Fashioning my own destiny.

Coincidence is a funny little bugger.

I never can really decide if I believe in it. Our lives seem to depend on factors entirely beyond our control, factors which could be labelled as coincidence: the day on which one's born, the nation one resides in...It amazes me to think how completely different things could be if any single one of the factors varied slightly. Had I been born two weeks sooner, I would be a grade ahead in school. I wouldn't have gone to American Heritage for high school, my life would be entirely unrecognizable. What if my mother hadn't married my father? What if she had stayed in Brazil? I wouldn't even exist, a whole new being would fill my place.

Tangent aside, this last week has been brimming with coincidence, for me at lease. Nothing too strange or pertinent, just enough to make me wonder if perhaps there's more to the pieces which coincidentally keep bumping heads lately.

I recently discovered an amazing jewelry designer by the name of Gabriella Kiss.

If you know me, I love my bling. I also am a little on the fickle side, and change my mind frequently as to what I covet, appreciate, and wear. This trait lends to me preferring to a handful of inexpensive pieces to rotate rather then a token piece or two. Rarely does a piece strike me enough to make me question this, but after seeing the works of Ms. Kiss, it seems my rusting cubic zirconias may have met their match.

The world has provided us with a series of elements from which we derive fuel, nurishment, and in the case of countless artists and designers, inspiration. The organic forms in Kiss' works are simplistic, elegent, and completely gorgeous. Kiss' training in sculpture at Pratt has served her well, her graceful pieces look flawless and completely lust-worthy. AND: She finds bones and snakes beautiful? A++ for her!

Prices and contact information.

This photo guality does this braclet a severe injustice.

Tonight is the season finale of Desperate Housewives, which coincendentally stars another Gabrielle. (ABC, 9:00 p.m.) So here's a tribute another her, Gabrielle Solis. May you always be a fabulous gold-digging bitch.

Eva Longoria Parker in Cannes. Sculptural fashion = ♥ .

Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Caroline ♥

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

"The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot

"So what about [...], how is he doing?"
"And have you heard from [...]? Is she still working at that what's-it-called?"

"When was the last time you spoke to [...]? I heard he's having some problems with keeping his grade up?"

I have to admit I tune these questions out everytime I hear them... partially because I really have absolutely no idea how to respond, and partially because it strikes a nerve to realize I have absolutely no idea what goes on in the lives of people who once mattered so much to me. In case you haven't noticed before, stop and look at the lines creased across your forehead and lips. Your youth is slipping away into the folds, wrinkled into your face for all to see. People spit out words like "stereotype" and "cliche", writhing away from their nuances like cups of spoiled milk. They exist, these stereotypes and these cliches, and reason they've achieved their immortality is because we all fall victim to their wrath. "Time flies". Been said countless times? Yep. Been true in each and every incident? Yep, again. I remember waiting for Christmas. I remember when an hour felt like eternity. Now it seems there is no wait, everything becomes a member of the past in a "blink of an eye". We wait for college, we wait to graduate, we wait for careers, we wait for love, and we wait to finally step out into the world and prove ourselves. We search for our identities, as if mapping out the reality of one's existance could ever even actually happen. No one becomes who they'd like to be, or who they are. We play make-believe until fantasy and nightmares become the truth. We all transform into what we swore we'd never be...Carbon copies of our parents. Liars. Lushes. Cheaters. Republicans. Feeling guilty yet?

When did I leave my childhood? If I could TiVo my life, could I find the exact moment when nothing I believed in remained? Did my innocence die along with Santa Claus, or with the first episode of Jerry Springer I watched when my parents turned their backs? Perhaps it left the day I purchased my first training bra, or the day boys stopped having cooties? When my childhood died, it took my imagination along, buried six feet under. Now, I artificially produce it. I find it in fabricated realities, manipulated visions, self-induced musings. We pay so much money to escape from the world we've molded with our own hands. We bottle and prescribe the cures to the diseases we invented ourselves. We label sins with titles meant to imply something, making human actions ugly, bad, and dirty simply because. We love being unhappy. We can't be happy anymore unless we acheive the satisfaction of suffering the most, feeling the most pain, and eating and sleeping the lease. We bleed to remind ourselves we exist, remind ourselves our hearts still pump and pump within our chests. We throw things away solely to mourn their loss. We fear admitting to practicing the horrible acts of actually caring, or actually trying. Everything is no big deal, everything is whatever. If nothing means anything, it doesn't hurt when it leaves...

...except ...maybe it actually hurts a little...so then maybe we can chemically remedy our pain a little more. So we can carry bigger, heavier crosses. And increasingly pity ourselves. And then, and only then, will we be really living. Because life comes in transparent orange bottles, and facebook statuses, and fourth meals, and dime bags. Life comes in crying until we laugh and then laughing until we cry. Is it possible that something or someone exists that can justify life, or at least this single moment in time?

I am guilty of all seven deadly sins. I am guilty of all I most severly condemn. I am guilty of believing life is still good, even if it never quite manages to be fair.

Can the world ever really end if it never really began?

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

-Kurt Vonnegut.

I'm in love with all my greatest fears. ^ sculpture by Damien Hirst, of course.

♥ Caroline