How to look pretty this fall

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Good Stuff, Listing, Muse, Shopping

Ed. Note: The following guest post is generously provided by my favorite fashionista, Kathy. Be nice to her; she’s going to make you fabulous for fall.

Hello! I am Elizabeth’s friend Kathy. I have known Elizabeth since she began a career as a news media professional, a career she wisely ditched in favor of having a life and a reasonable amount of money. Congrats to Elizabeth for figuring this out only nine years before I did! My main problem with her these days is that I don’t see her nearly enough.

So, you know how Elizabeth comes here and opens up her heart and mind to us, so that we might feel less alone in our own struggles and learn to understand and accept each other as we are–as friends, and as brothers and sisters on this crazy spinning ball we call The Earth?

Well, I like outfits! It’s still pretty hot here in Raleigh all the time, and yet, all I can think about is Outfits in The Time of the Colored Leaves.

I am now going to tell you what to wear. Most of this stuff you can get at the mall. Get on email lists and stores will send you coupons.

My current biggest fear on the planet is what is going to happen to fashion when “Mad Men” grooves on into those disgusting Seventies, because I have been so happy for the styles of the Sixties Hitchcock blondes to return to the stores.

That means Dress like the Sixties for fall i.e. Kim Novak, Betty Draper, and fat Twiggy.  Because, come on, no one’s as skinny as real Twiggy. Some of us are downright Ziggy.

Nevertheless, I will wear an orange miniskirt this year and you will just have to shut it on up if you don’t like it. Yes, I’m telling everyone to find and wear an orange skirt. Or royal blue. Or red. Just make it a bold color, in a simple shape, with good structure. I got mine at Ann Taylor, but The Limited, Nordstrom and J. Crew are doing similar good things.

Now, an above-knee, solid-color skirt is no great risk. A-line, full, pencil or whatever are good too. If you’ve got the height to pull off that just-above-the-calf thing, go nuts.

Here’s where I’m going to challenge you. Are you sitting down? You are? Well then stand up, stand up (joke courtesy of Tom Scharpling.)

Wear that skirt with a top in a non-matching, solid, bold color. Put the orange skirt with a pink top! Your Kelly green pencil needs a royal blue sweater! Yellow skirt? Teal that!

It’s called color-blocking folks, and it’s gonna look adorable. Trust me! You can even do it in less-bold colors, such as gray and black, and it still counts as color-blocking. Just keep the shapes simple and avoid detail or adornment—that goes for accessories, too.

Okay, if that’s too loco for you, might I interest you in some animal prints of which I have previously not preferred? Sixties You (AKA your better self) practically requires it. Sweaters and shoes are a good entrée into this realm.

One lovely animal pattern can be found on my favorite item of the whole fall so far, J. Crew’s Tippi sweater, no doubt inspired by Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren. It’s perfect. The neckline hits your collarbone at just the right spot, the sleeves are my favorite length—bracelet—and it comes in an array of gorgeous colors and is a nice lightweight merino that’s not too warm but warm enough. It’s America’s greatest sweater.

J.Crew's Tippi Sweater in Leopard

Pantyhose! Look, I know only our mom’s friends wear pantyhose at the moment, but if you’re gonna go ladylike, they work. And, they hold you in place nicely under all those pencil skirts. You love tights, don’t you? It’s really not that big of a leap. Remember how polished and put-together it used to make you feel back when you put them on in the Nineties? It still works, trust me.

For further guidance, I recommend you visit the Lady Chic Shop on Neiman Marcus’ website. Please note that all the models are wearing black pantyhose.

You know how they say go big, or go home, and it’s really dorky? Well, I’m telling you to go big and then go OUT… on the town or something? Go with large jeweled stud earrings, track down a vintage brooch or two (I’m particularly obsessed with starbursts—for earrings, cocktail rings, and a mirror for my upstairs hallway) and a short string of pearls or beads in a single or double strand. Grab a frame bag, tie it with a simple scarf in maybe a deco-looking geometric pattern or a houndstooth.

So, now you’re dressed and you look good. Here’s where I leave you.

How to make me cry on my day off

Posted by Elizabeth in Lamenting, Totally normal

Car man: Mrs. Baker, I need to see you back here in the garage, please.

Me: TOTALLY DIDN’T DO IT WHATEVER IT IS.

Him: Yes ma’am, that’s right. We’ll just peek right here under the [something technical that didn't make sense].

Me: I don’t know what any of this is.

Him: All you really need to know, ma’am, is that these are moving parts that don’t work anymore.

Me: Fucking European cars.

Him: That’ll be $1000. Well, $967 with the discount.

Me: Sure thing, buckaroo. I’ll schedule that repair RIGHT AWAY.

Inspiration Boards

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Good Stuff, Listing, Muse, Random Shit

These last few weeks have been a doozy and this is the first week calm enough for me to rationally form thoughts. Not complicated ones, mind you, but thoughts. I did not really ever write all the things I wanted to write about “The Help” and all my childhood memories with Lula. The Internet is flooded with those and I don’t have anything truly unique to report, so perhaps I’ll save that for some other time when all this is gone and forgotten. (Incidentally, that movie is fantastic. Highly recommend.)

So in place of that I’ve been spending a lot of time looking around my house and being generally disgusted with everything in it. It’s kind of like how you look at your closet every season (or every Monday morning) and it’s full of crap but you hate it all and have nothing to wear. JUST LIKE THAT. Except it’s my house and I don’t want to invite people over because the furniture’s torn all to hell and the walls have nicks in the paint and old nasty grout makes us look like we don’t clean our bathrooms. (Which we do, I PROMISE. Every mofo Sunday afternoon. With Pinesol.)

I am not the crafty sort; the craftiest thing I think I’ve ever done was this jewelry hanger thing I made out of a picture frame and some old fabric. Today I discovered Sweet Paul and this amazing idea for repurposed jewelry. A couple of weeks ago I took some old gold to a local jeweler and got 59 whole dollars for it! The rest of the crap is all broken but not hideous, and now I have something to do with it. These magnets will hold stuff on my inspiration board.

What goes on it? Well, who the hell knows, y’all. That’s the beauty. I’m not so hot at the decorating, but I can copy the shit out of stuff. So that’s my new plan: collect pictures and fabric swatches and whatever else I can clutter up a board with and then COPY IT. All over my house. So that eventually it will look like this:

via Traditional Home

And this:

via Architectural Digest

And, of course, this:

via CasaSugar

HAHAHA. These are my dreams, y’all. NOT REALITY.

What do your inspiration boards look like? Do you have them? What goes on them?

A letter to you

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Good Stuff, Muse, Totally normal

First you need to know how much I love you. Next you need to know how much you are going to love yourself when all of this is over.

I am so proud of you for everything positive you’re doing in your life. I get lumpy crocodile tears when I think of the silent pain you must’ve been in for so long, and I wish I had known. But now, NOW!, you are doing yourself a solid and being your own best friend, which is a hard thing to do.

Growing up easy becomes sort of hard later on, doesn’t it? I wonder if you may have discovered this accidentally like I did. One day in college I stopped dead in my tracks, looked around and realized I wasn’t like everyone else. My hard part had yet to come, whereas their hard parts were over. Bastards.

I want to kiss your sweet cherub face and tell you to get a haircut. I want to hear you laugh because it makes me cackle. I want to ride in a car with you while you make me listen to some damn band I don’t know. Mostly I want to hug you and promise never to let go.When you pick up the phone to call me, you can bet I’m on the other end, dialing your number. (It usually happens just that way, doesn’t it? So weird.)

You are my new hero. You should probably know that I have a lot of heroes, but you’re new on the list and automatically you’re moving to the top! Congratulations! You and I are very similar though, so you should be warned of my steady non-hero status.

I love you and I want to hug your neck something fierce.

How about some tact? Would it kill you?

Posted by Elizabeth in Anxiety, Lamenting, Muse, Random Shit

Do you ever feel like you’re walking around with a “Kick Me” sign on your back, or perhaps  “Sensitive Idiot Here!” tattooed across your forehead? No? READ ELSEWHERE, then. You have no business being here.

Anyway, something about these last few weeks has prompted people in my life to raise my Sensitive Meter level sky fucking high. On most days I can laugh and joke about myself just as well as I can about other people, but on those other days I become a papier-mâché bubble that’s easy to crush.

I don’t really know how to thicken my skin up, or how to ignore people who wander around tactlessly yammering all day. I also don’t know how to politely tell someone they’re an ass, or at least do it without crying and looking like a fool.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be that person who can tell someone they’re an ass? I tried the other day when, as I was walking out to my car at lunch, my boss looked out the window and turned to our intern and said, “Look at her. I’ve seen parked cars move faster than her.” They both thought that was hilarious and told me so when I got back. I told them it wasn’t funny.

It would’ve been nice not to have gotten my feelings hurt yesterday on the phone, when my mother says to me, “Of course I’m still here; I’m just listening to you ramble on.” Lesson learned: stop calling my mother until I have something real and important to say.

I wish I didn’t want to go home and change clothes now, after my co-worker told me this morning that I looked cute in my dress, but “one of those shaper things would probably keep you from looking like you’re pregnant. Which isn’t bad! I would love it if you were pregnant!” (I’m not. And this dress is going straight in the burn pile.)

And my doctor surely meant well yesterday when she told me that she thought it was high time I started going back to therapy. I must have looked at her funny because she said, “Well, you’re fine of course, but talking to a qualified person might do you some good.” Sounds to me like my mother got to her, oui?

Maybe it’s the stressful start of the new school year that has everyone on edge. Maybe it’s the economy making everybody grumpy. Or maybe I just need to find some new people to hang out with. Either way, the moral of this story is to a) quit being sensitive if you’re like me and b) quit being a jerk if you’re like the other people.  OR, and this is my favorite option, change those signs on your back to a giant, 100-point Times New Roman FUCK YOU.