Marijuana was in the air: Modest Mouse, Brooklyn, NY

This past week I had the pleasure to see Modest Mouse in Brooklyn, NY. Oh my gosh, it was amazing. The morning after I had zero voice to speak of, but I had a grin plastered to my face.

Well, we didn't know much about the show other than where it was (Williamsburg Waterfront... a really cool venue) and we had a tentative open-the-doors time (FIVE O'CLOCK? Yeah, everyone was confused!) Lauren and I left work around five and reached Williamsburg by 5:45pm... when we found the Waterfront we were shocked at the number of people waiting for the show. There was a line all the way down the city block, and then it trailed around the side of another block! It was so funny! There were tons of angsty high school kids there, smoking cigarettes and wearing clothes from Urban Outfitters and American Apparel. We found the end of the line and sat down in some rocks and Lauren almost burned a hole in her jeans with a not-quite-extinguished butt.

We got inside and immediately sought out the alcohol. The venue was split into two sections... and we headed to the twenty-one and up side. Once we got there we realized that we had to get wristbands from a booth about a football field away... so we had to head across the venue to get those. Then we had to buy drink tickets, and then we were permitted to head back across the way to finally do some damage! We tried to cross the border at three different places... and like the saying goes, 'the third time was the charm!' They were super serious about under-age drinking!!! We immediately got a beer (Brooklyn Brewery Pennant Ale, for me) and then we found a spot near the front of that section (let's face it- we weren't exactly planning on leaving!)

We stood around a little bit... and then decided to settle down for a while because we really weren't sure when it was going to start! I must have done a little bit of a sitting forward bend because the next thing I heard was some boy next to me asking if I was really stretching before the concert. It was kind of funny, but we started talking to him and his friend, some girl who he was friends with, and we were all just commenting about all the super young kids at the show. Really, anyone who couldn't get into the twenty-one & up crowd really can't say that they LOVE Modest Mouse, I mean, they didn't grow up listening to them, you know? Eventually the conversation led to getting more drinks, guessing who the opening band was, and trying each others' beverage selections... a little bit sketchy, I must admit. Before we knew it, a wingman to our right pulled out some weed. It was definitely ideal.

Throughout the night, the only thing that really put a shadow on our mood was this really short & squatty girl who cut ahead of us with her very tall boyfriend... other than that though, the show was amazing.

I love Modest Mouse. I love that so much of their music has been the soundtrack to the important times in my life. I have followed them through high school, college, and beyond. They were with me when I first learned the "F" word, got ready for some memorable first dates, journeyed in California, and they comforted me on the worst night of my life when I was called to help a friend in her darkest hours. Modest Mouse will always be more to me than a passing muse. I am beyond excited that I got to see them in this fun time in my life.

THANK YOU, BOYS.

View of Manhattan from Williamsburg Waterfront

So proud of ourselves for getting a drink! It only took an hour and a half!!!


I love Lauren, she's my best friend!

At one point in the afternoon, we decided to compare the length of our legs... I have no idea why.

To Modest Mouse: "You're the good things, yeah that's you, yeah, that's you, yeah"

Some Art for Your Sore Eyes: Coming from the Street.

Now I've already talked to you about the very entertaining film, "Exit through the gift shop"... but today I just wanted to bring you some of my favorite street artists because it seems as though my life has been colliding with art in every which way.

Last night at Jodi Arnold's Fashion Night Out party in Brooklyn, Nicholas Kuszyk stopped by to say "hey"... and as soon as I figured out who he was I could immediately feel my entire body blushing. Like, I have a little art crush. He's a cute dude, that Nicholas. He's got scruffy facial hair and there's something charming about a man that wears clothes that are lightly spattered with paint. Well anyways, I was going to approach him and chat him up but something happened before I could do that. Somehow I turned to look at him at the same time he looked at me and we held eye contact for way too long. I didn't know how to come back from that! I was so embarrassed, but I really just wanted to talk to him about his art. Hopefully he'll drop by sometime this week to deliver some more little robot paintings. I can hope, right?

Well anyways... here's R. Nicholas Kuszyk to start off my list. Visit his work! He's so cool, he only paints robots... he's obsessed with them. They've evolved from being black & white only to being any and every color. Right now we're featuring Nick Nick in our stores, and there's a silent/secret auction going on for two of his peices. The minimum bid is $800, so save up your allowance, boys and girls!

Mark Bradford- I love love love MB! His pieces are done on a huge scale and often seem to be filled with white noise, yet just enough of the common advertisements are left to bring a brand to mind subliminally.

Jacques Villegle- Jacques changed my life in the eleventh grade. It's been so much better since then. I just became the twelfth person to "like" his Facebook page. So if you like him, show him some love.

That's all for now! I hope you get an art crush on one of these awesome artists... just stay away from Nick, okay?

I'm BAAAAACK... and coming to you from NY.

GYDUN, my dearest, I am so excited to finally have some adventures to share with you! I know it's been a while, but I now have internet access and some exciting things to share.

Yesterday morning I awoke especially early to run to an emergency eye doc appointment before I headed up to New York. Don't worry, don't worry, I only have a reoccurring eye infection that has been pestering me for about a month because apparently I am allergic to my contact solution... so I am again on steroids to help ease the pain.

Eventually I was able to go home and Lauren and I packed up the Yukon and headed to DFW. Our first flight was to Cincinnati whatever airport (which is actually in Kentucky) and for the however many hours we were on that flight I read this month's issue of NYLON magazine. In the last thirty minutes of the flight we had terrible turbulence that felt as though God had grabbed our plane and shaken it up like you shake a ketchup bottle when the ketchup just WON'T come out. Naturally when we landed in Cincinnati?Kentucky? we were both feeling a little nauseated. We grabbed some lunch at Chik-fil-a, and not really remembering that the nuggets are fried, I got those... we had to rush to make our connecting flight, and we were kind of afraid that people would be angry with us for eating aromatic food on the plane. Soon after we made our departure however, we noticed that the man in our row was creating quite a stink of his own that had nothing to do with food he brought on board...

This is a snapshot of my tray on this flight... don't I look like a fun traveling companion?


It was mostly uneventful. I listened to lots of music and laughed a little aloud while reading. Damn you, David Sedaris! Oh just kidding, Davey, I think you're the tops.

So when we finally got to NY, we noticed that there was this Hacidic Jew waiting for his baggage with us and I was like... "OH, HOLY ROLLER!" (Lauren said it would be rude to take his picture... or I would have featured him here). If you don't get the joke watch the following:



After a $35-ish cab ride we made it to our apartment where we met up with Jodi and this guy named Solomon, who is the boyfriend of the girl who we're subletting from. Our room is her old "meditation room" and has a bed that has a mattress that is not a twin, but not quite the size of a full. We also have tons of room, but zero furniture or closet space. We threw our stuff in the apartment, signed our lease, and left for 5th avenue... the happenin' area of park slope. That's right, y'all, we're staying in Brooklyn. Aaaand I really like it. It's kind of hipstery and urban and it has lots of trees and feels very homey. We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and kind of shared some food... but I wasn't very impressed with any of it. Afterwords we went to Jodi's house where we met her puppies and borrowed tons of towels and sheets.

We went home to drop it all off and then walked a half mile or so to Target where we went in looking for something to make a makeshift closet and ended up buying a 5' by 5' portable closet. I got to carry it back home where we spent about thirty minutes putting it together. I'm quite proud of it.

We eventually went to sleep, which I found difficult because it was SO HOT in our room. We had to wake up about five hours later to get ready for our day today.

OH TODAY. It was a long, long, day.
7:50am- left the house
8:00am- got on the train
8:30am~ we got to the garment district
8:45am- we got in line at Starbucks
9:00am- the workday began...
11:30am- we headed to the University store to open it
12:30pm- we had lunch at a Greek place, and it was so yummy! We split hummus with spicy sun-dried tomatoes and pesto and a really good Labane wrap
1:30pm- back to the University store where we met some really nice people and their pets. We also played dress up to see how things fit...



4:15pm- we left University to go to the Brooklyn store
5:00pm-arrived at Brooklyn store, met more pets and people
7:00pm-closed up shop
7:15pm- went to a pre-Fashion's Night Out party at a local vintage shop
8:00pm- went to din din at Building on Bond where we split a grilled cheese and tomato soup as well as some fancy avocado, sprouts, and chutney sandwich with fries... I was not a big fan of the chutney. then our waiter, mark, told us we really needed to try their Pimm's cup, so we did. After our meal we ended up talking to Mark and we found out that he was from McAllen, TX. We came all the way to Bond St. in Brooklyn to meet someone from Texas. Go figure.

A Message

To those of you whom I love but am not currently communicating with, I just wanted to let you know that I'm sorry that I'm a stubborn person, but I feel like hopefully soon I may be able to let you back into my life.

Love,
H