Need and Want and Have to Have

Yesterday: Dumpster diving in Oakland! Okay, okay. The truth? It was actually the opposite: a day of extreme luxuriousness, curated by the lovely Danielle, an incredibly talented poetess and liver of life. We started out in Oakland with the ultimate comfort food, macaroni and cheese, and things only became more sumptuous from there.

Here's Danielle, who introduced me to some of the greatest places to find Things I Want.

Alright, all dumpsters aside: Onto the food!

We ate at Homeroom in Oakland, which specializes in mac and cheese!

Their house-made root beer--tangy, sweet, with hints of licorice, fennel, and anise.

Homeroom has a cute school theme going on: here, learning the alphabet on the chalkboard trim.

I ordered the Mexican Mac: Chorizo, chipotle peppers, jack cheese, cilantro, and a lime wedge. Danielle ordered the spicy mac, a creamy concoction with a variety of roasted peppers.

The tables are made out of repurposed bleachers.

For dessert, we got the homemade oreos with sea salt. So good! Light and sweet cream filling, chewy chocolate cookies with delightfully crispy edges dusted in sea salt!

What's the best thing to do after you indulge in such things? Go try on handmade corsets at Dark Gardens! It'll bring your figure back to what it was pre-mac.

This is a thing I want to own at some point in my life: A corset coated in iridescent feathers. So beautiful.

Posing with a disembodied torso. This was my first legitimate corset experience. It was surprisingly comfortable, and made me realize how bad my posture is un-corseted. Plus, after being extracted from it, I felt like a part of me was missing, as if my exoskeleton had been removed. But my spine was realigned!

Very posh indeed.

Onwards! We went to 826 Valencia, "San Francisco's Only Independent Pirate Supply Store!" The front of the store is dedicated to keeping pirates in tip top shape: sea salt for grinding into wounds, lemons and lemon drops to ward off scurvy, shackles, fathoms of rope, secret drawers filled with buttons. The back of the shop is a study hall where kids can get tutoring in the art of writing. A great place in general.

And then we toddled on over to Paxton Gate, which basically has all the sorts of bits and bobs I want to strew throughout my apartment: porcupine claws, fossilized crustaceans, wreathes of succulents, scarab beetles, cacti, horticultural and taxonomical prints. Want want want.

An intriguing church we caught sight of while exiting the city. Black with red trim--beautiful and ominous!