Sarah: Porcelain nativities are the perfect gift for your favorite goth

While others were fighting the crowds on Black Friday, the family was sleeping in. Eventually we went shopping at the craft fair held at a nearby co-op (Yes, I realize how deliciously small town that sounds). Our fellow shoppers were largely middle aged housewives, with one awesomely out of place exception:

Now, I too have a fondness for black clothing, boots, and buckles. I too frequently pull my hair back in a ponytail. This is not about judgement of his ensemble. This is about the fact that this man, after waking up and carefully compiling his best emo ensemble, walked to the Co-Op to peruse the doilies and religious figurines.

Sarah: Homework Night

Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined? Each life is an encyclopedia, a library, an inventory of objects, a series of styles, and everything can be constantly shuffled and reordered in every way conceivable.

From Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino

Sarah: The price is nice

Today I'm wearing my new shrug from Anthropologie. It was the last one on the sale rack and didn't have a tag, so I got it for $20. Originally priced at $118 (the site says $88, but the cash register said differently)! It's nice to look like a girl once in a while.

Sarah: Direction

More plays should have stage-direction like this:

New Chorus: Love Is Always New When It's You
[sung by Hephaistos and his robots as they begin to erect around his marriage bed a trap of many fine volcanic chains]

(from Decreation by Anne Carson)

Lisa: it came upon a midnight clear

Christmas is in less than one week. I'm not sure how that happened, and my guess is that things are getting a little crazy for you, too. Too crazy maybe to stay caught up on reading your blogs. Shall we agree to just let each other off the hook for a few days? PHEWF.