Because they love ME.

As I was riding home on my classically overstuffed commuter bus this evening, a sudden jolt of motion caused one of my precious red circle earrings –

– to bounce off of my very cute black scarf… and up and out of my ear.

Hey!

I felt it roll down my shoulder and PING! it hit the floor. Then it rolled under a row of seats and was gone.

I grimaced a little, torn between two realities:

a) it’s such a cute earring! and

b) the seats were full of people who probably did not care enough about the cuteness of my earring to search for said earring and/or displace themselves so I could search.

One woman looked beneath her feet a little halfheartedly, but I wasn’t about to cause a fuss.

“Do you want me to check under my seat?”

“No, no…” I said, pulling off my other earring to tuck it in my bag, “They were super cheap. No problem.”

I comforted myself in the knowledge that the happy circle could be replaced. If it was still available. In that shade of red. Which matched my red boots. Apparently I love cheap red objects.

Then there were many more stops.

Many more people got on and off.

Every now and then, I would hear the red circle skitter along the floor of the bus. But I honestly didn’t know WHERE it was skittering, so I was forced to ignore the freedom-break sounds.

Eventually I just forced myself to stop thinking about it.

Then, about twenty minutes later, I pulled the bell to get off.

As I stepped towards the door, I felt something hit my red boot.

The red circle had found me. Almost magnetically. Magically. Fatefully.

And that’s why I love my red circle earrings.

Well, I don’t know all of them personally, so I’m not sure if I love THEM… but I sure do love their work. Please go to their sites and check them out, and buy things from them or offer them your praise! Support great art, music, and literature!

Molly Jenson is a brilliant singer-songwriter. This girl needs to have a song on Grey’s Anatomy or something like that, and deserves lots of love and attention for her work. This is the music I am singing at the top of my lungs when I walk around my apartment lately.

My friend Laura Koch does some amazing paintings of simple, bold images. She captures mood with colour in a really effective way. Give her a looksee! Buy a painting! She has a cute kid to support! And a very tall husband!

Greg Laswell also deserves your album dollars! He worked on Molly’s album, from what I understand, and is an incredible talent in his own right, too.

If you want to read the kind of stuff that inspired me to blog in the first place — and continues to! — check out Chuck Sigars’ book at his personal website. He’s funny, wise, wry and definitely the Garrison Keillor of Mukilteo (I don’t know if he’ll hate that comparison or not.)

And finally, for some gorgeous photography that will make a perfect addition to your home or a perfect gift for a visually-inclined friend, check out Patia Stephens’ photos right here. Gorgeous! I’m not sure what she’s selling, but you can always contact her to throw money in her direction.

NOW!

Your challenge…

Give us some links to artists, musicians, writers, designers of any kind that you can’t get enough of…