Me and valentino

Ok so I want to tell you all about my amazing trip and show you all of the hot photos of me being a cowboy. but I just got off two flights and a week of sleeping in a van and a day of driving through LA and I aint got it all for you yet. but I will.

But what I do got is poor grammar and the last page of the Vanity Fair where me and Valentino answered the Proust questionnaire. 

 

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Valentino (V): No telephone calls

Mae Callen (MC): A houseboat in southern France and good pair of worn in jeans 

 

What is your greatest fear?

V: to get very sick and not have a fast death

MC: To never find love again

 

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

V: I am not able to delegate to others what I know I can do faster myself. It's the impatient Taurus in me.

MC: I can be a smother mother and I finish people's sentences. But it's just because I'm excited. 

 

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

V: Lack of manners

MC: cheap complainers. 

 

What is your greatest extravagance?

V: I have two pugs and I travel with them.

MC: I travel. It's almost ridiculous how much. And sunglasses. 

 

What is your current state of mind?

V: Much more relaxed than when I was designing 8 collections per year. 

MC: 110% better then a week ago. Did you here? I'm a cowboy now. And I fucking love myself again. 

 

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

V: Fidelity

MC: following the rules, or the road for that matter. 

 

On what occasion do you lie? 

V: When I am wrong

MC: When it makes it better. 

 

Which living person do you most despise?

V: To many choices; too many failures in the world. 

MC: I don't. Life is too short to waste my time thinking about people worth despising. Although the ones who block intersections, royally piss me off. 

 

What is the quality you most like in a woman? 

V: Courage

MC: Courage* 

*Although intelligence, confidence, optimism and a well endowed ass are next in queue and not necessarily in that order. 

 

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

V: "Voila"

MC: "Just sayin' ", and "I need a t-short that says....". I really do need to cut back. 

 

What or who is the greatest love of your life? 

V: My work

MC: I'm not dead yet, but I'll let you know when I am. 

 

When and where were you the happiest? 

V: Among my very close friends

MC: Montreal, July 2001 - August 2002. 

 

Which talent would you most like to have?

V: The art of an accountant

MC:  To be able to tailor fine Italian suits. Like Valentino. 

 

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

V: I helped make Italian fashion known everywhere. 

MC: I'm a 30-year-old woman who, generally, excluding the months January through April, loves herself. That's fucking huge. 

 

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

V: a butterfly. They are free and don't get old.

MC: A sailboat, or a redwood, or maybe just myself. Think of all the things I could do, having already done all the things I will have done while not wasting my time on things I already know are a waste of my time. It would be fucking brilliant. And there would be a lot more hot sex with girls. 

 

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

V: to be sick and poor. 

MC: To be filled with regret - of missed opportunities and unspoken confessions of love - at the moment of death. 

 

What is your most marked characteristic?

V: Optimism. and the concept that nothing is impossible. 

MC: Me too. 

 

What do you most value in your friends?

V: They HAVE to love my designs!!

MC: Me TOO! no. not really. 

They tell me to suck it up, to fuck off and to get over myself when I need it most, and know when I don't. 

 

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

V: The Wizard of Oz

MC: Tank Girl or Tintin. Maybe they should make a baby. That would be hot. There would be ropes. 

 

What is it that you most dislike?

V: cruelty to helpless animals

MC: heteronormative social status caste system, and that whole breast cancer mass marketing campaign. I also really dislike it when mothers and babies get all kinds of special attention and fussing on airplanes. Drives me fucking nuts. I know I'm an asshole, get over it. 

 

How would you like to die?

V: in my sleep

MC: Not by accident and not before I'm ready. Maybe while nodding off on a spectacular train ride just after the sun goes down over some fantastic sprawling passing landscape, I have never seen before.  That would do. Just make sure there are none of those mothers and babies getting fussed over. 

 

What is your motto? 

V: Everything is possible: "Yes you can!" 

MC: Yes.

Hammock tester - Part 2

I set out to test two hammocks. and keep one.

The first, the North American Yuppie - seemed almost ideal: light, easy to set up on my own, comfortable - but the one, yet deal-breaking downside - not really ideal for two independent readers.

The second, the Brazilian, was going to trump that, with it's wide style, and nice woven canvas - it was going to be perfect for two. it was going to be the perfect hammock.

Likes:

• the metal reinforced ring
• The excellent workmanship - handwoven for sure and well done.
  
• I'm sure it is good for two.... I just haven't actually been able to try it*
• It's as big as a folded towel - manageable size

Dislikes

• the tacky couple on the front of the package
  
• *because a bigger hammock, meant a bigger space - of which I did not have, and it bagged and sagged on the ground.
• the long strings that were to help with width, easily tangled and frustrated me alone. two sets of hands were really needed to handle it practically
• reinforced loop, was great - but how do I attach it to my loop on my tree? I had to dismantle my yuppie hammock for the metal hook it came with and attach it.
• It was just too much work for me. alone.
  

and maybe that's why it's a hammock made for two. because you need to put it up together.

I was discouraged.

Which one do I ditch? The one ideal for just me, or the one "possibly" ideal for just two?

"Can't you just keep both" my supportive trouble-shooting friends would ask, to my rebuttal:
"I have lived 28 years without a hammock, I don't need two"

And so I have been stressing over the decision of which hammock to return.

Tonight, as I swung ever so happily curled up in my duvet in the blue yuppie ideal-for-1 hammock, tonight I had an epiphany.

I can keep both. In fact I must. Because being comfortable on my own and being comfortable with someone else, will always be part of my reality.
One hammock, does not fit all.
And right now, I am really loving my I-can-do-it-on-my-own, blue yuppie ideal-for-1 hammock. and I will lovingly put my other hammock in the closet, until I have someone there to help me put it up.

REF:
Hammock Tester part 1 - PEAK
Hammock Tester part 3 - The Final Show down

Hammock tester - part 1

I am a woman on a mission. I loves the Hammock. loves it. Here is a photo of when hawk-eye and I spent an entire day in one last year in Mayberly. I think we were reading some juvie-lit, and throughout the day everyone came and went and gathered around us.

This year, as the warmer weather started to drift in, I realized that just about every conversation I had with D about summer adjustments to the house started with " now, I just need to find a good place for a hammock". And upon his last raised eyebrow, I realized that I actually had to do something about it.
So like any good product tester I did my research. I discovered the following:

1. A good hammock is hard to find
2. A good hammock for your ferret, hamster, rat, cat or small dog, is oddly enough easier to find then your standard human variety.
   
3. Hammocks are classified by region :
1. Mexican ( small rope mesh)
   
2. Brazilian ( woven canvas, often with decorative lace hanging on the sides)
   
3. Nicaraguan ( woven twisted cotton cord, much like the Brazilian)
   
4. Mayan (made of hand woven string, much like the Mexican)
   
5. North American camping yuppie (Made from parachute or nylon and can come with mosquito netting and a slew of other accessories)
4. They range in price between $50 - $300 ( doesn't just about anything?)

So in discovering all of this I set out my criteria:

1. It will fit at least two people, so that they could be cuddled up side-by-side, while not feeling like they were wrapped in a banana peel, and thus able to read independently
   
2. It is easily transportable (like on my back, on my bike)
   
3. I can put it up and take it down by myself with great ease.

Today's first contender was MEC Peak Double Hammock*
*of the North American Yuppie region




Likes:

• The sexy lady on the box
• It's super light and fits into a small compact stuff bag
• The bag stays attached to the hammock and acts as a nice book, camera, glasses, bottle holder.
• The nice blue colours
• the folks at MEC hooked me up with thick webbing, and set up is a BREEZE.
• Lots of room for a single gal to spread out, it was like a queen sized nap.
  
• I slept for 2 hours. nuf said.
  

Dislikes:

• The sexy lady on the box
  
• It was bit - uneven? Really tight in the center and floppy and baggy on the sides. but after some maneuvering I was able to negotiate this.
• I have yet test it out with a cuddler, but I do fear the banana peel effect. I will keep you posted.
  

That's it! It was very comfortable, easy to setup, and packs up small and light. Now if only I had someone to come over and help me with the cuddling bit....

Ref:
Hammock Tester part 2 - Brazilian - sort of
Hammock Tester part 3 - The Final Show down