That Long-Promised Picspam

[ontology]

D'you know, I had all of this sitting in my Photobucket for three days? I really am a lazy git. Anyway, onto the photographs! And the completely random memories accompanying them.

Banui Herself, with fringe, looking generally uncombed. Really, I have no idea why my hair suddenly decided to manifest itself as if it had got into a long, nasty battle inside the toaster.

My little sister Heidi (age six) inside a bubble at the Children's Museum in Virginia Beach. The bubble room was one of my favourites! (I loved the Children's Museum. Yes, that makes me a dork--but a very happy dork.) There was another room just across the way where one steps in and sees one's sillouhette recorded in psychedelic, colourful forms that are constantly changing, both in colour and pattern, and with one as one moves. Come to think of it, it looks rather as if it was built especially to enhance someone's acid trip, and was afterwards donated to the Children's Museum. It was, in any case, incredibly entertaining. 

Me, seated upon the giant chair I remember very well from my last vist to the Children's Museum at the age of seven. (I had remembered it as red, however. Perhaps it was re-upholstered.) If you look closely, you can see my fringe, and my sunglasses on my head. Don't mind my slightly bizarre appearance; I hadn't bathed in several days, and was becoming somewhat sweaty. Also, I have red-eye in this photo, which you probably can't see because it is (thankfully) small. I generally look less dementedly evil in person.

The house I remember in Virginia, taken out of the open car window. We lived in another house when we first moved to Virginia Beach so that Dad could study at Regent University, but I don't remember it much; we lived here for four of the six years we spent--as I descend into monotonous redundancy--in Virginia. Mrs. Morsette, the old woman who lived next door to us with her husband, is still next door, although Mr. Morsette has since passed away. She was shocked to see us and (as always) 'how much we'd grown'. She also gave me a very lovely gardenia. Our first house, we found out when we went to go find it, had been knocked down! Where we once lived, and where snails once infested my sandbox, is now a parking lot. It was a bit of a jolt. 

The (somewhat blurry; my camera does not take well to darkness, with or without the flash) view from our hotel at night. That is, the view if one leaves the hotel room and stands out on the walkway from the rooms to the elevator. It looked so much more magical than this--lights everywhere, and so much possibility! Even more beautiful--magical, even; I can't begin to capture that night!--was the sight of the city from the seventh-floor terrace with its outdoor pool--we stood overlooking Virginia Beach as a warm wind dried us off, and Mum and Dad reminisced about their 1987 (I think it was) summer in Pakistan, because the view and the weather reminded them of Karachi. 

My mother on the balcony looking out at the ocean. This is what we saw when we opened our eyes in the morning--or at least I did, if the curtains weren't shut, because I was the one sleeping in the room with the ocean view (on the hide-a-bed sofa!). The sand was blindingly white, and the way the ocean met the horizon--I hadn't remembered it being so lovely. 

A better shot of Our View from the Balcony. And look, a pirate ship! Yes, one could actually sail in it--for a whopping price. 

My flapper hat and I! This was actually one of the better photos. For whatever reason, most of the flapper hat photos turne dout rather oddly, perhaps because I was unable to stop making faces at Alyssa. Is the hat not splendid? (And does anyone know--is it authentic?) The the gown you see the top of is my nineteen thirties one. 

I call this one my Vogue portrait. I love it. It was completely by accident, and it amuses me greatly. That is my darling beret and my wooden handbag. You can also see, rather faintly, the lovely pearl ring which my father gave me for my birthday.

These are the notebooks which I bought at Barnes & Noble. They are both extremely spiffing. The red one is now my main notebook, and is remarkably easy to write in, except for the fact that the lines are a wee bit fainter than I'd like them, and my handwriting tends towards more haphazard than usual. (If 'hazard' is a noun, cannot 'haphazard' be one also? Correct me if I'm gravely mistaken.)

The inside of 'The Poet's Notebook'. Notice that there are either quotes or writing exercises on every page. Yay! 

Apparent first-edition copy of Four Quartets, which belonged to midenianscholar's grandmother. She also has a Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot, where the self-same grandmother made notes in beautiful, scrawly, old-fashioned handwriting all over 'Rhapsody on a Windy Night'. !!! (I forgot to take pictures of that and am regretting it.)

Inside Four Quartets. ♥!

ZOMG ANCIENT TYPEWRITTEN ELIOT. *fangirlish glee* (Both for the Eliot, and for the typewriter. I love typewriters! I very nearly bought a vintage one for fifty dollars at the consignment shop where I found my hats and handbag, but decided against it...with much sadness.)

A closeup of the Amazing Typewritten Eliot, because I had to. See the gorgeous little blotches and irregularities that a computer printer will never grace a page with? *UNCONTROLLABLE FANGIRLISH GLEE* ♥ ♥ ♥!

The ocean again--actually, I think this is the Chesapeake Bay, taken through my window as we crossed the bridge on our way home. (You can see the reflections. Heh.) I was so stunned by the absolute endlessness of it that I reached for my camera, and then stared some more. I don't think the photograph quite captures it. It was almost terrifying--I thought of being in the middle of that eternity of waves, and swimming and swimming and swimming and never finding shore again--and yet simoultaneously beautiful. 

faequeene wanted this one. This is me again, and my sunglasses. And the pearls which I wear almost all the time, simply because I am madly in love with them. And, slightly, the rather Joan Baez-like blouse we found at the thrift shop in Virginia. It is fluffy and very entertaining. And I realise I am not smiling. I am incapable of smiling for most photographs. I think it may be a disorder of some sort.

And now I must go to bed.

Comments

[trolliepop.livejournal.com]

OOOH!!!! Lovely, lovely, lovely.

The Journals shocked me, because I was at a Barnes and Noble in April and saw some very similar and was going to buy one for you before I remembered that I was spending the money Mom had given me for meals. As much as I like surprising people with random packages, I like food even more (They had a Marble Stone! Not two days before I had seen one on Food Network and vowed to go to one before I died! Coincidence? I think not!)

I love Children's museums also. I haven't been to one in forever--I think I was eight last time I went to one. I want to go back so much! I love allowing my inner child to make appearances every once in a while.

Your flapper hat made me laugh! You look like an Egyptian Queen in it...only you're wearing more clothes than they did.

Typewritten Eliot is love. The copy of Eliot I bought at the thrift store a few weeks ago had lovely scribbles from it's previous owner, too.

I need sunglasses. Desperately. It's so hard for me to find any that look good though! I guess I have a funny-shaped head, or face, or something...

♥