waoow the last week has been fun... besides the freezing cold! brr. it's been in the negatives here. it's not the cold that bothers me as much as the winds do.. makes your legs numb!
today its in the 20s, which is funny because that's warm compared to the rest of the week.
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last weekend i went to lost era with D and a friend. i got a vase to store my dried flowers in with a heavy bottom. its japanese-style stoneware i think, grey and varigated with dark patches of ultramarine blue. 
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i'm a big fan of stoneware in general, most of my plates, dishes, mugs etc are stoneware. maybe i'll try to identify it more specifically later. i've used it to arrange my dried flowers ikebana style. i love ikebana arrangements because of the emphasis on space. i feel like the flowers look more natrual, and they can breathe! the way theyre cramped together in bouquets in supermarkets never sat right with me.
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i'm a big weeaboo, japanophile, whatever you call it, unfortunately once guilty of exocticism and generalizing east asian/southeast asian cultures. a product of my own ignorance and ill-placed enthuiasm and nostalgia (i grew up surrounded by antiques collected from "the east", and i've loved anime since i was a kid). but want to make up for it by learning whenever i can. so sorry if a tendency of that comes out when i talk about things from japanese culture, i promise it's not my intention.
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anyway, i also got a couple of long suede skirts. theyre really nice and fit perfectly! i think i have to thin down my long skirt collection though, i have too many i dont care for or they dont fit...
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i got dinner with D's family. i used to shit on texas steakhouse, but it's OK. my pork was way too salty, but it wasn't inedible like most chain restaurants. snootiness coming out...sorry...(i'm right tho....) it was a nice time, D's dad splurged on drinks which he normally never does lol. everyone seemed happy.
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i got a really nice christmas gift from a friend. like i was super touched, one of the most thoughtful i've gotten! i think he remembered favorite a childhood memory i told him about, and that i've spoken of here before. so for context, my mom was a jeweler when i was growing up. (she didn't make jewelery, just sold various pieces online and at flea markets. it didn't really make any money, she just did it for fun. i have mixed feelings about it... but anyway)
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when i was 8 years old she gave me a little box of assorted gemstones, with labels indicating each one. so this contained quartz, obsidian, lapis lazuli etc. my favorite one was tiger's eye, because it has such a fascinating shine in the light, just like a cat's eye. so my friend gave me a little tiger's eye marble. i love it! the best gifts are the ones you didn't know you wanted.
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my favorite gift from D is this little box of perfumes he got me for valentine's. i forget they exist, i feel bad, but i've been wearing them more often. they all smell incredible, and they dont have that gross alcohol-y smell you get with cheaper perfumes. another example of a gift i didn't know i wanted, but one of the best.
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i used to be a terrible gift-giver, not because i gave bad gifts (i would go all-out sometimes), but because i was inconsistent about the quality, or giving them at all! unfortunately that usually had to do with money, and energy, i was much more depressed and would refuse to attempt to reach out to others, stemming from my fear of intimacy.
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i did much better this year, everyone i cared about has gotten a gift of some kind. my life is less busy, so i think i'd like to make a better effort at acts of kindness/love towards others. sorry if that sounds too saccharine, i just feel guilty for how i've distanced myself from others out of self-hatred for so long.
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that was a loooong entry. i have chatty brain thoughts. have to go to work now and work on my final project for school in my downtime. later, i'll be leaving work early today to go to the art institute. that will be fun. :)