Earlier today, between bursts of pounding rainfall, I went on a walk and found an abandoned house that’s being quite aggressively reclaimed by nature.

I have fantasies of being more adventuresome and finding my way inside empty houses like this. When I circled the building taking photos, I came across a low window with the sash raised and the protective plywood knocked out.
I must admit, I was temped.

My intuition told me no though, and I didn’t climb through

As I was leaving, I noticed that the property line was littered with beer bottles, solvent containers and syringe caps.

I guess being a scaredy-cat isn’t always the worst thing.

James Leland Day via Aubrey Road

In appreciation for dealing with all my total downer homesickness and life-pondering lately, here are the contents of my Tolix chair obsession file.

The Marais Chaise designed by Xavier Pauchard in 1934 for his company Tolix is a little bit industrial, a little bit European café culture romanticism and somehow both thoroughly masculine and feminine.

Made of galvanized steel, the Model A chair is lightweight, stackable, and incredibly durable.
It’s no surprise that Tolix chairs have become one of the most recognizable icons of French design.
The entire range of chairs and stools are still manufactured by hand in Autun, Burgundy.

Last year I considered buying some $30 knockoffs on the Bowery, and have certainly been tempted by the fakes on Overstock, but decided instead to hold out for the real thing.

Helt Enkelt via Splendid Willow

Alvhelm Mäklare via Luphia

Magnus Selander via Desire to Inspire

Bo Bedre via Automatism

Miha Matei via Style Files

Marie Claire Maison via Purple Area

At only 31, I’ve already had a huge number of totally divergent careers paths. I’ve worked in support of the arts, fixed cars, poured drinks, written copy, sold things, designed logos, planned events and managed innumerable employees and facilities.
I’m that person that’s always hungry, never satisfied. Too often I’ve allowed my job to take over my life in pursuit of total competence as well as the imaginary A+ and validation that I’ll gain if I can just be that one completely indispensable employee and colleague.
I know now that the unhealthy and obsessive part of this stems primarily from insecurity over not having a post-secondary education.
Somewhere along the line I told myself that if I work my ass off and become invaluable, than that will negate the feelings of failure that I have about not attending university.
I’ve succeeded a couple times in obtaining that indispensability, but it’s always come at a great cost to myself and never seems to follow through on it’s end of the deal; that A+ that I now know doesn’t really exist.

I made some poor decisions as a rebellious angst-filled teen that barred my potential entry to university via high school, not that I was at all interested.
University was for suck ups and rich kids.
University was advanced fingernail chewing and remedial basket weaving.
University isn’t everything; lots of people have awesome lives without it you know.
University was a colossal waste of time and money that my family simply didn’t have.
I already knew how to think, thank you very much. I didn’t need some $50,000 philosophy lesson that wouldn’t even get me a job.

I know, I KNOW. I cringe at my glaringly naïve declarations now as well. Hindsight also shows me that many of those pronouncements were not my actual opinions at all, but ideas that I was taught. Armour provided by various adults who didn’t think I could possibly amount to anything (10th grade English teacher, I’m looking at you) to protect me from the feelings of inadequacy to come.

At 20 years old, I started to realize that performing with my band in dingy Olympia basements wasn’t going to cut it in terms of a life path. My friends and roommates were all attending Evergreen State College and paying for rent and bass amps with scholarships and student loan money.
I paid mine with wages from my telemarketing job.

I shrunk in shame when asked what my major was and finally decided to attend a vocational certificate program at my local community college. You know, the kind of college that actually gets you a decent paying, health-care providing, blue-collar job.

Less than a year after finishing an Automotive Repair training program, the point of no return came in the acquisition of a crushingly large medical debt.

At the time, I had a new job in an auto parts store. Because I was still a probationary employee, I was not yet covered under the company health insurance plan. The $7.00 I earned per hour found me unable to pay even a quarter of the minimum required for my hospital bills after the costs of my very basic life expenses.
Somehow, my income was declared high enough to be disqualified for charity care and my debt went into delinquency.
I figured that as long as I could convince potential landlords that my bad credit was not due to financial negligence, I’d be ok.
It took me a little while to realize that with a massive delinquent debt my creditworthiness was ruined and the option of obtaining a student loan to attend University disappeared. This, of course, came right as I started to realize that I wanted more than a future selling piston rings and engine degreaser.

So I hopped from job to job searching for a boss who would tell me what to do with my life. I found many happy to give me direction, but none who offered fulfillment. Surprise!

I found one of those bosses when I got a job in the production and assembly of beautiful hand-made artist portfolios. I loved the product and that it was work in the arts. I loved that the building was beautiful with exposed brick and big windows. It was airy and clean and close to my home.
The owner taught me to use quark and I spent personal time on library computers looking up tutorials so that I could impress him with my quick mastery of a clunky program.
The company was a small one, and because I spent much of my time dealing directly with the owner I was able to work hard, kiss ass, and over the course of a year go from hired assembler to production facility manager and graphic design assistant.
As often happens in work-up-from-the-bottom situations with insecure people afraid to speak out, my job title and responsibilities changed, but my pay didn’t. I was “laid off” from that job two weeks after refusing to make a 5-year commitment to a job that paid less than 25k a year.

I tell you all this history, not to make public excuses, but to attempt a sort of personal catharsis. I’ve had some bad luck in life, true, but many of the crappy situations I was dealt were made much, MUCH worse with my own subsequent mishandling.

Over a decade later, my debts are nearly paid off, my credit score grows less embarrassing every couple of months and most importantly, my attitude is changed. I’ve learned to recognize and value my skills, my willingness to learn, and to appreciate my quest for the A+ for what it is; a fucking awesome work ethic.
I’ve wanted to attend school for a long time and now, I finally have the means to do so. I even know what I’d like to study. But one of the many things my experiences have taught me through all this is that everything comes at a cost.
What would be the cost of my going back to school?

The Mister and I are newlyweds. We have no plans on having children in the immediate, but it is something that has been discussed as a possibility for the future.
If I started school a year from now, I would be 36 or 37 at graduation, 34 if I did a short program.

Does this mean I have to choose between learning the skills for a fulfilling career and the option of parenthood?

Is it too late to start over?

I got a job today.
It’s nothing too thrilling, just a short-term position at a local university bookstore, but it’s something and I’m relieved. Perhaps I can exhale now. Perhaps I can let myself just be here, for however long that is.

The Mister and I have been tossing around some loose plans for what we hope to happen over the next two years. Nothing is etched in stone, but there will likely be a reunion with our tiny fifth floor apartment in Brooklyn as well as time spent on the west coast of the US. Topping this mental timeline off is the clearing of our dotted-around-the-world storage units and setting up a home in a city new to both of us.

Nothing is confirmed, but I find security in some sort of plan, however loose it may be.

It’s so strange to think of having a real home that isn’t Seattle, the city of my youth, or New York, the city of my adulthood. Brisbane is where we live, but it’s not our home.
Just after we arrived in Brisbane, we moved into our little apartment and the Mister caught me daydreaming. “Live in Brisbane for a year and see then what you really think about staying”.
Two months later, I see his point.
Despite the mangoes and the frangipani, the evenings sitting in the backyard grass, despite the beautiful outdoor pool where I float on my back and the sky is blue forever, despite all these things that I love, this isn’t our city. This isn’t our home.

I’ve been going though a bit of a rough spot lately. Homesick for New York and heartsick for the friends and family left behind. I have no regrets about coming here. It’s a given that I will wholeheartedly do whatever is necessary to support my husband in the persual of his career but there is no comparison to friends that have known and loved you for years or the city that has literally everything.

I don’t want to go back in time, I’m simply trying to find my way forward on a very new road. Step one: get a job.

Step two: I have no idea.

We all have a list of scents that bring us back not to a place, but to a time.

One of the flashback-inducing aromas from my history is the combination of oiled leather and dried alfalfa: the tack shop.

I spent a lot of time in tack shops as a child. Actually, it’s not just the tack shop, it’s also the arena, the stable, the fairgrounds, the feed stores and the livestock auction with the zillion-miles-per-hour auctioneer and the dizzily steep terraced seating.

The thing is, my mom is horsey.
My mother has always been a girly girl. She loves floral patterns, trashy romance novels, decorating cakes, baby clothes shopping, torch singers, Victorian-era anything, and most of all, horses.

It was a funny twist of fate that brought her a daughter who is so much like her in appearance and opinionation, but so vastly different in taste.
I wanted nothing to do with my mom’s girly things.
I liked punk rock and abstract art and the bustle of big cities. I was absolutely, utterly uninterested in dolls, ruffles, and most of all, horses.

I will say that despite my lack of interest, I was a decent sport.
I tried my best to please my mother and got on a horse that bucked me across an arena. Thankfully, I managed to hang on by a thread and avoid death by trampling.
After that, she accepted our different interests with grace and didn’t push it. I was still required to come along to whatever event or shop she was going to, but she understood and accepted that I was probably going to spend the afternoon drawing on scraps of paper, chatting with people about imaginary nonsense or rating the shops by how much I liked the colors of the of bright nylon leads and patterned wool saddle blankets.

I’ve been missing my family a lot these days and spending a bit more time than usual reflecting on old memories. A couple of days ago, I walked into a shoe shop and the smell of the leather brought me right back to being eight years old in the tack shop, keeping busy picking the best saddle blanket in the joint.

Recalled through the lens of adulthood and new interests, I realized that saddle blankets are absolutely beautiful objects often made of 100% wool and they’re more than thick enough to use as rugs.
It doesn’t hurt that the cost of a saddle blanket is dirt-cheap next to comparably sized wool rugs.

Saddle blankets come in two approximate sizes: normal is about 30” square and double is 30” x 60″. I’m partial to the double size blankets for rug use.

Here are some good ones I found online that would look AMAZING against a painted white or polished wood floor.

Free Spirit Saddles and Tack eBay shop

Tack Wholesale

Show-N-Style

Tack Market

Thanks mom for the memories and the unintended décor lead. I miss you.

Kitka Design Toronto

Living in Brooklyn my bed was always a mattress directly on the floor.
I have nothing against bed frames, and always planned to buy one once I was done buying vintage lamps (HA! NEVER!) and felt up to renting a car, picking it up, hauling it up a five-story walkup, and then enduring the near-guaranteed argument that develops while assembling any sort of furniture with your spouse.

When we made our recent move to Australia we went to buy a bed and I learned that having a bed directly on the floor was my husband’s preference and not just something done out of laziness.
I should have known, the man is allergic to lazy.

Having a spouse that actually gives a crap about interior details is totally awesome in some respects as he totally supports the purchase of artworks and beautifully designed objects, but kinda sucks because he also has his own taste which much to my dismay, does not always match mine. Husbands these days!

Although having my bed directly on the floor isn’t what I prefer to do, it’s a small concession to make in the name of love and I’ve built an inspiration file chock full of floor beds done well.

These are some of my favorites.

Kitka Design Toronto (holy crap do I love a good wool blanket!)

Per Magnus Persson viaDoor Sixteen

Aubrey Road

Desire to Inspire

bddw

Obviously the key to having a really beautiful floorbed is to have pretty much no stuff.
This will certainly be a challenge as our apartment doesn’t have a single closet and my husband has a huge art book collection, but I’m sure we can work something out.
Afterall, It’s not exactly the worst kind of collection to endure in terms of decor.

What do you think? Can you sleep directly on the floor?
Do think it looks minimal and graceful or is it more early-brokeass?

This is mostly for me.

I cleaned out the bookmarks on my laptop tonight and after deleting a zillion NYC-centric websites of businesses I intended to patronize, spots to see, classes, events, maps and who knows what else, I got a little nostalgic for back when I had a job and more than 2 friends in the city I lived in.

This isn’t some glamorous New York City that you see in the movies, this was simply my daily life.

I know that eventually I’ll feel more rooted here in Australia and I won’t think backwards more than I think forward, but I’m not quite there yet.

I miss New York.

A couple weeks ago, I grappled with the arbitrariness of January 1st as the start of the New Year and declared that MY year starts on MY birthday. I’m also too good to have resolutions, I have goals, I have plans, I am an advanced elegant creature who eats cheesecake and never gains an ounce and always has perfectly silky hair.

So anyway, my deepest apologies for sounding like a sanctimonious twit way back two weeks ago. We all go through phases. You know, you really shouldn’t be so judgmental.
Anyway, my birthday is tomorrow so in celebration of the 31st year of Shilo, I’ve taken time out of my precious life of unemployment to share my list of 31 plans for the next year.

Yeah, yeah, I know. The year you turn 31 is actually your 32nd year. Back off pickypants, this is my list and I’m doing it my way.

Ok! Here goes!

1. Take lessons and become a stronger swimmer

2. Grow herbs that taste as good as the ones at the market

3. Make a duvet cover based on Elsworth Kelly’s “Colors for a large wall”

4. Go to a wine tasting

5. Go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef.

6. Fly a kite

7. Make 10 music mixes to give as gifts to family and friends

8. Send 20 postcards

9. Build myself the ultimate swimsuit

10. Bake a pie from scratch (including the crust)

11. See a kangaroo in the wild

12. Use blurb (or something similar) to make a book

13. Climb one of the peaks in the Glasshouse Mountain range

14. Take a basic photography lesson

15. Go on a trip with a friend

16. Pick and eat some sort of food from the wild

17. Celebrate my first wedding anniversary in style

18. Spend an afternoon walking around taking photos by myself

19. Produce a zine for the first time in a decade

20. Develop the capacity to jog a long block without getting even slightly winded

21. Take photos with a large bunch of balloons

22. Double my personal dinner menu

23. Write a short fictional story

24. Tour a brewery

25. Ride in a hot-air balloon

26. Sell something on Etsy

27. Spend a day riding waterslides

28. Visit an observatory

29. Master the folding of origami cranes

30. Have a picnic

31. Make a short film using our flip video camera

This list will ensure that I do more than get bogged down in the routine of errands, work and all those other mundane life details. Too many years have slipped away going to work or making sandwiches. I mean, I’ve eaten some DAMN GOOD sandwiches in my time, but you know how it goes. It’s easy to get caught up and not take time to do fun stuff.
Especially when you’re a boring creature of habit and lover-of-routine like me.

If it does not succeed in ensuring that I am capable of having fun, well then if nothing else it will stand as a testament to my utter lameness and make me feel guilty for eternity or at least a couple weeks.

Boom! That’s it! What’s on your list?