julieliveshere.com

Thanks for visiting. This site will no longer be updated.

Please visit my new site.

You can find new writing, new photos at

http://julieliveshere.com

Monday, January 26, 2009

Rewind and Read These (Interviews, of course!)

rewind rewind rewind

The post before this one was my 700th (wow) and not that I need to attach any symbolic significance to that, it's such a nice solid number that now I feel badly that it was wasted on the dreaded First Day Back From Staycation dreck post.

***

I was rereading a post that I wrote last year that seems a little too familiar today. Even though I still have the Euros and the passport in my wallet because of it, and the quote by Anais Nin is always a helpful reminder to me, running off into fantasyland isn't the most productive option, really.

There's just something about cramming all of this living into two weeks out of a 52-week year that makes me anxious. Time really does fly by. I think that's what hits me most.

***

Today in Chinatown there was a New Year's Day Carnival at Portsmouth Square. The narrow alley was filled with cheap arcades where you could pay a dollar to try to win a stuffed animal or a trinket. You could buy churros, caramel apples and Cup-O-Noodles at the snack wagon.

Little girls dressed in colorful New Year's finery were begging for toys and balloons everywhere you looked. Older children were lighting firecrackers and throwing those little exploding balls onto the concrete. The ground everywhere was littered with the remnants of these noisy festivities.


You watch these tiny colorful people going about their business: tooting plastic horns, begging for dollar bills from their mothers to play a carnival game, or running about like the wind. Watching them doesn't make the worries of the day go away, but it does help for a while.


***

Two more delightful interviews floated in across the interwebs today.

Please spend some time with Liz and her family at Eternal Lizdom. She makes you feel welcome and like you're already part of the family.

And then there is my tango love and photographic muse, my sweet and talented Red Shoes of Heartbreak Tango. I have a ginormous crush on this woman, and you will too if you read her blog.

UPDATE 10:26pm: If you want to know about a fascinating lady who's working on a book titled “My Life as a Bra Queen” (I'd buy that book!), please visit Debbi at An Ever Fixed Mark. A talented costume designer (and tango dancer), she describes her office as "a library and fabric store had a whirlwind romance near my desk." I don't know about you, but that sounds like my kind of office.

***

ps.: I'm officially interviewed out... I still have a few more to write and am waiting for others to roll in. For those of you arriving late, thanks for your interest but I'm hanging up my Baba Wawa hat now and not taking any more requests at this time.

20/20 has not called me, sadly.

7 comments:

The Rambler January 27, 2009 at 1:13 AM  

Congrats on your 700th. I just celebrated my 200th :)

I'm sighing for you that your staycation ended so soon. :(

paris parfait January 27, 2009 at 2:14 AM  

Oh, I read your post-vacation post (after returning from Venice) and that Anais Nin quote is so painfully true, isn't it??!! I'm glad you got to spend part of the day at the Chinatown festivities. The thing about San Francisco is it has such an international flavor, so you can indulge in some foreign culture without your passport. I think you - more than most people I know - do take advantage of the time and place - wherever you are - and that someday you'll be able to indulge all your travel and curiosity without worrying about 9 to 5 restrictions. Just hang on tight to that camera and keep working your magic! xoxox

A Cuban In London January 27, 2009 at 3:13 AM  

Nice post on Chinatown. Many thanks.

Greetings from London.

Char January 27, 2009 at 4:22 AM  

well Ba-ba, you've done a fabulous job

Debbi January 27, 2009 at 5:53 AM  

20/20 would call, but Babs has them tied up in a closet as she reads your posts, furiously muttering to herself "That should have been MINE!!!!"
hee hee hee
Thanks for the link, and thanks for letting me play! that was a lot of fun, and really made me think before I wrote my responses.
And I soooo plan to have tea with you when I finally get out to SF! And then we MUST visit your favorite vintage store and be girls while we shop for deals on shiny baubles.... ;o)

Eternal Lizdom January 27, 2009 at 6:28 AM  

I would imagine it is pretty spectacular to be in Chinatown for the New Year!

ModernTanguera January 27, 2009 at 2:29 PM  

I think we just need to figure out how to really live during the other 50 weeks, despite all of the activities that lure us into Anaïs Nin's description of hibernation...

By the way, I posted my interview: http://moderntanguera.blogspot.com/2009/01/who-me-interview-with-tangobaby.html
Thank you so much for the questions! You really made me think!