in which i am an old lady who lives in (these) shoes

Ahh, back in my happy place. This outfit is far more "me" than anything I've come up with lately. What can I say? I was born in October--I am meant to dress for autumn. This may or may not be something that an elderly woman would wear. I am okay with that (because, after all, I am no spring chicken).

(hat/blouse: vintage, gifts; skirt/belt/scarf: thrifted; shoes: seychelles)

I was thinking about back-to-school the other day (aren't we all, at this time of year?), and how the whole thing was always so exciting. In elementary school there were new outfits and lunchboxes and that grown-up feeling of passing through each grade; in high school there were new outfits and fat textbooks and the thrill of locating a new locker and the prospect of eight hours each day spent giggling and passing notes with friends; in college there were more new outfits and fatter (more expensive) textbooks and a whole new world full of strangers that would eventually become some of the closest friends I would ever know. And now? The seasons blend from one to the next but the days don't change.

Ever since I graduated (in 2007-yikes!) I constantly consider going back to school for something, whether it be fashion design or creative writing or cultural anthropology. And then I take a step back and remind myself that there were very few classes in college that I really, truly enjoyed. There was my Philosophy of the Individual writing seminar freshman year, in which I did not speak a word but would leave bursting with excitement and immediately call someone to discuss. There was my Intro to Ethics lecture with a visiting professor from Stanford, which everyone seemed to hate but I actually found fascinating (when I wasn't doing the DFP crossword). There was my Post-Modern Literature course with a wacky ladyprofessor who just rambled on and told stories for an hour and then told us we would no longer be having class because she wasn't getting paid enough (but boy, was she a character!), and my Chinese culture class that surprised me by being quite a treat, since I had never had much interest in Asian studies or history before. There was my Film Theory class, in which only the graduate students ever engaged in discussion but the professor was really amazing. And then there were a slew of really awful classes that I suffered through day in and day out for four years of my life. And I realized that I don't actually much like to be educated. I love to learn, I adore reading, I think that I have a broad scope of skills and interests, but I do not like being forced to fit my train of thought into whatever current a course corrals it into. I either want to learn something or I don't--and if I don't, why waste my time?

I'm still figuring out what my next steps in life will be. Maybe I will end up going to graduate school (theoretically, I would only be taking classes that were directly related to my area of interest). Maybe I will start my own little business. Maybe I really will become a brilliant filmmaker after all this time. Who knows. But these are the feelings that always surface in September, year in and year out. This is the season for reinvention.

And if I don't get to it soon enough, there is always Spring ;)

in which i embrace frump and get nostalgic

So, in my mind this outfit was a lot less frumpy (and, let's face it, I basically just really wanted to wear this outfit again but tried to be creative about it), but now suddenly I feel a little like grandma. Probably doesn't help that I found a grey hair today. Whatever, I still like it, frump and all.

(jumper: hand-me-down; blouse/hat: thrifted; socks: uo; shoes: kohl's; necklace: diy)

And thus we conclude "florals week" (even though I looked at the leftover florals in my closet this morning and briefly considered extending it...) Next up? Stripes!

After work I am going to go read in the park for a few hours until it is time to meet up with some gal pals for Mexican food, annnnnd then it's supposed to rain for the rest of the weekend. I hope the forecast is wrong because there are still some seriously summery activities that I want to do RIGHT NOW (sushi en plein air, drive-in movie, bike rides...) and I won't tolerate this "showers" business.

In other news, as I was typing this I started thinking about summer vacation and how strange it was that colleges let out a full month ahead of high school and why is that? And then I was visited by a twinge of nostalgia for my dear old college days and the excitement of picking classes and learning (sometimes) and living on my own and singing with the Sweethearts and playing beer pong and ordering pizza at 4 am and those things that were so new (like going to the grocery store) and made me feel so independent (and now just make me feel annoyed). Sometimes I get really bummed out that there are times in my life that have passed, never to be experienced again, and places I have been (both physically and emotionally) that I can never really return to. One of the worst feelings is going back to a place you once loved, expecting it to be the same, and feeling differently about it. I don't really know where all this is coming from (maybe it's that grey hair reminding me that time keeps marching on). Welcome to the inside of my mind :)

Where do you go when you get nostalgic? I'd love to hear some of your happy memories!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

i've got moves you've never seen

TRUE STORY: I love dance parties. In fact, I rather wish that my regular life was a non-stop dance party, all the time.

(dress: thrifted j crew; shoes: simply vera for kohl's; trench coat: h&m)

I always think of dance parties when I wear this dress because I wore it to my first real hipster dance party in college and there were plenty of incriminating photos of me mid-dance move so that's how I will always imagine myself in it. I wore it a lot back then, though oddly enough I don't think it has ever made an appearance on my blog! It was also my very first thrift/(vintage?) purchase. The tag says J Crew and I assume it's probably only from the nineties or something, but it has a definite sixties vibe (in my opinion), especially with bouffant hair and winged black eyeliner.

Also, this nail polish is a big fail. I grabbed it at the drug store because it was a pale pastel yellow in the bottle, but it actually looks much more like lemon meringue than banana cream. Oh well, it was like $1.50. I kind of like it anyway--after all, yellow is my favorite color!

by the side of the road

Yeah, that smile is a lie. I am not at all pleased that the skies decided to dump on me again today. It's almost goddamned April, already (the adage calls for April showers, not April snow showers). Funny thing is, I didn't even know it was snowing when I got dressed for the Gothic Harajuku Christmas Carol this morning.

(tunic: tjmaxx; headband/necklace: forever 21; tights: hue; shoes: payless)

Last night K and I went to a semi-advanced screening of Julien Schnabel's (of Basquiat fame) new film, Miral, which I thought was fantastic. The film was based on the girlhood diaries of a Palestinian journalist (Rula Jebreal, who also penned the screenplay) and her life growing up at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I thought the decision to make the film from a Palestinian point of view offered an oft-ignored perspective, and the general message that education and understanding can be great forces for good in the world was one we somehow still seem to need to be reminded of. There was a Q&A after the screening with Jon Kilik, a UVM grad and the film's producer, who has quite an impressive resume and has worked with the likes of Woody Allen and Spike Lee (he is also currently dating Jebreal, who does look remarkably like the film's star, Freida Pinto). I definitely recommend going to see the film if it comes to your area (it is currently showing only in NYC and LA), and I definitely recommend to myself that I keep track of these incredible free events on college campuses around town. Four years out of university, I had forgotten that there still existed a place where you could gather to watch and learn for free :)

Miral is a red flower.

It grows by the side of the road.

You've probably seen millions of them.

travels become travails (as usual)

I'm BAAAACK! And boy, what a trip it was...

I awoke eagerly at 2:30 AM on Thursday morning (after little-to-no sleep) and we were on the road by 3:15. After my car was fully fueled (and I, coffee-fueled), I settled in at the wheel for the first leg of the journey (K would take over when driving got a little more complicated... aka, before NYC).

After approximately three hours, my car began to clunkity-clunk. And so:

I should have known. Because it was still crazy-early, we had to kill some time eating breakfast at a local diner (Cote's Restaurant) before dropping my (jerk) car off for an emergency repair:

We spent some time wandering the streets of Chicopee, a defunct factory town in Southern Massachusetts...

... sneaking around inside City Hall for a peek of the stained glass from the inside...

... and flipping through far too many trashy magazines in the local library.

Finally (7 hours later), my car was ready. The price? Besides the brief expense of my sanity, a whopping $550 was required to drive my new timing belt off the lot. I had a slight meltdown (there went more than half of my paycheck...) and decided I had to go to Virginia anyway. I'm not one to waste a half-grand on a day trip to Chicopee, MA (no offense).

Onward and Southward we went.

After stopping for some brief eats at the Waffle House, we finally arrived at our hotel around 12:45 AM (and promptly passed out).

The next couple of days were fairly uneventful. On Friday, we spent our time strolling through the charming historic district, dropping into antique shops and making note of the hip coffee shop (+1), quaint, quirky bookstore (+1) and book&coffee shop (+1) that would be regular hot spots if we ultimately decided to move there. We bonded with our waitress (a dancer/artist who assured us that there was a great creative community in town, +1) while enjoying a lovely lunch at the Sunken Well Tavern (the best part: It was warm enough to sit outside! [in January? +1]) and meandered through the neighborhoods, looking for promising habitation prospects.

After a quick loop around the (seasonally closed) gardens&grounds of Kenmore Plantation, we headed back to the hotel for some R&R before our delicious Indian dinner at Guru.

Although the food was good (+1) and there appeared to be a cornucopia of ethnic restaurants immediately outside the city limits, the location was so-so. We were entirely unimpressed with the strip malls (-1) and box stores (-1) that surround the historic downtown area.

The next day we took a self-guided tour of the University of Mary Washington.

It was everything you might expect of a collegiate campus (brick, grass, trees, lampposts) and I was impressed that it was so attractive. However, I got a weird uncomfortable feeling as I walked through it... I felt kind of old. Also, I went to Boston University, which has an urban campus, and the academic atmosphere was slightly veiled by the pace and proximity to everyday city life. Traditional campuses tend to make me feel stifled and closed-off from the rest of the world... but that's just me! K really liked it, and that's what matters :)

We drove around (further investigating neighborhoods) and stopped at The Otter House for lunch (where we ran into our waitress from The Sunken Well--she works at Otter, too!). Here, K made one of the biggest mistakes of his life:

It's funny that the first Google result for Otter House Fredericksburg VA is regarding restaurant inspection findings and violations. More on that in a minute.

We ended up going back to the hotel after lunch because there wasn't a whole lot more to do in town, but we did go back that evening in the hopes of finding a cocktail lounge. We failed. However, we did have dinner and drinks at Sammy T's, which I enjoyed immensely. K, not so much. Somewhere between his lunch of chicken nachos&PBR at Otter House and cheese tortellini&whiskey sour at Sammy T's, K was absolutely ravaged with food poisoning.

Later that night, he felt so awful he wanted to go to the hospital. Instead, I calmly called and asked for expert advice in poison control and recovery. The recovery was slow and painful (for him) and we ended up staying an extra night in the hotel because there was no way he could ride in the car in that condition. I just spent the next 24 hours watching trash TV and eating the saltines that he couldn't stomach.

Last night we arrived home safe&sound after a blissfully uneventful 12-hour drive... what an adventure! We certainly always come home with a story to tell!