Finals

I love finals week because it is a time to be totally self-absorbed and coked-out on caffeine, a sensation I always strangely enjoy. Today I felt entitled to ignore people I recognized but didn't feel like talking to, because I was too busy muttering to myself about WHERE DID THAT REFERENCE GO. I should do that more often (the ignoring, not the muttering).

I hate finals because I get no sleep and still have to go to work and care about people and not sleep on the floor or otherwise embarrass myself.

But mostly, I like the single-minded focus about it. Obviously I'm procrastinating, but spending days obsessing over one paper or major idea has such an appeal. I've written before about how great it is to really focus and relish in an activity, even if it's kind of unpleasant. I think that this kind of concentration and mindfulness leads to creativity, the state of "flow" that you always hear about. Sometimes paper-writing is like pulling teeth, but its ok to let that happen too.

Scope out my 1 am lifestyle!

 

Pretty awesome, huh? Bet you wish you were here too! 

Flea Market

I went to some insane flea market out in the suburbs with my roommate on Sunday morning. I got some random stuff- yarn, an alligator pin (now all my clothes are Lacoste!), some "Maine Woods" brand lace-up hipster/Laura Ingalls Wilder boots, an ice cream cone.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY I got this dress!

OH MY GOD!!

It's Diane Von Furstenberg, which I know enough about fashion to know "designer" if not the trendiest thing in the world or like Chanel, this baby retails for $325. And it's sold out on Bluefly (picture source) so ha! I got it for $15. I got it because it screams MIAMI BEACH!!!! And it's the skankiest thing I own. Especially because it's like stretch silk, and size 0 and I am skinny but no size 0. Who is anyway? So it doesn't really look like it does on this mannequin. I don't know if I should keep it (roommate says "wear it to graduation") or sell it on ebay. Cash rules.

Oh my god, I love this dress. This is the first designer thing I've owned. I guess I have a Guess coat but that doesn't count. DVF has been a judge on Project Runway, so you know she's legit!

Man Repelling, Losing Stuff

I went on two trips out of town in two weekends and now I have more work than I can handle and a court date on Friday! Caffeinate!

In other news, I'm into The Man Repeller. I thought I wouldn't like it because it's about a hip(ster?) New Yorker who has expensive clothes but WHO AM I KIDDING I LOVE THAT SHIT. If you see someone giggling uncontrollably in the oh-so-quiet library, that's me. Hiiiiii.

Anyway, the girl behind the man repeller is oh-so-funny and into clothes that men hate, like mismatched loud prints and culottes and rompers and harem pants and nary a defined waistline in sight. I have more traditional taste but I like the attitude.

A classic man-repelling outfit by me, earlier this spring. Shapeless tunic, check; baggy cardigan, check; topknot, check; excessive scarf, check. Sexyness? Nope.

On one of my weekend trips I lost my black cardigan. I used to wear it like 3 times a week and took it on every trip I went on during its life in my wardrobe, but now it's gonnnnne and I'm sad. The rental car company can't find it and my friends deny having it and it isn't in my room anywhere and I'm going crazy. I know it's "just stuff" but ugh, it was so perfect and did I mention it goes with everything? I think I'll go home and tear my room apart again. Maybe it's under my bed or something. Maybe it went to join my other fuzzy sock (RIP, snowflake socks) or that awesome plaid fedora I got at a thrift store in Wisconsin and used to have as a rain hat (umbrellas are just too much work) and now I have to use the hat that looks like "some dorky Annie Hall shit" (thanks, T, you're the sweetest) except my Bosnian coworkers think its adorrrrrable! This hat is a brown brimmed kinda floppy hat I got from grandma and I made a pink felt rose and safety pinned it on during a weird Anthropologie-feuled craze for embellishment I was having. I still leave it on because it gets comments like "spring-like" and "so feminine!" and (this is gonna sound bad) foreigners love that kind of thing. I think I mentioned before how Egyptians just went nuts for my brightest, patterny-est, crazy-pants-est skirts. So, to tie this all together (see how I did that?) man-repelling clothes are Bosnian or Egyptian- attracting clothes, and that's how I like it.

Here's a picture of the cardigan, the weekend just before it disappeared. Also note my awesome man-repelling face, hah.

I HATE LOSING THINGS.

I left ANOTHER thing on my last trip, a kinda silly but weather-appropriate short khaki trench-like weird-nylony jacket that is from Limited or something but I got at a yard sale. It was all professional and spring-like so I'm sad I left it but in return I got a sweet way-too-big San Diego lifeguard sweatshirt so I can repel the men some more. Nothing like swapping your girly narrow-waisted light coat for a giant hoodie.

The source of the hoodie, pictured above through New Orleans twilight and headlight glare.

Domestic Concerns

Today was pretty horrible and depressing, despite a middling to good day at work, I was ridiculously tired and irritable and impatient coming home. So I cured it the best I know how: a long bath (with school reading to feel virtuous), laundry (new Unique purchases! finally got the plain white button-down every style person seems to think should be a staple of every woman's closet), some cleaning and straightening up, cooked up some healthy food (chickpeas and chard, with onion, garlic, and garam masala) for dinner and for two small lunches in the future, mended a couple things, made some dye from the red chard stems (don't quite know what to do with it, since I added vinegar it might not really work as a food coloring), and orange juice.

I sound so boring! But really, puttering around the house is a great way to cheer myself up on a dreary day. And tomorrow is supposed to be much warmer so I'm taking hope.


 Took the picture a couple weeks ago on a pretty sunny evening.

Sick Cure

I got sick a little while ago. I'm better now, and I submit that this is why: I stopped drinking coffee, drank like a gallon of orange juice, and forced myself to chew a garlic clove before bed. I also drank a special drink made of hot water, lemon juice, jaggery, garlic, and cayenne. Lots of cayenne. If that can't cure your cold, there is really no hope for you.

Skirts: Swingy, Pleated, Sheer

Everywhere I keep seeing variations on the springy-est skirt ever, and it looks like the perfect thing to wear every day (if only it were a little bit warmer!)

 Ha, I can't believe I got all those images to stack up. 1 - Alejandra Alonso in lookbook for Mango spring 2011 via fashion gone rogue via {this is glamorous}*; 2 - Mariechen W. from Berlin on lookbook.nu in American Apparel's skirt**; 3 & 4 - The Sartorialist; 5 - E. from Academichic; 6 - Valentino Paris Fall 2011 Ready to Wear via style.com via {this is glamorous}

*I love Mango. I think the first time I went in one of their stores (they're a Spanish brand) was in Aruba on a trip in high school, and I was smitten by their cool clean look and carried around their lookbook with me for way longer than was necessary.
**We all know how I feel about AA, but they're really into chiffon recently and I do like this skirt.

I actually have a knee-length gored (it's words like this that I've noticed are totally lost on boys or people who are not into clothes) swishy pleated chiffon skirt, though it's black. I wore it a lot last fall but its been awfully light-weight for the depths of winter. Maybe I'll break it out again in an attempt to force spring on Chicago.

Mindfulness and Creativity

Happy Sunday, y'all. I'm eating leftover diner omelette from last night's adventures and cleaning all the things. And blogging. Holy crap, there's nothing like being freed temporarily from the worries and stress of work and school to remind you of long-forgotten creative plans. I took a class last quarter where we had to use different mediums to produce our reading responses each week, things like taking a picture, drawing with oil pastels (maybe that was just me and my love for oil pastels), writing poetry, cooking, singing, doing yoga. It was a touchy-feely class, and I gave the assignments a fair share of eye-rolling, but one comment by a classmate on the last day stuck out. She said that it was game-changing to think of creativity as part of normal work and life, not the "reward" we leave for ourselves when nothing else is really going on. For those of us who aren't artists and don't work in a creative field, how can we make the pursuit of creativity and beauty a part of our busy lives, not just something to add on?

I think a lot of us (bloggers, women, friends of mine, people who appreciate aesthetics, I dunno how I'm defining "us" here) seek to add beauty and creativity in to our everyday life in little ways, but those often strike me as something to add on when we've got money and time. I'm thinking of things like buying flowers, sewing and drawing and knitting during our free time. These things are valuable, but sometimes I literally don't have time or money for them (soon, hopefully, my life won't be so damn intense but you can't just wait around living in a future time). I've been thinking of ways to do the shit I have to do in a more mindful, creative way. I read (in Martha Stewart, referencing an unnamed "recent Harvard study") that people spend 50% of their time thinking about something other than what they're doing, and that this makes them unhappy. Let's totally ignore my nagging need to read the whole study and criticize it, and assume that mindful presence in as much of daily life as possible is a positive goal. There's a lot of boring shit I have to do that I don't want to be mindfully present for, though, I just want to get through, like commuting and paperwork and eating old food because I hate for food to go to waste and school assignments I can't get into. Sometimes, though, if I try or just pay attention, these can become enjoyable too. I kind of love commuting sometimes, watching the buildings flash past and the birds and the light sparkle through falling snow and the faces of my fellow metropolis-dwellers. I write little observations on receipts and shove them in my purse and find them later, a little slice of mid-January. My coworker play music while she does paperwork.

I think sometimes what it takes to introduce creativity to ordinary tasks, paradoxically, is ritual and routine. You know, you decide, ok, it's tax time, motherf*ers, time to dress up like my weirdly romanticized version of an attorney, get absurdly into knowing the workings of the IRS website, and pump myself up with a fancy coffee. I know those are kindof add-ons, but if you're going to dress and have a coffee anyway, why not specialize them for taxes? This is an odd example. Maybe like my coworker, when you have an unpleasant task at work, set it up so you're happy and comfortable and then get into it as much as possible. I kind of relish the stress of exam week because I'm so single-mindedly focused on one thing.

I'm going to think about this some more. After I do my taxes.

Took this crazy double-exposure picture in New Orleans on the hotel balcony in the morning, and of my friend's dog in the back of the truck, with my old-school Sabre 620 camera, which I finally got it together to use.