There were plump, blobby-looking pigeons in the tree! I know! My brain had registered the strangeness before I was even aware of it. Buildings, utility wires, fire escapes...all natural places for city-dwelling pigeons to be. But trees? How odd.
April 28, 2011
Pigeons. In trees.
I was sitting in this park the other day, eating a bagel, and I found myself staring at a tree. Something wasn't quite right.
There were plump, blobby-looking pigeons in the tree! I know! My brain had registered the strangeness before I was even aware of it. Buildings, utility wires, fire escapes...all natural places for city-dwelling pigeons to be. But trees? How odd.
There were plump, blobby-looking pigeons in the tree! I know! My brain had registered the strangeness before I was even aware of it. Buildings, utility wires, fire escapes...all natural places for city-dwelling pigeons to be. But trees? How odd.
April 27, 2011
A peek
New pudding items will be up by next week! In the meantime, here are some necklaces waiting to be photographed...
Also, according to a recent unscientific study (me, walking down the street, counting women I see), roughly 90% of women wear at least one piece of jewelry on weekday afternoons. For some it's just a wedding ring or small stud earrings, but still that's a high percentage, right? And about 40% of all women are wearing a necklace. That's a lot of necklaces!
April 22, 2011
Yoga bear
Sometimes the internet seems like one big gullibility test. On the one hand, nature is extremely weird—and the web brings you the best examples of its beautiful weirdness. On the other hand, did this bear really do all of these yoga poses?!
oh that feels good. oh yeah.
other side now...eeeven better.
i am sooo gooood.
what?
April 20, 2011
Found
On two separate occasions recently, I have found flowers on the sidewalk. Did they fall out of a bouquet? Did a kid pull tulips out of some flower bed and then abandon one? I don't know, but they're pretty on the windowsill (which often serves as my studio)...
Being there
I know that some people are never late. In fact, I am well-acquainted with two of them—lovely people who effortlessly manage to arrive a few graceful minutes early to anything and everything, unhurried and unharried. Although I make an effort to be on time and usually succeed, I am definitely not one of those people.
My tendency to be late is the result of two things: chronically underestimating the time it takes to travel from one point to another, and an unconscious dislike of the "wasted" time spent waiting for things to begin (on some deep level, I must think that the ideal arrival time is three minutes till). At this point I am pleasantly early about 40% of the time, punctual or just a couple of minutes late 40% of the time, and definitely late 20% of the time. I'm proud of this, but it requires constant effort and a bit of self-trickery.
And it also requires the occasional hustle. Last week I had a doctor's appointment at 2:30 pm, for which I left plenty early. I took the bus down Lexington, got off around 60th, and walked to 2nd Avenue.
Only to realize that my doctor's office isn't actually on East 60th, it is on East 37th. Whoops! In my defense, the streets look remarkably similar—they are both on the north side of a large traffic-related piece of infrastructure (the Queensboro Bridge and the Midtown Tunnel, respectively)—and I had mixed up the visual memories of the two blocks. He's a specialist, and I've only been to his office once.
But however understandable the mistake was, it was 2:18 and I was 23 blocks away from where I needed to be. I usually walk a block per minute. I had a problem.
My solution was to walk two blocks and run two blocks, and at this rate I managed to arrive, a bit pink in the face, at 2:32. Not early, as I would have liked, but not terribly late either. A borderline case. To get a sense of what I looked like, running in my non-running clothes while clutching a tote bag and a large umbrella, just imagine a penguin in a sack race, and double the awkwardness. Yep, I was that graceful.
Looking at these pictures is reminding me that 2nd Avenue on a grey afternoon is not a pretty sight. Bleh. Spring, where are you?!
My tendency to be late is the result of two things: chronically underestimating the time it takes to travel from one point to another, and an unconscious dislike of the "wasted" time spent waiting for things to begin (on some deep level, I must think that the ideal arrival time is three minutes till). At this point I am pleasantly early about 40% of the time, punctual or just a couple of minutes late 40% of the time, and definitely late 20% of the time. I'm proud of this, but it requires constant effort and a bit of self-trickery.
And it also requires the occasional hustle. Last week I had a doctor's appointment at 2:30 pm, for which I left plenty early. I took the bus down Lexington, got off around 60th, and walked to 2nd Avenue.
Only to realize that my doctor's office isn't actually on East 60th, it is on East 37th. Whoops! In my defense, the streets look remarkably similar—they are both on the north side of a large traffic-related piece of infrastructure (the Queensboro Bridge and the Midtown Tunnel, respectively)—and I had mixed up the visual memories of the two blocks. He's a specialist, and I've only been to his office once.
But however understandable the mistake was, it was 2:18 and I was 23 blocks away from where I needed to be. I usually walk a block per minute. I had a problem.
My solution was to walk two blocks and run two blocks, and at this rate I managed to arrive, a bit pink in the face, at 2:32. Not early, as I would have liked, but not terribly late either. A borderline case. To get a sense of what I looked like, running in my non-running clothes while clutching a tote bag and a large umbrella, just imagine a penguin in a sack race, and double the awkwardness. Yep, I was that graceful.
Looking at these pictures is reminding me that 2nd Avenue on a grey afternoon is not a pretty sight. Bleh. Spring, where are you?!
April 14, 2011
An exercise
Last spring, when I was starting to plan my one-necklace-at-a-time takeover of the world, I took a brief crash course in business called Fasttrac New Venture, which was kindly offered by the City of New York. It was basically a two-week bootcamp for would-be entrepreneurs who, for the most part, couldn’t tell a profit and loss statement from a cupcake. I still don’t really have a clue about accounting; my soul glazes over at the thought of figuring out what exactly is meant by the term “doing the books.” (Arranging them? No. Reading them? No. Ahem…)
But I really enjoyed the marketing part—far from being boring, it was actually inspiring. It made me want to get out there and put the fantastic ideas we were coming up with into practice. Of course, I didn’t do that. At the time my business wasn’t yet up and running, so there wasn’t much I could do.
Now that it is, however—yay, website up and first orders in!!!—I’m trying to figure out how to market it. Getting noticed, introducing people to your work, is everything. Well, you do have to have good, interesting, well-executed work. But these two things are crucial. One without the other will yield nada. I’ve been planning the next few steps, trying to create an intelligent order to things. (First step: put the pudding line on Etsy. Second step: get into a few stores. Third step: reach out to blogs. There are many reasons for this order, which I’ll write about at a future date.)
But I really enjoyed the marketing part—far from being boring, it was actually inspiring. It made me want to get out there and put the fantastic ideas we were coming up with into practice. Of course, I didn’t do that. At the time my business wasn’t yet up and running, so there wasn’t much I could do.
Now that it is, however—yay, website up and first orders in!!!—I’m trying to figure out how to market it. Getting noticed, introducing people to your work, is everything. Well, you do have to have good, interesting, well-executed work. But these two things are crucial. One without the other will yield nada. I’ve been planning the next few steps, trying to create an intelligent order to things. (First step: put the pudding line on Etsy. Second step: get into a few stores. Third step: reach out to blogs. There are many reasons for this order, which I’ll write about at a future date.)
April 13, 2011
Website is up!
After much tweaking and photo-taking, I’ve launched the new website. I’m going to be adding plenty of items over the next few weeks, but for now it’s off the ground—which is very exciting. Yes!
www.elisamai.com
I’m using Google Sites, which is absolutely wonderful and frequently infuriating. Wonderful because it’s incredibly easy to use and really quite flexible; my coding skills are non-existent. It’s painless, straightforward, and very inexpensive. On the other hand, it’s so good that I lament the frustrating ways in which it falls short of perfection. The main problem is the lack of compatibility with almost all cool software out there, thanks to the restriction on importing html. And the fact that the html generator can be a little buggy. Overall, though, I’m so happy it exists, because it allowed me to build and control my own site.
Onwards and upwards!
www.elisamai.com
I’m using Google Sites, which is absolutely wonderful and frequently infuriating. Wonderful because it’s incredibly easy to use and really quite flexible; my coding skills are non-existent. It’s painless, straightforward, and very inexpensive. On the other hand, it’s so good that I lament the frustrating ways in which it falls short of perfection. The main problem is the lack of compatibility with almost all cool software out there, thanks to the restriction on importing html. And the fact that the html generator can be a little buggy. Overall, though, I’m so happy it exists, because it allowed me to build and control my own site.
Onwards and upwards!