HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BFFHS!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Best Friend From High School (and basically forever)! Since we had to endure the most cliched comments on the most cliched birthday (that would be the Sweet Sixteenth), I thought I would step outside the metaphorical Birthday Gift Box and present her with this Not A Birthday Card card.

In fact, this card is probably more appropriate for her to get me, as I would be the crazy one. This is called either

1) narcissism (my buying her a card that is actually all about me)

or

2) projection (my buying her a card that is actually about me).

I'll have to go with Door #1 as #2 would be a better fit if I really believed she was the crazy one. I think I just bought the card because it was funny and now that I really think about it, I remember why.

But wait...(dramatic pause!), this girl did stay up all night with me, just to see if we could do it (we did, it was hard, but not as hard as the following two days), and that's NOT ALL, we actually bought a chocolate cream pie and ate the whole thing on the way back to school during track practice, and...as you can see, we were really livin' on the edge!

These things, however, in no way qualify her to be crazy. They do, however, qualify her to be my Best Friend From High School and Basically Forever.

I HEART FASHION

It took me so many years of my life to admit to myself that I HEART FASHION. No wait, at first I knew it and reveled in it, then by about age 12 I learned that was "shallow" and so had to secretly revel in it, then I majored in it in college (yes, you can get a "real" degree (BS, and I don't mean BullShit) in it, and yes, even from a "good" school).

(long autobiographical pause) But now I often find myself somewhat hesitant to put it out there again...until recently. My fashion obsession has again swamped the canoe of sanity and has taken control of my life again. I cannot help it.

Fashion makes me happy. That's what I have all those magazines for. All those sketchbooks. All that...fabric. Truly though, if I am feeling down & out or cranked up & stressed or just plain overwhelmed, fashion pulls me up, calms me down and just makes everything better.

Perhaps it's the colors, the textures, the harmony of different elements blending together to make something new. Often it's just the "new" part. The visual presentation of ideas that delight, surprise, confirm, and ultimately stimulate new ideas.

It could be the promise of re-invention, of self-creation or maybe just the external expression of the mood of the day.

Whatever, fashion makes me happy. I heart fashion.