Casual Friday: Summer Silver Shimmer

I wear this silver fish skeleton necklace very frequently, but with it being such a unique, stand out piece, with its own movement, structure and form, almost its own sense of agency, i never tire of the look. While at home with my family in Baltimore the other weekend, my siblings and I went hiking in the woods near our local reservoir, with my sister's adorable and forever endearing labradoodle Siouxsie; at the edge of the water, near a normally tranquil and silent dirt beach, we came upon a decaying fish carcass. It was a dissipating wreck of rotting flesh, with dances of flying and crawling insects and crustaceans, prepared to feast wantonly.

Comparing the sight of an actual organic being, this dead fish, a creature whose gross demise feeds new life, to a clean, cold, and immutable decoration, a relic from my own original organic source, my grandmother, also now gone, I cannot help but appreciate the ephemeral and inherent beauty of flesh and blood, and marvel at the innovations and marks, whether they be ecological or aesthetic, living organisms leave behind them.

This marquisite ring is another relic, though one of a definitively different nature, and one that is a source of translated nostalgia; it belonged to my older sister, Elizabeth, and I believe, or at least I remember and have ingrained the story by this point, whether fact or fable, the ring was a gift from a former beau. The love tarnished, unable to be revived with either polish or well-intentioned effort, and, in fine metaphorical form, the ring was then crushed by the weight of some jewelry box.

It can no longer be worn on the finger, which is a true shame, but it can be slipped onto a thin chain and serves as an interesting charm. Like the ill-fated relationship, which no longer quite holds the same meaning or position along the current life trajectory for my sister, but the memory of which can still be touched and revisited, can still be gleaned from cortical recesses, the ring is a sort of morphous shadowed image of the original: a distortion.

More relics: these thin silver bangles were recently discovered in one of my jewelry boxes, much to my own delight. They make a pleasant type of music when worn in tandem.

Something old, something old, something old, and now something new: black leather Michael Kors wedge sandals; great height and lend some sophistication to even a casual Friday look, which, in this case, comprised of dark cigarette leg denim jeans and a plain black blouse.

Friday afternoon soundtrack: "Cruisin" Smokey Robinson; "Keep Gettin' It On" Marvin Gaye; "Lovely Day" Bill Withers; "Your Love is Like the Morning Sun" Al Green; "The Right Time" Ray Charles; "Waiting for Superman" the Flaming Lips

Views of a City from a Car Window

Lately, much of my poetry has been drawing from visual and auditory experiences garnered while in transit, while gathered among the hoardes, the masses, hustling and bustling to and fro to various places of import and entertainment. In addition to being exposed to an array of landscapes, voyeuristic clips of covert or overt conversation, being in transit is frequently my sacred moment of down time, when I can reflect and write in my notebook, without the interruption of my email or other professional and social demands. Traveling by train, though can be painful for various reasons, particularly depending on the end location, is always an amazing opportunity to see the belly, the intestines, the organs of my surrounding landscape. These images were taken during a drive and a stroll through the various bridges, roads, and sidewalks of New York City, after my dear filmmaker, forever the knight in shining armour, came to retrieve me from Penn Station after a visit home with my family.

Business Luxury: Exton, PA

Sometimes, my career affords me the opportunity to sample some of the finer, sophisticated, luxurious aspects of a life here in a resource rich, socioeconomically advanced nation; last week, this taste of decadence came in the form of a brief business trip to the esteemed and pristine highway intersection turned town, Exton, Pennsylvania. It was here, in the epitomized depths of suburban sprawl meet rural wasteland, at a not so humble Hampton Inn, where I came across custom folded toilet tissue, a generically well-designed and decorated hotel business suite, and fresh batter for "make your own waffles" at the breakfast feast spread. Such sleek architectural and design elements, such standards of supreme service. Surrounding this oasis of hospitality in the desert of commercial development malaise and the tedium of rolling, growing ever obsolete farm fields were such culinary paragons as Red Robbin and Uno, which is apparently a legitimate Chicago-style pizza joint.

Despite its status as cultural pariah, Exton is home to an important joint venture pharmaceutical and biotechnology client; the meeting went well, and I will never forget my pampered powder room experience.

Outfit for a Wednesday: Right Angles

Spring decided to skip over the northeast this year; perhaps Ceres went on sabbatical, so here the region is thrown roughly into the open, sweating arms of summer. With the abrupt transition, or rather lack of transition, I feel rather unprepared; recently, I purchased some Jergen's shimmer lotion, and despite adopting a morning lotion ritual, see no veritable effects on my legs, as of yet. But I digress. In addition to flirting about in bare legs, summer weather means summer skirts. The skirt I chose for today is an ideal cotton-spandex blend, with just enough stretch to maintain the high-waisted shape, while being light weight enough for even the muggiest of swamp-like days.

The skirt sits relatively high on my waist, before belling outward a bit above the knee; this cut is great for tucking in either a button-down, as I did today, or other blouse, as well as adds some movement to the skirt without exuding a voluminous, too much fabric feel. It also features a slight front crease, a sort of embellishment slit, which is filled in with extra fabric; it is a unique cut. The diamond-like pattern is actually an array of corners, or right angles, one large and one small in a sort of structural lock and key fit. The dark navy of the pattern subdues the bright kelly green of the background, which is perfect, as my olive toned skin frequently does not permit me the luxury of sporting large swatches of green.

The smaller, tight diamonds converge and coalesce to become larger diamonds, in a quatrain; this is such a seemingly simple pattern, again with mere right angles, but expands to a meta-pattern. Primary and secondary structure, like chains and winds of proteins.

Green vintage bakelite bangles are my immediate choice for summertime accessories; they complement neutral monochrome outfits, in cream or white or black, as well as bold patterns and colors such as my clothing pieces for today.

A layered necklace look with some vintage cobalt blue beads and a waterfall gold chain.

I always manage to wear beautiful leather shoes on days when it is anticipated to thunderstorm and dump buckets of rain water from angry, gray clouds; sometimes I attempt to dash from my office building to my car, teetering precariously as I run and vainly avoid puddles. Today, if necessary, I may simply remove my shoes and run, liberated in my bare feet; this option sounds potentially romantic, an Emerson-Thoreau approach to rekindling a relationship with the earth and her rich bounty. The reality is, running barefoot will result in potentially contracting some type of tetanus, worst case scenario, or slipping in a pile of freshly laid goose dung, best case scenario. Fingers are crossed, desperately, that the clouds cooperate.