~*~*~eVeRyThInG aBoUt ThE MUSIC~*~*~ (now with working spotify list goddamn it)

  

   If I love anything, it’s a dress up day. A few months ago, I established a monthly “Dapper Friday” at work and surprisingly people have gone along with it. It’s kind of a personal goal to dress up more in everyday life, and having a place to actually wear stuff is great. As much as I love dapper days, I really love a theme day. A few weeks ago, I found an old sweatshirt I used to wear religiously in high school (and a few years after), and it sparked the idea to do a “High School” theme day. Granted, I’ve only been out of high school a short amount of time, the pinnacle of my pop-punk music fueled crabby teenage years were a decade ago. In gathering my outfit for work, I realized I gave away or otherwise decommissioned most of my angry youth clothes, but miraculously held onto a ton of the terrible black/Green Day themed jewelry.
    Essential to my daily wardrobe of the time was a band t shirt, black pants, black zippy hoodie, obscene number of ‘subversive’ buttons, too much jewelry, black eyeliner ON THE BOTTOM ONLY, and hair worn back. Band shirts were paramount, and that was the one thing I really got rid of. Some people can pull it off, but I can’t wear a graphic t-shirt any more. I had at least 20 Green Day t shirts at a high point of my teenage years (along with bags, jewelry, blankets, ect ect ect), but a few years back, I cut them all up and sewed them into a memory type quilt top. Nowadays, they serve me better in that form, but not when I’m trying to do a goddamn dress up day! I had to venture into ‘alternative’ paradise for UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS such as 16 year old me, Hot Topic (which, full disclosure, I used to work there during/after high school, and again briefly when I moved back to Eureka and just needed a job) for the first time in easily (probably more than) a year. It’s not 2004 anymore, I can tell you that.
      I decided to put together a playlist of songs from my terrible teenage years, both ones that I openly listened to, and those that I secretly listened to. In those years, I was a straight up asshole snob about music, and most of the stuff that I secretly liked, I’d rather die than let anyone know about. Thank god for the invention of headphones. So, pull out your original iPod the size of a deck of UNO cards, update your Myspace, wear your hood at all times, have general disdain for “preps”, and enjoy. But not too much.

Prohibition Scarlett O'Hara

   One thing everyone should know about me is that I don't watch movies*. Before anyone ever asks if I've seen a recent release, they should just automatically assume the answer is 'no'. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like them, they're fine, they just always seem like a lot to tackle. I have no problem putting away an entire TV series in a week (cough cough Breaking Bad), but two and a half hours for a movie? Ehhh, I've got a lot of 30 Rock I need to rewatch. Every once in  a while, I'll get a wild hair and watch something on Netflix, or go find it elsewhere, but since Netflix has limited streaming options for movies I actually would like to see, and I'm scared of viruses/the government arresting me for trying to find a watchable version of Best in Show, it's rare.  Plus, I hate movie theaters, or more importantly, movie theater patrons. I could be watching the most violent X-Rated film ever, and there'd still be a kid right behind me screaming the entire time.

    Along those lines, I rarely watch movie based awards shows unless I like the host(s) because, who are these people, what is this moving picture business, why do I care? Again, I could be watching the Lil Sebastian episode of Parks and Recreation for the nineteenth time.  But, in the spirit of being a new person who expands their horizons, I attended (and helped plan) an Oscar party this past Sunday with my friend from work. I say "in the spirit of being a new person" but really mean it was 1920s themed with a REQUIRED DRESS UP CODE.   Nothing, nothing, makes me happier than the words "required dress up code". All I've ever wanted in this feeble life is to attend a party where people are forced to dress in costume and actually like it.

    Of course I had to have a costume.  Though it's one of my favorite fashion eras, I don't really have any clothes that fit into the 1920s aesthetic, so I decided on making a dress. Cash is tight, as always, so I had to make do with what I had, and wound up using drapery samples that I got (for freeeeeee) from Penney’s when I worked there. It was also the first time I’ve made a garment without a pattern! I had only one mistake, which is unheard of for me, especially when I’m winging something, and got it done in only two days. I ended up spending about ten dollars for notions, and seven dollars on the cream kimono style jacket at goodwill. A whole new outfit for under 20 bucks is pretty good!
 Costuming on a budget is a talent and skill unto it's own, and I made out pretty well.

 

Please ignore atrocious quality of these pictures

   Most of the vintage (or vintage-y) items I have in my closet are accessories. It's always hard to find nice vintage clothes in my size, but accessories typically fit everyone! Plus, let's be real, you can find some nice accessories for a pretty good price most of the time.  I was able to accessorize my outfit completely from stuff I have, which was a huge time and money saver!

    I didn’t get any pictures of me wearing it, so I dragged it into the front room on my dress form and took shadowy pictures there. I really need to get a full length mirror so I can take outfit pictures! Argh!

   Luckily, my friend Michelle who hosted it is way into history and costumes and just generally being awesome, and she went all out. Before the party, I went with her and her daughter to a vintage bridal fair in costume, which was really fun. I don't care about weddings either, but I'll let it go if it's vintage themed.  I’m all about wearing costumes at all times, but I really hate to be the only person doing so. It was great to have a group of people I could kind of hide in, while still getting to dress up.

*I actually watched two movies in one day a couple days ago, after watching the awards show. I will probably not watch another for sixty five years. 

Cool Cat

The end of last month was my 25th birthday, and while I should use this post to talk about the fact that my chosen way to celebrate was eating nachos, I will instead share my favorite toddler-hood article of clothing, the Cool Cat sweatshirt.

Classic circa 1991 bubble font. Obligatory neon green. Cat with eyebrows, sweet shades and what appears to be a questionable goatee throwing a radical 'shaka brah' while wearing a turtle neck. This sweatshirt had everything.

Where did it come from?  How does it manage encapsulate the entire early nineties in one child size sweatshirt? Why do I wholeheartedly expect to walk by a Forever21 and see it in the window? How fast will I buy it when that does happen? Most importantly, why, when I google image search the term "vintage cool cat baby sweatshirt", does a picture of Jack Nicholson appear in the results????

These are all questions I'm not prepared to answer.

I think about that sweatshirt a lot. I knew there was a picture, but had no idea where it had gone. Then, a few weeks ago, I found an old scrapbook I had started to make in 2003 (HOO BOY), and there it was! Turns out, the picture in my head was a combination of several childhood photos mashed together. I thought I had the longer hair of the pink pants one, and that the spaghetti sauce/chocolate/lord knows all over my face was actually watercolor paint (something I did frequently), but the Cool Cat sweatshirt remained the same.


Also, all in all, my birthday was good.  I got to hang out with a friend who I hadn't seen in a while, got  the nachos, then was taken by work friends to get more food and was practically force fed cake.

Dyeing Shoes

I have a bunch of stuff to write up in the near future, but right now I'm dropping by to share something exciting (to me anyway, and probably no one else).

I successfully dyed shoes!

I have a costume party to go to on Sunday, and while I was able to scrounge together an outfit, shoes are always a problem. Thrift stores almost always turn up nothing in the shoe department for me and my weirdly large feet, so I was going to just have to go with some of my normal shoes. On Thursday,  I remembered I have a pair of reproduction 18th century shoes I bought years ago! Though I've had them for a long time, but have never worn them or done anything with them, because frankly, I have nowhere to wear them. That, and they were a shiny white color, which wasn't something I was ever going to wear anyway.

I had stored them up on the shelf where the ant box had been, so I had no idea what condition they were in. Along with the ants, every house I've lived in has had terrible mold, and I was concerned they would have been effected by that, but luckily, they were spared by both.

The end of my week was very busy, an, once I decided to wear and dye them, I had to bust my ass to get them done.. I didn't have time to order the dye recommended by the company that sells the shoes, so I had to go with RIT, which is super hit or miss. I dug around and found  a tutorial that really saved my ass, and they ended up coming out better than I expected! I used navy blue dye, and it didn't come out to be even close in color to "navy" but I was running out of time majorly, so the purple they ended up at just has to work.  They came out a bit streaky, but I think adding a few more coats would have fixed that problem.

 

Shoe on the right is how they came, and shoe on the left is after two coats.

The shoes are the first version of the American Duchess Georgianas. I'm not sure they are available any more.

 

Finished product! The colors in these photos are off.  The ribbon is a dark steely grey with purple undertones. It doesn't match the shoe, but is of the same material as my dress.

 

They aren't the right year by any stretch of the imagination, but they are better than the shoes that I was going to have to wear, if in color only.  They've never been worn and are slick on the bottom, so I'm hoping that's not an issue.


I can't wait to show the whole outfit! I'm very busy the next few days, but hope to get it up soon.

I'm Nature's Mosquito

 Coming from a musical family, I listen to music almost 24 hours a day, whether it's at work, when I'm on the computer, or traveling on the bus. Sometimes, it's just for background noise, or to avoid people (public transit, thank you), but it is near constant. I don't claim to have an outstanding taste in music, and what I listen to tends to be all over the place. For some reason though, I gravitate towards music that came out in the 1970s. This can be good and bad. A lot of shit came out in those ten years, but a lot of shit comes out every decade. And sometimes, I've come to understand, it's fun to like "terrible" music- I actively listen to disco and late nineties boybands. And while there was once a time when I'd rather die than let anyone think that I would listen to One Direction, one of the most important things I've learned once I got out of high school and wised up, was to stop writing off something purely because it's what I thought people expected me to like as a teenage girl. I spent a lot of time not liking something for no reason other than me being an idiot. Being a snob is no fun, and trying to impress people who don't really care is even less fun. FutureSex/LoveSounds was a good album damn it, and I wish I would have figured that out when it came out, not years later.

  I love finding new music, and at the same time, listening to the same things over and over. One artist I could listen to forever is Jonathan Richman (and the Modern Lovers). My dad used to play Back in Your Life when I was a kid, and when I moved out, I made sure to yoink that record. It's "lo-fi" at it's most low. Goofy, sincere and heartfelt, it's amazing and ridiculous at the same time. My dad saw him live once, and said it was the quietest show he'd ever seen. Ha!

Here's a selection of my favorite Jonathan Richman songs. Most are from Back in Your Life, but there are a few others thrown in




This is my first time embedding a Spotify play list, I hope it works!

Here’s the most obvious statement I’ll ever make:

I love tv.

 Having a parent who works in the industry (even at the tiny regional market level), the tv was always on when I was a kid- if it wasn’t, that meant something was “wrong at the station”. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but every time I see a network cut to their generic logo bumper, I still think of someone scrambling to find the right tape.

Television is an easy target for people who like to shit on things. Yeah, a lot of tv is stupid. A lot of tv is downright horseshit. For every Mad Men, there’s going to be ten thousand 16 and Pregnants. But, it’s all about how you use it.  The television medium is a tool.  What it can deliver depends on how one chooses to use it. 

That being said, I have a terrible habit of latching onto a show and watching it over and over and over.  Yeah, I watch a lot of tv, volume-wise. But my variety is somewhat lacking.  Because I get stuck in the same three-show-loop, I have a tendency  to miss out on a lot of great shows.  I don’t have access to the television set in the house that’s hooked up to cable (grr), nor am I super confident about “finding” tv online (double grr), so I usually have to wait around for it to hopefully be released on Netflix, as service that has become increasingly disappointing with their selection.  Luckily for me, some networks are getting internet savvy and posting stuff on places like Hulu, or even their own websites, but I still get behind, and tend to find new shows months (years) after everyone else has seen it already.

What I’m trying to say specifically is 

GUYS 

BREAKING BAD 

 

TOP TEN MOST LIFE CHANGING SHOWS I'VE EVER WATCHED

CAPSLOCK NECESSARY

 END OF POST

Ant Dress update

I'm kind of in the middle of moving the blog around, so things may look weird around here for a while.

Anyway, I've been making some minor progress on cleaning up the ants as mentioned in the last post. My great grandmother's wedding outfit was hit the worst, and so far I've only been able to work on  the skirt. The best way I've found to be able to actually get them off has been brushing the pieces with a clean paintbrush, and despite being extremely tedious, it actually is working pretty well, and I got the skirt almost ant free in about an hour and a half yesterday. Unfortunately, another storm has moved in, and the wind and rain mean it has to hang in the laundry room until the weather clears.

The jacket and the top will be harder; there are more nooks and crannies for the ants to hide in. The sleeves seem to be where they are hiding in the top. The jacket is what's going to take the most. It's almost all  stitched down ruching with lace capelet attached to the yoke, which is perfect for them to hide.

I took these poorly lit pictures in 2009-ish, when I first received the outfit. 

There are some severe holes in the skirt and some pretty bad staining in the jacket, but it's mainly in the sleeve lining, and you can't see it from the outside. I'll be able to better assess what actually is going on when I get in there and start cleaning.

There were easily a hundred thousand ants in that box, and I'm very fortunate that the damage that was done was all that there was.