of cold and damp furs and wool. If there were horses in this picture, it could be a print ad for my store, Hippique-Hippik. As if the Gashlycrumb Tinies and the Addams Family were at the fox hunt. I would feel comfortable at such an event, I think. Gramma's doing so well only a week after her ear-trumpet was struck by lightning , Cousin Reginald brought young Neville, that little bastard boy of his--(nobody knows for certain where he came from )--and little Wednesday looks all grown up. I have been wondering to what one could don that grand Louis Vuitton chapeau and well! Here we are! Haute Obscura from the Gothic Tea Society

Rag Selling Time

It is now time to list. To describe fiber content, texture, and sleeves. Spread collars, peter pan collars, tab collars, mandarin collars, nehru collars, notched collars. French cuffs, standard cuffs. Hems. Stains. It is a monstrous slouching pile of clothing, purses, boots and shoes. Time to turn these rags into riches.

Furry Thoughts

I like fur. I think I like fur, anyway. A nice fox fur collar. A mink stole. Fur-lined gloves. A sable hat. I don't necessarily think fur is immoral--it's just one-sided leather, after all. Top of the food chain, folks--get used to it. I definitely don't think throwing fake blood on a woman wearing a fur coat on the street is going to make any point except to ruin the pelts of a whole bunch of little, vicious animals (it takes a lot of those little minks to make a mink coat) and rendering their snarling sacrifice completely worthless. But I have this thing about being present at a sacrifice. Knowing that one life is being exchanged for something else. So I'm learning how to make a fur. Starting with this huge sleek raccoon, fat and smug from a diet of cat food, pet rabbits and suburban garbage. A trial run of my Roadkill Project. And it is disgusting.  Disgusting when you think about it. Not the over-arching idea of fur; thinking about the reality of making a fur
Fall is here. And I have a shitload of fall and winter stuff to photograph for eBay. Did I mention it is still boiling hot in Florida until the middle of October? So, to spend three solid days, bending down a thousand times, arranging Burberry sweaters, Michael Kors coats, Ralph Lauren cashmere dresses and boots, boots, boots--boots that I will never get to wear, boots that are too small, too big, too high-heeled, whatever. Well, it's a long, hot and sweaty, bittersweet three days. And then I have until Thanksgiving to make hay for the pony. Nobody buys second-hand clothes after Thanksgiving.

Losing the Will to Write

I thought I would write forever. I thought it was something I would do. And then I'd just, you know, die. Now, I'm not so sure. Funny--I don't really miss it: the fussing over mots juste , the rejections, the hopeless, doomed feeling of an ambitious novel concept that will never see a publication date or a check. Nope. I'm kind of more into the whole idea of making money. You buy this thing cheap and you sell it for more. And you keep doing that until you have enough money to buy a pony, which is to say, you never have enough money to just buy a pony, because ponies continue to eat, and they need their shoes nailed on every 6 weeks and they sometimes eat too much and you have to call the vet out in the middle of the night, which can add up to some real money. And I really just want a pony. So I'm taking nearly everything out of my closet and selling it: Laboutin shoes, Gucci boots, Lanvin dresses, Hermes scarves, Cavalli pants. Yeah, I said I wanted to keep