Computer Switcheroo!/Wishlist

I am writing to you from a new computer. Well, not a new computer... our old computer actually. See, we'd been using my grandparents' computer but now we're using my mom's. It's a dinosaur. Actually, I wouldn't call it a dinosaur. It's old, but not that old. Maybe Australopithecus (proto-human ancestor). Ancient, but more modern than triceratops. Hehhem. Geek. Moral of the story: Guess who's blog has pictures again!!

I like anything with a Firefly, Psych, Princess Bride, or Young Frankenstein reference. So I found a shirt with a quote from Wash from Firefly! It says: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" Hhahahaha! Mine is an evil laugh! I also love buttons. I don't care how hipster it is. I just love them. These are Simon Tam quotes from Firefly, my favorite is: "I've been thinking of growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist." Funny, funny man. I love this wolf hat but sadly, SOLDOUT! I'm still looking for a good (cheap) one. This shirt is in the style of the PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) label, but says: "Hipsters Ruin Everything". Hipsters are known for their excessive consumption of PBR, my mom drinks it and I want her to have this shirt:) Another Firefly reference: "Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. Today we were captured by hill people never to be seen again. It was the best day ever." These are so much better if your a Firefly fan. They're golden:) Deer+Bear=Beer. I know it's an ironic trucker hat and I'm so ashamed! I love River Tam. My nephew says she reminds him of me... I love you, Ethan! This is a t-shirt. And yes. It's another Firefly quote. I'm going to get a grey sweater from Goodwill and sew elbow patches on myself. It's cheaper. And homemade is always better! I already have the perfect buffalo plaid fabric scraps to make the patches! Appropriation is bad. But I love this dress and want it. Its pretty. Besides, at least it's not called Navajo Nights or Cherokee Sunset. I hate when they name things after tribes that have nothing to do with them. Calling it "tribal" print isn't as bad. All world peoples were at some point "tribal". These are lovely fair isle leggings. I want another color, but didn't show them because I don't want people buying them all up before I have a chance! I can't help but love this button. And these wonderfully 70s corduroy shorts. Tricky Mr. Foxy Fox is divine! I don't know why I said that. I want this shirt though.

I would feel so pretty and ballerina-esque. The nerd in me said: Holy Harry Potter Batman! Since When does Delias carry Hogwarts shirts?! Fair Isle and quite close to what I've been searching for. Close enough at least. This one's close, too. Disney Pocahontas taught me my life lessons and I will never stop being a follower of her wonderful cartoon Algonquin ways. I love these. And they're called "Tramper", how cool is that name?! They don't have my size, but I found them somewhere else. Aladdin is another meaningful Disney movie for me. I recently read Arabian Nights (1,001 Nights) and realized why the rest was never made into a children's cartoon. Can we say: sexual! Murderous! Sexist! But an enjoyable read overall.
I guess you may have figured out that this post is really just a time for me to celebrate the return of my picture posting ability by sharing my current wishlist with y'all. I basically just like nerdy hipster pretty things. Honestly, I wouldn't say I'm a hipster, but I do LOVE the same stuff hipsters love. But I don't judge and I don't care about trends. We just so happen to enjoy the same things. I told my friend once that we're the people hipsters are trying to be. Heehee. You could say I'm just a thoroughly 90s kind of gal who loves irony and folksy stuff. Kind of a hippie. But don't tell my grandfather.
What are you guys obsessing over lately?
Love,
Belle

The Girl in the Trees

I've been thinking ever more about how much I need the forest. Contrary to popular Christian ideology (and that of my father and my father's father and my friend's father and my sister's father...), I do not believe that human beings are somehow outside of nature. I'm another animal, another strand of this great web. I did not create the web, I do not control the web, I am simply a part of it. My part is no greater and no more important than any other part.

All of my beliefs started with the Disney movies of my childhood:

The Lion King and Pocahontas taught me my place in the world and how to love nature and be apart of nature.

Beauty and the Beast taught me about selfless love that sees past appearances.

I don't want to sound childish but it's totally true.

"The rainstorm and the river are my brothers, the heron and the otter are my friends, and we are all connected to eachother in a circle, in a hoop that never ends."

"I know every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name."

When the lion dies he becomes the grass and the antelope eats the grass. And the lion eats the antelope. It's the circle of life.

And that is what I believe in.

My family used to go camping twice a year, once in early Summer and once in late Summer. We don't anymore. This past Summer I camped once with a friend and it just didn't feel like the kind of camping I love. I guess my kind of "camping" is just a way to pretend for a time that I live in the woods. I feel like I should live in the woods. I forage, go for early morning walks, look for pretty stones in the creek for hours, braid flowers into my hair... just sit alone in the woods. I love the forest. I love bears. I love deer. I love trees. I love how I can hear the spirits when I'm out there. I especially love the wolves. Since I was a little girl, the wolf has been my spirit guide. I dream about them. Sometimes they're communicating with me, sometimes I'm playing with their cubs, sometimes I'm being attacked, torn apart. But I've never been any less in love with them, no matter what the dream. I'm not saying I wouldn't protect myself or my family if the need arose, but I will never demonize the wolves. They will never, EVER, be any less beautiful in my eyes. The wolves taught my ancestors to live and hunt in packs. Without them, my people would not know what animals were good to hunt. Wolves are important.

They're important TO ME.

I feel that as an animal and especially as an artist I'm sensitive to my instincts. My instincts tell me to run to the woods. Go to the mountains. I have romanticized mountains hopelessly. I wouldn't call myself a "country girl" or "western" because I'm not a cowgirl type or anything, but I am a mountain girl and I've always been in the west. The west is my home. I want to travel. So, so much. But the west, with it's frontier personality and gold rush history (my home town is Placerville, where they hung bad guys during the California Gold Rush)... that's a part of me. I would love to live in the mountains near the ocean with a simple little house and (just to satisfy my romanticized need for fantastic attachment to my native roots!) a teepee to camp in. I would live with a mountian man with a logger beard, artistic tendencies, and a deep appreciation for the nature of our native west, and make beautiful little forest babies with him. We'd both have doctorates in anthropology, unschool our children with all our vast knowledge, and take them on our travels to archeological digs in foreign lands. And I'd teach them the art of dreamcatcher weaving, because I am a dork, and I want to pass on some kind of knowledge to them. My dreams!

What are your dreams? I've been shaped by Disney movies, what have you been shaped by?

Love,

Belle

PSYCH is back and I have no television!!

What does one do when her favorite bromantic crime-fighting comedians return to the world of television for their 6th season and the stupid TV people can't get a line-of-site and she's doomed to a life of television-less-ness?!! O, the humanity!!
To clarify, I am not a TV addict. I am a technology-denying- live-in-the-woods-with-a-garden-and-no-electricity- sort of girl. But my greatest weakness is PSYCH. Scratch that, my greatest weakness is Shawn Spencer. He is all that I want to be in life... Except a man... I do not want to be a man. But besides that! He's a "psychic" (actually a hyper-aware people-reader who pretends to be a psychic to get jobs), a private detective (a "psychix detective", eh? Eh?), a super funny/weirdo/eccentric... just like me! Woo! Oh, how I love that show.
Never fear, I have a wonderful buddy. My lovely friend, Shenanigan, has TV... and she can record shows. See where I'm going with this? She's recording PSYCH for me!! And I can go over and watch some time!! Yay! Obviously I'm terribly excited.
I love Wednesdays. It means I don't have to do homework. Tomorrow my only class is yoga, and by all that is holy, I truly love yoga.
And Swedish people. I love Swedes, too. Listen to this, if you can. It's First Aid Kit, from Sweden.
I have no point anymore. My mind is drifting aimlessly, and I fear for what crap I might write! Blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblshblsfkf.

Well, I'm actually not sure what this post is about.

So school started in September, and I've been quite busy. I've got two literature classes and, boy , let me tell you: that's alotta reading. And writing. Essays. Responses. AAAHH! Not to mention my many other classes and their respective work loads. But that is A-OK. I. Can. Do. It.
Truly all I want to do though is go into the woods. Craft a mask of wood. Fashion a wolf hat of yarn. A wolf in sheep's clothing. That is what I seem to be. A wolf living this life of sheep. Dance around a fire- as the flames grow higher and higher- with a frenzied abandon known only to those who have truly left the building! In a literal and metaphorical sense: literally left buildings and metaphorically left the prevailing cultural notion that we must all be the same. Collect berries at dawn, grind grain at noon, partake of homemade wines at sunset, dance beneath the moon at midnight and on. And on. The rain has come and all
I want to do is dance. The rain makes me want to dance.
October is the best month. I wait all year for the fleeting perfection of October. And I'm wasting it sitting in school. I can't stand living in a neighborhood. I am not programmed for conventional society.
I'm really looking forward to All Hallows Eve this year! I'm hoping to go to the PF haunted house, the GB pumpkin patch/corn maze, and host a smashing Halloween party. I'm wrestling with myself on that one. I don't see the purpose or fun in partying, to be honest. Why would I hang out with a bunch of people I only marginally like, who will probably destroy my house, and open the door to stupid drunken teen drama. I have seen far too many teen movies to be naive to the ways of high school/college parties. On the other hand, I'm a teenager and I am NOT supposed to be this wise. I SHOULD be out partying, pirating illegal videos, recklessly driving, getting smashed, and basically being completely uncaring about the problems I create for others and myself. I should be an ignorant jerk, making multiple mistakes. Sadly, there would be no lesson learned from these mistakes as I have literally learned them all already without having to do the stupid things to learn them. I am much too intuitive. It is a curse. And I'm very grateful for it as it is a gift as well. Strange days...
Basically, the moral of the story is: I'm having a raging Halloween party and, against my better judgement, I will be inviting people other than my two friends. I mean, I have lots of aquaintance-friends but I really only like my two best friends and don't see any value in hanging out with other people. I am a shadowy recluse.
Umm... I love Samantha Crain and First Aid Kit. Please check them out. That is all.
Love,
Belle