Under what rock have I been that I didn’t realize The Walking Dead comes back in FIVE DAYS! First I found a quarter and now this! Everything is going my way today.
Today’s bangles: black Clic-Clac, two little Native American cuffs of mine from back in the day, my lucky figa charm bracelet, and the Fontaine de Bartholdi skinny bangle.
The other day Nad of HugsXHearts asked me exactly how many bracelets I have. I jokingly answered “ONE MILLION!” But then I started thinking about it. I might actually have one million bracelets. It’s more than a bit obscene. See the pic above? That’s them. About a million seems right, right? Anyway the thing with my collection is most all are gifts (one exception being the albatross ivory bangle). Each has a story and special significance. Most are from my dad and with his death I find even cooking the pasta from his pantry breaks my heart. I am foolishly sentimental with everything so I could never give away or sell any of my collection.
“But Margaret,” you might be saying, “I have definitely seen bracelets on your wrist that are not in that lot of one million bracelets.”
Well, you would be right. When I buy myself a bracelet (most always second hand) it is with the knowledge that I am the temporary guardian of it. It’s the capitalist in me, I suppose. I buy books with the intent to sell them back to the second hand store. Ditto clothing. Ditto jewelry. The great thing with owning a store, I can sell these items more easily than most people.
Also with a collection it somehow feels like cheating to just go out and buy an item. That makes it too easy. I have maybe 3 Hermes bangles that I bought for myself. Those 3 leave me with an empty feeling because there is no story to them.
Do you have a collection? What does it mean to you? How do you go about adding to it? I know Nad’s got some rings galore.
So I think I mentioned a couple times in passing how I’m now listing jewelry on Chairish.com. Like the Rhodonite bangles in the above photo (the dark rose colored ones) and so I thought I’d tell you guys that I’m a terrible negotiator. Chairish has a “make an offer” option and, hypothetically, if anybody likes the things I’ve listed on there? Well, make me an offer. It’s not that I “can’t” refuse so much as I pretty much “don’t” refuse. I am so lucky my dating life is long over.
Today’s bangles: Rhodonite bangles (coming soon to my Chairish.com listing, the last Hermes bangle from my dad, and two horn bangles.
And yes, my two dogs are back there hiding from the BIG NAUGHTY DOG.
My apologies in advance. I have this stupid digital camera at my shop so I figured “what the heck, I’ll give you all some more of my face.” Then I filmed myself with something sticking me in the eye.
Here’s the basic script for those who can’t watch videos:
-Greeting
-Something sticks me in the eye (probably my own bangs)
-Bracelets
-Long shot of my collarbone as I fumble with the off switch
Just call me Maya Deren already and give me an Oscar. Side note, did Maya Deren ever get an Oscar? Also, I’m selling two of the bracelets on Chairish.com. The rhinestone bangle here and the turquoise and pink pearl one here
Our tap water used to be great. Now it tastes like swimming pool.
Today’s bangles: rhinestones bangle trio, hermès blue les ponts, balcons de guadalquivir, my mom’s Route de Corse ID bracelet, cameo cuff I listed for sale on Chairish.com
Not to brag too much but I recently discovered a Pirate King is a big fan of my blog. For some reason he lives in a shack. But that’s fine, I don’t judge! I just think that maybe being King and all he might choose a pirate castle or something, but shack is cool too.
Anyways, he eased into the multitude of comments slowly.
Does running a well-established website such as yours take a large amount of work?
I was so flattered! “A well-established website such as mine”! Oh boy. And yes, Pirate King, it does take some work but not an overly large amount, thank you for asking.
Your means of describing the whole thing in this paragraph is really nice, every one be
capable of effortlessly know it
Again with the flattery, Pirate King. *blushes furiously* I suppose it would be cool for everyone to effortlessly know about my bracelet collection. Bracelets are pretty universal, right? I mean even a famous Pirate King is apparently into them so…
I suppose its good enough to use some of your ideas
Huh. Okay, I must admit this feels a bit like a back handed compliment. I’ll tell you up front, I don’t know how I feel about that, Pirate King.
This post could not be written much better! Looking through this post reminds me of my previous roommate!
He continually kept preaching about this. I am going to send this information to him. Fairly certain he will have a great read.
So you’re saying my post could be written better? I guess that’s fair. We all have room to improve. But I don’t know about this former roommate of yours. How did you both fit in a shack? Is he also a pirate? And why’s he preaching about bracelets? I mean, I can talk bracelets, man. But even I don’t proselytize about them. However, thanks for forwarding my blog on to him.
Everything is very open
Yeah, totally. Everything. A quick question, Pirate King, are we still talking jewelry?
But so, since the Pirate King is so interested in my bracelets, here’s today’s bangles: Hermes twilly wrapped bangle, a JKC ripped off by Chanel bangle, and my dad’s Baume & Mercier watch.
Something I realized while working on this anniversary series of posts is that I more strongly associate the events with the days of the week than the dates. So I’m changing the context. We’re jumping from Wednesday to anSunday, that occurred eight years ago.
It was the first time that I referred to my honey as my boyfriend. This was after just 6 days of dating! Can you believe it? Apparently I was not worried about jinxing myself. Granted, I called him “my boyfriend” in conversation with a meth head selling a dresser on Haight Street. But as you will learn tomorrow, The Monday that brackets my week of anniversaries from 2007, I did jinx myself. Just not in the way you expect.
BTW that bat face on top? That’s my brother’s new puppy.
Today’s bangles: ivory bangle from Goodwill, Hermès yellow bangle, tiny tortoise shell bangle from Goodwill
Really? Do I really need to explain the anniversary on this one? Let’s just say, give me the right setting, a little take out food, a barely furnished apartment, a big brown dog, and the guy I met two nights prior in 2007…
We watched American Idol. For my very first time. I definitely mentioned that part in yesterday’s post. I couldn’t bring myself to link anything American Idol *shudder* so instead is the Haim song I like the most right now. It sort of works with the memory theme, right?
In case you are just tuning in, I’m telling the story of a very life changing week. It started with meeting a guy at a bar on a Monday, back in 2007. Not to give too much away but the timeline is a Monday to Monday string of events.
Some days were less interesting. Like Wednesday. It was a very regular day, I think. Except that it formally counts as “our first date” being that I went over to Aaron’s barely furnished apartment and we watched American Idol and I met the Moosehead. He was a hell of a dog. Before AI we took the Moose up to Alamo Square dog park. We also hit up Bar 861 on Divisadero for happy hour. I think this was all the same day. Regardless, it has become a conflated memory of a date.
What I can tell you concretely, this was the day that I wrote this to my best friend:
“I met such a cute guy last night- this is his myspace pic. And he already called and we’re watching american idol and eating dinner tonight smile emoticon hooray!”
Oh wait, so I guess I watched American Idol on Tuesday? Oops. Must change the time line.
To be cont.
Today’s bangles: yellow Hermès from my brother, Angela Cummings from my mom, and an Alaska charm bracelet of my mom’s from when she was a girl.
Remember yesterday? I told you all about how my honey and I met. It was sweet and cheesie and special and a story that will take exactly one week to tell it all, because this is the big week in my life with the most life changing anniversaries.
I think about this week in 2007 a lot. I think about each day of the week, and about how we as a species find patterns in everything, even when there are no patterns. I have a need to comb through the events to find reasons. It’s part of my life philosophy- everything is connected, each action pulls and moves and creates our lives. Maybe by looking at the pulls and changes I can better understand some of the outcomes.
This day, eight years ago, a Tuesday started abruptly. My honey, who was not yet my honey but just the guy from the bar last night was sound asleep in my bed. Don’t judge! I wasn’t as easy as this all sounds! And he is my HUSBAND now, after all, so even if I was that easy… errr. I digress!
In 2007 I lived on Oak Street where they begin car ticketing and towing each weekday at 7 a.m. sharp. My bed was pressed against the window, I loved the noise of the traffic. It was kind of a swooshing lull but I was very keenly attuned to the ticketing and towing process. So with the rattling of the metermaids and tow trucks I sat bolt upright and began punching and pushing my guy from the bar last night to move his scooter. Side note, it turned out the motorcycle helmet was actually a scooter helmet.
He yanked on some pants and ran/hopped out the door into traffic and meter maids and tow trucks barefoot. He managed to roll the scoot up onto the sidewalk in the nick of time and return to my place where we probably exchanged some awkward words, phone numbers, or something. But we solidly made plans for either that night or Wednesday night (I can’t remember now) to watch American Idol at his apartment.
So today (or tomorrow) is the anniversary of the very first time I ever watched American Idol. It turns out I’m not such a fan. Oh well. The things that stick with you, right? To answer your question, no, (thank god!) this is not one of the life changing events. This was just a first that happened to occur during a phenomenally life changing week. It was the last week of part of my life and I didn’t realize it at the time, but the little things, they all stand out now.
To be cont.
Today’s bangles: the orange Clic-clac I was wearing the night I met my honey, the blue Cape Cod watch also wore that night, and my lucky little figuinhas.
This is the week, folks. The week of important anniversaries that changed my life. Today is the day that eight years ago I… Well… Let me set the scene.
It was a Monday evening. I was working in downtown San Francisco. This was life before my darling little shop back when I was a small fry in a huge international corporation. My job was shaking hands with clients and showing them how to use a computer program (ha! Right? Like I knew how to use a computer program!!!) So really I spent most of my day going to appointments while pretending either to look busy or to know what the hell I was saying.
To relieve all this make believe I went out. A lot. Even on Monday nights. I know my mom is shaking her head right now going “but it was a school night!” It was a school night! Can you believe it? Not literally, because I wasn’t in school. Though it was still literally a school night. Blah, whatever! It was a school night, just not for me. There.
Anyway, back to setting my scene. It was a Monday, afterwork. I probably had changed my outfit. Which is not an important detail but to get the writing juices going I had to let you know. An acquaintance and I hit up some bar on Pine Street, though I had a headache so I briefly considered going home. However, she urged me to tag along with her to meet her friends at another bar, the Cellar. It was a karaoke night! “Margaret does not karaoke,” I’m certain I told her. But I was young, 27! And went anyway. Hangover on Tuesday be damned.
Once there we scooched into a sparkly vinyl booth. I leaned over the table and asked her “Are there going to be any cute single guys?” And she said yes. And guess what? There was! For narrative sake I’ll say he walked in right then. He carried a motorcycle helmet under one arm, wore this big hulking bomber jacket and glasses. Which, as we all know, is the recipe for female catnip. When I found out he was going to sing a song I told him “Margaret does not karaoke but she does dance”, and volunteered to be his back up dancer.
And guess what? That guy is my honey! Cruel man that he is he made me back up dance to the Cranberries “Ode to my Family” (you know how hard it is to dance to that song?!). So today is the 8 year anniversary of that, my first major life change: I now karaoke.
But more importantly it’s the anniversary of the day that I met my honey. I just now went into the bedroom and kissed him and said “I’ve known you for 8 years, honey!”
Picture of us (me dancing or, rather, posing for the camera, and him singing the Cranberries) from that very first night. This picture, my friends? It is a bona fide film photo. As in not digital. Woh! Blows your mind, right? And I still have this dress though Bandit ate the boots at some point. Anyway, Aaron and I were pretty hot and heavy right out of the gates; a date almost every night of the week! And I’m going to tell you all about them! Because they were full of firsts.
To be cont…
1.15.2007 bangles: my blue Hermès Cape Cod watch, and skinny Orange Clic-Clac
Today’s jewelry are all the ones from my honey:
Hermès Collier de Chien from this Christmas, Hermès Astrologie from last Christmas, Tiffany’s pearl bracelet from my 30th birthday, Jawbone UP from last birthday (35), rose gold wedding band, engagement ring, rose gold Tiffany earrings from a birthday (33?), and pink pearl necklace he won at an auction. Last is our anniversary ring with Leroy’s head, my honey adds a stone at each anniversary. The colors are for the married years.
I just realized maybe I’ve never before revealed my husband’s name. It’s Aaron, but I’ll probably continue to call him honey. Because that is how I do it!
Very Bangled 