Nobody here but us magazines.

Ladies (and possibly gay men), when you were in junior high, did you ever make collages out of magazines?

I seem to recall doing this a lot, between the ages of 11 to about 13.  Gathering up my copies of Seventeen, YM, and Sassy, and cutting out any words or images that aptly illustrated Who I Was.  A Revlon ad of Cindy Crawford with lush lips and dewy skin, to represent my confident, sexy attitude.  A shot of Gabrielle Reece spiking a volleyball, to represent my athleticism.  A Stussy t-shirt symbol that looked like a gang sign, to represent my street side.  

But when I look back on all those collages, I see now that they were really proto-Vision Boards. Things I wished represented me.  Did I actually think I was a professional volleyball player supermodel, who moonlighted in some casual, keeping-it-real gang activity?  No.  But in my collages, I envisioned an alternate reality where it could be so.

Last weekend, my girlfriends and I got together for some throwback collaging.

Now that we are adults, I think the proper term for "collaging" is indeed "Vision Boarding."  But while my own everyday vocabulary has been shockingly Law of Attraction-esque lately, all universe-this and manifest-that, the college-educated part of my brain still cringes a bit at anything resembling The Secret.  Because the whole enterprise can get really greedy, really quickly.  Or at least it can if you are me.  

If I went for The Secret whole hog, I'm sure I'd be just as bad as those people who Vision Board themselves a mansion in Malibu.  In fact, forget Malibu!  I'd include a Tuscan manor with adjacent vineyard, personal chef and wild panda bear preserve on MY board.

However.  I do think this activity can help clarify your current goals.  I also think it gives you a really perfect excuse to play with paper, and I have this great wish for American preteen girls everywhere, that they still get to play with paper and glue and scissors and make things for their bedrooms or binders or whatever.  Isn't there something healing about it all?  Something refreshingly non-digital?  This is what I want: A world where there's always paper to play with.

Here is what else I want: This adorable cat.

This is my friend Amy's cat, and her name is Babette.  Are you noticing the way she's sitting?  With her little paws together, like she's contemplating the situation, but in a very polite and ladylike way?

I took about 80 pictures of her face, and she was straight-up posing for my camera.  Babette has been watching her Tyra, I can tell.

Here is my Vision Board in progress (notice the cat).  I cut out a picture of Rosedale, which is a neighborhood where I'd like to live someday.  Then I began to get concerned that I wasn't being ambitious enough with this Vision Board, seeing as how Rosedale is located approximately two miles from my current house.  So I decided to up the ante a bit with "Puerto Rico" (where I'd like to visit), and "books / TV" (in the hopes that I'll write a book someday and that somebody will talk about it on TV.  Which I should probably clarify for the universe, since this could easily slip into "As Seen on TV!" territory ... and before you know it, I've authored a book on carpet stain removal?  Oh dear).

I can't remember now why I put down "Eating Raw."  But it seemed like a good goal to shoot for.

Me, Babette, and Amy.