I just wanna be in the studio making shit but I have *things* to do today. Paying bills, cleaning, have to run to my skybox to pick up some packages. I always feel very adulty when I actually get a bunch of unpleasant stuff done in one day rather than hiding out in my studio and putting it off. So now this adult is gonna go put on clothes and pay a bunch more money for stuff I brought in to make money with. Oy vey.

neala-ernswa:

adulthoodisokay:

dare-to-dm:

I found a tool that let’s you figure out whether men are dominating the conversation or not.

Seriously that’s all it does.  I’m feeling cheeky today, so I thought I’d share.

welp, i’ll be using this in every meeting i attend

So I work at a pretty progressive company so at t the last meeting I brought a click counter and I clicked it every time a man cut someone off. I used a pen pad to keep track of the women cutting someone off. Because it happened twice. Both times after they’d been cut off and were trying to finish a sentence. Eventually the men noticed the clicking and would pause and look around. At the end of the meeting I told them the results. In a one hour meeting men had cut someone off a total of 236 times. Two hundred and thirty six.

It seems everyone is out of the cave in Thailand. I’m really happy to hear that.

For the record, that is pretty much my worst nightmare. Being trapped in darkness and having to swim through tunnels? Omgggggg. I couldn’t even look at a visual of the rescue operation without getting anxiety. I think if I’d been there I’d have gone mad.

I get up early most mornings. Too early to start my day so I’ll read orcwhatever and inevitably fall back to sleep and it’s like if a truck hit me the second time. Exhausted. Why? What is happening with my body?

mistavybe replied to your photo “I had a visitor today…”

The terrazzo tiles are SO classic Trini lol. (My mom’s house has terrazzo too) @soulsistrin

ent? I never liked it growing up but I appreciate it now

No, no, it was a BLACK Camaro and two WHITE guys. Yeah, you better let them go.

Shimmer Lake

One of the things I love about living in Trinidad is its natural beauty. It didn’t seem so remarkable to me when we lived in Caracas because the city itself is mountainous and beautiful in it’s own right. But when I moved to Miami I really missed the beauty of Trinidad. Miami was so flat and full of concrete. I would come home on vacation and as we were driving past the Central Range my eyes would tear up. I’m surrounded by lush tropical vegetation and if I want to experience it, there’s rainforest all around. I could never see myself living in an arid place like a desert. I would get depressed. I need to see greenery. Hear the birds wake me in the mornings. The wild parrots coming home in the evening. The frogs at night. I never take for granted how beautiful my little island is.

I have been feeling exhausted all day (didn’t sleep well last night, had a session with my therapist today) so I didn’t make it into the studio. I needed a rest. I’m going to do some work on my laptop so I don’t feel guilty about not working. 

When you’re self employed, for a lot of people the struggle is to maintain the discipline and the drive to do the work when the only structure you have depends on what you create for yourself. 

For me that’s not an issue. I tend to have the opposite problem in that I drive myself really hard. I easily and often work 7 days a week. I don’t always work 8 hour days days because my back problems don’t allow it, so it’s part of the reason I push myself so much. I work as much as I can while I can. And I often feel guilty when I take a day off. And I’ve been in a creative flow lately so I want to work all the time right now. I’m inspired and excited. I’ve been spending a lot of long hours in the studio in my zone. But today I had nothing left. I listen to my body, and when it has had enough I have to give in. I’m so tired I feel hungover. 

I saw something on facebook the other day, a call for artists to apply for… something. And it was targeted to Caribbean artists. And it said Winter 2018.

Dude we have TWO seasons. Rainy and dry. That’s IT. We often use the word summer when referring to the holidays when kids are off from school but we damn well know what we mean plus yeah it’s summery. But winter? Nah man.

Tired cause I didn’t eat.

Too tired to cook.

I find myself in a bit of a conundrum.

Maybe I’ll just lay here and slowly starve to death.

In other client news, today someone (who HAS purchased from me) messaged me through instagram asking how to I receive payments through Paypal in Trinidad because she thought you had to have a U.S. bank account to receive money. I told her the balance goes to my credit card. We cannot receive it on a local bank account. She asks me if the credit card is a Visa card (wtf?). I said any card (I don’t know if this is true but jesus I’m not telling a stranger what kind of credit card I have). She says that she heard you can only receive money through Paypal locally with a U.S. account. I’m like didn’t we just cover this? I wrapped up the conversation saying that maybe newer accounts have restrictions (which I’ve heard because Trinidadians are a bunch of crooks who are always pulling a scam) but mine is old and in good standing.

She thanked me for the information and added a by the way everybody loves the necklace you made me! 

I felt irked cause if I’m taking time out of my day to answer a message I’d really rather put that energy toward making a sale. There’s a lot of information out there about all of this. You can find it on facebook. It felt inappropriate to me that she would contact me asking about that. That’s the kind of thing you ask people you know. People you do business with. Not someone you bought a necklace from once. 

Or maybe I’m just grumpy.

Y’all remember that girl who messaged my Etsy shop about a pair of earrings with crystals and kept asking me how long they were and that she only wanted them a certain length and I took pictures of the smallest ones I had and we kept going back and forth and she was frustrating my life because I kept asking her what length she wanted and she was only answering me with more questions?

Well she messaged me today and asked me if I made the earrings.

So I was like, no, you have to place the order first.

She answers back, “How do I do that?”

And In my head I’m like… you’re on the internet and you don’t know how to buy something online?????? 

So I said, “Just go to the listing and purchase.”

And guess what happened? No really. Guess.

Yeah it’s been a whole day. She hasn’t purchased the earrings.

Of course not.

Why do I get these kooky clients?

I can’t even call her a client. She hasn’t bought anything yet. Geez…

Sometimes I feel like I’m always the last to know anything.

Of course when I’m the first I don’t take notice so probably my view of this is a little imbalanced.

You know how somebody will say something that doesn’t add up and then another person will take note of it, think back to other things, and form some kind of suspicion in their head that something is going on? Yeah that’s not me. I’m oblivious. If something doesn’t add up I just let it go. I never expect people to lie to me so when they do, even when I can feel it in my gut, I usually figure they must have a reason for it and again, let it go.

I found out something about someone recently, like a massive deception of epic proportions. And I have known for years they’ve been lying to me about this thing. I just couldn’t figure out exactly what the lie was. And a year ago I got the answer and it sounded so crazy to me I dismissed it. But that was it. And I didn’t remember it until recently, and there I was innocently telling them what I’d heard never imagining that was the very secret they’d been keeping from me. I still didn’t suspect and dig and add two and two together.

I don’t think I’m naive exactly but I guess I don’t really expect deceit. Especially not on this level. And so I come back to that feeling of always being the last to know things.

Maybe I should be grateful I was spared this deception all these years. Maybe my policy of minding my own buisiness keeps me out of the path of emotional pain and stress to some level. Because I detest lying. And I’d rather not be part of someone’s lies.

But I know now. And I’m so mad. I thought we were better friends than that.

Menace II Society came up in my Netflix recommendations today. Somehow I never watched it when it came out. I’m taking it in now. Chris said he hopes I can handle it. Half an hour in it’s pretty hardcore.

onlinecounsellingcollege:

“Deep in my heart I know I am a loner. I have tried to blend in with the world and be sociable, but the more people I meet the more disappointed I am. So, I’ve learned to enjoy myself, my family, and a few good friends.”

— Steven Aitchison

^^^^^^^

I was at an event yesterday and a customer came up to my table and was really swooning over the resin earrings. But she mentioned that she only likes to wear really small earrings (like tiny studs). So I pointed her to two sets of studs I had but even they were too big for her. She asked me several times why I don’t make smaller earrings. I explained that a) I use the size of the petals to make the earrings b) small flowers tend to disintegrate in resin and c) you wouldn’t be able to admire the beauty of the petals if they were as small as she wanted. 

She still kept asking me why I didn’t make smaller earrings. I was patient and didn’t let my irritation show but after she left I just felt annoyed. There are always clients who somehow feel that you’re supposed to cater to every single possible customer. Why don’t you make silver pieces? Why don’t you make jewelry for men? Why don’t you blah blah blah. Seriously? I’m supposed to make all things for all people? You like tiny ass studs so I should make that even though it makes no sense given the aesthetic of my line? Jesus people are so fucking self centered. This isn’t a fucking build-an-earring. You get what you get. Otherwise just leave me alone and stop harassing my life.

When I started out my jewelry line my original inspiration was plants and nature. I moved in the direction of crystals and raw gemstones more from a practical standpoint… it would be faster and easier to get my line up and running if I went that way.

Now I feel I’ve sort of come full circle and am revisiting my original source. It’s interesting to see how my ideas have evolved. 

I never wanted my line to be an aesthetically “Caribbean” brand. But as I find myself more inspired by the flora around me, it’s turning in that direction. And it doesn’t bother me one bit. I love it, my customers love it, and as long as it looks beautiful and I made it, it’s on brand. Lemme tell you Caribbean people go wild for a banana leaf. We love anything tropical and nature inspired. Because where we live is so unbelievably beautiful. 

So right now my thing is leaves. All kinds, all shapes and sizes, different metals, whatever. I’m doing it in my own way. I think the resin stuff propelled me in this direction. I’m following it and I’m really loving it right now.

I did a foot mask a few days ago and I just peeled a whole big piece of skin off the sole of my foot and it was kinda gross and kinda fascinating but more than anything I can’t believe how soft the skin is underneath. I’m a convert.

wellofloneliness:

freckles-and-books:

“In the spring of 1940, when the Nazis overran France from the north, much of its Jewish population tried to escape the country towards the south. In order to cross the border, they needed visas to Spain and Portugal, and together with a  flood of other refugees, tens of thousands of Jews besieged the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux in a desperate attempt to get that life-saving piece of paper. The Portuguese government forbade its consuls in France to issue visas without prior approval from the Foreign Ministry, but the consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, decided to disregard the order, throwing to the wind a thirty-year diplomatic career. As Nazi tanks were closing in on Bordeaux, Sousa Mendes and his team worked around the clock for ten days and nights, barely stopping to sleep, just issuing visas and stamping pieces of paper. Sousa Mendes issued thousands of visas before collapsing from exhaustion.

The Portuguese government—which had little desire to accept any of these refugees—sent agents to escort the disobedient consul back home, and fired him from the foreign office. Yet officials who cared little for the plight of human beings nevertheless had a deep reverence for documents, and the visas Sousa Mendes issued against orders were respected by French, Spanish and Portuguese bureaucrats alike, spiriting up to 30,000 people out of the Nazi death trap. Sousa Mendes, armed with little more than a rubber stamp, was responsible for the largest rescue operation by a single individual during the Holocaust.”

—Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

this short post is one of the most important things anyone can read right now.

What’s the point of you blog if it consists entirely of reblogging from one other blog? What. Is. The. Point?

rhymes with

Witch.

All week that word kept coming to me. Witch. I kept hearing it over and over again.

Why am I hearing about witches? It came up again in the company of a friend who knows about these things. She thought the message was about me. Or us. But no it wasn’t. It was about something else. I just didn’t know what.

And then today I got a phone call. The person asked a hypothetical question. If you knew something and you weren’t supposed to tell someone, but you knew by telling that person you could potentially save someone from fucking up their life, would you tell or would you keep quiet?

Is it me you want to tell?

Yes.

Do you want me to promise not to tell Gary the person that’s how I found out?

I don’t know if you can. But yes.

Ok I promise I won’t tell Gary him them.

Because of course I knew who it was about.

And then she told me.

And now I know why I was being warned about a witch.

Because that woman is evil. And now I know I have to be careful. Because if she knows I know there’s no telling what she will do next.

She’s not the witch. But she went by one. To do what she did. And I know she would do it again.

I’m gonna go read cards on this bitch so I know exactly what I’m dealing with. Time to do some protection spells.

purplebuddhaquotes:

“People who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”

— Neil Gaiman

This is true

You ever meet somebody and wonder how they have any friends? How anybody could possibly be attracted to their personality? I swear some people have negative appeal.

I have a few acquaintances in the jewelry making business but just one real friend. From the moment we met we were thick as thieves. We talk about jewelry making, share ideas, thoughts, materials, everything. Sometimes she just comes over and spends the day in the studio with me. We talk shit, we laugh, we work on our separate stuff and it’s really lovely. Art can be a lonely, solitary endeavor.  It’s such a rare and wonderful thing to have another person who can share my passion with me on this level. We speak the same language. It’s such a relief to be able to communicate with someone who understands exactly what I’m saying.

onlinecounsellingcollege:

“Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.”

— Matt Kahn

So I guess we’re back here in bullshit-land again huh? Thought we got past this shit.

It reminds me of this road I drove on today. There was this deep almost ditch right across it for ages. And somebody came and filled it in. And now instead of a ditch there’s a hump.

It’s never level. Ever.

I think I woke up with a bee in my bonnet. I’m tired of people using ignorance as an excuse. We live in the information age. Anything you could possibly want to know is accessible literally at your fingertips. To say, “why would people know that?” is inexcusable. If you’re going to bitch about something then you should know what the fuck you’re talking about. 

The amount of money I spend every year on fees to sell at markets… is a lot. It’s not as much as monthly rent on a retail space of course. But if I had a retail space I’d be open 5 days a week. On a day to day basis it would be a lot cheaper. 

So many small business owners like myself find ourselves caught in a loop where we don’t have enough capital to make the next step toward a store and our only options are to do markets. 

There is no accommodation in Trinidad for people like us. There is nothing set up to help or support us. Every single time we get together this is where the conversation goes. We need a place for people to come where we can sell our things on a daily basis. Earn a steady income. We all talk about this place. It has studio space where we can work too. Maybe even give classes. But it’s a dream. Even collectively we can’t afford the inflated cost of retail spaces in Port of Spain. Everybody keeps hoping some distant relative will die and leave them money so they can get their dreams off the ground. Sigh.

A friend of mine lost her mother three years ago. She was talking about how much she missed her. “She was the only person in the world who loved me the way I wanted to be loved,” she said.

Ah. That. Exactly.

I understood completely.

I had someone like that once too. When it’s gone you mourn it forever. Because they were the only person who you ever felt truly understood you.

onlinecounsellingcollege:

“I know this transformation is painful, but you’re not falling apart; you’re just falling into something different, with a new capacity to be beautiful.”

— William C. Hannan

I bid on some items on ebay and the seller sent me an invoice and tacked on $20 of shipping. At first I thought it was my mistake and that I was careless, but when I went and checked, nope, they were listed as free shipping. I emailed the seller immediately and then spent a good half an hour trying to navigate ebay online help. Turns out you have to actually pay for something before you can report that you’ve been overcharged for shipping. I finally found a number and called them and got it sorted out. I wasn’t crazy. The seller was pulling a fast one. They have to go through procedure and allow them to respond but they assured me they will cancel the listing anyway and investigate them. Cause I sure as fuck don’t want their products now.

We had an earthquake last night. It wasn’t bad and the rumbling was more than the actual shaking.

When we were living in Caracas they were very common so I don’t tend to freak out when they happen.

We used to have a lot of people coming by and staying at our home when we lived there. Some family, some were friends of my parents, often they would be friends of friends, and on occasion a past student of my father’s.

There was this one guy, a former student, who stayed with us who had survived a large and fatal earthquake back in the 70’s (I think) in Caracas. He had lost family members. I remember him being a very quiet, pensive young man.

Years later on a flight to somewhere my father struck up a conversation with a young woman seated next to him. Somehow they were able to establish that they shared a connection with this guy and she revealed that she was the mother of his daughter. And that he had been killed in another huge earthquake that had hit Mexico in the 80’s.

It was as if he was fated to die that way. What were the odds? Most people will never experience one of those. He saw two. When I think of earthquakes I think of him.

I also watched Coco today. What a beautiful little story. I just loved it.

The first time I ever heard of the idea of honoring one’s ancestors was watching a Chinese movie. I thought the whole idea was completely bizarre. But over the years I’ve become familiar with the fact that it’s a practice that spans many cultures and religions. 

Watching the movie made me wonder how my ancestors were faring. I have many photos of them around me. I talk to my father often. I hope that is enough to keep them vibrant and alive in the afterworld. I’m not religious but maybe I should do something to remember them every so often. I believe they still exist in some form. I would like it if someone remembered me after I was gone. Or maybe I’d be having such a ball I would’t give a shit, but honestly better safe than sorry right? 

I just saw an article about Kroger and I was remembering when my Dad was innocently pronouncing it K-Roger and we all thought it was so cute.

I watched a Korean/Japanese movie on Amazon Prime today and like holy what the mindfuck did I just see? It’s called The Handmaiden. It was really good. It has some pretty explicit sex scenes, just as a warning if that bothers you,  but other than that the story, I guess you could call it suspense? Was really good.

I had a period in my life where I constantly watched Chinese, Japanese and Korean movies. I think I need to revisit that. They are amazing storytellers and their movies are always rich and beautifully shot. Raise the Red Lantern comes to mind…

I had to explain to someone the other night who Grace Jones is. 

How do you explain Grace Jones?

I gave up after two sentences. You can’t.