⌘ my heart will sing no other name

reader, writer, color lover

[hello88goodbye]

Meditating on this article today...Lots of things I liked: the 7 almonds, the specified 4-5 hours, the joking about opening a T-shirt shop in Hawaii that sells only one size and one color... What I'm wondering is where does the showering/bathing come in? Does Obama shower in the morning? Or is the night-time routine included in the 4-5 hours before midnight but just wasn't mentioned? I shower at night and enjoy the half-hour of lotioning/face-creaming/general-pampering that follows...It's a lovely way to unwind but the process does chop up the evening in a way that often leaves me clicking mindlessly around the Internet for too long...How can I get 4-5 hours alone time to myself?

[hello88goodbye]

what’s worse: gaining 4 pounds in a week or never having been 4 pounds lighter to begin with?

[hello88goodbye]

Don't mind me, just newly into flowers.

[hello88goodbye]

Every Sunday

I think this next week will be different. But how do I actually make sure it's actually different? Currently praying for stamina...

[chloexnoelle]

This is way overdue, but something exciting happened earlier this spring…my first illustration collab! 

I’ve long admired my friend Colette, who’s been tenaciously pursuing her fashion design dream with her own label, La Fille Colette, which offer easy-to-wear, ethically-made dresses. So when she asked if I’d like to collab on illo’s for her new collection, I was very excited to say yes :D 

Above are three of the five looks I illustrated, the rest can be found here. 

Taking a brief look back, I think what I can take away from this project is that…it’s a lot more than just sketching some things!!! Of course there’s logistics like deciding on the medium and paper to use, scanning, editing on photoshop, etc. But there’s also the fact that when you’re doing a piece for someone else…that person very likely will have a vision of what the piece should look like. Seems obvious, but it was still a bit of a surprise for me.

In this case, the first iteration I did was a lot more realistic (with the face accidentally resembling model Irene Kim, methinks). But Colette had something more abstract, “flowy” in mind, a look that lends itself to watercolors. I actually love watercolor and was not sure why I didn’t start with that, but alas. A few experiments later, I had a new direction. 

Now, getting poses right in a few watercolor strokes was really, really difficult, I found, so that’s going to be a focus of practice moving forward.

[hello88goodbye]

me, elsewhere

[hello88goodbye]

Don’t get caught up with pesky details. When I am writing a draft, I try not to be concerned with exact dates, facts or figures. If I remember that a study conducted by INSERT UNIVERSITY found that XX% of businesses fail in the first FIVE/SIX? months, that’s what I write (exactly like that). If I am writing that on June XX, 19XX Ronald Reagan gave his famous “Tear Down This Wall” speech in Berlin in front of XX,XXX people, that’s how it’s going to look. Momentum is the most important thing in writing, so I’ll fill the details in later. I just need to get the sentences down first.

44 Writing Hacks

Been there ~ 

[hello88goodbye]

Lawren Howell Vogue Pictures And Quotes

Check out this profile of Vogue editor Lawren Howell.

all sorts of goals

[hello88goodbye]

Thoughts I had while watching High Rise:

1. Stop. Smoking. Everyone.

2. Tom Hiddleston would make a good James Bond. 

3. Why. 

[hello88goodbye]

April Favorites

In the “life” category:

1. Pocket, the app that actually gets me to read all the links I flag on the Internet

2. Taking a 15-minute walk after dinner instead of a 15-minute-refresh-Facebook-wallow-in-inbox…thing…makes a huge difference! At least mentally, though I’d also like to think physically…

#trendingupward

[hello88goodbye]

 I don’t garden... but I’m obsessed with these... Hunter Floral Garden Boots (low)

[hello88goodbye]

Tonight’s existential crisis, c/o...The Golden Gate Bridge

[hello88goodbye]

Gennifer Hutchison on Twitter

“So let’s talk a little about the path to becoming a tv writer. Here’s the thing – everyone’s path is different.”

just nice to read

[hello88goodbye]

Documenting a Chinese Family’s Life in a Tiny NYC Tenement

Thomas Holton, born to a Chinese mother and an American father, began his photographic look at a family living in New York City’s Chinatown neighborhoo ...

13 years 

[hello88goodbye]

my new fitness plan

10 minutes on the Simply Fit Board while listening to Coffee Break French podcast

[hello88goodbye]

It's the End of an Era: Victoria Beckham Is Trading in Her Heels for Flats

The good news is she can apparently concentrate in flats now.

my journey to become Victoria Beckham is now a tad easier...

[hello88goodbye]

I’ve been trying to read this book for the past month...and I finally “finished” this morning, on a surprise but much needed day off from work—finished, as in practically skipping the last 100 pages, trying to pick out the important plot points. 

So that should tell you something about how I felt about it. I’ll give it this: It’s very topical and tries to probe and capture the emotions, underlying details cutting through serious, traumatic things that are sadly all too common in society. Plus, the protagonist’s background and status is exactly the kind of thing I’m into (girl from suburbs now rocking the NYC magazine editor life???)

But for some reason, it was just very hard for me to read—addicting, it was not...Was it the alternating timelines? Was it because, despite all the complexity poured into the protagonist, I just couldn’t like or care about her? Something about it didn’t feel very authentic...or is it just that the protagonist had trouble being authentic? 

Finally, I think I would have experienced the book differently if it weren’t labeled as another Gone Girl or Girl on the Train. It’s not the same kind of book, it doesn’t have the same kind of “twists,” and though I felt some sort of inauthenticity, the story was almost too real compared to what happens in the other two titles. 

Now I empathize with editors who abhor calling new startups the “Airbnb of...” or the “Uber of...”—it’s a lazy characterization that does a disservice to each new venture, as compelling and easily digested as such a comparison may be.  

3/5

[hello88goodbye]

This is everything.

Anne Hathaway in Naeem Khan | Mark Seliger x Vanity Fair Oscar Party Portraits