Liberty London Girl

Update/Explanation: I drafted the post below on 1 November 2009. It's posting today with no editing (until a point in abstract future) for a few reasons. 1) Whatever happened on Mad Men last night has even non-Mad Men posters busy as bees. So I'd best download it from iTunes & watch. 2) I feel like hell. More about which later this week (because I'll know something then). 3) I arrived home from my lovely house/cat sitting gig on Saturday evening....to open windows & the a/c chugging away. By the date on the "we're finished rehabbing your bathroom"slip (no you are not & I've busted you to the property manager), this state of affairs went on for at least 4 days. No money coming in & everything going -- literally -- out the window is causing huge upset. 4) Sasha, author of Liberty London Girl, is in the midst of blog troll visitation & it pisses me off. (I should explain that LLG was anonymous at the time of this draft; she has since popped out of her shell & is doing very well indeed.)

The Laura Burlton photographs (via here) reminded me of a sister who was a ballerina-in-training. And the sorts of things we used to get up to in old tulle & netting, as thunderstorms approached from Canada, on Lake Erie. It felt so wild & free. Very unlike today.

27 August 2011 Update - Laura Burlton, excellent photographer, stopped by with her new website address.

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I enjoy this compilation of tidbits on fashion & life (not really in that order) by an English fashion editor living in America. I don't go looking for blogs often as so many of you have great links & recommendations; that's how I came upon this one--sorry but I don't remember where (perhaps, Wee Birdy). I instantly visited as Liberty of London patterns & fabric (& the main store in London) have been important touchstones to another era. One is wrapped around my neck quite often, my grandfather's WWII-era silk paisley scarf. More about which another time.

LLG's post Ex-pat Friends reeled me in again yesterday (Saturday). I can identify, though I'm not an ex-pat at the moment, I know what she means because I could easily be one of the Americans in her group. LLG's LinkedWithin widget popped up a post called Why I Never Lose Hope In America. I was intrigued & clicked on the video. Along with a strongly brewed coffee, it provided the oomph to get on with it another day.

As I watched the video, I thought of the young man who asked me to talk about the Human Rights Campaign & gay marriage last week. I was on my way to arrange my local Amnesty International group's gift-wrap-for-donation gigs at a local bookstore. I was feeling mighty crabby but I know what it's like to pitch one's cause (though I've not done so on a street corner in a zillion years*).

I thought about him, standing up there in the rain, when I watched this video. (And a younger cousin, who is gay & married--& I'm not putting that in quotation marks.)

Thanks, Liberty London Girl. (And for all your excellent tips, too.)

*At 15 (1/2) years-old, I was surrounded, swarmed really, by the meanest bunch of capitalist hyenas in Pittsburgh. They yelled & cursed as I handed out flyers for a Democratic candidate near the plaza of the then-U.S. Steel Building. Two of them were from my church & I thought they were rescuing me from the pitchfork-wielding villagers. Nope. They were incensed that a "nice girl " of their acquaintance was doing this (outrageous, um, Constitutionally-protected) deed. I busted them--to our seminarian, a friend. They were lectured by our minister & shamed into apologies. I think they only felt bad that they swore at a girl from their church. (This was also the minister's opinion & it upset him very much.) Though many steelworkers & other union guys came to my aid, it was a traumatic experience. It felt imminently violent. I can't claim it for sure, but my successful plans to escape to another country for an unspecified amount of time might have been sealed that day.