Ah, Love.

Boyfriend's out of town, so of course the first thing I see on the internet are these pictures of hipster couples making out. It's from a book by Chris Craymer called Romance. Also more importantly, do you think I can (in the real world) wear a lace shirt like the one on the girl on the right? What would you do on the front, you know, if you can't bring a shirtless dude everywhere with you to cover you up?
via niotillfem, a favorite of the Swedish Fashion Blogs

Inadvertant "Harem Pants" Moment

I bought new white jeans at Levi's despite all my better judgement, and what do you know, the first day I wear them I spill an entire cup of lukewarm Earl Grey all over them. I was at work, so in order to rinse out the stain I was forced to wear a coworker's sweatshirt upside-down as pants. They freakishly matched with my brown shirt and I look like a kangaroo. Or a really earthy MC Hammer, or Aladdin wearing a diaper. I thought I could just jump on my bike and ride home, but my bike was a few blocks away, so I got to parade my sweatshirt pants in front of lots of people.

Real Life Picture

Ok, Zeb was reading my blog, and saw my post about painting my room, and when he saw the white room picture with the bike and coffee pot that reminded me of my room in 5220, he said it didn't look like my room. Well... I know, but it looked like an idealized version of my room. This is what my room actually looked like, in fall 2007. Mmm... college!

Redmoon is Coming!

This weekend Jess & I will be going to Redmoon Theatre's Spectacle. We went a couple years ago, when they transformed a west side park into a magical "Twilight Orchard." They came while we were at a movie in Grant Park, singing a "Momentary Opera" with masks and costumes. I love them a lot, and I'm very excited.

I did it!

I finally painted my room! I mixed some awful pepto-bismol pink my roommate had mixed up by mistake, some light blue, and a lot of white, and came up with a pretty lavender. It's just the right saturation: not so pale you mistake it for white, but not so deep that the room seems dark. I cleaned the floor, moved my furniture into place, and hung my lamps. I feel so much better already.

Also, check out my survey at Tiny Choices.

Today's the Day

Back in the 5220, I used to have a room that looked a little like this: the two big sunny windows, the old wood floor, the big white bed. My bike and coffee apparatus and view were less glamorous, but as you can see, it was very nice in a sunny, white sort of way. Then I had the purple room, a little bit as seen below, although minus the octopus chandelier (sadly) and the freaky spiral headboard and the stripes.
Now, for the basement room, I'm feeling more of a dusty pink or mauve, or a faded terra cotta orange even, like the walls of this gorgeous hotel in Morrocco.
It would look great, I think, with my green and brown dressers and would look nice and romantic and cozy with the low lighting I am forced to adopt. Picture lots of candles. Some flowing exotic curtains. (although not flowing too close to the candles, as that would be a fire hazard.)
I might go a more purple route again though, but this time more lavender, like this pretty wisteria. I still have the big white bed, so I think it would look nice.
This picture is way too girly for me, but I like the color. It's just the right shade of almost gray lavender.
The walls are still white, thought, which is just getting too boring to handle. If I had recessed candle sconces, that would be quite another thing altogether. BUT I don't, so I need to get off the couch and start painting!
Not quite yet: I thought briefly about mixing up a nice green. I do love green, but there is the fear that it will be either too dark or too suggestive of mildew, my sworn enemy. I think I will stick with my green accents and go pink or purple. So far I have cleaned out a bucket and started to contemplate mixing some of my roommates old Pepto-Bismol pink paint into a gallon of white. Add some blue maybe, stir it up, see what happens? It makes me so nervous, but if I don't do it now, I never will.

Urban-Outfitters Haters Unite!

I was pretty stoked to find this post by Alyson Graves at Unruly Things about how she is thinking about cutting out excessive spending at big stores like H&M and Urban Outfitters, and to instead think more about purchases and spend at smaller, local retailers and vintage. Then she linked to the longer post by Anabela at Fieldguided. Read the comments, it's pretty interesting to hear the range of incomes and life situations that lead to similar conclusions about consumption. It's been 3 1/2 months since my post about my resolution to not buy new things unless they are responsibly made, and it makes me happy to find that other people are hopping on my "why bother with cheap crap made in sweatshops" bandwagon. Of course, full disclosure: in those 3 1/2 months I have bought absolutely GOBS of crap at Unique. I mean, really unnecessarily large amounts of stuff. I wish I had a camera or picture-taking abilities to share some of the more ridiculous items here; perhaps one day we'll do a tour of my Unique follies. And to be honest, I wouldn't have remembered that I made a "resolution" to stop buying new things unless I'd written a blog post about it-- my income can't really support much consumption no matter how I feel about it. Oops, I forgot! I broke my resolution awhile ago without thinking about it. I did buy a (one) pair of Hanky Panky undies, just to see what the fuss is all about and because they were on sale, and I felt like a high roller buying something from Saks.
Picture unrelated, but it felt in the mood of penny-pinching glamour. They're someone's family in Nebraska, I love it.