Brooch: heirloom | Cardigan: Target | Tank: Target | Skirt: eShakti | Boots: Off Broadway
My very first pets were goldfish. Ariel, Sebastian and Flounder. (I was creative.) I was maybe 6, and didn't know a whole lot about how my life would go petwise. Little did I know that the goldfish would lead to guinea pigs, which would lead to rabbits, which would finally hit cats, and then horses, and most recently, a dog. Those goldfish didn't live for very long, but they certainly did start a long-lasting trend. So thanks, little crew, for biting me with the pet bug.
For more women who used this week's inspiration to create outfits for Style Imitating Art, check out Salazar's blog!
ugh stupid extra long liner
Coat: Eddie Bauer | Cardigan: Target | Skirt: Ann Taylor Factory | Flats: Target
We need to talk about Beck's win for the Album of the Year Grammy.
I made a semi-serious commitment to listen to all five Album of the Year nominees so I could review them for work, where we post staff picks every few weeks on our website. I purchase all the music for our library system, so I try to review a lot of music. Pro bono publico, you know. I listened to all five albums, and the only one I wanted to listen to again was Morning Phase. I've found that a lot of albums now are more a compact set of singles crammed together onto one disc, but Beck's album was a comprehensive piece. You can't take a song out of it an make it a single. It is truly an album, and that is what I loved so much about it. Morning Phase suck with me. At work, I called Beyoncé the album that would win, X by Ed Sheeran the album that should win (he's an excellent songwriter), and Morning Phase was the album that I quite selfishly wanted to win, because I liked it.
So fast forward to Grammys night, and Beck wins. And I die. And then Kanye West ruins it. And then Beck saves it. And then Kanye ruins it again.
I made the mistake of looking at Twitter at one point, and I was overwhelmed by the typical "who is this hippie" tweets. But I also saw a few tweets that claimed this was discrimination--that instead of "giving" the award to a black woman or a gay man, Grammy voters "gave" the award to a white man. Just so we're clear, Sam Smith--the gay man in question--walked home with four Grammys, so that complaint is null. Beyond that, though, Sam Smith is also a white man! In addition, Beyonce also won three Grammy Sunday night. So that complaint is also null. What disappoints me most, though, is that a number of people have decided to shake away the great equalizing that music can do. You don't see who makes the music when you listen on the radio, turn up your iPhone, open Pandora. You hear the sound first, and everything else comes second. Music has this way of subverting and rising well above the basic differences we have to bring us together, to give us shared experiences. The albums are what are nominated, not just the people who performed the work. But instead, some viewers/listeners were ripping away the experience and looking just at a scrawny white Scientologist on the stage and making judgments based on that.
Fortunately for us all, Morning Phase is about much more than that. It's a smart album, and for my review at work, I compared it to the way moss grows on a tree: the album's beauty grows on you slowly at first, and then all at once. Beyonce's album may have been a new way to market, but it wasn't the most exceptional album of the year. Sam Smith sang about the same thing for 40 minutes straight. Ed Sheeran tried, but failed, to vary his music quite enough to make it count. And Pharrell put out some jams, but there was no cohesion to the album. Beck managed to strip away all the negatives of the other nominees' albums while containing their positives, all while putting his own touch on the work. And that's why Morning Phase deserved to win. I'm quite glad it did.
Scarf: Target | Cardigan: Ralph Lauren via Dani at DIYFATSHION | Top: Target | Skirt: Boden | Heels: Urban Outfitters
I have been trying very hard to photograph this skirt for the blog. I've worn it a ton since I got it, and it has just never been photographed. So not fair! But here it is, in all its crowning glory.
In other news, the FAIR is in town, and my friend dragged me off for a trip to the fair. We partially went to see what we could lay claim to for next year (her, banana bread and cornbread; me, pumpkin spice cookies, apple pie and possibly some sort of embroidery), but also for funsies. She forced me to eat a fried Oreo (first time/last time), and we went to a petting zoo where I made friends with a yak (a YAK!!!!). We saw piglets and a giant parrot seemed really fascinated with my face for some reason but the alpaca was terrified of me. The yak was definitely my fave though.
She also made me go on a ride, which did not go well. I do not like rides much at all--no fast no upside down no backward etc.--but she loves them, so we compromised and went on those giant swings that go up a pole and swing around really fast. It was terrifying and I did not like it but I'm not dead, so at least there's that. Next time I'm sticking with the Ferris wheel.
Cardigan: Target | Top: J.Crew Factory | Skirt: Talbots | Heels: Urban Outfitters
Summer has been hectic, to say the least; this was my first year at work kind of having control of our adult summer reading program, which was an encompassing program that covered all ten of our branches and involved a lot of work to put together--not that I'm complaining, because I love summer reading and I'm VERY proud of the program & how it came together. But it's kept me very busy! There are days where my boss and I will go home and she'll text me and say "are you as tired as I am?" and the answer is almost always yes. And although summer reading is over, there are still statistics to compile, reports to write, debriefing to do...and then my boss is going on sabbatical for a month. And my coworker (and my very good friend) C. has moved to Atlanta to pursue her Ph.D. in English literature. I cried when she told me she was leaving, and I'm crushed to see her go, but the amount of pride that I have for her makes my heart glow like a neon sign in the desert.
This is also my first summer in a very long time with a boyfriend. (I know you're all chomping at the bit to hear more about him, and I promise I'll do a post about him soon!) It's made things harder--we are technically long distance, although he lives a two hour drive away instead of a two hour flight away, like my last boyfriend did. We see each other most weekends, and sometimes even during the week. Having him to rely on for support when I need it has been amazing, but I've felt a bit of a struggle between the life I've had for the last three years of hanging out with my friends and doing whatever I want & the life I have now--the one where I actually have to consider what someone else wants. I've been on the road a lot since February, when we first started dating, replacing curling for the most part with visiting my boyfriend. We will, hopefully, not be so far apart for TOO much longer, but my time has been taken away from other things...like spending half an hour taking pictures of myself in an abandoned parking lot.
But oh, when I get the chance to take those photos of myself, how I cherish it. Right now, it's about the only time that I'm truly alone. A lot of my friends now will probably tell you I'm extroverted, but it's not exactly true--I like to be social and active, but I need a lot of time to unwind and separate from the world, and I don't get to do that very often. I miss the chance to document what I wear, and to be honest, I'm going to be repeating some outfits in the future so I can photograph them for the blog. I miss manipulating my camera, experimenting with framing, and being the only model I'll never have full control over. And most of all, I miss all of you. Having people who understand what it's like to do this silly thing where we take pictures of what we wear and put them online for other people to look at is essential to having the motivation to keep coming back, and I always get that from y'all. And you have no idea how much I appreciate it.
And also I'm really lazy, but I can get over that. The point of all of this is to explain myself, I guess, but also to just verify that I'm going nowhere. My priorities in life have shifted some, from school and curling to work and boyfriend, but none of it matters if I'm not wearing clothing. I'll keep wearing clothing, and I'll keep documenting it whenever I can. Like this outfit...for which I got the daylights bitten out of me by noseeums, but it was worth it.
