picturing myself

It was supposed to rain on Sunday, but--glory be!--after some insubstantial morning showers the clouds parted to reveal sunny skies and hot hot heat! Despite the sun, K and I proceeded with our rainy day plans because we couldn't wait much longer! Besides, I wanted to wear this dress and I had planned to coordinate it with one of the afternoon's activities.

(dress: H&M; oxfords: Marshall's)

Lately I've been wishing that my peep-toe oxfords were closed-toe (actually, I kind of wished this when I bought them, but they were ten dollars) so I matched a pair of socks to the shoe for a sort of sneaky solution to my problem. I also ended up wearing my big dorky glasses per K's suggestion. I had purposefully omitted them from my original outfit because I thought they were too appropriate--I was afraid of looking costume-y.

We began the afternoon with a matinee of Babies at the Palace 9. I've been wanting to see it since the very first preview, but life had other plans. Because this was its last week playing anywhere in Vermont, we were literally running out of time to see it on the big screen! I kind of figured it wouldn't be the same if we waited until it came out on DVD and I think I was right--the sweeping landscapes were gorgeous and seeing it in the theatre played up the National Geographic-style grandeur.

I thought it was simultaneously fascinating and precious. K mostly just squirmed. We both agreed that the Mongolian baby was the best. The disparity between the lives of the Namibians and the others was striking. I hesitate to use the word "primitive" to describe them because I am generally of the opinion that tribal culture makes for a rich and rewarding organic human experience, but I have to admit that it was pretty startling to shift from Namibia to Japan or America, and even to Mongolia... and I can only conclude that the Mongolians seemed to have the best of both worlds. Babies made the American experience look so cold, phony and unappealing.

Next on our itinerary was a visit to the Fleming museum to check out the current exhibit: Picture Yourself: The Photobooth in America, 1926-2010. For some reason I thought my dress was well-suited for this particular exhibit, which I've had bookmarked in my mind since I first saw it advertised. I was eager to get to this one because I had been equally excited about the Andy Warhol: Fashionistas and Celebrities polaroid exhibit that passed through a few months ago and it was gone before I thought to make concrete plans.

I must say, I was un petit peu disappointed in the presentation. It seemed rather haphazard and there was no real continuity or chronology. Many of the strips had been trimmed to highlight a single image, but part of what interests me most about a photo strip is the sense of movement and progression in the four frames. It's difficult to get a sense of the personality of a person or the complexity of their relationship to the other person or people in a single image, but in four you can begin to imagine who they were and the circumstances that found them in a particular place at a particular time with particular company.

The best part of the exhibit? A real-life antique photobooth where apparently patrons were tricked into believing that they were alone, when in fact a creeper with a camera would photograph them from a secret compartment and manually slide the photos to them... and a real-life working vintage photobooth, where K and I received this priceless souvenir:

The first frame is my favorite. We were so unprepared... the look on my face is awesome, and K's blind surprise at the sudden flash is an absolute gem.

rattling brook music festival

What another great weekend! I am in love with summer :) Saturday was a gorgeous, sunny, eighty-degree day, so K and I decided to take a trip up to Belvidere, VT for the Rattling Brook Bluegrass Festival. What a pleasant surprise! K had his doubts because he'd never heard of any of the bands, but that was precisely why I knew it would be awesome. The festival has been going on for twenty-five years, but it's still very down-home and laid-back because it's not seriously advertised... it's kind of a word-of-mouth publicity plan.

We just hung out in the hot sun for several hours (my invisible accessory: sunscreen! my mother would be proud)...

(K's not-so-invisible accessory--he got so mad when he discovered that I had tied this in his hair!)

...and heard some great bluegrass (okay, there was a range of talent, but it was all fun!).

If I'd had any sort of foresight I would have brought a journal with me to record the names of all of these bands, but alas--I didn't want to be weighed down. At least I'll know better next year, when I will definitely be returning armed with a cooler of beer and a few of my best dancing-buddies--I literally could have stayed all night if I had someone to dance with, but K wasn't feeling it. The only thing he was feeling (besides joy, for being at such an awesomely quaint festival) was heatstroke.

Before we left, K agreed to take some outfit photos for me. Really he just wanted to take pictures of this truck, but I finagled my way into the frame so you could see my romper.

(romper/belt: Old Navy; shoes: Kohl's; hat: thrifted; sunglasses: UO)

I love this little romper because it reminds me of a picnic and it has little pockets in the front! I bought it months ago but was saving it for the perfect summer day--thanks, Rattling Brook!

Happy Summer Solstice, everyone!

dad

My dad is awesome.

Over the years, he has taught me some very valuable life lessons.

1) Bring a banjo when you hitchhike. Nobody will find you threatening if you're carrying a banjo, and people will pick you up, even if you otherwise look pretty sketchy. (My dad spent many years traveling around the country before [and after] he met my mother--on his motorcycle, on greyhound busses, and on the wag of his thumb. This is probably where I got the vagabond gene.)

2) While traveling on said greyhound busses, do not take over the wheel when the bus driver wants to sleep, especially in a snowstorm. You will crash the bus. (True Story.)

3) A Harvard alum, my father is one of the smartest people I will ever have the chance to know. That said, not all Harvard grads are terribly intelligent. (His long-lost best friend, best man, and fellow Harvard Crimson, recently revealed his questionable whereabouts by attempting to rob a bank. My father says, at least now he'll know where to find him [in jail].)

4) Wearing short-shorts makes your legs look longer. HA! Just kidding. But that is the truth. The real lesson: Always carry a chainsaw in your car, even if you work in "the big city." You will have many opportunities to awe and impress your less-prepared neighbors when their commute to work is disrupted by a large felled tree. Or, if you're my Herculean father, you could also just grab the tree and drag it out of the way with your bare hands. That works, too.

5) If you try to convince all of your children that working as a nurse is a very rewarding experience, one of them might actually get a certification. Then again, he might get the certification and then go sit in a tree in West Virginia.

6) If your wife asks you to vacuum the house or mow the lawn and you happen to have three children, all you have to consider is how much watching the football game is worth to you. Ten dollars will usually do the trick.

Dad, you're awesome & you know it (no matter what your sons say). Happy Father's Day (yesterday)!

1. the big trip: identifying obstacles

Last July, Anil over at FoXnoMad posted the "7 Reasons You Won't Travel the World." I only discovered it last week on a tip from the envy-inducing world travelers at ...Sending Postcards, but it certainly struck a chord. I've mentioned that travel is one of my most consuming passions, and I truly feel that my life will not be complete until I've covered as much ground on each continent as I can physically and financially finagle. I've decided to put these seven reasons to the test.

1. You are comfortable at your job.

It is easy to feel comfortable with routine, and while my job allows me a certain sense of stability, it also leaves me feeling entirely too static. I don't earn enough money to make a serious dent in my dizzying debt, but I do make enough to discourage any attempt to seek more satisfying employment with a less substantial paycheck. Comfort has never really been something that I've sought. I don't mind sleeping under the stars or in a tent or in a hostel or on an airplane or on a couch somewhere--my body has an incredible ability to fit into small spaces or bounce back from long hours of discomfort. I never wear appropriate walking shoes, but if the opportunity presents itself I will walk barefoot up a mountain with my heels in my hands. I would rather forgo sleep than miss out on precious hours of a beautiful day in a new place. It can be nice to come home from a day at the office and sit on the couch and watch movies and eat the same sandwich every night, but before I had a real job I would never have passed on a night out and now I generally just feel like I have no spontaneous energy. That is not who I am--that is a dried-up version of my former self. This is partially because of my "comfortable" job, and I'm not comfortable with that.

2. You think it's expensive and don't know how to pay for it.

This is my most significant obstacle. I have debt to pay off from my relatively reckless wandering years, and it has been difficult to balance the excitement of a potential adventure in the future with my desire to live presently. Financially speaking. I'm still working on this. It's difficult, especially because this blog is focuses primarily on personal style, and to buy clothes I need to spend money. I may have to get even more creative with my thrifting in order to cut back on my clothing budget.

3. You don't know where you'd go.

More accurately, I don't know where I wouldn't go. I know that realistically I will have to compromise my vision and cross a few countries or continents off my list, but I already have a few places in mind that can probably wait. The goal is to have one big trip that will take somewhere between six months to a year, but it will be nice to leave a few stones unturned for shorter visits in the future. I know I may also need to be a little bit flexible about my dream time-frame. I would love to travel indefinitely until I can't take it anymore, but in all likelihood it will be difficult to make that happen.

4. You'll miss your family and friends.

I can't imagine that I'll have trouble with this one. Whenever I've travelled in the past I've become so absorbed with whatever I was doing or seeing that anything outside my immediate realm of existence momentarily ceased to matter. That said, I have no intention (at this point) to travel alone. I know I am not extroverted enough to content myself with the company of strangers while on the road, and I truly want to have someone special to share the experience with. I'm sure I will be able to keep in contact with the other important people in my life through email and other means (postcards!), so I'm not terribly worried about that.

5. You have kids or will soon.

Not likely. The timeline I imagined for my life when I was a young girl has already shifted to allow a little bit of twenty-something breathing room. And while I know that traveling with children is quite possible and (I think) beneficial for them, I know that I need to get some of this wanderlust out of my system before I "settle down."

6. You don't know what your significant other will say.

When I told K we should take a trip around the world after he finished graduate school, he was... well... less enthused than I was. Needless to say, that was not the response I was looking for. However, as Anil says, "a first reaction is not a final reaction." K is used to my harebrained schemes and they rarely (if ever) come to fruition, so he knows not to give these things much serious thought. Consider yourself warned, K!

7. You will travel the world but maybe a few years from now.

As far as Anil is concerned, saying that I will travel the world "later" is as good as procrastinating myself out of the possibility. I disagree, mainly because I have a few extenuating circumstances that need to be taken into account and a few loose ends that need tying. I know I want this but I also know I have to be realistic--until I have some money saved, I'd be in big trouble trying to take a trip of this magnitude.

Take that, seven reasons! The only roadblocks I seem to face are financial weakness and the power of procrastination. Both of these can be taken care of in time... as long as the time frame doesn't keep widening until I'm old and grey! In the spirit of inspiring myself to overcome these obstacles, I am going to start weekly postings of my past travel adventures. I hope you'll come along for the ride!

tribal turnaround

I used to believe that I couldn't wear gold jewelry because it made my skin look pale&sickly. As you can see, I have since changed my tune. Now I kind of think silver makes me look green around the gills. Maybe I'm just weird--it's not like my skin tone has changed.

I've never been much of a jewelry girl, mainly because it takes far too much effort to achieve the sort of collection that would allow for the layers and layers of baubles that make jewelry appealing to me. I get so overwhelmed with my lack of necklaces that I don't even know where to start and I'm always dismayed when I purchase a new one and fail to wear it because it looks so lonesome around my neck. This is probably why I wear so many scarves.

That said, I think the simplicity of this single tassel appropriately balances the bangles, button ring and gold detail along the waistline of this funky tribal skirt. No need to get carried away.

The wannabe-worldly anthropologist in me is always filled with glee when tribal patterns make their way down the runway.

1. dries van noten

2. diane von furstenberg

3. gucci

(spring/summer 2010 images from elle.com)

(skirt/gold cuff: F21; bangles: flea market; ring: button from france; tassel necklace: antique shop; shoes: kohl's; tank top: old navy)

a grey dress for a grey day

I guess we should just go ahead and call this Geek Week.

The inspiration for today's look comes from two very different sources:

LEFT: (via Stylesightings) I've been holding this image hostage in my inspiration folder for months now. I braided a scarf through my milkmaid braids to copy her, but now I kind of wish I had left some scarf hanging in the front for the bow-like effect.

RIGHT: I talked to my dad on the phone last night and the first thing he said was that he couldn't believe the glasses I've been wearing lately. If you recall, I posted this picture of him when I first mentioned the fact that I was coveting dorky oversized glasses because I knew he would get a kick out of it. My brothers and I used to tease him mercilessly about the thick-rimmed spectacles he wore in high school to assist his bat-blind eyes.

A grey dress for another grey, grey, gloomy day.

(dress: Filene's Basement; skirt: vintage; scarf/belt: thrifted; shoes: GoJane.com; glasses: F21)

Happy Thursday (and pay day, for me)!

tribute to cinema paradiso

Last night I finally saw Cinema Paradiso (for the first time!), which is kind of a travesty considering that I have a degree in film, but I was sort of an imposter in film school anyway (I relied on luck for things like... lighting). Anyway, all I will say is that the film is beautiful--visually stunning, touchingly tragic, and full of the universal ebb and ache of love in all its forms. It was lovely all the way through--from opening to closing credits--but the final scene was what stole my heart. Here's to you, Giuseppe Tornatore:

(all images courtesy of filmsite.org)