SO

November hasn't been a good month for me.  Blogging and otherwise.  But Thanksgiving (my favorite holiday, well tied with the Fourth of July) is just around the corner and I need ot keep my head up.

I will attach a few photos, although my life is exceedingly boring these days.

A view on my commute home

Me and Cocoa, my neighbor's dog whom I steal from time to time.

Saddle of Mt. Olympus on a Saturday morning

Until next time...xx

some comparaisons

click click click

I'm in a rut.  I would really like someone to pull me out of it.  I;m searching for creative inspiration to heighten my living experience....but for some reason I think this is more of a physical rather than mental rut.  I need a tanglible, endorphin creating, 10 digit accessible, action-filled catalyst.  But these help too:

I find this most amusing. And as they said, telling.
http://trendland.net/2010/11/02/paris-vs-new-york-illustrations/

I watched Food Inc. yesterday for a class, donc this is resonating particularly well...
http://trendland.net/2010/11/01/david-maisels-terminal-mirages/


I kind of want to live in their store....
http://trendland.net/2010/11/01/cire-trudon-ny-store/

I have a volleyball game tonight and I am SO EXCITED.  I am ready to deflate a ball on the ten foot line.
x

Hannie

 Click-ay moi

This is a dedication post.  I have a very good friend and I really miss her. We have been separated (of various degrees) since we headed off to college.  It is a little daunting that we may never live in the same city again (although I will try and find a job in NYC in order to stop this from happening) I know we will be friends for life. Though I do often long for days of blunderball, supermario, applesauce and reading in the sun.

Simply, I miss you.

x

This kind of day (in a great way).

Subconscious endorphins, dance with one hand waving free, bone city inspiring music (for me, of late).


Goran Bregovic
--->Absolutely a socks and short shorts slippy feet on the floor grooving, pas de deux in that surreal dusk light movement beat noise. One word: funktastic

Hugo
---> The 99 problems song and video - heel stomping translation across spheres into fluid heat and a rhythmic sensation akin to osmosis imbibition of sound. One word: bacchanalian

I love music that makes me feel like I'm living it.
x
cwg

P.S. click on the names!

1041 Logan Avenue

 Click ME (in a new tab)


My home...though still waiting for our couch. Leah has yet to pick it up and I am not giving in.

The view isn't of the same caliber, I can't yell to CP out my window and I don't get magnificent sunsets over a small french town, but the morning sunshine is superb and there's a lot more room to dance.
x

Hunches

Yes, I do

“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you”

 -Friedrich Nietzsche

“A half-truth is a whole lie” 

-Yiddish Proverb 

“A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.” 

-William Blake quotes

         Tables turned   -->                     -->                    -->                     -->                     -->

“We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.” 

- Eric Hoffer quotes

“People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to”  

-Malcolm Muggeridge 

“The man who fears no truth has nothing to fear from lies.” 

-Thomas Jefferson 

 -----

“Sex is full of lies. The body tries to tell the truth. But, it's usually too battered with rules to be heard, and bound with pretenses so it can hardly move. We cripple ourselves with lies.” 

-Jim Morrison

ironic

-cwg

 

Jeremy sucks

(what I want to do)

I think fall may be setting in here- or starting to. I went to work this morning and the sun was shining spectacularly through these bulbous clouds around the mountains.  The best part? I could see it was snowing in the mountains. weeeeee.

 

Still looking for this man, through my window.

 Here is some really cool furniture that I would love to have in my house. or even better, to give as a present. By South African artist Katie Thompson.

A general feeling....
"In the depths of her soul, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept scanning the solitude of her life with anxious eyes, straining to sight some far-off white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know how it would come to her, what wind would bring it to her, to what shores it would carry her, whether it would be a launch or a towering three-decker, laden with sorrow or filled to the gunwales with bliss. But every morning when she awoke she expected it to arrive that day; she listened to every sound, periodically leapt to her feet with a start and was surprised when she saw it had not come; then, at sundown,sadder than ever, she longed for the next day. "
- Madame Bovary

Restless and browsing,
Claire Winter Gorton

Sugar Popcorn

OST

This is how I feel.




All I need is the fabulous dress. 
Someone exciting come into my life.  Someone worth walking out the door - to follow that at which I am looking through the window.











Claire Winter Gorton

Again?

click the click

I feel it again.  In my bones.  This inadequacy.  I haven't felt this way for a while.
But the overwhelming memory of my first 4 months in France is all rushing back.

And why do I feel this way again? What other reason but the little child of France? - French

I am beginning to resent people telling me to slow down.  So what if I operate at three different levels all at once and they are seemingly unrelated. I don't want to be told these "compliments" that are only being told to you because you need to change. What kind of joke is that?  You're just too in shape to actually play this sport with others....so if you could just fatten up a little bit and slow down, maybe we'll let you exist happily in our game.

I think I am complaining about something most people would call a high class problem.  But there is still the word problem.  Whatever, I should shut up. Work harder.  Damnit - will I ever be good, sufficiently fluent in french.  It discourages me from learning other languages.  ok, buck up toots.

Claire

Here are some recent cooking adventures from the weekends.  I justify them as they make leftovers and therefore save time during the week.

Red Pepper Soup

and Potato Summer Squash Torte

WANTS or needs?

click it, click it real good.

I want every single of these pieces.

 

 

I can't explain how much I miss France and the glamour of life. 
I miss the living of my life.
I miss being able to breathe.
I miss *really* being able to find, shop, and enjoy my dinner. 
I miss being social.
I miss wondering what things I can conquer with my day - as opposed to having it planned.
I miss getting a boule de noix de coco if I fancy it.
I miss wandering - through sunny streets, pages of books, and my mind.

-cwg

September 12

First  and then it switched to This

Again, where I have gone - where I will go.


http://e-claireg.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html

September 12, 2008
>
12 septembre, 2009
>
12 September, 2010

I am very eager to see where my next September 12th will take me, but I am very content to the live the days between then and now. 

À la prochaine,
Claire Winter Gorton

Mes nouvelles

clickkkkkk

So an update - my life may be more exciting that I thought - but still lacking from last year. and Let's not even get started on the glamour issue.

SO I am moved into my house and absolutely loving it.  I will take pictures tomorrow as it is dark right now and therefore not a good idea for flattering pictures of 1041 Logan.


As of now I have some good news.  It looks as though I am going to be graduating this May! No strings attached! I mean bona fide graduation in May.  I don't think I have to take any classes over teh summer semester - Balla!

Another tid-bit of juicy goodness, I was selected to work this semester with the Utah Education Association.  It is a very exciting opportunity as I can observe first hand how education systems function, interact within itself and the community, as well as meet some new and very interesting people.  Which we all know I love to pick brains and so I hope they know what they're getting into!

I am also reffing volleyball for Campus Recreation this season - a fun and laid back job that will then get me into working with the OP again once ski(busy) season swings into being. In addition I am tutoring a friend in French and I am surprised at how much fun it is and how much it is helping me stay on top of things like grammar and nuances that aren't worked over in French classes - but that I used while living there.

Oh the joy that stems from loving life - I am happy with the way my commitments shaped up this semester.  Also I absolutely love this house.  I love coming home to it - I love its location - I love my kitchen - Home.

I was browsing Nat'l geographic and found an article detailing how a new species of frogs have been discovered after previously being mistaken countless times for young or adolescent of age.  I mean look at it! Hard to think it is fully grown.

This other photo is a beautiful mélange of a photographer and another artist who came together and realized how brilliant their talents are when put together.  And thank the lord they figured it out - because I love it! Thank you Tina Berning and Michaelangelo di Battista, thank you.  You're inspiring. And awe-inspiring.

Glamour, still looking for you and trying so hard to be creative.  but you're elusive nonetheless in my current situation. But Raga and Bone can help. Jessica, do you need a babysitter/shopping getaway....but maybe in like a month when I have a couple of paychecks...

Ok folks, I am off to clean my beloved kitchen. : ]
xx
Claire

Love these booths

Love this song

I am feeling accomplished.

I am eating my lunch from my homemade dinner from last night that is phenomenal.  Spicy from red pepper flakes, fresh from the parsley and super savory from the sautéd broccoli and zucchini.  Yum! ANd I just finished my french homework which I just got on a rampage and was detailed and critiquing how Louis XIV thought a king should be....Boy do we have some conflicting ideas. 

I have a table and stools in my kitchn which I found on KSL and I ADORE.

I have a dining room table that is beautiful and so useful and storable.

I have a washer and dryer in my house. SWEET VICTORY.  Oh my lord my dreams have come true!

I aced my interview and was offered a part-time job at the Utah Education Association yesterday.

I have freshly baked Banana bread in my kitchen.

My kitchen has a perpetual smell of baked goods and freshly cooked trucs.

I am headed off to Bozeman tomorrow ro see my sister and Beau Frère....not exactly an accomplishment but the drive there will be. 

I have planned the garden for my backyard.

I have planned my schedule and I will be graduating in May. Sweet god of ice cream bless me sideways.

I have an electric Kettle in my House.   Ohhhhhh Cpoo.

Life is pretty fabulous, putains.

I used to do this exact thing in my field in Michigan.  I would run through the bourgamot and Queen Anne's Lace with my hands aching to touch every single bloom, but only light enough to brush and try to siphon a little bit of it's loveliness. I would stare at teh sky and get lost in my world of impossible and seemingly impossible things - which are my favorite things on which to spend thought.  I would roll around inf the tall grass and wonder why I didn't have a plot of grass for a mattress instead of my box spring (I now know why, bugs and longevity).  I used to get lost in this world on purpose in order to sense what was bigger than me.  I have now seen many, many, many things that are much larger than I, and I so long to return to that field and whisper my discoveries into the dandelions as I blow them into the sky.  I want to add to my nest of incubating ideas and notions in order to give nutrients to new ones. I will.

Yours,
Claire Winter Gorton

----note: picture from the MoMA.

SL,UT

clicky clicky
I have returned to the land of green jell-o.  OH Hiiiiiiiiiiii SLC. 
I have moved into my new house. Bought a table and am in the middle of repainting my desk.  Oh and I started classes and boy, school is fun! Forgot how much I loved this.  But also, my school will be extremely hard this year. I mean not too hard, but I have some serious leg work to be doing. 

I am in a playful mood.  I also have to re-define this blog as keeping up with the Claire Jones' doesn't really apply anymore.  I am back stateside and not going to be traveling and doing so many interesting and foreign (for most of you)  things. 

Again, playful.

Here are things I have come across that keep me smiling and dreaming.

My life lacks glamour at the moment.  How do I get it to revenir? It is easy when you live in the French Riveria - but Salt Lake City, Utah?
La prochaine tâche.

à la prchaine.
cwg

Jules Julien

A couple posts back I had attached a piece by Jules Julien and since I have just fallen head over heels. I love his illustrations - I cannot get enough.  I want to find them in print somewhere, somehow, but I cannot seem to find anything.   If anyone can shed some light....

Here is a google search of his illustrations.
http://www.google.com/images?oe=UTF-8&gfns=1&q=jules%20julien%20illustrations&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=648

Yours,
Claire

ready for rentrer

#1
#2

I have this week to take care of business in Michigan.  I have two dentist appts this week and have been rifling through the garage to see what I can scavenge for the 1041 Logan.  I have been discussing things with Leah and am very excited to create my an dour space.  I have even planned out and created a game plan for a garden in the back.  A HOUSE!

I am simply taking care of business here in Mount Pleasant at the moment.  But in a slow, I don;t care about anything sort of pace. Not too productive.  Am I still able to kick it into high gear (when I get back to UT)? I think SO! Will it be like riding a bike.  I think NOT.  But oh well, yo Sam, A change is gonna come and I am ready and willing. I'm feeling a little bit like this today.  And I would really love if I could hang out with polar bears.  I mean, not as a pet - just a companion.

But here in MI I have actually been doing a lot.  In a loose sense of the term.  Little Thises and Thats whom I perceive as needing to be done.  Meh.  I think something I'm really starting to discover beyond my acknowledgment of its existence - is my adaptability.  But furthermore, I am not only adaptable, but malleable. I can take some shape, spread some mud on my face, walk a certain way and could come very close to teh word conform to my surroundings.  Except I never quite give in.  But in addition, it isn't about the place and stereotypes or physical manifestations.  I seem to be able to read and feel and live the mindsets of places.  Which is why when I get somewhere I cannot climb (or fall) to that particular level, I feel restless, useless and utterly confused. But no more.  I think I shall carry a bit of mind from a couple of places where I've felt right in step and they will keep the boots on.

Things to do, seeds to buy, beds to move, clothes to dry and another beginning of sorts.
xxx
Claire

A hairy monday afternoon.

Push control and click

I'm sitting, bandaged from donating plasma this morning.  I haven't yet decided if it is worth it.  Poked, prodded, then weighed with a scale and eyes as to whether or not I am worthy to have my fluids slowly pumped out of me by my own hand's power.  Next time I'm bringing a sweatshirt.  The only thing - there is a guy, with an inviting demeanor and smile that works there.  As I was scheduling my next appointment, I started to ask him when the next time he worked as I would then schedule accordingly.  But quickly decided that it was a fruitless idea as I am in MP for around 3 more weeks...and not really even in MP for 2 of those weeks.  Until next time?

This is my view currently.  Sydney. BAH. She sheds all over me and kneads my face while I sleep.  Mews and steps into my lap when the window is less entertaining for her needs.  BAH.

These, on the other hand, fill me with a small shred of guilt as well as large amount of excitement for the domestic excursions on which I am about to embark.  I hope to emulate and then morph these pieces into 1041 Logan Ave done my Claire.  I am going to bake bread on a wednesday evening across a talking screen with an Aussie accent. I am going to make and eat soldiers for breakfast before class on tuesday and think of benji.  I am going to make fabulous meals with table settings that are no more and no less than exactly what they should be.  And even Sydney knows that there will be liquor.  It will be flowing from the year 2005 into a spicy nalgene bottle for a veggie packed libation on the way to class. I am sincèrement looking forward to having a house, a home for a bit.  A place where I can cook, read, sleep and dance from inside to outside seamlessly.  I like to travel, but you have to go everywhere *from* somewhere.  I feel that the everywhere is so much more where when the somewhere is constant.  It is the control in my life of unvarying variables.  The freedom of the word "somewhere" is explicit and understood.  Somewhere could be many places, even anywhere - as long as the return to somewhere happens.  I'm gearing up for this next year.

Just a thought

simply this (click)

I give permission to anyone who reads this blog to physically slap my wrist and verbally abuse me if I ever have a profile picture, display picture, or any public picture of any sort that is me kissing my boyfriend, significant other, husband.  Noted on my record, I hold YOU accountable.  Thank you and have a great day.

xx
Claire Winter Gorton

P.S. I just love the dress. (and the song)

A Southern FlavoUr

A forever memory

How I will miss Aix en Provence, Josh's weed patch, our beautiful poppies, the backyard park, to defenestrate things, Monday cleanings, and Josh's ever-present pleading to cook in his kitchen.  All things Cuques.

Someday I will return and Olivier will say to me "I've watched over it all, throughout the years.  I've seen Beau d'Erik grow old and have little vélo babies.  I've felt countless Poppy Massacres occur.  I've heard trance/house music go in and out and in and back out of style - while never differentiating between songs.  I've been here, thank you Josh."

And then Olivier will sing a small song in provençal that will be stolen by the tri-powered days of the greedy mistral wind out to the sea.

xxx
Foncée

Daily Wanderings

click it and fade out

Incredibly Beautiful.

Wait for it.....

ahhhh - art.

Now, onto the art of finding a job.  I think I am just going to be working odd jobs for the summer until I return; this doesn't lend to my schedule or routine.  I feel a lot of reading, soccer, and planning coming to the fore.

xxx
Claire Winter

This I would normally knock and tell them

just control + click it yah?




For C Poo.  We do have it all. 

Do you know Roby, I couldn't be any more jealous of her?

xxxx

-Claire Winter Gorton-

2 clicks off and straight on until morning

The New Tab Deal
I am currently sitting in a Holiday Inn Express Hotel drinking water, listening to TMC, and not wearing any pants.  It is comforting (at least for me) that some things won't change.

I have returned to the US of A.  My poor, poor sister.  Good thing she really loves me because I have been somewhat of a pain.  Among the pointing out of corn fields and the immensity of a super Wal-Mart, she sticks with me.  Through the gagging as I see signs for bacon chalupas (what even is that???) and then the people who actually eat them, she just nods and pats my back.  

After living a dream world, I am hitting reality.  Not only in the sense of what is this country I hold citizenship within, but also the fact that I AM a United States Citizen and I was GROWN saturated in all of it. Now talk about culture shock, here I left Europe knowing who I am and what I wanted and I am confronted with the Ugly Truth that actually is me.  I've been emotional, and not nostalgic, but I mean high, lows, sideways and upside downs.  Phew.  So, after the Atlantic Ocean and in between the brick wall and the heartland I realized I had to return to MP.

Ok, so I grew up in Mount Pleasant, MI - which I just found out (thank you wiki) has a population of 27,000 permanent members.  This doesn't include the students, but that is still pretty small foutre.  I am returning to MP in two days and realized I am completely unprepared.  I haven't been there in over a year and honestly have nothing to say to about 98% of the population.  I look at Caitlin, and Ben and Josh who are returning home to London and Sydney...boy do I need my little roby for some help here.  How do I return from SLC, let alone Aix?  I mean I was sitting around last night with a bunch of the people in the wedding party and we were sharing some laughs - but this divide was there in our speech, outlooks and persona. I really missed my friends ad I really hate MP and I haven't even returned yet.

But I have decided that I am going to only be positive from here on out and maybe even bring a little lovin' back to eclaire.  I did have some pretty fabulous times growing up in MP, gotta make good things happen, non?

I mean I grew into who I am now in Mount Pleasant, so things can be done.  You can probably pick me out - as I am the one deviating from the team pose of "medals on neck and face forward towards the camera".  If you know me today, you know I still stand like that, quite often actually.

I also had some amazing friends in MP, and we had some fun hating MP and a few people there.  I am at least looking forward to seeing my friends...and maybe hating on those people a little bit. In a positive manner, only. shoot. what?

Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy day.  I WILL BE LEAVING! Cannot wait to get back on the pitch with these mecs and show them some euro style foot.

Oh Lori.  How my car was so good to me and we had so many good times together.  Like the time I left grace's house junior year around 4 in the afternoon, almost fell asleep at the wheel, pulled into Mill Pond park and fell asleep for 3 hours in the hatch.  She was always so comfortable. Anyhow, the best is yet to come, and soon enough I'll be going West.

Happy Fourth of July! The now non-event is finally upon me at midnight.
À +,
Claire Winter Foncée Gorton