friday dance - uturn

i'm feeling nostalgic for my elementary/hs years for some reason... maybe it's the whole back to school atmosphere... anyway, these lyrics crack me up:

"...In the 80s, fresh was the talk
MJ had everybody doing the moonwalk
In the 90s, I had a high flat top
Doing the wop, Pee Wee to the Reebok
I can't forget about my high school days
The sound was Bobby Brown
The dance was the running man..."

it never ceases to amaze me that usher is only a few years younger than me - he's crazy youthful...

or a vampire... hmmm.... :)



*is he wearing an aaliyah t-shirt? :')



ok, no more sad.... back to running man... *snort*



happy friday! :)

project restyle - bow tie tee

woot! another upcycled tee for project restyle! :)



so, a friend of mine, *coughnuprinzcough*, asked me to upcycle a XXL tee she has. wasn't sure what to do but after a little research found this adorable upcycled tee from MADE. clearly, i'll have to make one of these for paloma.

well, i didn't want to go cutting my friend's tee w/o mocking something up and getting her thumbs up first... so.... to the batcave (donation store) i went...

and found these two tees... one was an adult XL and the other a kids M:



for the most part, i followed MADE's instructions...

and voici!




i think the only thing i'd do differently is beef up the width of the yoke/bow... i really wasn't thinking at all and made it 3" wide... (duh) instead of 5" or 6" wide... and i'd shorten the length (of the bow) as well... but, i really like how this one turned out... hopefully, i'll get the green light to make that dress.

ennyhoo... thanks for coming by and reading... hope you had a productive monday! :)

friday dance - north side gal

sooooo looking fwd to finally seeing JD McPherson at Double Door tonight!!! the people watching and car coveting should be sweeeeeeet :)



happy friday!

paloma vs. bicycle

more than a gazillion times a day i feel that i am a failure as a parent... a couple of days ago however - i felt like a superhero... thanks, paloma, i love you and i'm SO PROUD of you! :') just when i (sadly) thought i wouldn't be experiencing too many more firsts...



of course, paloma really did all the work... clearly. and this REI video helped the both of us IMMENSELY...

we've been struggling for SO long to try to teach paloma to ride a bike... and until a couple of days ago... it never even occurred to me to look for resources online... both the thin man and i had learned "the hard way" with all the requisite falls and cuts/scrapes...

my mom and papa never taught me how to ride. i don't think either of them know how... my lola (grandmother) kept advising against it, worried that i'd... wait for it.... LOSE MY VIRGINITY... (i didn't find this out until later) is that an old filipino superstition?? i dunno...

the one time my mom tried to ride a bike, she fell into a bank of bushes of a neighboring house and got yelled at... it took the whole summer for those ridiculous bushes to grow out the human shaped impression my mom made... *snort* :)

i remember waking up at 5 am one morning in grade school... i woke up before my mom and lola, on a saturday, because i didn't want them to worry or stop me... and i just started pedaling up and down the block until i got it, a handful of hours later to my mom's glee and my lola's cautious praying... :)

when we took off paloma's training wheels, she just kept falling and each fall seemingly chipped away at what little confidence she had about the whole situation... . we eased off and the bike sat dusty in the garage...

it'd been so long since we tried to teach her again that she'd outgrown her old bike. we found a great used bike (for a fantastic price - actually so did porkchop and me) at play it again sports - wrigleyville. i asked the salesperson if training wheels could be added and he suggested that we not put training wheels and just take the pedals off... and automatically, i thought, "really?? i'll have to look that up..." duh. NOW? i think about looking it up... serious placenta dementia, no?? :)

i'm so thankful for that salesperson and the REI video and all the helpful advice/positive reinforcement!

soooo looking forward to riding bikes with my (not so) little girl!!!!

WwwwwHEEEeeee!!!

read it: The Girl with Glass Feet

i happened to see this cover of "the girl with glass feet" by ali shaw at the library and both the cover and the title had me hooked... i just had to read it... here's the author describing it and reading an excerpt:



first off, the language and tempo of the book is lovely, dreamy and hypnotic and details the eccentricity, atmosphere and corporeal qualities of the island and it's people... i really felt transported into the shadowy, chilly world of st. hauda's land... the entire time i read the book, i felt as if i was watching a brother quay film:





if the book ever gets made into a film, i hope they consult with the brothers quay... :)

however, halfway thru book, i got *stuck* (much like the quay film, institute benjamenta), it almost felt as if every character in the book started going thru some major angst... and the book felt TOO heavy... i'm glad to know what motives the characters had, the emotional baggage they were carrying around, but maybe not at the same time... and then, the ending finally came (you see it coming anyway...) but it almost came too fast... it felt completely rushed and i felt cheated out...

btw - asian character alert! although the character, henry fuwa, japanese scientist, kinda treads in familiar stereotype territory - recluse, wise, asexual, bumbling, etc...

it's definitely worth the read, at the very least for the albino flora/fauna and the quirky moth bulls alone... :)

thanks for coming by and reading. hope you're week is starting off well!

asianjoke.com - WTF?!

seriously ^ that's ^ from the site...

so, school is starting soon for paloma and porkchop... and usually in their lunchboxes i add a note or a drawing inside... lately, they both love the idea of jokes and puns... i absolutely love them and their crazy laughter... their made up jokes? not so much... :)

and i thought, maybe i should find a kids joke each day and then add an illustration of my own... mind you, i'm thinking along the lines of "what's black and white and red all over? a newspaper!"

soooo i enter "kids joke a day" into my handy dandy search engine... and find this website:

A-HA jokes - Clean Humor and Funny Pictures (i wouldn't click the link, it may have attempted to give my computer a virus...)

if you scroll down, you find a link to... wait for it...

asian joke - a joke and humor blog. (again, don't click on it. possible virus...)

where you can find links to joke pages about chinese, filipino, indian, japanese, korean, singaporean, taiwanese, and vietnamese people.... there's even a page devoted to pictures of "asian jokes"! barf.

LUCKILY, they have an FB page so you don't even have to go to the blog: "to provide humor about asian people for asian people..." (cuz you're a f*cking joke, asian person! get it!? and... AND you'll find it even funnier if you're asian!

generally, it reads like an expanded DUDE WTF! ASIA w/ the random "i love asian & asian american stars who are beautiful/handsome" post. but i think it crosses the line in that, the majority of the time, posts are about all the same tired asian stereotypes:

* asian food is weird (bugs are as common as rice), as are their "customs" like ear wax removal and foot binding.
* asian men are short, asexual and/or perverted
* asian girls are mostly sex toys
* overweight people are laughable - especially sumo wrestlers
* asian kids are poor, but smarter and know martial arts
* asians can't speak or write english correctly.

i haven't mentioned it on the blog until now, mostly because i was so angry about it... but this summer, paloma was bullied at summer camp. at first, she complained that she didn't like camp w/ tears in her eyes... but no reason. i thought it was because it was a new camp this year, since we moved to a new neighborhood.

then, within the first couple of weeks she told me that two kids were making slanty eyes at her. apparently, an asian american teen girl came to her rescue & told her to hang in there... that they were being cruel and she remembered when it happened to her... paloma thought they didn't know what they were doing was wrong and she didn't want to get her group leader to get in trouble (bless her heart, trying to defend them). then, another kid who was bullying her verbally (he put a safety cone on his head, made slanty eyes and ching chonged her - saying that was his halloween costume) started to bully her physically - hitting, squeezing his arms until they hurt. and then, (4 separate kids - can you believe it?) another boy started to slanty eye/ching chong her...

i couldn't believe it was happening... i talked to the group leader who said she had no idea the racist verbal stuff had happened. she had already received complaints from other families about the physically abusive kid. eventually, he was moved to a different group. i don't know why he didn't get kicked out entirely... sadly, that group also had an asian american kid in it too... hopefully, he didn't get bullied... paloma talked to the first two kids and told them what they did was wrong and hurt her feelings and they ended up mending that bridge...

i dunno... i can't help but think that websites/pages like these provide places for racism and ignorance to fluorish - a place where racists can affirm that these jokes/caricatures/stereotypes are really funny and that asian americans are just too sensitive or just don't get it... well, if this is what passes for funny... then f*ck it, i don't want to get it.... it scares the sh*t out of me that my own kids could have been looking for kids jokes and would have found this page and the jokes about asians - especially filipinos... it makes me wonder how many kids have already found these jokes and how many are fwding/telling them to their friends... mind you as of now 1,518 people like their facebook page... i bet that number goes up tomorrow...

*sigh*

ennyhoo... i hope your friday is progressing well... and that you have a relaxing weekend... :)

friday dance - pop culture (live mashup)

i discovered this DJ a week or more ago via twitter... i have no idea what is happening below, but it gets you (well, me...) movin'. :)



btw - you HAVE to check the list of songs used in the mashup in the video details on youtube... *headessplodes* fer realsies. btw - i read that DJ madeon is 17. and lives in france.

yeah. :)

happy friday!

friday dance - love is found

i hab a code din bye nodse. *sniffle* and my body is screaming at me for going to a (new) hip hop class...

sadly, i will be missing the sade concert in chicago this weekend. :'( i just can't afford tickets to concerts anymore....

i heard this gareth wyn remix of sade's song love is found and LOVED it:



then, i saw a tweet from daniel cloud campos (see music box and welcome home)



so now i especially love this song! :)

happy friday!!!

"Asian-Designed, American-Made"

i'm not really sure what to make of this article... specifically these sentences:

"Betabrand and Japanese designer Tomo Saito have combined high-end Japanese fabrics with the artisanal sensibility and precision sewing of San Francisco seamstresses to create unique Tokyo-style cargo pants with a distinctly Western fit."

- san francisco seamstresses don't corner the market on "precision sewing". they're lovely and way more talented than me with an industrial machine, but just trust me on this one. in my experience, the best production sewing came from factories in thailand.

- and what's with the "distinctly western fit"? under the "fit" link on the olive japants it says "...In keeping with the Tokyo fashion scene, these pants are slim-fitting..." so, if they're citing the tokyo fashion scene, do they mean west as in west of SF? or west as in westernized? as in influenced by the UK or north america? it's like japants are the successful experiment demonstrating fashion hybrid vigor...

- you may or may not know this about me, i worked in the garment industry - domestic & overseas manufacturing/production(in chicago & sf) - for about 10 years... and again in my (limited?) experience, the San Francisco seamstresses are mostly asian immigrants - mostly chinese. in fact, a large section of professionals in the SF garment industry (like SF itself) is asian or asian american. so, what's with the distinction below:

"Offering exquisitely detailed Asian designs and San Francisco craftsmanship, our latest batch of Japants provide a Far East fashion fix for folks who like to buy American," explained Betabrand founder and CEO Chris Lindland. "It's an itch they didn't know they needed to scratch."

maybe i'm being too sensitive, but i can't help but be reminded of my writing residency in florida in 2005 where almost every gas station and motel had "american owned" on their signage. i couldn't help but feel a mix of anger (why do they have to explain that?) and fear (exactly who are these people who need some kind of concrete assurance that the goods and services they consume are american (and sans hyphen)? )



it also reminds me of the big (ignorant/clueless) cheeses who helmed the various companies for whom i worked. they had absolutely no idea (or cared really) who actually made the garments we produced nor realized that oftentimes our factories overseas were better managed than some of the sweatshops that we contracted with domestically - including san francisco.

ennyhoo... i really like the idea of betabrand. it's just this article and some of the copy on their website rubs me the wrong way... and again, the domestic (mostly asian immigrant) seamstresses/factories i worked with in SF were absolutely wonderful/unforgettable, hardworking, efficient, knowledgeable and soooo helpful. and i can't help but feel like they got shortshrifted here.

there's my two cents... thanks for coming by and reading... :)

project restyle - bike helmet take 2

i finally got a bike to replace the one that was stolen last summer! WOOT! :)

i saw a bunch of new bike helmets too... and i was coveting... but i decided to stick with the one i've had for 15+ years (*facepalm* i'm ancient)...

back in college, i'd bought a bunch of sailor moon stickers and put them all over the helmet... needless to say they didn't last as long as the helmet, which is still in good shape...




as you can see, i pried them off and most of the sticker residue, only to find that they'd left "tan lines" on the helmet... wasn't sure what to do... my friend paul made this awesome disco bike helmet. and i found these cool handpainted bike helmets at belle helmets and captain blueberry etsy shop. but i'm not remotely THAT talented w/ power tools or acrylics... :)

so.... i found some koi fish clip art and started sketching on the helmet with a dry erase marker... then, i used a sharpie to make everything permanent... added the stippling... and voici:









my vastly improved, restyled, one of a kind helmet!



thanks for coming by! happy monday!

friday dance - high kick pow!

so, following in the "i'm not supposed to like this" path...

dancer/choreographer kyle hanagami tweeted about jonte's (HUGE in japan, unknown to me) song High Kick Pow. so of course, i checked out the video (watch the language):



next up, i heard robyn's song konichiwa bitches:



after seeing hok and moon perform this choreo:



they're catchy tunes... i checked a couple of other jonte and robyn videos and i don't think these songs/singers make any horrifying orientalist gaffs like nicki minaj or gwen stefani but they did make me pause for a minute to think about it...

in the MVs, all references to asian culture are so *not* serious... save for the "don't get me mad, cuz imma hurt you LIKE AN ASIAN PERSON" theme in both songs... and again, jonte is HUGE in japan - and i dunno... maybe his fan base is ok w/ that stereotype... but still the videos beg the question, what's the point of referencing asian culture at all - in language, costume and/or stage dressing? is it or isn't it relevant/necessary to get the artist's statement across?

ennyhoo... i'm taking the blue pill and dancing now... and you should join me. happy friday!

project restyle - bunnies on the move...

another finished project for project restyle?? crazy, i know... :)



the backstory: two (lindy hop dancing) friends are leaving chicago. *SOB* *sniffles*

so, i felt like i should make something instead of incessantly boo hooing... and i make cute bunnies: see here and here and my very close friends call me bunny and one of my fave children's books is little bunny on the move - about a bunny, on the move, determined to find/go home. :')

ennyhoo... every once in a while i see 80s kid's bedding at the thrift store... i was hoping to find some rainbow brite print - cuz that woulda been HILARIOUS... this was the closest i got - a kid's pj top:



which was a super soft rainbow and stars print knit... :) and i had this other fabric scrap at home - and the blues/lavenders actually matched... win!



and... here are the finished bunnies (click to enlarge) - the clouds/rainbow bunny will be travelling to singapore and the yellow kitten print bunny will be journeying to nyc. :'(








i gave the bunnies & said goodbye to my friends on monday. and although i know they're moving on to new and exciting chapters in their lives - i felt really empty afterward. :( but seeing and writing about the bunnies again kinda makes me feel better today... clearly, i made them for me and not just my dear friends...

thanks for coming by and reading... hope you had a lovely wednesday!!

paloma's summer reading @chipublib

paloma finished reading her 10th chapter book for the chicago public library summer reading program, "book beats"! i'm SO proud! i can't believe this is her fourth year participating in the program. she reads voraciously throughout the year. i can't keep up with what she reads... kinda makes me nervous... but what i like about the summer reading program is that she actually has to give an oral book report/review on each book she's read. she's really very good at it too.

she started in 2007 back at the beverly branch... we read 25 picture books together. :) in 2009, she participated in the program by herself - reading 10 chapter books. :)

i spent most of my elementary school days in the chicago public libraries. it feels very rewarding that not only is she an avid reader, she spends a fair amount of time at some of the same branches i spent hours in as a child/teen.

this year is also porkchop's first year in the program. we have nine books left, until he's reached his 25! his book reports are also impressive - he remembers such minute details... :)

ennyhoo... here's her list of books if you're curious (i linked to some reviews i found)... :)

1) ninjas, pirahnas & galileo by greg leitch smith

2) odysseus in the serpent maze by jane yolen

3) shredderman 1 : secret identity by wendelin van draanen

4) shredderman 2: attack of the tagger by wendelin van draanen

5) sugar plum ballerinas #3: perfectly prima by whoopi goldberg

6) the sea dog by jenny dale

7) chocolate fever by r.k. smith

8) the unseen by z.k. snyder

9) wizard at work by v. velde

10) the higher power of lucky by susan patron

thanks for coming by and reading!

oh yeah, what are you reading right now? i just picked up the girl with glass feet by ali shaw today at the library. and i'm finishing up city of fallen angels by cassandra clare.

happy thursday!!

project restyle - work that skirt

zomg... it's been so long since i posted about sewing... i've been doing a lot of alterations for friends, no planned projects as of late... but i eeked out a new one for project restyle!



we moved to a new apartment and my sewing room is now in the basement. and although, it's a lovely room, it's in the basement... outta sight, outta mind...

however, here in chicago, it's summer and i realized i didn't have much in the way of summer wear... and my pocketbook has been feeling a little thin as well... i ended up cutting up some XL tees into sleeveless tops to wear to my hip hop class... and then, after perusing generation T - i got the idea in my head to copy a dance skirt i have w/ tees for hot nights at swing at fizz.

i wasn't sure what i was looking for, but i realized that alot of the colors of the tees weren't going to match.... and then i came across these two tie dye shirts... although i was looking for XLs - one was a S and the other was a M. they we're $1.80 ea. i measured them and it turned out that they would fit my hips just fine:



the fronts had a hideous sports club screen print on it, but i figure that that portion could be hidden when i made that section into the waistband (turned inside out)....



i also bought a new south pole tee for $4 to go with the skirt...

or i suppose i could use it as a beach cover:



i don't have a tutorial for you, but it's pretty straightforward...

* i measured up about 11" from the bottom of each tee - that made up the gathered portion of the skirt.

* the hip portion was 10" or 11" as well (top to bottom) - the backs of both tees sewn together.

* i used a 1" wide elastic, so the waistband was about 3" wide - the fronts of both tees sewn together - inside out, so the print was inside the waistband.

ennyhoo... thanks for reading! hope you're enjoying a lovely wednesday - and much much cooler than here in chicago...

friday dance - summertime nostalgia ed.

paloma asked me the other day "what is my favorite summer memory?"

and i told her:

"eating paletas on my front steps, watching a dad on the block pry open the fire hydrant with a big ol' red wrench, then everyone screaming and playing in the water sprays and listening to the music from the boom boxes... " GOOD TIMES :)

you can take the girl out of logan square, but you can't take logan square out of the girl...







happy friday!!!!

friday dance - karate kid 2010 ed.

ok.... i know, i know, it's kinda wrong to like this movie... but i kinda did... :)



jaden smith - it's hard not to like him!! :) and it's his birthday today... HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE DUDE!!! :)

sooooo aside from all the obvious hollywood stuff i liked about the movie - cinematography, fight choreography, story, characters, dialogue, etc... i REALLY liked the soundtrack.... however, when i went looking for a soundtrack - turns out - an official soundtrack (not the original compositions) was never released... luckily, this amazeballs blogger cobbled up a list for me... us.... :)

so, my fave tracks from the film...

jay sean - do you remember



gorillaz - dirty harry (schtung chinese new year remix)



and i distinctly remember rain's hip song played in the film, but i don't remember where...



happy friday!!