Namaste

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” -Marianne Williamson from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

https://www.recoverywarriors.com/michele-kabas/

Thank you, Michele.

A week in work wear

a momentary self centric glimpse into my color-sparse diverse yet predictable sense of style. #aweekswork #black

WENDY. ME. DVR. THAT'S ALL. :) :)

Slow Down

It is only when you slow down that you can take a moment to see the beauty around you. It's only then that you can see the boats as you run along the water, feel the magnificent air on your sweaty face, or see the thousands of other humans doing the same around you.

In a city so crowded as this one but even more, in a world so vast, the ability to block out everything around us is uncanny. Why do I say us when I mean me? Good question. I mean me. I do mean me. My ability, that of my very own. This unbelievable and absurd ability I've honed to block out everything around me and yet, only somehow absorb everyone else's joy but my own. What a strange oxymoronical irony, I know.

But here I sit. And here I am. Just little, too little, old me. And now here I am.

Sometimes you have to strip away the old to make room for the new. That's the old saying, right, the old adage, the eye-roll-inducing line. But no, don't roll your eyes. 

I rolled my eyes, too. I understand. I rolled my eyes so far back into my head at this very thought for so long I think I lost them back there. But not anymore. The universe is quite a place, full of distractions, treadmills, juices, diets... all of that. It is such a strange and crowded place. But I think maybe and only maybe, that the universe is also a place of authenticity and one that just might look out for you once in a while. 

I was never one for signs. Probably still am not. But I do know where I was just a few months ago... and I know where I am now. I was crippled by my possessions. Unable to move in my apartment, my brain.  I had no room for anything else. Possessions, more possessions, I just couldn't seem to reach the end of them. There were always more to be had. That, and that, and another one of that, wait that too, and more of those and that too! Until -- no, there is no room left here. I have no room on this sidewalk in the realm of my personal street, the sidewalk of possessions is ending. And I must stop. And then, just like that, I did.

All the running, the physical running, the treadmills and Nikes, the fast-paced speed of life, relentless denial of feeling and reality So much speed. Running away from anything real. Running and buying and possessing and more possessing. I honestly don't know where it ended and where it began. But what was it all for? For what exactly? Joy? No. Fulfillment? None. So many things only crowd an already-crowded soul. And a soul should have the space to breathe. Mine did not. 

So I decided to let go of some of the crap weighing down my heart and my mind. And my little old self. It was just too much to hold up, my muscles aren't that strong and so I am letting it go.  And now that I stripped (and am still stripping as we speak) it all away, here in this moment, stripped away the bags, the make-up, jewelry, the job, now what is left? What remains here in this little spot on the eleventh floor of the world? All that remain here now is me, little old me. Little old me with less stuff but even less inside. For now. 

The thing is, this is the way it needs to be. I needed to come to this place, to get here, to finally land in this spot of simplicity, realness, and truth. Somehow I had to be forced to be able to see clearly enough to KNOW I had to stand in my own truth. And I was. 

Me, my journey to get here, to both the end and the beginning, it somehow began without my even knowing. right here, in my own heart, my own very little body and in my own city, my journey started itself. It didn't tell me but I am grateful that it did. 

The thing is, there are so many distractions and ways to escape, to numb the sobering realities of the mundane roteness of everyday life. I know all of them all too well. But when you turn off the TV and pull out the headphones, you can allow yourself to just be. Take the breath. Force yourself to feel your regular stomach expand when you breathe deeply. When you slow down and take a breath, take an authentic, long, unrushed breath, it is then and only then when you can begin to heal.

Me, I'm just starting to breathe. I'm a grown-up, three decades and more under my belt and I am only just learning to breathe like the worthy person I am. I deserve to take in the world. It is a beautiful place but only now can I see that, with the time and willingness to see it.

And even though I am just now starting, I feel fortunate to have found the key to unlock that horrible big black door about which I have previously written. That ominous and threatening padlocked door I once saw clouding all my sun. The thing is, I still see it, it's right there right now, so tall and hard to open. But the key is dangling here on my pinky finger... and at least there's that. 

Perhaps it was not me who found the key. Probably not. In fact, I know not. Maybe like I posited before, the universe does sometimes send us a sign. And I think maybe this was my sign. This moment in time, this beautiful summer and peaceful stretch. It is all so new to me. But i do think we all must learn to listen to our own cues when we hear them. Unclog your ears and your mind enough to be open to receive them. Like I am doing now. Or, well, at least try to.

Because I believe I am living through my sign. I didn't seek it out but it happened anyway. Slow down and stop running, it said. Stop running physically and stop running emotionally. stop running away and sucking it all in and just take the damn breath. It's time to just take the breath. Feel the pain. Cry the tears. All of those. Because all those things -- those are things that are real. Bags and jewelry, beauty and fakery,,, those are things that are not real. 

So here I am again, and here I am now. Slowing. Down. Right here, in the confines of my own space, my own place and my own city. I am slowing down in life and taking it all in. The good, what little of it I am finding these days but taking it in all the same, the less-than-good, and all that comes along with it.

And that, well, that is all just okay for me.

~Rachel

Lapsed

Time lapse videos: the new trend. How cool. Squeeze a whole day into thirty seconds. It's possible, see, just check out this thirty-second-on-speed vine clip created by a rampant teenager.  Look how fast it goes. Morning, noon, night, run, run, go, go, don't stop, don't breathe, don't look... aaaand, break. It's over.

Sure, time lapses, the new trendy bit in media and content creation. "New." Psssh. Ain't nothing new in this world. Everything old is new again. So they say. Yes, that's that proverbial Big Brother "They" again. It's back. They say that. Everything old is new again, including time lapses.

Well, to her, at least.

What is a time lapse anyway? A prolonged amount of time, squeezed dry of its meaning, of its moral compass. It is a moment in time, once real, now devoid of its reality. They saw a red door and wanted to paint it black. So they did. They painted it all black. No colors anymore, they wanted them to turn black. Thank you, Stones, I relish in your metaphorical waxing. Time elapsed, from a rainbow of life, love, lust and wonder... to a dark slate of cold black, splintered wood. 

A life too fast to catch up with. "Life moves fast. If you don't stop for a second, you could miss it." Yes, Buehller, you knew what a time lapse was even back in the innocent 80's. Racing through the world like a damn rodent on a wheel. Running, up, down, in a circle, faster and faster and faster but going absolutely fucking nowhere. The time lapse of the rat race of life. No, it's nothing new she said. 

Bring on those trendy time lapse videos, please, they say!! Buzzfeed, The Onion, HuffPo, Daily Mail... bring us more! So cool and new, right? We want more of your life-on-speed new awesomeness, we all plead. Show us everything and show us fast! Give us the world and give it to us in less than a minute! Yes! Right? No.

None of this is new to her. Her whole past was a time lapse of sorts. Sprinting through the finish line of youth, cross the barrier of adulthood  and into the terrain of actual life. Hurry up, finish those exams, faster, go, quicker, get that promotion, get to the next level, supervisor, director, VP, more money, go, go, GO, GOOO. But what then, what happened next, where was there to step when the sidewalk ended? Tell her, Mr. Silverstein. Where to, now? Oh, the places she'll go? But where?

The lapse of time was old but new again. Trendy, she said, what does that even mean? The lapsing of time is neither trendy nor new. It's not cool and it's not fun, it's a sad state of untimely affairs and there is nothing trendy about it. Fast forward is a button reserved for DVR and Netflix, not human life, she said. You keep it, buzzfeed, I don't want it. You hit fast forward times five, you speed it all up to the pace of Alvin Simon Ana Theodore, but no I won't do that anymore. Go ahead and be my guest, you leverage the efficiencies of the speed of life, but I shall not. I shall soak up the inefficienices, the slow melting ice cream sundaes and the beating sun and take the time to walk without falling and type without erring and speak wtihout slurring. I shall do all of those things while the rest of you all boast your proud abundances, er, lapses of time. Raise them up, push them out, make them viral. Gooo, do it, quickly and now. Then collect your prizes and take them home.

I choose to relish in the glory of the art of time. For once, I choose not to hit fast forward and instead to float along with the current. Yes that is my choice and mine alone and I shall stick with it until it drifts off into the white caps of the tide. So for now, here I am and here I go, back into the slow moving chocolate waters of life and time.

The rest of you, keep your time lapses safe and keep them dry. Stay balanced and oil your hamster wheel, for the metal gets slick. me, I slipped, my heel lost its grip. Now I'm off the wheel and floating along. 

#netflixproblems

For the equally addicted Netflix-ers out there. No one could be as bad as me... or could they?

#netflixlove #dexter #sexydexy #loveitall

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukebailey/24-problems-every-netflix-addict-will-immediately-understand?bffb&utm_term=4ldqpgp#.mr79LqmxV

Danke Buzzfeed!!

3-2-1 Hedwig!

Hi Buns!

Firstly, no that blog post title is not just me doing a happy little countdown dance until my third, ahem, and likely what-will-be best, Hedwig on Broadway show. No no, I am cleverer than that my little Buns. No, indeed, that title means to say that yes, Saturday evening, I will have the pleasure of witnessing the ORIGINAL 2001 film and off-Broadway Ms. Hedwig herself, the delightful John Cameron Mitchell, back on the broadway stage.

Really, Buns, I can't even believe it. After having seen the original (and may I say, fucking fabulous), Neil Patrick Harris as Hedwig earlier this year, followed up by Michael C. Hall as Hedwig last month, I feel I may now be topping both of those marvelous men with JCM. Side note -- do I sense a Hedwig theme here -- must each and every male to fill Hedwig's, er, wig, have a three part name? (Read: NPH, MCH, JCM. Yes I know I left out the widespread forgettable Andrew Rannalls somewhere in between there but since I am not a fan and made the purposeful choice to avoid his what-was-surely sub-par performance, I'm going to discount that dismissable factoid). But I digress.

So, yes! On Saturday evening, you'll know where to find me. Belasco Theater, first row, center. I'll be the girl with popping-out-of-her-head eyes, a perma-grin and an all around glow from hed (pun intended) to toe. I truly cannot wait. I feel like a flamboyant little girl in a sweet and sour candy shop ready to play! What a weird metaphor, what's that about right? I don't even know myself. But who cares. Suffice to say, my little heart is just full of excitement, wonder and eagerness at the thought of seeing the original Sugar Daddy lovin' Ms. Schmidt herself on stage before my eyes. That's the long story short, ya know.

Okay, in anticipation of this to-come epic evening, I'd like to take a minute, or a paragraph or two, to juxtapose my two Hedwigs seen to date. Let me commence with this likely polarizing statement: I did not like one of these Hedwigs better than the other. That's right.You read it right. I. Liked. Them. Both. The. Same. I'll pause for a moment and let you re-read. Ok, done? What, you must be thinking, you couldn't have liked MCH as much as NPH (they even rhyme I know). Why yes, actually I am certain those thoughts are going through your head right about now. But allow me to defend my statement. Or, rather, not defend, back up. Yes, kids, NPH was fabulously fucking fierce -- no way around it. He was the energetic, what-you-see-is-what-you-get, bubbly, lovely Ms. Hedwig. His performance (see previous in-depth B-logue review) was unlike any other I had seen, full of energy, enthusiasm, and at the core, awesomeness. Hence his Tony and stuff. Simple statement: I loved NPH-as-Hedwig.

Having said that, my love for NPH-as-Hedwig is totally and utterly unrelated to my love for MCH-as-Hedwig. No causation, no correlation, nope no relation at all. If NPH was the bright, bubbly Hedwig, sexy-Dexy MCH was her polar opposite. Michael C. Hall was Hedwig sans Prozac, Hedwig on the couch -- he was the darkly dreaming Hedwig. (If you have the unfortunate misfortune of being a non-Dexter fan, you will not get the reference. I'm sad for you if so). But yes, MCH brought all of his dark, death-dreaming, bathed-in-blood past with him to the stage... and threw it all right into the heels of Hedwig herself. MCH's Hedwig was equally (and quite honestly, perhaps even more so) alluring to me than/as that of NPH. Hall's Hedwig was darkly humorous, witty, and utterly mesmerizing. The layer of dark beneath the bubbly blonde wig brought incrementally more depth to the character, to me, than the alternate layer of light I saw in NPH's Hedwig, And that really worked for me. After all, the story of Hedwig is, despite the glitter, wigs and heels, not a light and fluffy one. It is a story of a botched, and unwanted, sex change operation, a story of parental neglect, marital dischord, the forfeiting of identity, and pure self-doubt. It is a story of self-love but only after the story of self-hate comes to a rather incomplete close. With a storyline like that and the weight of the east Berlin wall in tow, a darkly-dreaming-Dexter-meets-blonde-girly-boy-Hedwig was, to me, the perfect potion. Just to be clear now, no, I will still not say which Hedwig I preferred. Yet.

But ask me after Saturday night.

#jcm #hedwig #hedwigonbday #mch #nph #dexter #doogiehowster

#somuchlove

Love,
The Mysterious RBunny

The ABC... you next Tuesdays

Given my very overt recent absence from the wonderful world of writing, I must say that when a witty blog post idea actaully graced my brain, I was sheerly overjoyed!! Happy, joy! Ahem. Okay, but seriously now, Rachel Rabbits. In the spirit of brevity and gettin' right on down to it, here is it, my first intelligent idea in months. I present to you, the ABCs... snark edition.

A is for ass. Sorry so crass.
B is for Bunny. I may be a bitchy one but at least I'm funny.
C is for uh... "see you next Tuesday". No rhyme needed.
D is for dense, makes me hope you ain't breeded.
E is for ego, oh lord, here we go.
F is for fuck, the best of the curses,
G is for gah, how many more of these verses?!
H is for ha, the snarkiest response around,
I is for I, the most selfish pronoun.
J is for jaded, you bet I am,
K is for kewl, a word that ain't no one's jam.
L is for loser, wipe that L off your face,
M is for money, buy me style and grace.
N is for NO, I ain't scared to say it,
O is for Oprah, yup, fierce as shit.
P is for prowl, I'm always on,
Q is for quiet, a trait I don't don.
R is for RBuns(!!), my much better half,
S is for sauv blanc, pour me a caraf.
T is for tight-lipped, I now try to be,
U is for uptight, keep away from me.
V is for valiant, always be a giver!
W is for wah, oh please cry me a river.
X is for just that, we all have them in our pasts,
Y is for youth, oh lord, please bring mine back.

... and now here we are, right a la fin,
Z is for zzz, I'm sleepy. Adieu. The End.

I hope everyone now has a full grasp of the alphabet according to Bunny. Happy Tuesday, y'all.

Love,
RBuns

#tovelo #take2

Back!

I have decided to complete my Tove Lo review / thoughts / praise in the form of a - wait for it - LIST. Yes, that's right, Bunny Babes (ahem), we all know I love a good list and Ms. Lo is certainly nice fodder for a solid one.

So, here we go. Reasons why I absolutely fucking love Tove Lo.

1. Her music makes me feel. No, I did not forget to add an adjective at the end of that. That was a purposeful stop. Because, it does just that. Tove's songs make me feel. They really make me feel. It wouldn't be fair to assign one adjective as my emotion becauase there are many that could fill the mad-libbed-like blank.  They make me feel. End of thought.

2. More specifically, her song Moments veritably has some of the best one-line song quotes. Like, ever. To quote Ms. Haber, any song that includes the phrase "charming as fuck" has to be pretty epic. But I mean, really. I want to one-line tweet, like, all the lyrics they're so damn great. 

3. She is sexy as all hell without being trashy. I wouldn't complain if I had to look at her all day long every single day. Damn, girl, werk.

4. Videos. Uh, enough said. In the spirit of keeping this post somewhat approrpriate for all audiences, I'll say this. Watch the video for Habits and, er, you may see what I mean.

5. She is a Swede. And that's just fundamantally bad ass. I suppose I only really know two Swedish artists / bands / what have you (and oh yeah, they both happen to be managed by the lovely Ms. Haber) but both are pretty damn great and because of this, I am going to go out on a totally stereotypical blanket-statement limb and say that all Swedish bands are just cool. I am doing this because, well, I can. It's my blog and I'll stereotype if I want, dammit! 

6. Her manager is my west-coast-band-managing-fierce-as-hell high school friend, Laura. And, well, that's enough right there.

Anyway, since it seems I could go on forever with this list, I will close with #6. 

Don't take my word for this, please check out Ms, Lo (er, and her music ha) for yourself. Happy Thursday, happy Yom Kippur (almost), and happy listening, Bunnies.

Love, 

Rachel

#tovelo

"I'm not the prettiest you've ever seen but I have my moments, I have my moments."

"I can get a little drunk, I get into all the don'ts but on good days I am charming as fuck."

Just wanted to put that out there. I wanted to put that out there becuase, you know, I get that. I feel that. I get ya Tove.

Last night I saw the wildly amazing Tove Lo perform at Webster Hall. I will finish this post later on in further depth but let me commence by saying this... wow.

In addition to being one of the hottest damn chicks I have ever seen (no, that is not hyperbole), she is also legitimately and insanely fucking talented.

It is a rare singer who can successfully bridge the gap between lyrical and musical talent. I say this from years of experience in music-obsessing. And trust me when I say, there have been a lot of those years. The lovely Ms. Lo, however, is one of those rare ones. The songs on her debut album, Queen of the Clouds, are profoundly deep in meaning as well as musically brilliant. Not to overdo it here with flattery for the Swedish twenty-something but I'll say this. The experience of listening to Tove's songs feels something like a drug-induced trance combined with the best dance party you've ever attended. It's a drug binge gone good and one you want to keep repeating. Yeah. It really is.

I will complete the review later tonight so stay tuned but until then, please immediately start listening to this epically excellent album. Personal album favorites: Moments and Habits. In that order.

Get them. Listen to them. And repeat.

I'll be back later... babes. ;)

xo