Second Hand, Second Thoughts

There has been a lot of talk about failure lately—articles in highbrow publications and interviews with Oprah and other celebrity self-help professionals on every channel in the universe vaunt the romance of falling on your ass . Top talent seekers claim their top picks must have some ill-fated entrepreneurial venture on their CV’s.   It’s almost like failing has become downright fashionable. If that’s the case, I think I failed to get the memo. Nothing about the experience seems like anything you’d want to have. At least, maybe not the way I do it. Some people enter into things carefully, after a certain amount of consideration. They proceed cautiously—they read up on it, they take lessons, they start on the bunny slopes. I usually find myself trying things because they sounded interesting or fun or just completely crazy or I’d secretly been mulling it over for a few decades and suddenly just decided “what the heck?”  For the first group, failure might come in small, ...

Sarah Cannibal hunting jacket label for Hippik Because I was raised by wolves. Not really. But sorta. Ok--maybe cats. I was raised by cats. I was a difficult, fat, scabby, feral child. The youngest kid of those old-school big Catholic families--the one who crawls around under the piano, eating everyone's homework, teething on old cigarette lighters and rubber grapes. I was an early talker--mostly obscene--because by the time the fifth, sixth or tenth kid comes along, everyone is tired of watching their mouths. Mostly I was in the barn, searching for the new litters of kittens. We had a rotating herd of barn cats. And there were always new kittens. But cats really aren't good as surrogate parents. If you have retractable claws, they might teach you how to kill mice, but other than that, they don't have a lot of useful life skills to pass on to young girls. My mother did not teach me to sew. In fact, she thought I was a bit tetched in the head for wanting to even b...

There are people who can do all those things. I don't know how, but they seem to be able to-- Beautifully executed projects that they have artfully photographed throughout the entire process, each step  gorgeously and clearly lit, and techniques are illustrated with the addition of the artisan's hands--healthy cuticles and all. Sometimes they mention a family. I can only assume that their clean, cheerful children happily play under the table, on the un-filthy floor of the studio, making adorable age-appropriate crafts with the scrap material. Sometimes there are photographs--wispy-haired, sweet creatures blowing dandelion seeds or with their little garnet-lips parted in awe over an exquisite bird's nest. There are no armless Transformer toys or spontaneously shed clothes anywhere! sidesaddle habit by Sarah Cannibal for Hippik. Vintage fabric and salvaged suede; altered Donna Karan coat dress pattern and side saddle apron I keep thinking when I get really good at s...

The anxiety had been building for three days. It crept up like the crap that piles up around the dining room-- just want to clear the table for dinner, dammit! Stick it over here and we'll sort it out later!  But week or so of that--suddenly, as if through some dark magic, there's this teetering, veritable  wall of crap: unopened mail, catalogs, schoolbooks, papers and forms to sign, school neckties and sweaters, shoe polish tins and stain removers and rope and violin rosin and first aid kits and dirty napkins and old cookie boxes. Eating a meal becomes like living in some crumbling, filthy crevice of the San Andreas fault. It's getting to you, little by little... That's IT, you think.  I'm gonna clean that shit up. And so I did--an entire Monday morning sifting through the detritus like some slacker archaeology dig--sedimentary layers of papers, last Monday's mail, and used Band-Aids, a lunch box with slimy half-eaten peach inside, 63 open safety pins, a...

Several of the catalogs I love to order from are now promoting the fact that they no will not Photoshop or retouch the images of their models. While I should be all, " yay for natural beauty !" I am, in point of fact, thoroughly bummed. This means that the dewy-faced girls with all the golden freckles and tousled locks in those sports bras are, I am to believe, actually that gorgeous. Whereas before, I could plausibly believe that those six pack abs had been digitally re-mastered, cellulite smoothed with the Bandage tool, and lanky shins artificially un-scarred. No more! Usually, when you meet someone model-gorgeous in person, you can pick out their flaws to see that they, too are human: they're an ugly crier, or their penmanship is horrible, or they're a low-information voter, or their cuticles are in terrible condition. But, caught in a moment of sheer, well-lit photography, all you can see is: God just wanted to make sure you know that life is just that dam...

So, I'm trying to hire some help with my eBay store and to get my Etsy store up and running. I thought I was offering a kind of nifty deal: you get to work at home, when you want. Decent hourly pay with a percentage of profits. It's not really difficult work. I mean, after all, I do it. And I've done most of the tedious work of photographing, weighing and measuring. It just needs to be listed and shipped. But good help seems to be very hard to find.

It's kind of funny to get messages from eBay buyers about how they feel "deceived" because the item I sold them said it was in "excellent condition," or "3/4 sleeves" and they thought it was "poo-poo condition," with "long sleeves," and now the entire experience has become a "complete nightmare" and their faith in humanity is pretty much lost. Kinda funny, but also not. Let's think about this, now: I'm this one, weird-looking, slightly ditzy person in Naples, Florida, selling used clothes on eBay. Oh, yeah--I'm here, rubbing my hands together like some evil villainess, plotting to "deceive" you into paying 15 bucks for a pair of vintage Lilly Pulitzer capris pants. So I could enjoy hearing how I've ruined your life with an ancient rust stain that I missed? Because I secretly need a pen pal so we can send skirts back and forth and debate if the elastic is brittle? If I was truly clever enough at...