We have a whole life to live together, you fucker, but it can't start until you call.

Miranda July, right up there in my top 5 favorite creative women in the world (along with Bjork, Jenny Holzer, Margaret Atwood, & Sophie Calle) has a book coming out tommorrow, and I am positively quivering with excitement. It's a collection of short stories entitled No One Belongs Here More Than You, and you mustmustmust go to the website:

www.noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com

Always an original, she sounds her authorial trumpet by writing with a dry-erase marker on different kitchen appliances and photographing each sentence, all leading to a photo-story to announce her upcoming book. It's too lovely for words.

If you haven't yet seen "You, Me, & Everyone We Know," go out and rent it TODAY. It's a unbelievably endearing modern tale of intersecting quirky characters and stories: a family torn apart by divorce, a little boy's naive foray into the world of internet sex, an elderly couple's love, and a woman's tendency to wish her fantasies into reality so hard that they just might happen.

splashy splashy

oh, my, god, i CANNOT get over this swimsuit by JG4B:

It's a collaboration of Jasper Goodall, a UK graphic design artist, with a British swimsuit designer to create the "Midnight Menagerie" collection (shown). I am DYING for one of these two versions, but my size is sold out on netaporter. I've even contacted a boutique in canada where they stock the swimsuits (there are only a few shops in the world that stock them), and am begging them to order some more even though it's over $300 and I've never spent that much on a swimsuit...or...anything... and when it comes down to it I can't even afford it, but I want it so baaaaaaaaaaad *whimpers*

It's such a flattering cut~! Love the one-pieces with sides cut out and a low V front. I'm even going back to the ol' shopaholic's axiom: "BUT I'LL WEAR IT FOREVER!!!!!!!" This probably isn't an eternity piece, but goddammit is it cute. I'll probably end up with a lower-end version of this swimsuit, like the American Apparel one:

sigh. why can't i be a rich 23 year old so that i can afford couture swimsuits? WHY.

coachella-style-hunter.

Sweaty camera in hand, i snuck *clicks* at some examples of Coachella style. Fashion do's and don'ts to follow ("don't" mainly exhibited by pot-bellied boy with a t-shirt wrapped around his head, Turban style. And I don't think he was trying to emulate the Prada Fall '07 turban look, either.) I had bigger ambitions than follow-thru: I intended this to be a full-on facehunter homage, but fatigue and dehydration set in, and lying face-down in the grass in the air-conditioned Heineken tent and passing out in the sun during MSTRKRFT won over style scouting. But, still...

This lady and her sunny yellow dress got us all dancing to one of the members of The Faint who DJ'd in the globe tent that lit up at night.

Here he is! (HOT.) Shades + tight white tee + grey vest = zexy.

Loved this girl's pink hair and vintage see-thru babydoll top. After we film the documentary in June, I think I'll be adding a few streaks of pink to my blonde locks...

And there we have it. It's more theta alpha phi than Prada, no? This is when style deteriorates and people just don't care anymore, because it's just too damn hot to worry about how you look when sweat won't stop running down the backs of your thighs.

Adorable. Lots of girls opted to just wear tops as dresses and pair with some rough little ankle boots, as she did. I marveled at how many girls wore boots, until I realized that it wasn't just about enduring unbelievable heat for fashion: it's an easy way to sneak in drugs! Ah, it all comes together.

Another style note was all of the Ray-Ban Corey Hart sunglasses going on. It was cute for about five minutes, but I'm over it -- I'd say 1/3 girls wore them, and when that happens, you know it's time for a trend to die. Also of note were all the '70s hippie headbands the circled the forehead rather than kept hair out of the face. I'm all for that look, but it's hard to pull off if you're not at a summer festival. Note to self for Lollapalooza style this summer in Chicago...

sailor? i hardly knew her!

new dress up in the shop. it's my favorite. shhh.

HOT NEW VINTAGE. yum.

just added some loverly new vintage items to the shop(pe). head on over to tiniest spark vintage & take a look for cute summer coats, dresses, and shoes...ooh la la <3

COACHELLAAAAAAAAAAAA

THREE DAYS 'TIL COACHELLA!!!

three days 'til i'll be:

*driving four hours thru-out the nite with meg, ipod blasting away our favorite can't-miss coachella artists, stopping at gas stations to load up on caffeine & string cheese

*seeing BJORK OMG OMG OMG OMG OMGGGGGGGGGG MY ICELANDIC BEAUTY DREAM COME TRUE, i have loved her and listened to her trilled electronic wails since a wee lass of 14 (good god, almost 10 years ago?), and have been dying to see her ever since. it will without a doubt be my highlight of the three-day festival : )

*camping, miserably enough. (WHY do people do it for pleasure?)

*sweating, sweating, sweating. still debating on fashion choices...vintage lime green romper with white birdies flying all over it is a surefire friday pick, and some floaty dresses for the other days.... but it's hard to look cute when you are in 115 degrees for an entire weekend, can't sleep because it's about -20 fucking degrees at night (in a tent, that is), but wake up around 7:30am NOT by choice because the blazing sun is already on its sadistic rampage and then you end up passing out on the grass floor of the air-conditioned heineken tent for a few precious half-hours per day because it's the sweet, sweet, merciful cool air that lulls you to splay out, grass-stains aplenty, oh, who can look cute after all that? WHO? i saw these girls last year sporting intense amounts of foundation, lipstick, heavy jewelry, HEELS, the whole kit and kaboodle, and i have NO idea how they did it. they must have stayed in a hotel. bitches.

*list of people i'm excited to see:

bjork !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

arcade fire!!!!

interpol

cansei ser sexy

manu chao

the good, the bad & the queen

blonde redhead!!

air!

lily allen!

i can't even think of any others, i'm that excited.

people that are missing that i would have loved to see there:

joanna newsom (swoon) & the knife. ah well, next year....

anyone reading this going? how excited are YOU?????

oh, hooray.

:D

ahoy, mateys!

well, europe, it looks like it's going to be me and you, together again, reunited down long, winding roads, streetside cafes, endless cappuccinos, floaty sundresses, and...donkeys?

in june, me mum, a writer/producer/documentarian, is heading to europe to film a travel series, and i'm going to be the on-camera host! WHEE!!!!!!!!!!!! two blissful weeks of island-hopping and filming with mum, boyfriend (as Key Grip, his official title), and a small crew of lovely people.

soooo-ooooo excited. i've also applied to graduate schools in europe for the fall (namely around london and dublin), so, assorted bloggers and worldwide readers, keep yer fingers crossed for me. i won't find out til may or june...i'll inform you all then. : )

<3

emerald isle and pudding

until something more interesting happens in my life other than being unbelievably broke, i will post lovely photos of the best year o' my life, my modern Grand Tour, mon annee europeenne. le sigh.

part one: ireland.

my best friend from the PRE-SCHOOL years (that is a LONG friendship, people) and i went to visit ireland together. at the time, she was studying in geneva for a year, and i was in grenoble (a sweet french mountain town nestled into the alps). In june, we hightailed it to the land of 1/4 of my ancestors for a week traveling from dublin to cork to killarney to dingle and back.

The above photo is of the westernmost bike ride possible in europe. Dingle is the westernmost town in Europe, and we took a train and a six-hour bus ride to get there. It's a charming little town with small streets bursting with pubs. Although I was pretty nauseous from the six hours of winding hilly roads in a bus, we left our oversized backpacks with some kind people in the storage room of their mini-grocery store and rented bikes and made our way down the western path of europe. We road past remote villages, cottages tucked behind gardens and immense yards, beyond fields dotted with cows who moo'ed as we whizzed by, the salty sea air blowing through our blonde ponytails.

Below: the town of Dingle. Look at the winding, hilly view! I'm practically salivating at the memory of such beautiful landscape. I'm currently applying to graduate schools in Ireland, and this makes me lust all the more for an acceptance.

and, what is possibly the most thrilling entertainment to be found in Ireland: BREAD PUDDING. Although not as easy to find as you may think. My friend and I wandered in and out of about 4 pubs/restaurants in Dublin's Temple district before we found one that had bread pudding on the menu. (I was on a mission. Yes, I am that obsessive about food.) Luckily I have a friend that puts up with it. And boy, oh boy. Was that caramel-glazed-with-vanilla-ice-cream bread pudding DELICIOUS.

ramses II

my puppy. photographed at the congress hotel in tucson, arizona. We had to sneak him in, folding him into my oversized Longchamp tote bag, and he was punching and kicking and digging tunnels with his white-socked little paws the whole way up and down the stairs. shhh.

loveable monster creatures and more...

i thought i'd take this opportunity to share with you some wonderful artwork that i've discovered online in the past few weeks. their work gives me those good shivers where i get all over-excited and think "OOH! i want these covering EVERY INCH OF MY LIVING ROOM WALL!!!!!!!"

ashley g! you can find her shop on etsy.com.
i bought this one, entitled "windy day," and it now lives on my blue wall, behind my bed. it is too lovely. her works are so precious and fairy-tale-esque and like a link to another magical world. the creatures that she renders are too adorable, like wee harmless monsters that you want to fit into your pocket and whisper your secrets to all day long, knowing you'll get an adoring little squeeze hug in return.

i'm currently lusting after this one, called "party for one."

go and grab one of her prints in her etsy shop now!

another one i'm loving is jennifer's work in her shop, http://stilettoheights.etsy.com. Her collage work has an ethereal romanticism to it that she creates by melding vintage script in cursive, love letters painted all over the canvas with photographs of women lounging seductively in bed or walking down lonely city streets. There is a haunting escapism here that is incredibly alluring, and her work ranges from smaller, affordable canvases to large-scale work.

zexxy vintage listings!

ooooh. posted some new items to me' vintage shoppe, lookielookie!

if you're interested, click on over to tiniest spark vintage (in case i effed up that hyperlink, it's should be located within the links on the right)

yay!!

newsboy cap -->newsies --> christian bale --> ahh.

i have had a torrid history with hats. namely because they never, EVER look good on me. i'm simply not one of those girls that can top an outfit off with a fedora and look wicked hot. just can't. I look like a doofus every time, in every style of hat. So, as le boy and i were breezing thru nordstrom's today, and he stopped at the men's hats and tried on a few newsboy styles (which he looks ravishing in, by the way), i tried one on as a joke. Lo! Behold! I was astonished at my reflection. A navy blue Kangol newsboy cap stared back at me, atop by newly lightened strands of hair and DAMN. I looked good. So good that three passers-by stopped to tell me how much they loved my outfit (black free people mini babydoll dress, white tights, brown boots, and my caramel leather motorcycle jacket i bought in rome 6 years ago) and that I definitely needed to buy the hat. And they weren't even employees!

needless to say, i bought it and am now wearing it, even though i just put it on to take the dog out and am still wearing it in my pajamas on my way to bed and now my boyfriend is turning off all the lights around me and saying "shop's closed, lady," so, guess it's bedtime.

yay! yay kangol! you have a new friend in me! everyone run to your nearest nordstrom's men's department and make a happier, more subtly stylin' you!

birds on boobies.

christmas is a difficult time of year for me.

and not in the "ive got the holiday blues" kind of way (what's that?), but in the "i can't stop myself from buying every pretty thing i see for myself while pretending to shop for others."

ok, that's a lie. i do shop for others, i finished my shopping last weekend and i bought bitchin', thoughtful gifts for my friends and family. but i don't know how to exercise any sort of consumer self-restraint during the normal year, but at christmastime, when it is mandatory to shop and be out in boutiques, malls, record shops, i just. can't. stop.

so, on the way home from the xmas shopping the other day with my bestestest friend juliet, i stopped into electric ladyland, this boutique near the restaurant we work at that everyone has said "OMG! you have to go! they have the cutest things!" for months now. anyway, i decided to pop in, and jesus christ. everything glittered. way too "scottsdale clubby i'm a 45 year old mom trying to look 25 with the help of plastic surgery and army pants with sparkly patches on them" of a taste for me, but lo and behold, nestled between rhinestone-laden halter tops and spandex-chiffon dresses, i found this lovely dress that a girl had worn into the restaurant MONTHS ago that i begged to know where she got it,and the reply was L.A. gah!! shellshock-disappointment followed. it looks so vintage chic, with adorable embroidered swallows on the chest and a rope tie around the waist. and there it was!! in this shiny store!! just one left! in my size! clearly, it was fate. lookie lookie:

the photo doesn't do the dress justice, the girl is kinda skanky and she isn't pulling it off very well. i will sport this dress with my vintage black riding boots. plus my boobs aren't fake like hers. so, yes, i splurged way too much $ on this dress but i couldn't let it go. IT WAS FATE, RIGHT?? i had to salvage it from the glittered creepy forest of "HOT BABE" rhinestone tees and "I WANNA BE SEDATED"-embroidered toddler onesies (fereals).

she's baaaaaa-aaaaaaaack.

god that title was lame. but it's 5pm and i'm in a coffee shop and i stupidly ordered english breakfast tea instead of caffeine, and i had to be up for work at 5 am today, and i'm SO TIRED!

...so, perfect time to jump back into the blogosphere, eh? i promise the rest of the post won't b as lame as the title, mmkay?

so! why have i been gone so long?? a few reasons. BLOGGER WON'T LET ME UPLOAD PHOTOS FROM MY COMPUTER! i don't know why. it says they're uploaded, the photo insert box goes away, and then ... nothing. nada. zilch. no photos. no pictoral mass-web sharings of my: bloated wisdom toothless face; trip up north to prescott; new puppy ramses (AH GOD SO CUTE HE IS!); other random items i would like to share with my beaoteeful readers. lame! so lame. so i'll have to resort to uploading photos from the internet only, i suppose. sigh. if anyone knows how this photo situation can be fixed, i'd love to hear how....

...where to begin? let's start with the surgery. thanks for all the well wishes, it actually went much better than anticipated, considering what a hopeless wimp i am with pain. thanks to vicodin and my mum's superduper caretaking skills, and seasons 1-4 of queer as folk, i was better in no time! it was very nice to be home for awhile and see family and friends. my life is so all over the place, having gone to college across the country, and having spent a year abroad and making incredible friends in europe (european and american friends alike), i now have a collection of friends everywhich way, which is marvelous, but also kind of overwhelming. especially when i'm as shitty at keeping up with communication as i am. ah. gotta work on that.

so, all's well here -- i'm gearing up for THE HOLIDAYYYYYYYYYYS!!!!!!!!!!!!! mum is coming out to visit me for xmas, which i'm oh so excited about. my birthday falls on christmas day so this time of year is extra-fun and special and exciting for me. let's put it this way... will ferrell as "elf" speaks to my inner soul. i feel the same way he does about christmas. 'elation' is a nonchalant term for how i feel about christmas.

speaking of elf, when i saw it with my ex-boyfriend when it came out, and the scene came on where buddy the elf doused a bowl of spaghetti with chocolate sauce, candy, marshmellows, m&ms, and other assorted sugary goodies, i leaned over and said "that. looks. so. fucking.good." cut to 2 months later, for valentine's day, he made me the very same meal, and it was so. fucking. good. sounds gross, but if you're serious about sweets the way i am, i promise you'll like it. try it some time. ferreals.

ok that was a major(ly sugary) segue. basically, i'm superexcited about christmas. now time for a nice CURRENT boyfriend story! (i don't mean current in the "this week's boyfriend" way, but in the "not an ex-boyfriend story, this is my now boyfriend and i love heeem" way)

last nite le boy told me to leave the house for a couple hours. when i got home, he had decorated our place from top to bottom in christmas gear. twinkly colored lights everywhere, gift ribbons scaling down the walls, snowmen, candy, and silver balls and holly branches. so purtee!! the boy knows the way to my heart. whee!

onto the next post...BACK TO FASHION!

yes, this will be me...i'm going on a mini-hiatus from the blogosphere for the next 2 weeks. i'm flying home to chicago so i can have my wisdom teeth (all four!!) removed. why fly across the country to have the surgery, you ask? because no one can take better care of you than mom.

wish me luck. eeeep. i'm suuuuuuuuuch a wuss with pain.

<3