Category Archives: Lessons, Life,

dear current and future readers: i want to clarify a couple of things. about me. my outlook. i am a grateful person. i believe in the inherent good that i think really, really exists within all people. ok, so i have been down lately. been sad. been depressed. this blog started as the logical progression for me to work out some stuff, form my own creative outlet, write as an artistic expression and explore things, try to answer some big-ass questions. but make no mistake: as shitty as i feel sometimes about life and love and money and the seemingly unanswerable question, “What Does This All Mean”, etc., i am blessed. i’m kinda big into spirituality. some people probably don’t know this about me. i converted to Catholicism when i was 16. it was a big deal. i studied relentlessly. took classes. read a lot. took two years of classes at the UJ in california. studied lots ‘n lots of the kabbalah. other things, too. the thing is, i am still on that search. for me religion is a touchy subject. i grew up in the bible belt and deep deep south. kkk and shit down there. serious hate. gross. i may not crave religion, but i crave meaningful spirituality.  i have started on a new path toward my spiritual endeavor. a path well-suited to me now. the glove that fits. i feel good about it. closer. you know, to some thing that is greater than me. anyway, i strive to be nice to everyone i meet, to be an honest person, to do well at my job, to be kind. all that stuff. my blog may be about questions and longings and the stuff melancholia is made, but i am trudging the road of happy destiny and that is really the point. and i just wanted to mention it.

the blue refrigerator pyrex container was my sweet thrift-store find yesterday. a little thing? yes. a materialistic item? yes. but it is the little things that count, you know. every single little one of them.

© littlebrownbutterfly

music is my savior. i was saved by rock and roll. those lines actually come from wilco. today i found a record player at a thrift store very near to my house. very near to my heart. i did the usual: looked it up on my iPhone, checked around to see the value. hemmed and hawed a bit internally, “i can’t spend $10 EVERY time i find something somewhat cool, can i? no! i cannot. but i NEED a record player…, oh, just fucking GET it, it’s only $10, you are MAKING money on this, lisa, jeez.”). it’s a pioneer and listed between $70 and $250 depending on where one searches on the the interwebings, but none of that is the point. two weeks ago, i began having a serious existential crisis. this was the real thing and truthfully, i think i am still muddling through it. who am i kidding? i know i am. the EC, as i will now call it, led to the genesis of this blog. i started writing a poem about a little brown butterfly who was afraid to fly. and by “fly” i don’t mean cruise around in the air aimlessly. i mean fly. excel. do it. be it. what the army ads say. since my pregnancy and ensuing marriage and the dissolution of my marriage, and my move to texas from los angeles, i have been, after NINE years, (think about how long nine years is for a moment, please-) having a hard time getting my ducks back in a row. my groove back. i took it all a lot harder than i really knew. anyway, blah blah. when i was 11, i discovered stevie nicks and her record, bella donna. before this pivotal point in my life, i was buying shit like the osmond brothers and donnie and marie, when they wore those pink and purple matchy outfits. and then i saw that record cover. camelot music in the mall. panama city, florida. black with the white silhouette that was stevie nicks. the bird. the look on her face. the magic. who WAS she? how was I so lucky to be seeing this? does anyone else know about this? this record was a treasure and I was finding it. i discovered it all on my own. 11. everything became about that record, about stevie nicks. i was totally enchanted. corny, i know, but really the only way i can adequately describe my years between the ages of 11 and say…oh, today (i’m 39-). i would lock myself in my room with the old sony record player that my parents eventually stopped listening to and eventually found it’s way to my lonely, only child room. Note: when the ‘rents stopped listening to their record albums together, i knew on a subconscious level their marriage was over; they would later divorce when i was 30. i still listen to bella donna. ‘think about it’ is my favorite song. soon, i’ll be listening on vinyl. i need a receiver. and i will find it. i will search with patience. and i will find it, one day, eventually.

© littlebrownbutterfly

the trouble with me is that i am bored. i thrift store shop A LOT. i so need a creative outlet or i am so going to go completely and totally mad in the house i have just bought by myself, on my own. i am sad. i feel alone, different. ugly and gross on the inside. Other People must surely understand the way i am feeling. Other People and the massive junkyard of discarded memories at thrift stores in somewhere, texas.

a blog is born.

here i go.

does it occur to you 500 times a day that you are dying? well, it does to me, hence my pain, my anguish that you are now half-heartedly reading. actually, i’m probably the goofiest, silliest person you will ever meet; i laugh often. thus the irony. more pain. comedy is harder than drama, that’s what actors say. so i thrift. it makes me feel close to people of times past. emotions past. people’s lives. past. now present. i’m holding it or hunting it. why i take comfort and refuge in these cast aside belongings is a goddamned mystery to me. only child. raised in small town. college. moving, moving. drinking. stopping. child. husband. move. divorce. you know, the same shit everybody goes through. i know i am not unique. but the things i find at thrift stores are. like, for example- the Pyrex Find. in the right colors and shades the Pyrex Find is the one of the biggest a seasoned thrifter can achieve. conditions must be right: no cheating. must be found at a low-level thrift stores, i.e., goodwill, salvation army, weird looking store in a small town that you are just passing through to get someplace else. price has to be really cheap or really reasonable. large yellow pyrex mixing bowls become a coup. oblong turquoise refrigerator containers priced at $1.99 are purchased in a dream-like state, the find is so rare. no ebaying. cheating. like going to DWR to get a herman miller shell chair. NO! that is not the point, that is not really the point at all. i’m looking for the point. do i dare to eat a peach? i am searching for the meanings, for the past and future lives of these things i seek out. who knows what -if anything- i’ll find. i’m looking, though, that’s for sure. 

© littlebrownbutterfly