Notes

Ah my prince leaves me love notes! haha. not really... they don't often do that anymore do they?  

Love, love, love... there's a lot of talk about it lately. I've witnessed a few friends break-ups very up close and personal. I've heard a few people call others cowards for not risking everything to be in it or maintain it. Being single myself and experiencing awkwardness in the past, ah well, my take is still this... You can't force men to be in love with you and you can't control what they do. And they aren't cowards for not being in love with you or not being ready to be in love with a woman. They are brave men for knowing that they are not ready for love, because to use a woman instead of love her is a bigger tragedy and hurtful. But you can make people smile once in a while. With that said I'll say this: I've made a few guys I know blush, smile and irritated enough to avoid me, over the last few weeks. Wonderful, right!? Maybe not. Why? Love notes... Yes, I suppose its a newer series. I haven't a clue what to do with them yet. 

So it all started a few weeks back when I hurt my shoulder, back and chest and ended up on bed rest. After reading a few pieces from a book by Tyler Knott and re-reading the "love letter to my future love" it occurred to me that there aren't many love notes out there from women to men in the modern time. And I thought it might brighten a man's day to get a note because just reading one of Tyler's notes makes me simply swoon and smile all day just thinking of how sweet it is. I don't know what to say except... yes the notes were/are inspired. So to anyone please please don't be mad at me for being inspired by you. It is a complement. So... Anyhow I hope you enjoy the notes. 

Here's an older story about overthinking things... 

enjoy!
kisses, m.

Logic

(12-15-2010)

Logic? I ask you to… and you dare to tell me of logic. This is your answer? We are walking beneath a billion stars tonight and there’s nothing rational about what I’m asking you. I want your reaction not your thought. Think of all the people out there in this world thinking instead of reacting. All of them under control and tightly wrapped. Quite frankly where’s the fun in all that control?

Don’t answer me. Listen.

Logic. It’s a funny thing. Will make your head go against everything your heart wants. And you know what you’ll hate yourself for listening to it.

For instance take a look at that couple in that front window enjoying a candlelit dinner. They’re talking about something. About to enjoy the moment with a kiss. Wait. Take another look. The woman is slapping the man instead of enjoying his kiss. That’s logic. She’s afraid to go with the moment. And look not a moment later… there he is still holding her hand. Comforting her. Reminding her that he still loves her even though she’s afraid. She’s spurned him and he goes back in again. It’s certainly not logic. That’s insanity.

What is that? Well it’s entirely up to you. Most of the time I’m pretty sure it’s doubt. That little voice in the back of your head telling you “WAIT” when you know it’s the right time. Whenever you hear doubt in the back your mind, don’t listen to it. You know what I say? Be unreasonable. Follow your heart. It may be insane, but it’s the one thing that you won’t regret fifty years later.

So right now, beneath these billions of stars, across from that illogical couple, tell me...

Only this time, don’t think about it. No logic.

Will you runaway with me?

Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló

Barbie loves the great creature comforts of home but what happens when your home is a bit of a creature that you have to get comfortable in?

Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló

"Casa Batllo is a masterpiece of form, color and light. Gaudí intercepts with this work, the thesis of rationalism has come 30 years after its modern idea of ventilation.

The whole work is a marvel of ornamental design thanks to the emergence of trades. Gaudí worked with the best craftsmen in all trades. The transformation wrought iron, where the curve is not just rhetoric and aesthetics, but also structural reinforcement; winding woodwork and doors with striking three-dimensional reliefs leaded stained-glass windows that filter the natural light, ceramic tiles with reliefs ornamental elements sandstone Montjuic, all realize the master craftsmen of the time.

The airy and ventilated attic spaces, reminiscent of Mediterranean architecture, is notable for the structure of arches. From the main room in the attic, you can see the wonderful organic world of Gaudí. Here the structure of ribs and sternum creating parabolic arches, very modern, which supports the roof is appreciated. Helical stairs great structural nudity, communicating with the roof, are also of a great power. The iron railing simple lines are themselves a sculpture of s. XX.

On the roof, the role of the spine of the dragon important aesthetic balance in the face of the facade, is outweighed by the four groups of winding chimneys. Following the aesthetic is always functional. The wind will never obstruct the flue thanks to caps on top of the chimneys, coated with the same glaze trencadis the facade. Gaudí curved surfaces coated with chopped tiles, as did the Byzantines.

Walking home, the details do not stop to surprise everywhere. The doors of each floor are identified by letters modernist features, specially designed by Gaudi Casa Batllo. Industrial glass on stair landings neighbors, translucent, but not transparent, allowing the passage of light discreetly while depending on how you look at it, distort Blues patio lights in beautiful water waves. Ways ergonomic handles and handrails, skylights, skylights. It is the work of art, the artist intervenes all: design, color, form, space, light.

The work consists of ground floor, main courtyard, four full floors, attic and roof, private access to the noble or main floor, a staircase running through a neighbors yard lights and artistically tiled widened as if it were a veneer exterior facade. From the street leads to the garage at street level, which enter the underground portion occupying the courtyard of the main floor and from which you access the Carboneras, in the bottom." (via/casa batlló)

Would you live in Casa Batlló? 

Barbie would!

Enjoy! 

Kisses, m. 

Is that all...

Barcelona, Spain. 2009.

"Is that all you were gonna come at me with?" he says as we see other for the second time on the street last night.

To be clear I don't know him, we never met. Not formerly were we introduced through or by anyone. We had only exchanged an innocent glance that had happened an hour before as I shuffled myself into another art gallery to appease an unhappy client by "researching" possible selections to acquire for their home. 

This man played a guitar out on the street. As I passed him, I nodded and smiled. I had wished I had a dollar to drop him but I didn't so I quickly went past and made my way into the crowded art gallery. 

But in this instant when this man says this to me while still wearing his knockoff Raybans, even though the sun has long since set and twilight is upon us, he looks as though he wants me to gesture or say more.

Perhaps he saw an instant that I didn't. Or is that there's something to be said about a man who assumes that because he straps on a guitar that every woman is ready to chase after him. I don't expect every man to chase me down because I wear a short dress or skirt or change my hair color. I'd rather they'd want to spend time with me because we get along... or that I'm more than interesting to them.

There's something to be said about a moment when it's had. This clearly wasn't it. So I kept walking. Wondering to myself: How often did his line work? Did he often expect women to come at him with game? Indeed.

Before he interrupted me I was thinking and heading back to my car realizing I hadn't found the perfect picture to come back to my client with and the only piece I had truly wanted to acquire, a photograph, probably wouldn't come through either. I was thinking and wishing all artists remembered emails, text messages and phone calls and... I was recalling another artist who makes me laugh because it's a situation where the roles are reversed and as a client I do try my best not to be as difficult as my clients are with me. 

As my laugh quieted I was still smiling. But this time this man was walking toward me and passing me. As we scooted by each other he interrupted my thoughts to ask with a bit of arrogance "is that all you were going to come at me with?" I paused but only long enough to realize he never took off his sunglasses or really bothered to talk to me. He looked me up and down like I was just another faceless nameless girl to him and he'd expected something that wasn't worthy of him. My time.

I do not wish I had taken his picture. I do not wish I had captured a name. To him I was nothing so I figured it was best that he remained nothing to me. So I kept walking and said nothing. Because I had nothing, no moment, no cash to give him. It best to leave him where I passed him in the street without another thought.

Put or Get?

Put up with it or get up and go.... or so eloquently told to me last night: Quit your bitchin.'

Suicide Girl Fight Club.

Quit your bitchin' is something unrelated to the present moment as it was told to me last night, but I liked the context it was used in. Cause there are very few situations in life where you either put up with it or get up and leave. And somehow this made me think of fight club. As once I said before there are very few things in this world regarding the people in it that do not remind me of fight club. People love to pick fights and bully each other. Makes not one difference if they kill someone does it? It should. Violence and threats are no way to get what you want. Just because you disagree with someone's life or what they are doing does not make it your right to harm them or threaten them. Now if you want to see a change for the better then maybe there is a better way than fighting, threatening or attacking! There usually is. Anyway...

Lately there's been a lot of traffic to one of my older posts. Suicide Girl Fight Club. It's pretty ironic because I've spent the better part of two weeks discussing Fight Club with a friend. The fighting is what people are fascinated with in the movie. And that's the part that... well it's irrelevant, although not entirely. The fighting is a metaphor. It's about escape, release, and the underlying theme of anarchy and chaos that runs rampant in the film. I've never read the book, but I think that the one quote that always sticks out for me is this one,

"Once you've lost everything you're free to do anything" 

And it rings true. You have to be able to walk away from everything to make a choice to do something new. That theme flows throughout the film. Jack is free once his apartment explodes. Society is free once the corporations are demolished. The clerk at the store is free once he quits his job, of course thanks to the menacing threat from our favorite character... tyler durden. See the idea is that... no one will get up and do something else if they are comfortable in their position. They will make excuse after excuse not to move forward unless propelled. The threat makes the man leave and do something else with his life.

Streets of Madrid. 2009.

Seems a bit harsh to threaten someone do something else with their life? In a manner of speaking yes. Yet on some level it works. I have a friend who works in a homeless shelter. He tells me that they provide a place to stay, somewhere to sleep, and  there is a soup kitchen nearby. My friend also tells me that they do not make it comfortable for the people to stay there. There is no cable TV, in fact no TV at all, there is minimal places to sleep and the plumbing is a bit precarious at times. The threat of no working plumbing, no creature comforts and so forth are meant to be an incentive to remind the people that the shelter is not home and that they should not be content or satisfied with this situation. They should strive, work and struggle for a better one. In essence quit your bitchin or do something about it. Put up with it or get up and go. You can settle for mediocrity of a temporary shelter or you can build a better life for yourself.

Sometimes there is no fight, it only seems like there is one. The message is loud and clear.

kisses, 
-m

Estrella de Sevilla

Saw this in the metro last night. Absolutely loved this image! I can feel and just imagine my own emotion from it! I had to share. You get the idea. Wish we were here longer to take in the show. Just thrilled we stayed in Madrid an extra day... Too much to see. More later. M.