68; Om Namah Shivaya (New Year's Eve)

Jacket: Maurices • Top: French Connection UK • Pants: Bullhead (for Pac Sun) • Docs + blue vile necklace: eBay • Head scarf: Fanneuil Hall, Boston • Naga earrings: SOULMATES (coming soon) • Spike fringe earrings: Hot Topic • Coyote vertebrae necklace: DIY • Crystal ring: Hivennn • Evil eye bracelet: Waloosi's Emporium • Bone carved bracelet: antique

Kathryn had this brill idea for new year's eve: perform puja (a ritual with offerings) for Shiva, Hindu god of destruction, famous for his dance of creation. The idea was to shed off the old, the past year, to make way for the new and upcoming year. We set up our 'shine' (the surface of our dresser) for Shiva, complete with a lingam for Shiva (a large smoky quartz point) and offerings of flowers. If you've ever seen him, he is depicted with blue/grey skin, and it is said it is because he spends his times in graveyards and is covered in ashes from cremated bodies. Basically, he's the gothic death-obsessed metal-as-fuck god of the group. Based on this, we bought three candles to burn: blue, black, and white. (They had no grey, so we had to improvise.)

Thus, I decided to wear dark, muted colours. I was going to wear my dark blue leopard print dress -- perfect both for the colour, and because he is drawn wearing a leopard print cloth -- but I wore this to go out to the Oriental market and just fell in love with the outfit. In the last photo, I'm half-assedly trying to imitate Shiva meditating:

 

Fun fact: the spout of water coming out of his hair is the Ganges.

This is also why I decided to wear so many bones (you know, like how I usually do on a normal day): his signature death aspect, especially the Naga earrings I've been working on. Also, the blue vile necklace, which contains some ashes from my deceased cat, who died in 2007 from cancer. Symbolic for a few reasons, obviously.

Kathryn and I wanted to fast for the day, only consuming fruits and milk as one would for something like this, but with her being sick and me being 95 lbs, we ended up deciding to not. We ate Indian cuisine for lunch (Punjab Eggplant and spiced vegetables) and Japanese for dinner (vegetarian mushroom buns), as well as a crapton of tea throughout the day. We attempted to clean the room; made an impact, and took down our Christmas tree, but didn't accomplish as much as we wanted to. Basically, it's not so much clean as it is less messy. We did perform our puja, and our set up was lovely.

Smoky quartz point as our Shiva lingam, with a Ganesha beside it, per puja standards. In the background you can see many other Ganeshas, as well as a baby Krishna. We sort of love Ganesha a lot; that, and finding Vishnu figures is a pain in the ass.

Making our new year's eve dinner was great. Our trip to the Oriental market was a huge success -- they typically end in disappointment since we can't read Japanese or Korean, so what we pick out usually aren't to our taste -- and I had gone out on a limb to buy some vegetarian mushroom buns.

 (I had to perform a shirt change for the evening, as the owners of the house prefer the place to be on the chillier side.)

Hello, Kathryn's hands!

These. Things. Are so delicious. I was leery at first, because a lot of imported Asian food is chock full of preservatives, yet these had no preservatives in them and were frozen. How awesome is that? If you have an Asian market near you, I highly recommend these. They're Chimei brand, and even if you can't locate them, see if there's an equivilent; the ingredients list should be in English. (Hopefully!)

The bummer about NYE: being scheduled to work the next morning at 6 am, meaning having to get up at 5. SUUUCKS!

Resolutions: get a new job (my current one is just killing everything inside me), learn more German (I have been terrible about this!), read more books, and learn to use my sewing machine. I kind of hate having just one resolution. I want to make sure I'm kept busy for the whole year. Oh, and to do more bicycle crunches. I am so wimpy about exercising.

Did I accomplish any of the resolutions I set for myself this year? Aside from getting a job...not really.

Stay tuned for the next post; I have a giveaway coming up!

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