Relapse

I had posted in one of the very first Frou Frou Shit blog posts about how I had a thrift store obsession that was previously out of control...that was now under control. I have been doing so well with keeping my junk-shopping in check, but today posed a bit of a relapse...that I'm totally thrilled to report.

I went to a thrift shoppe the day before last and managed to not buy the following items.

1. A VELVET Elvis painting (not one of the valuable ones, but a pretty sweet painting).
2. A three-foot tall framed embroidery of a myriad of forest animals including an owl and squirrel.
3. A fall coloured soup tureen.
4. A 1970s men's red, white and black "Kimono" still in the packaging!

After being incredibly upset with the treasures that I had to leave behind, I was set on a purpose on my day off today to find some mirrors for a wall hanging I'm making. I was on my way to another thrift shop when I passed a garage sale. Garage sales are fantastic because they mostly feature people that want rid of their wares for very little, instead of people that are trying to make a career of junk-hustling. Although I didn't find any mirrors, I did find this beauty for TWO DOLLARS!

Now, I know,  I'm not supposed to be buying any more lamps (so says Dustin), but the lampshade alone is worth way more than two dollars and the lamp is in perfect condition. The color is gorgeous and it fits incredibly well into my preexisting dream of an aqua living room. Lamps like these usually cost a lot more and as Gina so astutely pointed out...I'm losing money by not purchasing this piece of retro Americana.

When I finally did get to the thrift store, I found fifteen different shirts to try on! Now most of them didn't fit correctly, but I was thrilled to even find that many to try and managed to find this vintage lovely(try not to make fun of me too much for the myspace-style picture. I tried to get a photo of the shirt with it's sweet polyester tie and insane print. I also have no concept of the appropriate way to hold a camera to take a photo of myself that doesn't make me look like I'm fifteen years old posing for someone that has been featured on, "To Catch a Predator." You get the idea about the shirt, anyway). When I was in Charlotte visiting Laura last time, we went to this really great antique shoppe that featured a vintage clothing store inside. It was an amazing slice of decades of fashion change, but the prices were high and some of the clothing was shabby. I was thrilled to find that this shirt has been treated with care (and has probably been hanging in the back of a Nana's closet for forty years) and it was also a yellow ticket item! Yellow tickets were 50% off today, which made this shirt $1.50! Beyond awesome.

Although I did leave behind some sweet treasures, I managed to find a few lovelies to fit into my home. I guess we'll see if I'm still allowed to live in the apartment when Dustin gets home and finds another lamp.

The Sound and the Furries

What Wikipedia says about Furries,

Furry fandom is a fandom for fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics.^[1] Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes. Furry fandom is also used to refer to the community of people who gather on the Internet and at conventions.^[2][3]

^{What I think that this really small description of this huge subset of people fails to describe is the sweetness of it all. Although there are plenty of people that creep-up the place and don't bathe enough, most of the fursuiters and the fans are sweet and unassuming people that receive new people with a kind of warmth and mirth (in spite of so many of them being socially awkward and "weird") that cannot be replicated by all of the bullshit that people invite into their homes through the media.}

^{After Garett, his friend Georgette and I left Anthrocon, we ate at The Sharp Edge in Downtown Pittsburgh where two yuppie women dined at the next table. While Anthrocon was over for the year, there were a few remaining furries wandering the streets with tails, feet and badges. They stopped in mid sentences to have a jeer and then returned to planning their "happy hour," at Mad Mex. Oh yeah, the FURRIES are the problem and deserved to be treated with your jeers...you scazwags. I'm so sure that you're the very definition of style and sophistication as you're pounding seven dollar peach margaritas in your pumps.}

<sup>I find it hard to describe the kind of soul that would be able to stand a really furry suit in the summer for the sake of fandom (I mean, why not have the convention in the winter? Then, you could be outside and be totally comfortable), but I really feel like they should be under considerably less scrutiny than the drunken idiots filtering out of PNC Park after watching the Pirates lose for the bazillionth fucking time. Oh really? Drunk at a baseball game? Well, you TOTALLY reserve the right to judge people.

I cannot say that I will be suiting up next year, but I hope to go to more than just a day's worth of Anthrocon activity in 2012. Besides, I'm still hoping against hope that there is some kind of Fursuiter karaoke.</sup>

^{Enjoy the pics. Some of these costumes are brilliant!}

Guiding Light

I really hope that this is the end of my endless sea of computer troubles. After relying upon my telephone interwebs, the library and my parents' computer, I'm mad at my own reliance upon this technology. There was a time, previously, where I deleted my facebook account and ceased using the interwebs in any kind of serious way for several months and it was heavenly, but now I feel enslaved. In a lot of ways.

With my acquisition of a full-time, but temporary, job, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be interesting. My fifteen minute NPR-filled commutes allow me to learn a lot about the current economic climate in Greece and how that reflects upon America's own debt problems and my Kindle allows me to read about the cultural implications of Christmas in America (the thrills never stop!), but the majority of my days are filled with mindless cube-work. That's right, I've taken up a cube.

I'm not exactly sure how millions of people all over the world manage to get up everyday and do this kind of work, but somehow...they're able to push billions of pieces of paper from one end of the room to the other, day after and day, and not throw themselves off a cliff. Douglas Adams wrote about human beings in, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy," in a way that pinpoints so much of what I'm feeling (my previously-healed but newly inflamed hands are showing) at the moment,

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

It's Electric Boogie Woogie Woogie

So after hearing Gaga's, "Born This Way," about three million times and SLOWLY coming around to the second single release, "Judas," I was hesitant to buy the entire album, for fear that I would be face-to-face with the notion that Gaga was a one album wonder. Luckily my father, an avid Gaga fan, purchased the entire album...that I promptly swiped while they were on a motorcycle vacation in Maryland. After listening to this album several times, I am prepared to endorse it (I'm sure that she's sighing in relief about this).

There are two songs that really stand out for me (and probably the two songs that won't be released as singles). First, "Government Hooker."

This song wins for me not only on wack-a-doodle merit, but also because I really enjoy the overuse of the word "Hooker." I'm also digging the double entendre of the lyric, "Put your hands on me/John F. Kennedy/I'll make you squeal baby/As long as you pay me." I feel like Gaga's ability to make my enjoy really slutty lyrics is quite a talent, because Wiz Khalifa tried it and failed miserably. Even though this song is kind of misogynistic, much like Prince's "Pussy Control," it gives the character power through sexuality. I can dig it. If women are going to be objectified (we can't seem to stop that moving train), then why not give them the power to do something with that?

My favorite song on this album is, "Electric Chapel." This mash-up of butt rock, synth pop and euro pop is completely intoxicating. I was disappointed to find that as Gaga has started performing these songs in them media that she's picked the much-less engaging (and, actually, totally crappy) "You and I," instead of this song. While Hooker couldn't necessarily be a mainstream radio song, "Chapel," totally could.

I love the guitar riffs interchanged with the really soft vocal and I love the call to action in the lyrics:

Follow me
Don’t be such a holy fool
Follow me
I need something more from you
It’s not about sex or Champagne
You holy fool

If you want me
Meet me at Electric Chapel
If you want me
Meet me at Electric Chapel
If you wanna steal my heart away
Meet me, meet me baby in a safe place
Come on meet me
In Electric Chapel

I enjoy this song even more than the singles from the first album, but I know that this could never be a debut hit from an emerging artist that fancies herself the Mother to a hoard of, "Little Monsters." Songs like, "Pokerface," and "Bad Romance," (even though I liked "Paparazzi," "Telephone," and "Alejandro," more than the latter) are the kind of songs that make fans, but I really feel like songs like Hooker and Chapel are the songs that sustain those fans that will mature along with the music. The ones that don't aren't fans of the artists but rather fans of the fad.

I have to give a shout out (that's right a shout out) to the song, "Heavy Metal Lover," too. Another song with filthy lyrics that I love (although it looks like this video has some images from "Telephone," etc.).

I want your whiskey mouth all over my blond south

Red wine, cheap perfume and a filthy shout

Tonight bring all your friends because a group does it better

Why river with a pair, let's have a full house of leather.

Even Gaga knows how much I enjoy the Leather Daddies. Ha!