Outfit of the Day--Tuesday May 14, 2013

Seriously, there was a point tonight where I was quietly sitting and watching/listening to the world happening around me and my only response was, "Surely this isn't real life. Because it's SO STUPID it simply has to be the universe in some manner PUNKING THE HELL OUT OF ME."

I'm not kidding. When the portion of your day that includes being at the car dealership service center before 9 a.m. is, by far, not the most unpleasant interaction you have with humanity? Humanity as a whole needs to reassess.

And that's not all...I took a picture of myself and was like, "Well, I look incredibly chunky." Plus, I have this thing. And that thing has to do with matching. See, a few years ago, I was obsessed, and I mean seriously obsessed with watching How Do I Look? and What Not to Wear. To the point that I would Tivo them if I was gonna miss. Now my being enamored of the former was about 90% to do with my utter adoration of the incomparable Finola Hughes, who was the host at the time, because having other people pick out your stuff seemed pointless. I wanted the poorly dressed people to LEARN. Which is why, Finola aside, What Not to Wear was actually a more useful show. Because one of the mantras repeated by Stacy about a jillion times was, "It doesn't have to MATCH, it just has to GO." Which, I really loved. I think part of it had to do with spending the majority of my life with girls who took making everything (including, at times, their offspring) match their outfit. And I always thought it looked silly and "trying to hard." So, when I got dressed today and realized that, although I really love the color combo of lime and coral (which in various shades is very "on trend" right now), every single accessory (except my purse which is the same as yesterday because I am notoriously lazy about changing purses) was lime green. And I though that maybe I looked like one of those match-matchy girls I despised and if I had kids I would have them all dressed in lime green (because kids=accessories).

And then...well, someone, in real life, tells me that I look really good. VALIDATION. That doesn't change the fact that I wear this dress so very rarely because it took me almost an entire episode of The Golden Girls to iron it yesterday. But still...it's nice to know that someone thinks you look good (even if there's chance he was just being really sweet when he said it.)



Jacket: Gap (old); Dress: Anthropologie (old); Shoes: gift from Mom who got them at a boutique in Alabama; Necklace: Anthropologie (old and from the sale room); Earrings: which you can't see but should know are tiny little lime green squares from Target (old)

Outfit of the Day--Monday May 16, 2013

So the percentage of my existence where I'm cold hovers somewhere around three-quarters of my life. I'm always cold. Al. ways. I spend 12 months a year watching television under a throw. It's a heated throw, although I don't always plug it in a crank it up--that's usually only about five months out of the year. Which is why I can't trust myself to judge temperatures outside. I mean, I'll be out in jeans and a sweater when other (I would assume normal) people are in shorts and sleeveless shirts.

Which is why I wasn't sure about yesterday's temperature situation. I'm always out with Charlie at 7 or a bit before and then I was in and out of the house all day until the last time I took him out at about 10 last night. And I kept thinking, "It's getting colder." Only, like I said, I CANNOT be trusted, so it's entirely possible that the temperature was only experiencing a normal day's fluctuation and I'm just a big freak of nature. Until I got up this morning and realized that it really WAS colder. To the tune of 45 degrees when I left the house for the first time at about 8 and saw the outdoor temperature when I cranked the car. It's May. It's the MIDDLE of May. And I saw people who weren't me out in quilted jackets this afternoon.

This is a pain in my ass. For one thing, it makes me feel a general sort of malaise. But mostly because it's hard to dress appropriately. It's not that I don't have clothes that are appropriately warm. I do. I have lots of them. But it FINALLY has started to feel like something approaching actual spring around here and we devolve into a string of days where the HIGH is something like 61. That's just wrong. I have a whole rack of Lilly Pulitzer that's sitting there waiting to be worn. And it's starting to feel neglected and sad. Instead, I wore this (because it kinda, sorta made me feel like spring):



Shirt and Skirt: Target (this spring); Sweater: Ralph Lauren outlet (old, but they always have similar); Necklace: Lord & Taylor; Boots: DSW (really old); Bag: Vineyard Vines (old, but again--they are a VV staple).

That Vineyard Vines tote? Y'all it's the greatest thing I've ever seen, heard or read about. It's goes with EVERYTHING. No really. It does. If it's an outfit that absolutely cannot be worn with my Frye boots and that tote. Well, then I don't want to KNOW that outfit.

Acute WDW Withdrawal Syndrome

Here's the thing...I either have bronchitis/asthma/allergies or whooping cough or my body is physically reacting to being removed from the Greater Walt Disney World Area.

It's true. On my second to last full day there, I woke up with a sore throat. On the last full day, I started with a tickly kind of cough. Which has, in the week that I've been home, developed into an actual full-on cough. Now granted, clean as it is, WDW has to be like a culture of germs. I mean, there's kids EVERYWHERE touching everything--I once saw my niece LICK a handrail in a queue--and there's no way you can wash your hands every single time you touch something, because if you did, you'd never get to ride anything or watch anything because all you'd ever do is wash your hands. Also, on the night before I woke up with a sore throat, we spent an hour sitting in the pouring rain waiting for Fantasmic which turned out not to happen. And it was COLD. Not just that night, but except for the first day we were there, pretty much the whole time. I had to buy a hoodie the night we watched Illuminations (where it also rained). I mean, I'm educated enough to know that, no matter WHAT my paternal grandmother used to insist, you can't actually GET a cold/cough/fever/flu from BEING cold. Although I don't think that it helps the situation when you've already managed to slurp up all the various germs that must lurk all over the Magic Kingdom.

Anyway, if you happen to encounter me in real life, I'm taking all kinds of meds. I'm not attempting to infect the general populace. I actually FEEL fine. And really, I don't think that it's possible for someone to CATCH Disney Ennui. At least not from person to person contact.

Outfit of the Day--Mother's Day 2013

I think that there's a general consensus among a lot of my friends that when I chose to major in history and English, it was a mistake. Not because I didn't love both of those things and not because I wasn't smart in both of those things. It's just that they think (and I tend not to disagree with them) that I really should have majored in fashion design and merchandising. As to why I didn't....well, that's a hard one. Part of it has to do with who I was when I was a tween/teen. Although I was often drawn to unique and one of a kind outfits, I was WAY to concerned with fitting in to actually wear any such thing. Oh, I had the occasional unique ensemble, but mostly I steadfastly clung to the idea that fitting in--at least with regards to my clothes--was a far better plan than standing out. To the point that it never even occurred to me that there was a whole world, a whole CAREER, where the PURPOSE was to look cool and cutting edge and maybe even help others do so as well.

That all being said, on the few occasions when I wanted to wear something different than everyone else, the lady who facilitated it was my mom. Which is one of the reasons that Mother's Day and today's outfit are a perfect platform for a reboot of a daily clothing post. Because like so many gals, my biggest fashion influence is my mom. This is a lady who facilitated my desire for: tweed knickers when I was seven, painted hair ribbons when I was nine, an entire new wardrobe when I was ten and started at a new school (even thought she knew the things I was buying were NOT my style at all and just my attempt to look mid-80s "cool"), wearing Keds without laces when I was twelve and a Rush wardrobe that was so awesome I STILL wear a couple of the dresses 20 years later. She has an uncanny ability to walk into a store that is TEEMING with customers and walk straight to the sales rack and find the most unique and spectacular piece on it. She taught me how to shop consignment and even better, how to shop thrift. If you can't find it in a store, she can probably make it (or knows how to find someone who can). I wish I had access to all of the family photo albums so I could show you her awesome clothes from the 60s and 70s. Alas, you'll just have to take my word for it.

What I wore today involves my mom, a consignment shop, her uncanny ability to find awesome stuff and a hilarious story.

Here's the deal with consignment shopping: There are consignment shops where you can tell they are super-selective about what they take to sell. There are consignment shops that have some truly amazing pieces, mixed in with rack after rack of relatively non-descript things from stores like The Gap. There are consignment stores where the staff is lovely and friendly. And there are consignment stores where the staff acts snootier than those ladies that snub Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. The one where I got the dress I'm wearing today is on the super-selective side--but not the toniest I've ever been to--and DEFINITELY on the snooty side.

Last summer, my mom and I were shopping there and she pulled out the dress. It's colors I don't usually wear--tan and yellow--mixed with a color a love--purple--but would never think meshed together. However, it turned out to be absolutely precious and I got it. The story, though, isn't about that. It's about the signs. This store has signs up that admonish you that if you try on clothes in sizes that are too small and you rip them or break the zipper, you'll have to pay for them. I first want to clarify that the dress I tried on was NOT too small. It was a size 8. I wear a size 4. I just wanted to see if the color, which I'm not naming to protect the innocent (because I feel sure that a store clerk from an unnamed shop is going to figure it out and hunt me down where I live, which is something like 10 states away. Or something like that.), would work and if it did, would it be possible to take the dress in. As it turns out the color was fine, but my Fashion Advisor (read: Mother) said that taking it in would be a chore because of embroidery issues. So, I go to take it off. Now, know that side zipper on dresses are the bane of my life. They are fussy and persnickety and tend to get stuck at the waist. Which this one did. Only usually, I can either zip it all the way down and start over (if I'm putting it ON) or zip it back up to the top and ease it down (if I'm undressing). Not this zipper. It. Was. Stuck. I don't mean that fabric was caught in the teeth or that it was hanging on the seam between the bodice and the skirt. I mean that this zipper REFUSED to move in either direction at about an inch above the waist. Now, since it was two sizes too big, I could move it around my waist to work on it. Nothing. And even two sizes too big in the waist wouldn't go over my chest and shoulders (to say nothing of my hips). Worse still? It was about 105 degrees outside and when I asked for a dressing room, Snotty Shop Girl languidly informed me that the air-conditioning in that section kept freezing up and stopping so it was really hot back there. And she wasn't kidding. Maybe...MAYBE on a February day when I wasn't sticking to my own clothing, I could have inched it over my head. But this was just impossible. So I called for reinforcement. And after ten minutes of working with the zipper and trying to get it over my head, my mother was like, "Okay...were going to have to pop the zipper off the teeth." And of course I freak out, because I don't want to have to pay for the dress and you could just TELL that the girls working were the kind who would love to call someone chubby and make them pay--whether it was there fault or not. And my mom, who is AWESOME, said, "Don't be crazy. You're not paying for it. This is a cheap plastic zipper. The dress isn't too tight. I'm going to take the toggle off the teeth. You're going to take it off. I'm going to take it back and hang it up. You are going to pay for the things you're buying. And that's the end of it." I know...it's awful. I should feel bad. But here's the thing...whoever bought that dress was going to have to replace the zipper. It wasn't a good quality and it was going to get stuck. I just helped in letting them know that BEFORE they bought the dress and took it home. There...that is my horrible person confession of the day.

In other news...
Dress:consigned; Sweater:Target (2009); Purse: Marley Lilly; Shoes: Target (now).

"All you need is a light jacket..."

Today is like the Energizer Bunny. Seriously. You know that first Christmas Eve where you're old enough to realize that Christmas is, in fact, TOMORROW, but still young enough to be really, honestly excited about Santa? Do you remember how long that day felt like it lasted? Well, that's how today was for me. I've been messing around, organizing a closet and whatnot and I honestly thought it was going to be one of those nights where I turn around and look at the clock and it's one-thirty in the morning and I have been oblivious to the passage of time. Nope. I turned around and it was eight o'clock. And the thing is, it's not because of something awesome or exciting that's happening tomorrow. It's just that today has lasted forever. What's more? I'm exhausted, but not sleepy (if that even makes sense.) That is the one part for which I may actually have an explanation. You see, Charlie the Wonder Puppy has, since his arrival, slept in his little black carry crate which I put next to my bed. The larger crates which we had gotten for him were just ridiculously large at first--he only weighed a hair under four pounds. That said, he's grown immensely in the span of just under two months that we've had him. And as such we are attempting to wean him to his permanent abode, which will be a comfy crate in the kitchen. Our first step was putting his carry crate into a bigger crate in my room. Which, on Monday night, morphed into putting the big crate with his smaller one inside it right outside my door. The first problem being that it got much lighter, much more quickly and he woke up at the absolute crack. Now, that, I mitigated by covering the crate(s) with a blanket. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm now like a mom with a small baby that's just moved from his bassinet to a crib of his own and I'm pretty sure that I've spent the last three nights sleeping with one ear open.

Charlie, on the other hand, has been sleeping BEAUTIFULLY. To the point that he's been an absolute wild man in the mornings. Hence the beginning of my day which was get up and do Charlie's business of potty and food. Then in the space of time that it took me to brush my teeth and retrieve the papers, he shredded his puppy pad, pooped on it, turned over his food bowl and scattered it everywhere AND dumped out his water bowl, which he mixed with the food and tramped all over his sleep mat. Which all had to be washed. Then I got myself ready, folded two loads of laundry,went to Starbucks for coffee for everyone and picked up B on campus so he could leave for an overnight trip. All of that was by 10 a.m. I dropped the travelers off at the Trenton train station, went to the cell phone place and got a new phone, went to the bank for money for the Crazy Polish-speaking Cleaning Ladies, fed Charlie his lunch and took him out to, as we say, "run out his heebie-jeebies", went to my voice lesson, ran to the mall to get a white shirt, fed and let Charlie heeby his jeeby again, made dinner and then worked out making some sense of the labyrinth that is my closet.

That said today is April the 25th, y'all. It's the perfect date! Miss Rhode Island says so...



And she wasn't kidding! I was outside. In normal clothes. WITHOUT BEING WRAPPED IN A BLANKET!!!

I even have proof:

That's my feet! In summer shoes. And Wonder Puppy in the background.

And then a nice lady in a sleigh drawn by wolves offered me some Turkish Delight...

It is cold, y'all. I mean, seriously. It's the 23rd of April. It's William Shakespeare's birthday. That is SPRING. Or at least, it should be. Because as of now, we've had only the tiniest handful of really nice spring days. And only a couple of times have any of them been consecutive. I am beginning to think that I am a) trapped in Narnia when the White Witch has made it perpetually winter and we're all waiting for Aslan; b)living in a world where winter lasts for decades a la Game of Thrones or c)Lilly Pulitzer was actually some sort of spring fairy who waved a wand every April and her death has left a vacancy in the Spring Fairy position.

First of all, I feel bad for our poor, confused flowers. It's like they don't know what to do with themselves. We had this one freaky warm day back in February and the daffodils along the driveway started to push up and then it's freezing, even SNOWING a few times, with a smattering of warm days thrown in (for flavor and excitement?). That's not anything, though, on my personal confusion...when the weather SHOULD have been about to turn warm, I pulled out all of my spring and summer clothes. I didn't unpack them, but they were there waiting. Now, I'll admit that part of that was because I needed to pull some things out of storage for use in Legally Blonde, but there my lovely pastels and seersuckers and white pants sat. Sadly bereft. Finally, I had to make the call and pack up the cold-weather stuff. Of course, that meant that I spent an hour outside with the puppy this afternoon wearing my flannel pajama pants, my parka (okay, so it's not really THAT cold. It was in the 40s. But it IS that cold when you're sitting still in a chair while the puppy races around the enclosed garden.) and a scowl. I've also spent time out there wrapped in a blanket, which may or may not, make me look like Crazy Lady.

So, c'mon Weather...I need you to get your shit together and get with the program. I would like to clean out the garage and straighten up the attic without having to dress like I'm about to participate in the Iditarod.

Legally Bugging the Hell Outta Me

I was in law school when the Reese Witherspoon film Legally Blonde was originally released. I saw it in the movie theater twice and owned it from the moment it was released on DVD. I LOVED it. I mean, really, really loved it. I GOT it. I thought that all campy silliness aside, it did a fairly good job of portraying a sorority--especially one that seemed to be pretty closely based on mine, what with the pink and green and the letters being but a quarter turn from actually BEING mine. Several years later, I went to see the Broadway show with my best friend/sorority sister who turned to me during the opening number and said, "We have found it. You have to be in this show." And now, I am. Last weekend and this coming weekend, I am singing and dancing my way through Delta Nu and law school.

And here's the thing...Repeated (and I DO mean repeated) exposure to the show has made me...irritated. Beyond the fact that "I've got a chip on my shoulder, and it's big as a boulder" is one of the most dreadful lyrics ever written, there are truly some things about the show that just grate on my last nerve.

Here's my 10:

1. Omigod, you guys! Stereotype much?--I adore, simply adore the opening number. It nails so many things about a sorority. The excitement. The silliness. The can delighting song. It is spot on. However, from there, the sorority girls degenerate quickly into the most awful stereotypes of sorority girls imaginable. Not that they're flighty and silly--because if I'm being honest, that's a whole lot true. No...what bugs me is that they come across as dumb as a box of hair. Margot, Serena and Pilar are written as not just silly and flighty, but as completely vapid. And really, really stupid. And believe me...it's not like I didn't know girls in my own sorority who were not exactly breaking the bank with their GPA. But as a whole it's just a really lame stereotype. In almost every incidence, Greek women have a higher average GPA than both the all-campus and all-women GPA. I'm just saying.

2. Slut-Shaming 101--This is really a personal pet peeve, but Serena calls Margot a slut. The Greek chorus calls Vivienne a whore. Vivienne refers to Elle's Bunny outfit as her "skank" costume. Ew. I really dislike it. When anyone does it. But especially in a musical that lots of young girls go to see.

3. Elle is an IDIOT--I get that in order to make the point of the show, Elle has to come in and not get the point of law school and all it entails. Which I kind of understand. To some extent, I wasn't completely up on what law school was really going to be like when I started. But I was together enough, having read the packet the law school sent me (which I'm assuming Elle did. She showed up on time to the right class.) which told me what to have prepared for the first day. Then, we know from dialogue that not only does Elle get booted on the first day, but per Warner, EVERY day. I'll allow the first day in Callahan's class...but after that? Then she's just a full-out fool.

4. Speaking of Real Law School--When Warner dumps Elle and she makes the decision to go to Harvard, it's spring semester of her senior year. In the movie, it's much more ambiguous as to exactly when he dumps her. But in the musical, Elle is getting ready to take her LSATs in the spring. It is in the lyrics in as many words. In real life? Not so much. You take the LSATs in your JUNIOR spring, senior fall at the latest. If you're taking it in the spring of your senior year? You've missed the application deadline for law school.

5. What is it that Callahan teaches?--The answer, in short, is CRIMINAL law. Only the case where Elle finally "gets it" just sounds like Family Law. It's about a sperm donor's rights as a father. They throw in the stuff about it not being stalking because he's the father. Which would be a really dumb case because sperm donors don't have rights as a parent, so it's not an affirmative defense to stalking. But really the whole case is a set up to allow her to say "Masturbatory Emissions."

6. Math is Hard--At the beginning of the song "Ireland", Paulette states that her mother was 3/4 Italian and she never knew her father. But then she says her grandfather was from Ireland. Which, I GUESS could be possible if her grandfather's parents were Italian and Irish but both living in Ireland. But she has an Italian last name? So if she didn't have a father then she'd have her mother's last name. Which, again, is Italian. And would have come from her grandfather. Who, according to lyrics? WAS FROM IRELAND. I mean, I can make it work, but I have to go through hoops. As another cast member pointed out, there are a lot of lyrics in this show that make you think that while writing them, they just went, "Ah, screw it...no one will EVER NOTICE. Plus, this RHYMES!"

7. Shit, Elle...GET IT TOGETHER!--Okay, so in the movie, when Vivienne tricks Elle into showing up in costume to the party, Elle leaves and makes tracks to the bookstore where she buys study guides and a laptop and proceeds to become a law school superstar. On her own. In the musical, it takes Emmett dragging her kicking and screaming to do it. Which sets up another pet peeve I have about it which is directly related. When Emmett's making her study, he insists that she stay at Harvard over Christmas Break. Which...law school is like regular school. She would have finished her first semester. What the hell is he making her study?

8. What the blue hell did VIVIENNE do to her?--So, obviously Vivienne is kind of nasty to Elle from the beginning. But Elle's making it her business to, from the moment she arrives on campus, to try to get all over Warner. Warner dumped Elle AT LEAST six months before law school starts. It's not like Vivienne busted up the relationship. It's entirely possible that Vivienne didn't know Elle even existed. And yet Elle blames VIVIENNE not Warner. One more reason Elle is much more irritating in the musical.

9. And since we're speaking of Warner--How in the name of all that exists does WARNER get the internship with Callahan? I get Vivienne and Enid--they are hardcore. And I get Elle. If nothing else, it's to facilitate hitting on her. But Warner? He's bland, doesn't come across as exceptionally clever, and is the opposite of a leader (Viv is totally the boss of him). Of the characters we know something about, Aaron Schultz (Fulbright and Rhodes scholar) or Whitney (her dad's Speaker of the House) seem more apt choices from either an intellectual or connections standpoint.

10. Actually, Callahan's FULL of Stupid Decisions--So he teaches Family Law in his Criminal Law classes and he hires dregs like Warner, but one would think that a man who's running a BILLION dollar law firm, would be able to put together a better team for a defense in a headline-makng murder trial than four 1Ls, a first year attorney who he hasn't even made an associate, and himself.

Oh, in case you were wondering? You have a lot of time to think about things in the ensemble.