Today’s post was going to be a commentary on rape culture, and the misogyny of treating survivors like broken dolls, but I’m tired and I can’t get anything to come out right.
So I made this hat, and it’s for sale in my store.
Hat made by me, and for sale here
Scarf is from Mervin’s
Shirt from The Gap
Skirt from the thrift store
As you know, I’m working on a couple different ways to make some extra money around the house. So last week, Ben and I went to the park and took some shots to showcase the three main styles of crochet stuffs I’ll be selling on Etsy. I wanted to launch today, but all the pictures I took this morning with my own camera turned out pretty crappy. I thought about it, and I decided that if I have the time and the energy to do it right, I might as well scrap it and retake everything with Ben’s camera, even though that is maddening.
I don’t actually have a lot of time to work on the Etsy site, even though I think about it and talk about it basically constantly. I worry that when we do open everybody’s going to take one look at it and think, ‘all that drama for this?’ I mean, if I just wanted to make money, a minimum wage cashier gig, or a string of housecleaning jobs would have doubled what I’ll make from this store in half the work time. I’m starting this in the same spirit that I started to blog. I don’t really know where this journey will lead, but I’m going to go forward and figure it out along the way. There’s no real rush to open. It’s only my own anxiousness that’s making me want to get to the next step. I’ve been toiling over something nobody but Ben sees for literally months now (a month and 24 days counts as months, right?), and I’m anxious to get it moving. So, instead of this being a launch post, it’ll have to be a sneak preview of sorts. What can I say? Patience is not one of my virtues.
In the meantime, I’ve found a good calendaring solution for my immediate needs:
My “to do” board/office mirror
Hat by me (of course)
Scarf is a hand-me-down from my great grandma
Green tank (under the vest) from The Gap
Vest from Ross
Navy Talbots jacket from the thrift store
Overskirt is a wrap around from Many Hands in Corvallis, Or
Underskirt is from the thrift store
Shoes are Taos from Footwise Corvallis, Or
So now that I’ve talked up the Etsy store nobody’s allowed to see, here’s my most recent ebay auction: A VHS copy of Gregg Araki’s Splendor!
I’d feel like a bad friend if I didn’t tell you that you can watch the whole thing on youtube here:
Just, you know, if you feel the need to own an obsolete copy of a film you can watch for free anytime you want…
Today’s also the last day of my Clementina van der Walt cup auction. It only has one bidder for $10, so if you ever wanted to pay $10.50 for hand-painted South African cups, now’s your time to shine!
I know I already talked about it, but I am still insanely in love with The Steel Remains. I finished it Wednesday and immediately purchased more audible credits so I could buy the sequel, The Cold Commands. Almost without noticing it, I’ve already listened to over six and a half hours of the seventeen hour book in the ensuing day and a half. Yesterday evening Ben and I were walking the dog and I found myself (for the millionth time) completely geeking out over the characters and how great they are. Then out of nowhere, I basically screamed “I can’t wait for you to read this book, it’s so great!” It scared him. He yelled a little bit.
I think I’m actually going to have to self-impose a break starting tomorrow because this is the kind of book where I ingest it as fast as humanely possible, which basically dehydrates all of it’s raw emotion and shunts it into my brain with a t-shirt cannon, and that is followed by the massive, crippling depression of knowing that the book is over and I can’t have any more until the author writes the third (and last) installment. When the cycle will start all over again.
Unexpectedly, another book I’m really enjoying right now is Richard Branson’s Loosing My Virginity. I had it on my Amazon with list and Ben’s mom sent it to us (along with a ton of other books) for our birthdays. I’d expected it would be like all the other business books I’ve ever read: edifying and sometimes interesting on an abstract level, but ultimately boring and slow. To my incredible surprise and joy, the Virgin Group head gives pretty great, and sometimes almost unbelievable autobiography. I’m only 100 pages in out of something like 600, so I can’t speak to the whole thing, young Branson is only about 21 at this point.
I admit, sometimes the things he and his idle rich family get up to can be annoying. Oh, he had this aunt who had a boyfriend with a biplane and she owned a farm and a marketing firm, but times was so tough his parents could only afford 3 separate boarding schools. Must have been hard. But once you’re over the fact that this is a fairly serious view of the inside of Bristsh landed gentry, a class whose ignorance of reality has been centuries in the making, it’s kind of fun. When the rich don’t know they’re rich, they come up with some mostly hilarious ideas of what roughing it looks like. But they also get up to some grand adventures. And all this class hate isn’t to suggest I don’t think at least some of the lessons he’s learned can be translated downstream. Ignoring the chip on my shoulder, this book is really a good time. After all the brooding and hacking people to pieces in the Ringil Eskiath stories, some wacky seet-of-our-pants entrepreneurial chicanery hits the spot.
Necklace from Macy’s
Maroon shirt from the thrift store
Charter Club Sweater from Macy’s
Charter Club Skirt from Macy’s
Extraordinary Thigh High Socks from Sock Dreams
Taos shoes from Footwise in Corvallis, Or
While I was editing this album I realized something. This outfit totally reminds me of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Ponies I love on that show, in order from most loved to least loved are: Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Zecora the witchpony, Granny Smith, Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy.
Oh, you know, she’s only MY SECOND LEAST FAVORITE PONY WORTH MENTIONING.
My real least favorite is Derpy because she makes me uncomfortable.
And not for politically correct reasons. That would be hypocritical.
What the fuck is her cutie mark anyway? Is that lizard skin? Whichever of the writers made Derpy’s special ability psoriasis is a mean, lonely bitch.
Bandana from REI
Black sweater from Macy’s
Maroon shirt from Target
Blue Undershirt from The Gap
Skirt from The Gap
Leggings from Target
Socks were a gift
Vans from the Van’s store
In a couple of these shots, you can see the edge of my LG Tone Wireless Headset. They’re on sale right now for ‘cyber Monday week’ and if you’re looking for a wireless headset, these are my jam. I love them. They’re easy to pair, easy to connect, comfortable as hell, and really convenient. They solve the only problem that I had when I switched from my ipod to my phone: inaccessible controls. We’re basically inseparable.
Oh, and you should watch this. This kid is the voice of Finn the Human on Adventure Time. And this shit’s hilarious.
I know what you’re thinking. I’m a grown woman who still watches children’s cartoons. You’re right, my life is pretty awesome. I like to think of myself as an example. Something to aspire to, really.
So it has recently come to my attention that I already had a post called The Pinkening. Fairly recently, actually. So this post shall henceforth be known as The Other Pinkening.
I had planned to be in bed 20 minutes ago, but instead I was sitting around I live-tweeting old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation like I didn’t have a care in the world. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Ben helped.
Rugby shirt from Target
Miniskirt from Target
Leggings from Target
Socks from Target
PF Flyers from Target. Just kidding, they were a Christmas gift from Ben’s dad.
Fuck, I fucking love Target!
Oh, and in a random and poorly sampled social experiment, I asked the citizens of Reddit what it was they felt they were not allowed to do as women, and as men. Got a multitude of interesting results, along with some wacky men’s rights dudes being super dramatic. But otherwise, good data.
Me: Is that sentence about men’s rights wackos offensive?
Ben: I don’t know, but is it really necessary?
Then I made a sound with my nose and the back of my throat that I hope conveyed the sentiment: Um, seriously? Almost nothing I do is necessary.
Men’s rights guys aren’t all wackos, just some of them are. I mean, when decades of white guilt finally gets an exit hole, it blasts itself through with such force that the entire organism starts to vibrate with the screech of a thousand years of entitlement and privilege only recently curtailed. It’s kind of elegant, really. But seriously, some of the rage that sits right behind the eyes of these men’s rights dudes is fucking shoot-em-up ultra-violence scary to me.
Real talk, though: gender inequality hurts all of us, weather that’s the fact that doctors would rather let us die instead of treat us because of sexist laws or the fact that people think it’s perfectly ok to chop bits off a person’s genitals in order for that person to not be considered weird. Men’s rights are necessary, but just like women’s rights advocates, some people can get a little bit wacky.
There, I said it.
We were Mad Men people at work for Halloween, and since I spent so much damn money and time on the outfit (the make-up was a bitch) I also wore it the the Halloween party we went to the weekend before.
You can tell the pictures I took after work because my tights got ripped and had been removed, and the heels got replaced by backup shoes after a long day of running around. I guess it’s a skill you eventually learn, but being a woman in any era before flats were acceptable work attire (basically right now) took a lot of grace, and an extremely high pain tolerance. Neither of which I posses. Actually, I do have a high pain tolerance, but that doesn’t mean I’m cool with enduring pain for hours and hours when comfy shoes are also an option.
Red lips courtesy of Laura Mercier, Cherrywood – This was actually the second tube I tried, on loan from my friend Carrie. The first tube, Make Up Forever’s Moulin Rouge was far too pink. In fact, I used it for blush.
Gray coat is from the thrift store.
Necklace is from Macy’s can’t remember the brand
Sweater is Charter Club from Macy’s
Tank under the sweater is Gap
Cocktail ring was a gift
Skirt is Charter Club from Macy’s
Hose is from Macy’s
Heels are Taos
Flats are Toms.
I love painting my nails, but I often feel that after a few days of being painted, they get weak and brittle. I think this is because they don’t get enough air with all the varnish on top of them. So I’ve started only painting the top portion of my nail, leaving the beds to air out. I call it the half mast manicure. I think it works. My nails don’t feel weaker, but they still get to be pretty.
The way I achieved the manicure I have in this What I Wore is I painted a majority of the nail with Revlon 571 Posh (green), let it dry completely, then applied Sally Hanson Salon Effects 240 Check It Out (houndstooth) to the top of the nail, leaving a stripe of green exposed. I cut the nail strips in order to save as much as possible, but that meant losing the handy strip tab that separates the strip itself from the white backing and the clear cover. So if you’re not good at pulling near invisible clear plastic coverings off of sticky things with one hand, you may want to just let the extra go to waste for the benefit of your sanity.
Jacket from Talbot’s via the thrift store
Vest is from Ross
Green shirt is from somewhere that I forgot
Skirt is from the thrift store
Socks are from Target
Houndstooth Converse are from a vintage shop, now defunct.
Jacket is from Talbots via the thrift store
Kerchief is from Mara, of Tangible Thing and also Ben’s sister
Button up shirt is from the Thrift Store
Vest is from Ross
Skirt is from Target
Shoes are from Vans
This is how I feel sometimes when I’m fake smiling for the camera
This outfit made me happy all day. I’m getting into shorter skirts lately, they just make me feel bouncier.
Kerchief from REI
Shirt from Target
Skirt from Target
Tights from Target
Shoes from the thrift store
Long sleeved Mountain Hardware shirt from REI
Summer dress from Asos
Belt from Target
Red skirt from Mervin’s
Leggings (not seen) from Target
Extraordinary thigh high socks from Sock Dreams (review here)
PF Flyers were a gift from Ben’s dad
Jingly world necklace was a gift from Ben’s sister Mara (her Etsy shop)
Cat from a shelter in Culver City, Ca
