The Awkward Days, a Brief Post.

Outfit posts are strange. These days this little blog is really mostly about just that, and it's fine, although eventually I'd like to get myself in gear and post about other things. I really like having this chronicling of what I wear, but also, outfit pictures are hard. I still feel weird when people are around, but a lot of the best spots to take pictures are where people are. And sometimes I don't know what to do with myself. What do I do with my hands? Are my legs alright? What if my feet are in an odd position, my sleeves are rolled funny, what if my mouth is open (again), if I look too miserable? Sometimes it just works, and others, I just feel weird and awkward and scrap the post altogether. 

So in the interest of not doing that, I've only got one picture I feel like using for this post. Someday I'll find some interesting ways of standing, but for now it's the standard!

Dress: H&M, Boots: Nine West circa 2007, Tights: J. Crew, Bag: fieldguided, Pin: Vintage

I've wanted a cream 60s-looking shift dress with sleeves for my entire life. But so does everyone else, so the vintage ones are few and far between (around here anyway) and when I do find one it'll wipe out my little wallet. But then this beauty popped up in H&M. I didn't snap it up right away because, you know, I'm a bit of a snob and I thought well I could find something real vintage. Except I've been looking for I don't know, ten years, and haven't found one yet. And it was $34, why not? The lining is a bit annoying, it hangs longer than the dress itself, but I can always detach it and wear my own slip or hem the silly thing. 

Plus my hair feels the wrong length, I forgot how to walk in heels like this, and I can't tell if I need a jacket or not. But I'll get over it, it's just a feeling, really!

Pictures by John M.

Jeans and Gelato.

During the summer, I unintentionally stocked up on thick cotton sweaters. The kind that you think, yes, I will wear this to the beach! I will wear it hanging out on the porch during summer nights, with shorts and dirty sneakers and maybe a sparkler, some ice cream, tall grass at dusk, that sort of thing, but then you end up wearing it never because the reality of the weather where you (I) live is that it's 92 degrees with a humidity of four-hundred-and-seventy (which looks much more impressive and oppressive if you write it out), so you don't wear the sweaters all summer.

Thankfully, I'm stuck in that weird place season-wise when there is no committing to anything. Wool sweaters are the worst idea (tried it, was miserable) but a nice cotton one will do nicely if it's a bit breezy and there are equal threats of sunshine and rain. I somehow ended up with this sweater in two colors (the other I wore earlier this week to go get lunch in

super casual outfit), but I have no problem admitting that the mustard stripe is, marginally, my favorite. 

Jeans: J. Crew (circa 2008); Sweater: J. Crew (Summer 2011); Shoes: Seychelles by way of Anthropologie; Pin: Vintage, ebay; Bag: Vintage, mom; Glasses: Forever21; Gelato: from my work!

I'm starting to notice that there are also things in my wardrobe that have stuck around for a while. For so long you're growing out of things or destroying them because you're twelve and you run around and spill things and things either don't fit or are unwearable before long. Then, all of the sudden you realize you've had a pair of jeans for four or five years and that suddenly just seems weird. 

I think I've had these since 2007 or 2008? I hardly wear them, although I do really love them, mostly because they require heels. I also feel a bit self conscious on them, I feel like my legs are more on display somehow than in a skirt. Thankfully, I didn't toss them into a bag during one of my Oh My God I Have To Get Rid Of Everything moments, and suddenly flares are resurfacing a bit. 

And of course, where would I be without my little fox friend?

Pictures by John M.

Borrowing the Gibson Tuck.

I know, the last time I posted was just over twenty days ago. In my defense, I contracted the world's most persistent sinus infection--but mostly I've just felt a little restless with my current wardrobe and can't be bothered (most days) to wear something that merits and actual post. But now it's just gotten awkward (and of course, I feel the need to call attention to it) and I figure I better post something before things get really even more so! 

What I'm most frustrated by right now is my hair--after cutting it months ago, I decided to grow it out (I might be doing so partially so that I have at least some-what decent length locks for the premiere of The Hobbit. Maybe.) and I think there is at least one moment in every day when I grab fistfuls of the stuff and chant, "Grow hair grow!" hopefully into the air. This doesn't seem to be helping in the least. So most of the time my hair gets ponytail-ed, but thankfully I found a new favorite way to tie the silly stuff back without resorting to getting horsey. 

I had seen the picture of the resulting hairstyle floating around tumblr and pinterest, and in one of the rare instances where things are linked properly on one of those sites, I discovered a really wonderful tutorial on Simply Stardust detailing how to style the simple Gibson tuck. 

It's easy-as-pie and what I've been wearing for the past few weeks. 

(and there is my little carrot pin, rescued from ebay!)

Mine generally ends up a bit messier, since I've been doing a bit of teasing at the crown just so it's not so flat on my head, and sadly I don't have those gorgeous red locks, but it's making me quite pleased with my hair for the moment. It's also very helpfully channeling a bit of Downton Abbey hair, which is helpful as it seems the entirety of the corner of the internet in which I live is totally obsessed with the show. I'm just glad the second season is on it's way, even if I am terribly worried about what's going to happen in it!

My bangs are still being really stubborn and refusing to grow. I'm at that point where I'm thinking it might just be easier to cut them again, but so far I've been good and kept the scissors to themselves. 

Out and About.

Despite my little pause for however long that was, I am really and honestly trying to update with more regularity. At the moment I've been struck down by some kind of cold that is making the rounds, and also, it is raining almost as much as possible. Normally I am perfectly pleased to roll around in puddles but at the moment I'd rather have some mild sun.

I thought though, I'd take the opportunity to offer the other places on the internet where you might follow me!

The tumblr to go with this blog can be found here. It's still on wobbly little legs, but it's there. If you followed my tumblr back when I first started it, you probably noticed it quickly devolved into internet-screaming about Harry Potter and cat gifs, with a healthy dose of my deep and inscrutable feelings regarding whatever book, object, TV show, or dress was making me feel things. That tumblr is still up-and-running, but it has little-to-nothing to do with my blog, really, so I pulled the two apart. 

The blog's facebook is over here and I do use it pretty regularly. I throw a link up when I've updated the actual site, and also use it for pictures of things that don't really belong in an individual post, or that are just cell-phone pictures, but that I still want to share. 

Twitter is, of course, here although it is going a bit of the way of the first tumblr. Lots of caps-locking and losing my mind over things like Harry Potter, lack of Pottermore e-mail, Downton Abbey, and what I am eating. I also post blog updates and sometimes things that are clothing-related. 

I tried using lastfm but couldn't stick with it. Thankfully, 8tracks seems to have rescued me. I don't make a whole lot of mixes on there, but I pop in now and then to put up whatever I'm currently listening to or things I think fit together nicely. 

Since I talk about books fairly often on here, I got myself a Shelfari, because I liked the way it looked better than the other personal library-cataloguing sites out there. It's generally correct, but I tend to update it in bursts. 

I recently hopped on the pinterest train, and while I love it, I am getting really, really frustrated with the places I find images from that don't credit the source. A lot of things I've pinned are from my tumblr favorites, which inevitably don't include credit so I tried to include a link to the original post that I found it, at the very least, but if it's something that has pretty much no source I usually just won't pin it. The Cats board is getting a lot of pins from me, as is the Hungry one. 

Flickr is still running pretty much as smoothly as ever!

I think that's it! I have a terrible habit of signing up for everything, but these are my most frequent or useful haunts. Please feel free to add or follow me, I try my best to add or follow back, but I'm a bit slow so introduce yourself on any of these sites if you'd like! Hopefully all these links work, phew!

The Stop Staring Dress!

After seeing the Stop Staring dresses on calivintage and Vixen Vintage, I definitly jumped at the chance to try a dress myself when offered! I ended up picking this one, partly because I liked the little sleeves and neckline, but mostly because I've noticed a strange hole in my closet when it comes to black dresses. I used to have dozens (well, maybe a dozen) and then all of the sudden, the disappeared and became outnumbered. Which isn't surprising, if I think about it. I skip over the black sections when thrifting or shopping for vintage (bad, I know, but patience is not one of my best virtues) and normally am so entranced by some other neutral or color that black gets left behind. I suppose it's the Lady Mary in me. 

Dress: Stop Staring, Shoes: Nine West (2007)

The dress comes with a matching black belt, which I left off here because I felt in the mood for less somehow. I suppose it's the silhouette of the dress, which is one I haven't worn much since last year's Mad Men pictures, and which is certainly not for the shy (not that it's revealing or anything like that, only that it makes the shapes I have going on from my daily croissant more shapely than in regular old outfits, it's thankfully a flattering material!). 

I'm mostly looking forward to wearing it in cooler weather (where we're heading, judging by the looks of things out the window), especially with tights, but I've been sitting on it since August (in my defense, we went on vacation, I ate myself into a new dress size, got hit by a hurricane, got sick, and am now getting around to behaving like a human being again rather than some kind of bed-ridden amoeba) and realized it's high time it at least showed it's face on here! So be prepare to see it again with some foliage and trench coats!

And of course, I didn't know what to do with my hair so it's in my favorite funny little bow again, accompanied by my little ghosty lens flare.

I'm leaving my previous post up for now, because it is early for me and I am leaving for work. At the moment, I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from this.

It seems that The Dewey Decimals have asked that their readers post a comment on their behalf, accusing me of stealing their blog premise. I am very sorry to have given this impression to the bloggers, since I know it is frustrating and disheartening to feel that your work is being used elsewhere, but I must make clear that this is the first time I have come across their blog and work, and I absolutely did not steal their idea.

In my post, I do specify that I was inspired by another blogger's series in my post, and link to it appropriately. I even e-mailed her to ask if she minded that I was so strongly borrowing from her style of presenting two images, if the concept was to similar to her's, to make sure I was not stepping on anyone's toes. I realize this has little to do with how The Dewey Decimals feel about the situation, but I want to impress that I am careful about these kinds of things, and do my best to avoid things devolving into this.

I'm very sorry about all this, and I would like to seek some kind of resolution. At the moment I'll leave the previous post up, but I'm not sure if it will stay that way, or if I will just disable comments and not continue with the series.

Edited to add:

I also want to ask that we please not say anything bad about each other. I'm sure that both the writers of The Dewey Decimals and myself are equally upset about this whole thing, and I'm not posting this to start anything. Please, I ask everyone not to refuse to support or read their blog if it is something you would otherwise have been interested in or enjoyed.

This is a misunderstanding, I simply wanted to post about it here in case readers saw the comments on the previous post. I have reached out to the authors there via e-mail, and I would like to ask that my readers not harass them in any way (I don't think anyone would, but you know), because that isn't what this is all about. Thank you!

Edit 8/30:

Hello everyone! Thank you for all your kind words and support. I am pleased to say that this has all been resolved, and I meant to post this edit sooner because really everything was alright by the end of the day on Thursday, but I wasn't sure if I now wanted to leave this post up, if I should take it down, because who wants to see controversy and things? I'm a bit behind on my posting, but rest assured I'll be back up in no time!

Wearing the Book: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

I buy a lot of books, and can hardly ever let any go (I buy even more books now that I have a kindle, because if it's cheap on there I get it, and then if i love it I buy it again in paper form). What's even worse (or better, depending on your opinions of space) is I have a really bad habit of buying several copies of the same book. If it's languishing somewhere used for five dollar or under, it's coming home with me.

I can justify it often though, because of the different covers. First of all, I hate the cliché 'don't judge a book by it's cover', because while I know that authors rarely have control over what actually ends up encasing their work, sometimes you just have to turn a book over because of the cover, staring up at you in strangely inconsistent oblivion. When I'm loafing around the bookstore 90% of the reason I pick up a random book for it's cover (the rest is the title), so you know, you have to judge a book by something, really.

But getting back to different covers, I really love collecting several versions of favorite tomes. Partly because it's so pleasing to arrange them in tableau somewhere, but it's also somehow about all the different things a certain book can be. What's really frustrating is when I see a book cover that really strikes my fancy and then I cannot find it anywhere. There is a specific copy of The Unbearable Lightness of Being I am really hoping to find someday, but so far I'm bereft.

I love looking at book covers. I love staring at them, looking for them, thinking about them, arranging them together or alone, and sometimes, I like dressing like them. Inspired by the color comparisons of Miss Moss, I've been thinking I should share the outfits and book covers side-by-side.

Hopefully this is the start of a little series I'd like to do, but I can be a bit flakey when it comes to committing to things in succession. It's only that I've felt myself getting a bit tired looking at street style blogs and catalogs for my inspiration, because often in the end I still feel a little bit of 'well, it's not quite as good as the original, I had to make do you see'. If I'm not dressing as a character in a book, I might as well dress like the book itself.

Wearing the Book: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Dress: J. Crew, Shoes: Urban Outfitters, Cardigan: J. Crew, Tote: fieldguided

I wrote about this book once before, and my love for it is still just as strong and jealous as it was then. I've accumulated another copy of the above cover (one is signed—I wanted to die of excitement when that happened) and another of the UK paperback version. I almost used the latter, but it's a bit more tan and warm looking than the one I've gone with, and there is no reason why I can't use it later.

I don't want this project to be about dressing like the things on the cover of the book, so I've not done my hair like the little wolfette there, and though I thought a reference to the titular story would have been clever with a pair of penny loafers (when I read the line about not chewing on your loafers in it, I thought about how I was keeping myself from doing that very same thing all the way through my uniformed school-days in knee socks) something about the fusty-ness of wingtips goes better, somehow, with the typeface on the book.

I ended up with the other outfit items in a similar way. The dress, in real life, matches the base color of the book perfectly, and has little red dots mirroring the hidden red text of the title, and the little in her dress, and all of that. I relied on my hair for the browns, and another beloved fieldguided tote for the dreamy strangeness I associate with my favorite kinds of stories.

Beachy Keen Jellybean!

I've another roll of film trundling around here somewhere, but in the meantime here are a few favorites from my vacation to the beach last week! It already seems like ages ago, but I don't really want to be anywhere but home and burrowing into my own bed instead of into the sand.

(Picture taken by John)

My typical beach outfit. A large hat, a t-shirt or cotton cardigan, and occasionally a skirt if we're walking to the snack bar or if my legs are getting particularly freckly. The poor hat ended up being the floppiest thing by the end of the third day, the salt air wilted it, and I relinquished it for a straw cloche for the rest of the week.

The first day we were there, the water was warm, just calm enough to hang out in the froth, and the perfect blue-y green shade. But it was not to last, and it all got moody and grey. Which ended up being fine, although I ended up staying out of the water for the most part. A bit too churn-y and wild for my tastes, but I've got pocketfuls of broken shells to account for my time.

The Birthday Dress

"You know I'm gonna be 25 in June"

"You are?"

"That's a quarter of a century, makes a girl think."

"About what?"

"The future."

Some Like it Hot (1959)

I've been waiting years, ages, practically my entire life until I would be 25, just the right age to be able to quote that line for a while and have it apply to me. I don't think at six I knew what a quarter of a century was, but that didn't matter to me one little bit, because it was just the most glorious fun of a line to say.

Somehow, I also never really cared much about birthday outfits (I'm not entirely sure why I stuck that somehow in there, or the also, but I can't just leave these two sections unconnected without some kind of verbal hand-holding going on to string them together sloppily) but this year I was struck by a need to have a bona-fide birthday dress. It also means I could justify the kind of dress purchase I would normally think thrice about.

Of course I got it into my head that this was the one I had to have. Of course, there is no Anthropologie anywhere near here (psst, put one here, it is the best idea!) but I had seen the thing on a recent day trip, and just loved the print to little pieces. It helps that it looks very much like a vintage dress that is amazing and just tight enough in the waist to keep me from wearing it to any activity that involves eating, drinking, breathing, or moving.

Details: Dress: Anthropologie; Shoes: Anthropologie (2009); Bag: Aldo Outlet

Despite a setback or two, I had the thing in my grubby little hands just in time for a birthday dinner. It wasn't the actual day, but for a celebration I plunged into the unnecessary items I overpacked and attempted to do justice with lipstick and heels to the little dandelion print.

But then today is my real-deal birthday, so I wore it again.

Details: Dress: Anthropologie; Shoes: Urban Outfitters; Bag: Vintage; Jacket: Vintage

With some rather out-of-place looking shoes I somehow miraculously acquired for ten dollars.

And now that it is almost post-August 11th, I can start thinking about sweaters and tights, boots, and jackets and scarves without feeling bedraggled by the rest of summer.

Photos by John.

Docked Out.

Home, home, home! After a week at the beach, collecting freckles and napping in the sand, I'm pleased as punch to be home and burrowing into my own bed and doing my usual thing. I always feel a little bit off for the first day or so home, and so in an effort to get back into the swing of things, I'm posting first-thing!

I've been waiting to wear this little shirt from Clever Nettle for ages, but somehow the few times I've worn it haven't been days when I've documented the outfit. This seemed the perfect time and setting though. I loved it the second I saw it in Anja's shop, and thankfully I had a few pennies lying around the old paypal account, which is just about all it takes for me to snap something up.

Outfit details: Shirt: Clever Nettle; Pants: J. Crew Waverly Chino; Shoes: J. Crew (2010); Sunglasses: Forever21.

I had planned to visit this little dock area a few times, but of course other plans kept us from there! It was only a short walk from the house we were staying in, so we did pop over there one night to drop rocks in the water and see the bioluminescence and the green light on the buoy being Gatsby-esque.

Pictures by John M.