Lessons lessons lessons

So many lessons to keep on learning as I try to be a better person, like someone who goes to the address of the gallery printed on their website, in this case, Isis Gallery. I went somewhere else, tried to find 66 Charlotte Road, and my immediate reaction to realizing I'd gone to the utterly wrong place was to tell myself how stupid I am. I tell myself that a lot, sometimes out loud like today, usually much more quietly. I forget sometimes how much hate I walk around with until it unleashes itself so virulently. It's something big I'm trying to work on, and it's so much easier to fall into the mode of thinking everyone, and certain someones especially, have these perfect lives where they don't make mistakes and everything goes swimmingly. Much easier to do so than to take a good hard look at my errors and flaws and failures and ask myself what purpose they've served, what purpose they keep on serving, and how I can work on doing better, which means not being perfect, as I long to be, but being me, flaws and all, but still trying my best.

It's a roadblock I keep on coming up against, over and over and over, and maybe that's the lesson; until I die I will be making mistakes. My first step this morning was to utterly loathe myself; that's so familiar, so default, so easy. And it's true; I made a juvenile, bad traveler error. I didn't map out where I wanted to go and plan accordingly, I relied on Googling "Isis Gallery" rather than looking at their site directly. I'm still angry with myself, but had to laugh at the fact that it's been almost a year since I got my "Open" tattoo and even as I contemplate another one, I am actually not very open at all. I'm not open with myself about making mistakes, and I am too easily distracted from my goals by...well, everything.

I had to step back and remind myself that I'm grateful to even know about the exhibit because of a beautiful story I was graced with the honor of reading for an anthology, one I very much hope I will be able to publish. I forget about those small everyday honors because they've become so commonplace. I try to be the "business me" and forget about the fact that so much of what I do is actually personal. That I'm lucky indeed for every story I get to publish, every author I get to work with, and every anthology that my work appears in, and even for the opportunities I've frittered away. I forget that as much as I might fuck up, I also am always learning. Not always learning things I want to learn, not always learning things that make me happy, but I always have the choice to move forward, or to do like I tend to do and either move backward or stay the same. I still want to be a girl I can look in the mirror and be proud of. Not there yet, but working on it, and realizing more and more that what anyone else thinks of me matters not a whit. That is a tough, tough lesson for a people pleaser, but it has no relation to what I think of myself and perhaps an inverse one as I get a little too high off other people's approval. Again, lessons. Which I always have the option of learning from. Always.

So yeah, in addition to figuring out my way from the underground to the overground and what it means when they ask if you want your coffee "black or white" means, I have a lot to consider from this trip. And maybe Jamie Reid will come do an exhibition in the United States. And if not, there will be a next time. Maybe not in the same shape or form, but a next time nonetheless. So until then...

Sh! recaps

Me being me, my last day is super hectic, but I've had a brilliant time and definitely want to come back for all the places/people I've missed seeing. I spent last night in bed with lovely supermarket foodstuffs watching and being inspired by Working Girl and reading a book I'm writing about after so much running around and didn't feel guilty about not being out and about in the least. I could use less guilt, more me. Trying trying trying...2011 is all about overhauling my life, or if it's not, it should be. Reluctant to go home just yet but hoping I'll be back while I still somewhat know my way around London a bit more, having taken the Tube lots, plus the overground and the train out to Hitchin.

Thanks to everyone who showed up at Sh! and made the evening so wonderful and did recaps! Who needs MSM anyway? (I say jokingly, but of course, cause I'm a media whore and always will be. But in this case, I was so moved by the people who came out and what they said about my work. When I visited England in 2002 for my friend's wedding, I never ever could've predicted books with my name on the spine would be on shelves. Next stop, Waterstone's, who are big on YA. A girl can has to dream.)

Justine Elyot

Lucy Felthouse

KD Grace

Janine Ashbless

More when I'm back. As always, make sure to visit Cupcakes Take the Cake for reports on cupcake adventures.


cupcakes at You Don't Bring Me Flowers

British Library and art lust

The British Library is a beautiful building and the grounds outside are lovely as well. There's also a science fiction exhibit going on that I was too tired Friday to properly appreciate but I did peek inside. And it was lovely to nap in front of. So much to do in London, I am clearly only going to scratch the surface. My reading went fabulously; so inspiring on so many levels. And Sh! has so many gorgeous sex toys, plus I got to see a certain lucky audience member get a few (okay, more than a few) flicks of a very loud whip, not to mention erotic art and sexy lingerie and they treated me better than I think I've ever been treated at a reading, giving everyone bubbly (champagne) and cupcakes and me a harness and dildo and lube and, even better, a bag! A bag is clearly the way to my heart.

Many other amazing things about the reading another time. There was much cupcaking which I will post about at Cupcakes Take the Cake, but of course. I got to see Lena Chen and Rachel Hills for a very brief moment, and Lena helped me fix my phone so I can actually use GPS. Had one of those "I'm proud of myself" travel moments when waited for trains at Piccadilly Circus that put a crowded L train to utter shame, having shoved on what looked like twice the amount my hipster neighbors manage to squeeze in. I was there with 2 grocery bags of a dozen cupcakes each and my 3 bags waiting and waiting (we were right near a very touristy area and where Pride had let out) and then I decided to just go a different route and 3 trains later I was at Old Street and found Sh! and Hoxton Square. Fabulous!

Off to visit friends in the country today and plot out final two days of art-going. I did manage to get to Soho Square but finding Kirsty MacColl's bench would've taken quite a lot of waiting as a huge Pride party was going on inside. The three art exhibits I most want to see are A Girl and Her Room by Rania Matar at Mosaic Rooms (info below), the Jamie Reid exhibit at Isis Gallery and the Tracey Emin exhibit, Love Is What You Want, at Hayward Gallery. More on A Girl and Her Room:

The Arab-American photographer brings her award-winning series of images, A Girl and her Room, to the UK for the first time. This series features intimate photographic portraits of teenage girls in their most personal space, their bedroom.

This project began by Matar photographing her teenage daughter with her friends. She soon realised the girls were very conscious of each other in the way they behaved and represented themselves when together. From there emerged the idea of photographing each girl alone in her personal space, where she would give a more honest representation of her personality.

Matar took as her subjects teenage girls from the two worlds she experienced herself as a teenager and a young twenty year old, making this project very personal: the Middle and the United States. She became fascinated by how girls face similar issues at that age, regardless of culture, religion and background.

Matar comments: “In my images I hope to portray the chasm between childhood and adulthood and the young women straddling it, sometimes as rebels, sometimes as young ladies aware of their newfound sexuality and very often still as children. Being with those young women in the privacy of their world gave me a unique peek into their private lives and their real selves.


it wasn't just out of cupcake duty that I visited my third Johnny Cupcakes store...or bought an overpriced but fun t-shirt as a souvenir of my trip (not a Hello Kitty one, which they sell at home, but a special JC London one that's only sold in the store here)

See you at Sh! in London Saturday night

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Learn from my mistakes: never book a plane ticket on good faith

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My last Seattle and London readings, please come: free cupcakes June 27th and July 2nd

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Free champagne and cupcakes July 2nd at Sh! in London - please RSVP

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London readings July 2 and 4

I'll have lineups and addresses soon, but for now, I can tell you that I'm going to London (UK) and doing my very first readings every there! I'm so looking forward to it, and as a fan of Sh! and Coffee, Cake and Kink (which has since closed their previous venue but we are cooking up something fabulous), having visited both places on my last visit there in, I think, 2007, I'm extra excited. And of course there will be cupcakes! The readings will be:

Sat 2nd July at Sh!

&

Mon 4th July at Coffee, Cake and Kink (venue tba)

And look, Sh! is excited too!

London calling!

I’ll have details soon, I’m finalizing venues and authors, but it looks like I’ll be doing my first London (UK) readings the weekend of July 4th, probably July 2nd and 4th. Very excited! Much is going on, so if you want the whole scoop in one place, sign up for my newsletter on the left-hand side of rachelkramerbussel.com (I will also post and tweet the link to see the newsletter online). It's monthly.

Hello Kitty Johnny Cupcakes limited edition t-shirt coming in December

This is what you miss if you don't read Cupcakes Take the Cake daily (or add us to your RSS feed). You can also like us on Facebook. And obviously, if you're in Seattle or New York, don't miss our December 7th bicoastal 6-year anniversary parties!

I am a major Hello Kitty and Sanrio fan, and right now they are doing a popup tour (I saw a very cute limited edition Hello Kitty iPhone case at CupcakeCamp LA!). I’m getting to the cupcake connection, I promise…

Johnny Cupcakes, who is in the process of opening up his London (UK) store in 2011, will be launching a limited edition Hello Kitty t-shirt next month, an item that is shooting straight to the top of my holiday wishlist! How fun. Stay tuned to johnnycupcakes.com and his blog (scroll down for photos from Sanrio's 50th anniversary), as well as Twitter and Facebook (where over 70,000 people are fans!), for ordering information. via Nitrolicious




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