Monthly Archives: April 2011

Summert

As a princess, I think this wedding seems mmmhhpppp. Mine will be better and a bit more intimate.

Someday Camille and I will be like sisters. So stylish and cool. We will drink tea and read fashion mags. We will smoke cigarettes at sidewalk cafes together. We will wear amazing heels as we browse the Louvre. Our children will be best friends…after all they will be half siblings.

Camille you are so lovely. And I can’t wait till you and Jarvis and I all get to hang out.

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Had a really beautiful weekend…loads of going out, eating hanging out with amazing people, cute boy flirting, catching up with old friends…and it all ended with a Seder/Easter feast at Jen Jones’ of Candystore Collective, lovely Eichler home up in the Oakland hills.

It’s the second year that we have had this religious mash-up. Last year there were 22 people but this year we decided to keep it intimate and do a mini Seder rather than the full on 2 hour one. Jenny K. lead the ceremony and tried to keep the giggling wine infused group, focused. Thanks Jenny for putting up with us! It was really special and I loved the pint size affair. We had an amazing time. Really great food, wonderful conversation, loads of wine and fancy cocktails. It was one of those moments that I looked at my life and saw proof that my dreams are unfolding around me.

Opening BellJar, chasing my dreams and doing the things that invite joy, these intentions have allowed the most wonderful people and moments to fill my life. The Seder represents over coming struggle and Easter represents rebirth and these two messages are not lost on my me. We live in a the most amazing place on earth…and we are so blessed to have these opportunities. So this lesson is to find your passion and follow it.

The night ended with us all picking out our favorite jams from our youths and dancing and singing along. There was some Wham, some Duran Duran, , Terrence Trent Darby, Beck, 7 seconds and a country tune for good measure. Then we all jumped in the pool and then relaxed in the Hot-tub. Awe. It was truly lovely..as is Jen’s home pictured below, as is my life.

I have a gift for analyzing myself. 11 years as an awkward, introspective child, 8 years as a despondent teenage goth girl, 3.5 years as a psyche major another 6 as an art student have left me over-indulgent in my obsession with self understanding. I have since freed myself from the shackles of long nights lying awake, dissecting every aspect of myself down to every snappy little cell bursting to break free from my self-inflicted cage of over analyzation.

All those years of getting to know myself have left me with an ability to break down the patterns of my life and inspect why I continue on certain wrong paths. I’m hyper-aware of self-destructive behavior and have learned to redirect my energy in more positive ways.

My mother always lived her life in a haphazard sort of way. Dragging me from one adventure to the next, with no real plan in place. When things went wrong she did not look at the big question? What role did my behavior have in creating this situation? She just moved on without looking back right into the next crazy situation.

Growing up in this manor, has made me fearless, adventurous but absolutely over self-aware. Some may self-obsessed. It’s also made me guarded. Before I ever get to know someone, I start analyzing their personality and I inspect how it makes me react. If I see even the slightest sign that they may interact with me in a way that I may find damaging, I completely close myself off.

Despite my cheery disposition, which is almost completely real, as I have found a way to control my world and make it happy and safe, getting beyond that point with me, the point of simple fun and witty banter, is nearly impossible.

But certain people walk into my life and their behaviors are so in synche with mine, that I just can completely relax, let the guard down. It happens infrequently, but when it does, it’s so magical. With these people I am at my very best. I’m kind, warm, creative, funny and charming. In my dreams I live in a world filled with these people. I like to joke that I want to buy my own town and fill it with only the most creative and lovely humans, especially selected by me. It will be called Darlingville and it will be better than Dollywood.

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The comments section of my blog have been down, but they are working again.Yayy! People always talk about mercury retrograde in regards to lives getting thrusted in to chaos, and apparently it hit me hard this time around. Damn you constellations! But it’s over and everything is pretty much back to normal. So time to focus on more important things. Like my social life, parties, highheels and boys.

But first a quick stop up to see my family. I need a weekend in the country. I’m gonna drive up to see my Mom later today, go to the farmers market on Saturday do some thrifting, then drive up to Butterfly Valley to see my aunt and uncle. They live out in the middle of a lovely valley and have horses and llamas and a yurt on their property. It’s so lovely up there, sometimes I think about running away and living with them.

But when I get back, I’m ready for dinner parties, cocktails, picnics, running through  fields, bike rides with cute boys and all night soul dance parties. So start planning.

Sasha Darling is ready to play.

P.S. Yesterday the most dreamy, tall bearded and bespectacled guy came shopping at BellJar.  I’ve never seen him around, but he was totes my dream boy. I told him he had great style…but what I didn’t say, is, “we should totally make-out and fall in love and be all silly and mushy.” I mean he did have great style. He was dressed like a cute fashiony nerdy, professor. Dare I say he had the style of my dear Jarvis? Pretty close. I’m sure he was also madly in love with me and he was just being coy by not saying anything. SOOO when I get home I’m on a quest to find him. Or maybe he will just saunter back in to BellJar and sweep me away. We will probably move to Paris.

Oh, and think of all the fun we will have this summer before we move. We will go to flea markets and take road trips through the desert. It’s totally going to be amazing.

Photos by Olivia Malone

What a crazy month. It all started with my trip to LA to shop for fall, and it’s been a nonstop whirlwind of insanity since then. Total complete meltdown mode. Everything that could possibly go wrong has gone wrong. For the past two weeks the store has been in total crisis. It all started with one frozen computer that set off a chain of events that I can’t even talk about. I’m so sick of hearing myself talk about it. Lets just say, I have learned more about my business, how to set it up, what to and not to do in the past two weeks than I had in my entire three years open. I like to think this shakedown was needed to make me a better business woman. I will never again make the mistakes I made setting up my computer system, I also now know that I can exist without my computers and survive! Phew.

Customers have been pretty into the whole hand writing and old school credit card processing that we have been doing. They say it fits the store. I kinda agree…but by the end of this week we should be up and running with our new pos system.

After a month of stress and just going, going, going…I took a few days off. Friday had a day of indulging…Four Barrel, mani-pedi, Pizzeria Delfina and then Dolores park. Friday night went to dinner with some girlfriends and then to 111 Mina. It was so warm out I wore shorts out at night time…it made the boys kinda crazy, after the long winter I think everyone is getting excited by the exposure of skin.

Saturday went on a crazy booze fueled bus with a bunch of boys and a small handful of girls to the pinball museum in Alameda for a pinball tournament, put on by Workshop. It was pretty hilarious and in the spirit of wild crazy parties I drank beer and whiskey and let people draw fake tattoos on me. Seriously felt like I was 25 again. When they bus rumbled back to SF I to hit up bars with pinball machines inside, I put back on my granny hat and hailed a cab. There only so much wild partying I can take.

Saturday day we had a quick BellJar photoshoot with photographer Mark Likosky and my lovely friend Scarlett. Take a peek at the pics below!

Sunday I spent the entire day alone. I have just been so overwhelmed by the mania at BellJar. I just wanted to go to the gym and then sit in my house and stare at the walls. I read and listened to music and then watched cheesy Hollywood romance films. But mostly I slept. I dozed on and off all day long. I know many people spend Sundays like this, but I never do. I’m always running around, doing something. I think I’m starting to burn out.

We are just about back to normal at the store. New POS system, inventory almost all placed back in to the system. Lord. Now I need a vacation. London? Did I hear Scarlet say London!

Isn’t she sooo lovely! Thanks Scarlett and Mark