Technofashion

I think this is frickin' amazing.


Look at that embroidery! It has LIGHTS IN IT.


This dress is seriously lovely. I would wear this. Where to, I have no idea, but it would make me feel like a fairy.

More technofashion

Fairytale Fashion: wow.

Running the gauntlet

So how had I forgotten how much therapy DRAINS you?

Two hours of talking about myself, babbling stories of how and where and when I have problems, surprisingly having to keep myself from breaking down more than once.

I think that entire two-hour period I had every muscle in my body clenched.

I was a lot more nervous about the meeting than I thought I would be. I mean, it's like going into a business meeting making a proposal as to why your project should be taken on, only you have to explain exactly how you are messed up and why you need help with it. So in addition to trying to get someone to care, you have to talk about already painful things.

I found that I have extreme difficulty meeting peoples' eyes, more so than I thought. I found that when talking about myself and my issues I downplay it like whoa. Well, that's not a shocking revelation or anything, but the therapist actually commented on it when I was periodically giving him my anxiety level on a scale of 1-10.

I said, at first, 6. Really, it was probably more like an 8. Later, when I had relaxed a little, I said about 4. Really, more like 5 or 6.

I downplay myself because...it feels weak to be so stressed out over such a...commonplace thing. I feel guilty being stressed out over commonplace things when there are so many more valid reasons to be stressed. I don't want people to know how stressed out I am because I want them to like me, and who would feel drawn towards a spastic mess?

He left about halfway through to get some paperwork, and I actually did have a mini-breakdown. I was able to get it under control fairly quickly, but it was a measure of how. Damn. Stressed. I. Was.

After it was over, I was seriously exhausted. I wanted to go home (instead of going to the library like we'd planned) and take a nap. I wanted to retreat into myself and not have to talk to Husband or cook or anything. Of course, I couldn't do that, but at least I got some old comfort books to calm down in.

The day after was like...I don't know why it would be this way, but it was like all the worry of the day before had compounded itself to where I felt literally ill with anxiety about going to work. That day combined with the tension of the day before gave me the tension headache to end all tension headaches. I've had tension and posture-related pain in my neck and shoulders ever since. Oy.

So...the therapy. Will it work? I don't know. I liked the therapist. He seems nice and willing to work with me. He wants me to speak to the center's medicine person to discuss my options re: medication, but he doesn't seem to want to push me to take anything. He seems open-minded and like he will take a creative approach to helping me.

I hope it works. The money issue means maybe I can only go twice a month, which means it might take longer for me to get better, but I'm optimistic. I would just like to get to where I'm able to do normal, every-day things without feeling like I'm about to die. Chat with people, go to work, make mistakes.

Not want to run away before I make mistakes. Not feel like enemies are lurking behind every bush, waiting to mock my every imperfection.

Impulse control

I did the unthinkable.

I did something momentous.

What is this gargantuan accomplishment, you ask?

Well, I...actually made an appointment to see a therapist.

...Believe me, that's better than it sounds. I've been saying I need to do this since 2004. This is the first time I've gotten desperate/miserable/motivated/determined enough to do so, and it was right after I wrote my last entry.

And of course, as it always is when I finally cave and make an appointment to go to a doctor, therapist, etc., I've been feeling a lot better lately. Relief, I guess. That's something to talk about-- how acutely I make myself worse just by keeping it all in, worrying away at it, building it up and up until it's a big scary volcano of fear inside of me.

I feel like I have been doing better lately, though. The exercise is unquestionably helping. I feel less upset when I feel healthy and look good (it helps to find out that my supposed current body fat percentage is at the "athelete" level...don't judge me!). I have been actively trying to address my nervous compulsions, the trichotillomania, the dermatillomania, the sugar addiction, etc., though I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with that so I'm focusing mostly on the hair and the sugar. I've drastically reduced the amount of hair I pull out-- I can touch my hair without feeling the need to search for "aberrant" strands to yank on. I've cut back to sugar in my coffee (and not always then, even) and fruit, though I do plan to allow myself a treat once a week or so. And, of course, the fact that I've managed to exercise every day for nearly five weeks now, and floss every night since June 20th, makes me feel wonderful. I've formed two positive habits! Hooray!

But...ugh, I feel like I need a diagnosis. I feel like I need someone to tell me that I do in fact have a problem (or problems) with a name, and that it's not just me. It's not just weirdness. Having something with a name that is medically recognized means having an enemy you can fight. Simply being weird, and having to fight weird, is like the U.S. going to Vietnam to fight communism. Where the hell do you even start?

I am hoping that my therapist will actually listen to me when I tell him all this. I am taking a first step towards trying to get beyond the fear, and trying to not always aim low, and trying to make my life something that I want to live.

I hope it gets beyond one step.

Sick of this

I am...wasting my life.

I am learning this by reading about what other people are doing with themselves. It's not about keeping up with the Joneses. It's about...not feeling like your days are just killing time in between major events.

What do I do with myself? I work. I do normal chores. I read books and re-read books. I watch the same episodes of the same shows over and over again. I lie on the couch. I spend most of my life at home on the couch.

Okay, I do work on projects. I'm almost done with my fabric book I've been working on for over a year, and I've started crocheting on my second afghan less because I enjoy crocheting and more because I want to use up the non-pretty yarn I've had hoarded away since the dawn of time. I've been exercising at least half an hour every day for a month at this point and I'm starting to feel the difference, even if I don't look it.

But what is that? It's bupkis. It's time-killing, even if I enjoy it. Stuff to cross off my List of Things to Do This Year So I Don't Feel Like a Total Lazy Loser. Not even stuff I really want to do anymore, necessarily.

What am I doing with my life?

I feel...trapped. Trapped by my house and my limited income, which seriously, despite all my whining about being poor, is not normally a problem.

It only occurred to me last night that the relative financial freedom I anticipate once the house is paid off is only an illusion. There are always things to fix about a house. Plumbing goes dead. A mudroom must be built so we have a place to put a cast-iron stove so if our power goes out in the winter we have enough heat to not freeze. The roof starts to leak. The road needs to be re-graveled.

I will never have a chance to replenish my meager checking account. My husband has plenty in his, so he will be paying the bulk of anything major, and then I'll have to "pay him back" by paying for everything else, which will wipe out my checking account yet again and not let me even catch my breath because we always overpay to avoid paying lots of interest.

So in the meantime I can't take classes, spend money on the gas it would take to get me to volunteer somewhere, go to the frickin' therapy I think I need because I feel like I keep getting worse and worse.

And I read about what my family does, my friends do. I don't envy them their jobs that require sixty-hour work weeks, but I do envy them their kids, their positions as chair of this or that amazing volunteer organization, their three-week trips to China, their voice lessons and constant efforts to improve themselves and be the best they can be.

What am I doing? I'm lying on my couch, stitching on something only me and my husband and maybe my parents will ever see.

It's not even all about money. I could volunteer. Hell, there are plenty of places right near where I live that could maybe use some help. I could maybe even find something to do like my husband does, selling off the video games he amassed when he had a store for a tidy profit. He makes money doing these things, and he gets to spend it on stuff like Kindles and CDs and DVDs and crap. I'm not, though, am I?

I'm too scared. I'm scared of responsibility. I'm scared of having to be the one to answer to any blame if something goes wrong. I couldn't even handle a 40-hour a week professional job because it made me so anxious I couldn't eat, sleep, or go an hour without crying. I've volunteered before, but I need an exact task, or someone to tell me exactly what to do each day, or I'm too scared to take the initiative for fear I will mess something up. I'm too scared to submit any of my work to anything that might show it to more people beyond my immediate sphere because criticism makes me horribly anxious. I don't even take pictures and show it on my frickin' Facebook.

I feel...trapped. By my own fear. I want to do SO MUCH MORE. I want to look back on my life-book and feel that I did something. I made some sort of difference. I want to be more than a goddamned shut-in with no one to mourn her when she dies!

My nail polish is chipped.

Sure Signs Fall is On Its Way:

I start having to sleep under the sheets on the bed. When the nights are in the 70s and you've spent the day in varying degrees of stickiness, it's all you can do to even lie on top of anything. Your skin touching anything is only going to compound the problem, and you will wake up drenched and have to peel yourself off the sheets. Thus the concept of needing to lie beneath something, even if it's only a threadbare top-sheet, is a novel concept.

I start having to wear clothes when I get up in the morning. I am an early riser. It is a rare day indeed that I wake up past 7 am, and even at the crack of dawn it is usually warm enough that I can be in my altogether and still be hot be perfectly comfortable. Now I have to actually put on a shirt, or there is gooseflesh. Gooseflesh, people! Gooseflesh hasn't happened since that freak snow flurry we had in April!

The cat deigns to sleep next to me. My cat is not a lap cat. She is affectionate, but she is also wary. Even when she sleeps in the way cats do, all sprawled out and utterly abandoned to the lazy glory of deep sleep, she has one eye open just in case you decide that now would be a good time to eat her.

So when I go to collapse on the sweat-soaked mess that is my bed, she will always follow me, but will meticulously settle down on the opposite side, where I can't reach her. Granted, this may be because my sleeping style involves a lot of flailing and flouncing that may or may not have resulted in a kitty bitch-smack or too, but still. A sure sign of impending fall is that she actually lies down next to me, touching me, even, leeching my precious warmth like the bloodsucker she is. Eee, kitty snuggles.

It takes 30 hours to get home from work. School buses are bad, but worse are the carefully spaced-out traffic lights on our road that activate once school is in session. One is waiting to turn onto the road, when one of the lights turns green, letting a stream of cars by while the other lane has crickets chirping and tumbleweeds blowing across it. One waits patiently for those cars to go by, when the other traffic light turns green, and the dead lane now becomes a flurry of sudden activity! Lather, rinse, repeat. And of course all these cars are exactly 10 feet apart, like someone put them in formation, so you can't creep out in between them. No, that wouldn't do at all.

My mother-in-law starts forcing winter squash upon us. Not that I'm complaining. I like squash. But these are crazy monster squashes like on steroids, and they frighten me a little.

The stores suddenly decide black and orange is a good color combination. Never mind that Halloween is still two months away, but that's an old story, stores being in a rush for people to buy, buy, buy. It makes me sad because I love Halloween, and no kids come to our door because we live on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, and really Halloween is only fun as an adult if you have kids. Well, unless you don't have issues with buying a bag of Halloween candy for your own personal consumption and, maybe, mix it with a Buttery Nipple or two. And I don't!

That's all I got. North Carolina is all mild and crap and I'm unobservant.

What else...

--I would like a pair of boots and one or two more sweaters, and then I'm pretty much good on the clothing front. I've weeded quite a bit from my closet and am making it a point to wear everything that I haven't worn in a long time once, to see if I still actually like it or if it even looks good. Thus far, I'm realizing that I have a lot of great stuff in my closet that I'm an idiot for forgetting about.
--Still working out. My inner thighs are sad.
--Celebrated our second wedding anniversary yesterday. We ate sushi and Indian food, bought an ugly headboard for our bed, and spent a lot of gift cards on random stuff. We realized that instead of spending a bajillion dollars on art for our walls, we could purchase an art-related coffee table book on clearance and cut out the pictures. So now except for one or two spots, our walls finally are covered and our house looks like someone lives here now. Hooray for cheapskatedness!
--Eating roast nori straight from the package results in a lot of mess.

THE END.

A Batman week

I suppose I haven't written a "depressed" entry (or any entry) lately, so I guess we're about due for one.

I've had an eventful week.

My birthday. August 20th, I turned 29. I woke up sore, crampy, and knowing I'd likely be neck-deep in Shark Week before the day was done. Plus, I had to work. Needless to say, I was in a bad mood.

No one at work wished me a happy birthday. This I didn't mind because I don't think I've even told anyone the date of my birthday, but it was still annoying to waste half the day on such mundane occupations such as the work that pays my bills.

Husband e-mailed me to ask if I wanted to get some dinner in my work city, but I was all in a boo-hoo, poor me mood already so I said no. I was truly in a foul mood.

I got some birthday moolah from my mother-in-law and my aunt, so I happily went to Target to procure some new clothes. Do you know how long it's been since I've gotten something new at the store? Anyway, I was a little disappointed because they didn't have some things I'd looked at online, and others were more expensive than online had promised, and in fact I formed the opinion that online was a magical non-existent fairyland full of sweet, sweet glittery lies. I managed to find plenty of stuff anyway...I just had to spend more to do it.

That night I tried my home-made hard cider, which I'd had high-ish hopes for. It was definitely alcoholic, but I'd not added enough sugar, I guess, so it was fairly dry and more like an odd apple champagne than hard cider. So a little disappointing, but still successful. I got drunk and that pretty much ended my uneventful birthday.

Wah, wah. No reason for me to feel upset. I was given cash to spend, I had successfully completed a project, I had a tame workday, my husband even ASKED if I wanted to eat out (we never eat out), and I had roughly 6 or 7 outfits and a bathing suit for something like $95, which I think is pretty darn good. My mother-in-law had even bought me a pint of Ben and Jerry's and made me some of my favorite hot wings, so I had tasty nummies that I didn't have to make/buy myself. Honestly, it wasn't THAT bad a birthday. I've had worse.

I chalked it up to hormones, and this turned out to be correct.

Aunt Flo. Every month on Facebook and/or Twitter, I make a post on some aspect of my period. This is because I'm a lazy motherfucker and don't feel like charting, and I'm not on the Pill so I've no other way to keep track of when to expect the crime scene in my pants. I have a quite regular cycle, and thanks to my Facebooking, I knew to expect my period on about the 18th.

It still hadn't come by my birthday. This led to obvious worries.

Now without going into too many details, let's just say there were...opportunities this month for my uterus to gain an occupant. Unlikely opportunities due to non-hormonal protection, but stranger things have happened. People get preggers on the Pill AND using condoms AND their husband supposedly got snipped ages ago.

I didn't think it could be possible. I mean, again, without going into too many details, you know when the statistics mention "perfect use?" Our use is about as perfect as it gets. I figured it had to be something else.

I took up exercising every day a while back in the hopes that I'd build a good habit. I thought my body might be reacting to that. I'd cut severely back on my intake of soy and wheat. I thought since soy mimics estrogen, hey, who knows? I thought it might be stress, but I hadn't really been all that stressed lately. I thought it might be my thyroid playing tricks, but...again, except for moodiness, I've been feeling pretty good lately (might be due to the exercise).

I told myself to not make assumptions and leap to conclusions like I always do. After all, to quote a friend of mine, "Who hasn't had a 30-day cycle?"

Of course, the next day I still hadn't gotten it. That made it something like 32 days.

I took a pregnancy test. No dice. So...that just made it weird. I read that it could possibly be too early for a test to show up as negative, so there was that, but I was also busy worrying about whatever else it could be.

All in all, not a great scenario.

I hadn't gotten it by the morning of the 22nd, but I felt like I'd be getting it any second. I started spotting just the tiniest little bit, and thought to myself, "Okay, if it's going to come, then just COME ALREADY." Then I also thought, "That's what she said" because I am a dork.

Finally, it arrived, irrevocably and unmistakably around lunchtime. The part of me that secretly wanted to be pregnant wailed, "Maybe this little bit is all that will come! Women have little mini-periods all the time in early pregnancy!" But, alas, it was not to be.

It came on all in a flood that night and it was like my midsection was clawing its way out of my body for the next three days, which is not at all the norm for me. Heavier than normal, too. Supposedly a lot of the time when you're late and then you get a heavy period, it means you've miscarried a very early pregnancy. That idea made me more unhappy than just getting my period late did...I mean, really, what's better, just getting your period late for a random reason, or getting pregnant and then losing it a couple weeks in?

So of course those four days of uncertainty made me all moody and depressed and droopy, in addition feeling like crap physically. I'm blowing all this way out of proportion, of course, but I do that. Pregnancy and other reproduction-related topics are kind of not good for me lately.

Miscellaneous. And then there were lots of arguments and misunderstandings, blah blah blahs. Left me feeling very uncertain and harboring several fantasies that would change my life immensely and not for the better. But I won't discuss that here.

Let's just say it was a dark week.

But hey, I got new clothes finally!

L’oiseau que tu croyais surprendere battit d’aile et s’envola.

Sitting here on a Tuesday morning, sipping on my half-regular, half-decaf coffee (don't want to get jittery like a withdrawing junkie with a seizure disorder), eating my Very Healthy breakfast of blue corn tortilla chips, and enjoying my hour or two of solitude before I have to start cooking for the next couple of days.

It's a very exciting life, mine.

Oh! Oh! I have a new little mini-project I have to show and tell! "Have to" because it's one I actually finished! I am proud! I should probably be less proud!

I have several friends (read: know several people) who home-brew, and while it doesn't appeal to me as a hobby beyond the casual (because I don't like beer and wine is only so-so), I am interested enough that I wanted to try making something I DO like with the fermentation process: hard cider, and ginger ale.

Since I am too lazy and poor (drink three shots, readers) to bother with all the S locks and stoppers and tubing and food-grade pails and crap that proper homebrewing involves, I went the ghetto route: glass jars, rubber bands, and *ahem* saran wrap.

It's pretty easy, actually. You mix some brewer's yeast (bought for 80 cents a pack at the local homebrew store...you know I live in Hippie Heaven when we've got an honest-to-god, brick-and-mortar HOMEBREW STORE, for heaven's sake, and yes, 80 cents I can manage) with sugar, dump it into your container along with your liquid and whatever other ingredients (I put grated ginger root and lemon juice in the ginger ale), and then add some water. Stretch the plastic wrap over the mouth of the vessel very tightly, secure with rubber band, poke the tiniest little hole so the evil bacteria (hopefully) won't get in, put in a warmish, darkish area....and wait.

My hard cider won't be ready for a couple of days (it takes a week because all the little yeasties are eating the sugar and pooping out alcohol), but my ginger ale was ready last night!




I obviously have to strain all the ginger and errant lemon seeds and crap out of it first, but look at that glass! YOU CAN SEE BUBBLES.

it turned out pretty well! Fizzy and gingery and decidedly not fake-tasting like most ginger ale. I futzed up the recipe by mistake, because I put all the ingredients into a quart jar instead of a 2-liter bottle, so it was waaaay too sweet, and I hadn't had a whole lemon, so it wasn't as tart as it could have been, but all in all, I'm ready to call my first attempt at homebrewing a resounding success.



Now I just hope the hard cider turns out. Friday is my 29th birthday, and I aim to get shit done. And by "shit" I mean "liquorin'."

You know it's time, you see the sign

Sometimes you stumble upon stuff that is just so YOU. Here's more of the crazy colorful bohemian stuff that I love, and some color palette inspirations, and whatnot.



I love layers and drapey things. I have to be careful with them, being knee-high to a grasshopper and squarely built all at once, or they make me look like I'm a foot tall. (Pics from here, here, here, and here.)



Mmmm, tie-die/acid/paint splatter/sunset-y goodness. (Pic from here.)



Maybe I will take my 394873984 plain black shirts and spruce them up a bit. (Pic from here.)



These are so simple, yet I love them. (Pics from here, here, and here.)



I like crazy tights. Someday I should take pictures of the stockings my mom got me from Italy a few years back. One of the best clothing-related gifts she's ever given me. Usually she's...a little fail at it. Alas. (Pic from here.)



I WANT TO WEAR THIS ROOM. And live in it! (Pic from here.)



I almost had an embroidery-gasm at the sight of this. Would this not be absolutely breathtaking as a free-form embroidery piece? Haha, I can't even tell what it is, a painting or drawing or whatever. For all I know is IT a free-form embroidery. Anyway, it's gorgeous. Would love it printed on a t-shirt or a skirt. (Pic from here.)


I really have been stepping up the effort to not dress like a schlub, at least on the days I have to leave the house. Let me tell you, "effort" is not even an exaggeration. It's hard to be creative sometimes! One of these days I'll actually get around to taking pictures of my outfits. Compared to my previous uniform of jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers of some kind, they are splendiferously wacky.

And boy howdy, do they make me feel great! I've gotten compliments on my pieces every workday since I've started this project, and I walk out the door feeling like a sexy hipster with my bad self. Why did I not do this before?

An early morning walk

Sometimes I just feel like being alone.

Not because I hate myself, not because I’m depressed, but because my head is crammed so full of stuff that I need to drop all my masks and boundaries and wariness and let it all out in a slow and quiet explosion. This is why I love getting up so early.


In the morning, on my walk

At 6 am, the world is dark, damp, and still. The people are asleep, but outside everything is awakening. The first rays of the sun are brightening the horizon, the birds are beginning their morning-song, and the only things stirring are animals nibbling unobtrusively at the grass.


An apple on our mostly-wild orchard

I go out and have a quiet walk. My feet get soaked, and my jeans get smeared with mud, but the serenity seeps inside my head. I slowly turn my focus from the internal to the external.


A butterfly in the foliage, complete with muscadines

I see things that I don’t normally pay attention long enough to see.


A wary-looking turtle on my woods path

I like to touch things, linger over their scent, drink in their colors.


An overhang of roots and plants above WNC's red, red dirt

This is a good time to go to my in-laws’ garden when we need to cook something that day. I have a goal, a purpose, a direction…at least for half an hour. Plus, the garden is a riot of textures and hues that delight the senses.


Gerbera daisies, in a beautiful color combination


The garden and all its tasty glories

Whenever I see a wide open field, or a sweeping expanse of a hill slope, something inside me is released. I want to spread my arms wide and run into the wind with my hair tossed and twisted into live snakes. I am alone, and it is enough.



I want to buy an RV and set out across the country by myself in a nomadic life, and I want to throw it all to the winds and go find a job teaching English abroad for years in a country where I don't speak the language, and I want to get a small sailboat and hover around the islands of the Caribbean, fishing and diving for my dinner, picking fruits and living off what I can barter for…I want to have a microhouse deep in the wilds of Wyoming, or a motorcycle, a tent, and a thousand European highways.

I want great things and a never-ending wonder of an existence…but after I take my walk, I am mostly contented to be where I am. Myself, in my house, with my husband, in our orchard.

Things I like in my house

I used to be one of those people who would buy random stuff just because it was neat, or "would be a great conversation piece," or other similar and stupid reasons. There are many nifty thingamajigs in the world; my eleventy-zillion boxes of stuff from my college dorm room attested to that. I planned to keep it all and decorate my future house with it. Then I met my husband, and we moved seven times in six years, and I learned that was a little impractical. So I got rid of a lot and made a solemn vow to not acquire any more stuff unless it was either practical, or until I had a house.

Now? I has a house. Of course, my taste has changed, as has my budget (new My Blog Drinking Game = drink ten shots if D goes one entry without mentioning how poor she is).


Got this vase for $10 from a yard sale last week. It says it's Japanese, but I don't know how true that is. All I know is that it's got intricate line painting and high contrast and it's LOVELY. We're looking for a nice tall plant stand to put it on, but we'll probably have to yard sale/thrift store that as well, since IKEA has failed us in providing cheap things that are actually what we want.


Hubs found this cat in our storage trailer, which is stuffed full of random appliances, a broken tanning bed, a cast-iron stove we plan on stealing at some point, and my mother-in-law's Christmas supplies, which take up a whole room. I like the devious look on his featureless face. I also like the dried daffodils in the green glass vase. I also really like green glass.


We got this print in Kyoto, while walking along the Philosopher's Path. The artist hand-drew this, incredibly detailed and intricate and wow. We wanted to buy all of them, but that would have been something like 200 bucks, so one it was. The size was very irregular and didn't fit any standard frames, so instead we got creative with a floating glass frame. I'd prefer a nicer sight through the glass than our crappy double-wide wallpaper, but it's better than nothing.


Maneki neko says, "Hello!" If I had a lot of money, I would buy a lot of maneki neko. I would stick them all in a big shadow box and hang it on my wall.


We got this hand-painted postcard on the Philosopher's Path for a mere dollah. The picture frame is a wedding gift that has sat unused for almost two years (coincidentally enough, since the wedding), but Hubs decided it would go nicely together. I like his style.


My in-laws go to a lot of yard sales, and often find really amazing stuff. Mother-in-law and her sister found a set of shadow boxes somewhere, and I was given this one. I LOVE shadow boxes. They are like adult dollhouses except you can't reach in and play with the stuff you put in them. This one is hanging on my office wall (my RED walls, that I painted myself, four coats, no applause) and is appropos what with the books and all.


I don't own all that many knickknacks anymore, since I disposed of a lot of them every time we moved and have only just begun to accumulate more. These knickknacks, however, are not going anywhere. They are from left to right: a peacock feather and Pier One red glass bottle centerpiece from our wedding, a frame containing baby pictures of Hubs, a menorah I got for my Bat Miztvah (it's never used, but I likez eet), Agent Skully, the artist formerly known as Mr. Skullhead (Mother-in-law randomly painted that for Hubs back in the day and I stole it from him), a Ramune bottle (Japanese soda), a Wieselburger beer bottle (drunk by me in Vienna circa 2003), and a Jelinek rum bottle (purchased by me in Prague circa 2003).


We have a china hutch full of pretty things. I've always loved the blue and white patterns of Mediterranean-inspired stuff, like these condiment dishes with their tiny spoons. There's also an incense burner I honestly can't remember how I acquired, and a trinket box decorated with seeds that my mom got us from Argentina.


I sewed and embroidered this mat for our side table a few months ago, to keep the lamp from scratching the hell out of it and to distract the eye from the unsightly lamp cord. Our living room/dining room area has this whole muted, earthy crimson-sage-tan-black color palette going on, so I went with that. Now I need to make one for the coffee table, because we are slovenly slackers and use dish rags to lay our plates on while we eat on the couch in front of the TV, oh god.

We need to get some more wall art at some point, but I like what we have so far.

Interest piqued

Every now and then, I get a random urge to start dressing like like a shlub, and more like I used to, which is "funkily." I've never been what most would call a "fashionista," and honestly, my style is as schizophrenic and muddled and eclectic as...well, pretty much everything else about me, but I do like pretty clothes.

Back when I was in high school and first started actually noticing clothing (late bloomer, I know), I wanted pretty much the entirety of the Delia's catalog. I loved the 90s fashions for the most part-- graphic tees, ringer and baseball tees, tight corduroys, big ice rings and jewelry with crazy graphics, Asian print practically EVERYTHING. I read Sassy. That's almost a cliche for 90s alterna-girl, but I loved it. I wanted to dress like a kinderwhore. I wanted babydoll dresses. I started going to thrift stores and bought these awesome rust-colored cords that I adored. Of course, being 4'11" and not being endowed with hips yet, they didn't fit. I think I went through high school in baggy pants.

I went goth later on, and stole my mom's old hippie jeans (they slowly disintegrated a year later, I wore them so much), and wanted to be punk but didn't know where to find the clothes. I found some old kids' t-shirts and wore them with Sesame Street barrettes. Then I more or less started the whole skirt-over-pants thing at my school...I was at least one of the first to start wearing them.

I went through a Japanese fashion craze in college, all brights and layers and random crap, very derelicte, very *gulp* Olsen Twins-meets-raver. The brights got old fast, but instead I started trying to alter and sew my own clothes. That never went too well, because I lack mad skillz.

Since I left grad school, I kind of stopped bothering. Between being paranoid about looking all professional and sober (despite my work's lack of dress code) and having to wear a uniform as a waitress, I fell into this jeans and t-shirt rut. How boring. I'd only try to look cute when we went out, and we never went out, so.

We went to Japan in June, and I'd been hoping for some serious fashion CPR. Japanese people are short like me and have nice street fashion, or so the legends of Harajuku told me. In actuality, we arrived in Harajuku and its ilk right at a moment when things were in stores that quite horrified me (mostly). I like girly, do not get me wrong. I love romantic clothes, crochets and knits and lace and ruffles and chiffon and floral print. But this was, like, Laura Ashley-meets-Laura Ingalls print. Wallpaper print. Couch print. YUCK. And with the crochet it was too busy (too busy! for ME!) and looked cheap.

Plus I don't get why people like jumpsuits, or high-waisted things, or slouchy pegged boyfriend jeans. Drop-crotch leggings! WHY??!? Why do people find these things flattering???

Happily, on less "MUST FOLLOW FASHION TREND OF THIS MILLISECOND OR DIE" people, I liked the clothes a lot more. People just look more put-together there. They'll wear jeans and a t-shirt, yes, but the t-shirt will have just a little detailing to make it interesting, or they'll wear a nice cardigan or drape over it, or they'll have some cute accessories to spruce it up, and shoes. Oh my god! The shoes! I've never seen so many cute shoes! But alas, I was poor (despite cross-globe travel) and did not buy any. Even the office workers in their uniforms would have cute clips or pins in their hair, or adorable (and subtle...not crazy airbrushed jungles and tiger stripes) manicures. I wanted to take lots of pictures.

There's a fashion trend in Japan that is much like the hippie/bohemian look at home (I can only assume it's a trend, as there were similar stores everywhere), only it seemed...MORE so. Brighter and bolder, more daring. The outfits were all layers and mixed fabrics and a riot of texture. Embroidery, batik, natural fibers, but somehow still subtle. A lot like the gazillion hippie stores in Ashe-vegas but less mass-produced and more interesting. I liked those stores the most.

So pre-Japan, I've been making an effort to try to be less shlubby, like I said. I have some nice clothes and accessories that I've rarely worn because of current shlub-dom, so I've been digging them out. Of course, the fact that I've weeded out a lot is hard. I have five of the exact same black shirt from Kohl's in my closet. That's, like, a third of my wardrobe, and IT IS EXACTLY THE SAME.

Reading fashion blogs and actually looking at the catalogs of stores that aren't Kohl's or Target (oy) is both giving me inspiration and the ITCH. Want clothes. Want MORE. I'm foaming at the mouth as I type. It's all zombieriffic and disgusting. Maybe I can steal brains and sell them for science so I can have the money to actually afford my revamped form of expression.


(image courtesy of here.)

I like more or less the entire Anthropologie catalog, and the contents of this Etsy store, and I'm dying to
go to thrift stores and the hippie stores to see what I can salvage. I wish Anthropologie clothes weren't a million dollars each. The thrift stores might be all I can manage now!