FASH MATH: Grungy Prep School Edition

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(Eloise + Margot Tenenbaum) ÷ Angela Chase = 

Coat: Goodwill (buttons from Michael's)
Corduroy dress: The Arc Thrift
White Shirt: Sierra Trading Post
Belt: The Arc Thrift
Tights: Delia's
Combat Booties: The Arc Thrift

I'm pretty much obsessed with this outfit and want to be buried in it. First of all, CHECK OUT DAT COAT! It's faux fur and super snuggly, and you can't really tell from this picture, but I sewed the sparkly buttons on myself. I had Xander (the boif) take pics for me as we were walking around campus on our way to lunch. I think the field with the fall colors and mountains in the background kind of captures that boarding school rebel vibe I got going on. Now that I've died my hair red, I kind of channel Angela Chase in everything that I do, but I was really feeling her today with those shoes and the corduroy dress. Have you guys ever seen anything as cute/tough/awesome as these combat booties??

For a height-challenged gal like myself, a little lift is always appreciated, especially when it's a clunky, easy to walk in lift. I really don't know if I'll ever take these off. They go with literally everything. 

I definitely swiped my color scheme from Eloise with the white on black jumper/dress thing. I used to read those books all the time and fantasize about hiding in elevators and of course those mary-janes! I was originally gonna rock a pair of my own for this outfit, but my closet is an abyss and I came across these, which tickled me even more since they definitely rough up the look a bit.

Here I am trying to look snooty, a la Eloise and chilling in my trippy dorm room.

I think the Margot inspiration kind of speaks for itself with the coat. When I saw it in Goodwill over the summer, I almost died right there between the mom jeans and the wedding dresses. I had been looking for a Margot coat forever and this one is just too spot on to be real! The original buttons were uggo-tastic and I knew they had to go, so I picked up some way appealing sparkly ones (I can never say no to sparkle) and remedied the situation super easily. Living in Colorado, you learn to never turn down an awesome/warm coat for $9.99 because real stores charge way (I mean WAAAYYY) more for stuff that's only a fraction as cool.

Check out the rest of the pics. What do you guys think of my math skills? Does it add up to you too?

RA! school spirit...

Please excuse my blank stare.

And Nothing Makes Me Happy, Not Even T.V. or a Bunch of Weed

Gahhh I'm just in a foul mood right now and I just need to vent. Is that okay for all of my like 2 readers?? Ha. Sorry.

This is how I feel about pretty much every aspect of life right now. I feel like I've just been frantically running around trying to please everyone in my life and then they just sort of don't do the same in return. My boyfriend and my sister have been all bickery and passive aggressive with each other and I'm so over it. I just want them both caring about me to be enough for them to make the effort. When they don't, I'm constantly being pulled in two different directions and while it might be fine for them to just pass me around like a rag doll, it's exhausting for me. And it keeps me from being able to do what I want or even KNOW what I want for that matter because I'm constantly worried about upsetting them. So honestly, FUCK THAT. I know at the end of the day it's really just up to me to be strong enough to piss them off, but hopefully they'll realize how hard they're making it on me.

Until then I'll just cuddle this ridiculously perfect pup and cry like a drama queen baby loser...

On the upside, I did just turn 21 on Wednesday and had a pretty fab entrance into adulthood.

Top and Bottom from The Arc Thrift Store
Belt from Goodwill

Here I am being a model before class on the big day. The whole outfit just says "BIRTHDAY," doesn't it??

Left to Right: My Boulder babe, Lily; My southern belle, Woogie; My twinsicle, Dani

Jumpsuit from a stand on Venice Beach, CA
Also note the Rips in my hand. I certainly enjoyed them for the ten minutes they took to consume them and the hour or so they remained in my stomach...

One from the beginning of the night and one from the end, equally sloppy and adorable.

I also started my Advanced Poetry Writing Workshop this week... It's such an incredible opportunity to be able to take this class early and with such an amazing visiting professor (if you haven't heard of Jim Moore, look up his stuff immediately, he's a genius) and GAH it's var var intimidating. I'm trying to just shut myself up and not over-criticize and whatnot, but it's soSO hard not to think that my stuff just doesn't measure up. Maybe I'll post some poems on here soon or maybe I'll just be a coward 4eva?! Only time will tell my friends.

Secondhand Fantasy Land: Zine Edition

So for those of you who look at this blog that AREN'T my mom and my sister and therefore don't know everything about me, I'm a junior at Colorado College where we're on the block plan (as opposed to the semester plan). That basically just means that we take one class at a time, for three and a half weeks each. There are upsides and downsides, but it's definitely my preferred way to learn just because you can get so in depth into the class and just in time for you to get totally sick of it, you get to move on. Anyway, the point of all this is that my first block of the semester was pretty much the most amazing thing evereverEVER and it led to the creation of my first zine! The class was called, "Creativity: Theory and Practice" and it was taught by two amazing professors, one from sociology and one from poetry. It was basically all about the creative process and how it fits in (or doesn't really fit in) to society. Every day we would do some sort of creative exercise and have class discussions about all the different texts we read. In lieu of a final we all wrote research papers on some aspect of the creative process and complete our own creative project of our choosing. The best part about the whole thing was how open-ended it was so we could really make it into whatever we wanted. Creative projects ranged from interpretive cupcakes to postcard puzzles to defiant graffiti - it was just unlimited awesomeness. I wish I could show you guys all the incredible things people came up with! I can't do that, but I CAN share my project :). This blog has been a great place for me to express myself creatively and also a big part of me developing my own style philosophy, hence it was the perfect inspiration for my final project. It sucks because I feel like clothes can be the greatest form of expression, but a lot of the time we just buy the shit that stores or brands want to sell us. Anywayyy this zine is just my answer to that and hopefully it'll be the first of many! So without further adieu, here is Secondhand Fantasy Land - The Zine:

I hope you enjoy and if you want to contribute to any future zines, please let me know!!! And if you want to see the pages bigger, click HERE!

Clueless House on the Prarie

GAH worst blogger ever award goes to ME! But I swear I'm gonna be better from now on. I think I just needed a little time to decide where it is I really want this blog to go, and the truth is I still don't know! But I think that's okay. It's definitely gonna be a bit less uniform over here, which I hope you guys don't mind; maybe a bit more accepting of change so that I can keep figuring things out. I definitely have some really exciting stuff coming up though, so stay tuned!

Anywhoozle, back to the important stuff....CLOTHES OF COURSE!

Dress: Originally Urban Outfitters, thrifted from Goodwill for $6
Belt: The Arc Thrift Store $2
Boots: Someone actually left them in my dorm room last year and never claimed them...
Headband: Stolen from a friend...

I wore this the other day to class and to take my sister's new puppy, Milo to the vet. I also recently gave myself an impromptu haircut which I think works pretty nicely with the look, don't you? It is quite a deviation from both of my inspirations for this outfit, but I still think it works.

Do you see it? A little bit Laura Ingalls a little bit Cher Horrowitz. It makes sense in my head, so go with it.

There's Milo! Isn't he just heartbreakingly cute??

Mini backpack: #1 Accessory ever.

And there ya have it!

I'll be posting a lot more outfits in the near future, but hopefully in an even more fun way. I don't want to say too much, but just know I'm pumped for it and you should be too!

Running Away to Join the Circus

This is my circus-centric post! I've always had a fascination with the circus and the idea of being so openly separate from society. Also, the circus is like a huge part of my family mythology. Right after my mom and dad got divorced when I was six or so, they tried to take my sister and I to the circus together as a sort of we're-still-a-family thing. Instead they ended up getting in a huge fight on the way there and my dad ended up walking home! It's funny now because they actually ended up having an extremely peaceful divorce and are pretty good friends to this day.

SOO this is my mildly circus inspired outfit. I was thinking kind of trapeze-artist/clown/ringmaster vibes lol. Everything in this outfit is thrifted. The shirt and shorts from Goodwill and the shoes from The Arc Thrift Store.

I'm so circus-obsessed, I even wrote a pretty sinister short story about these two circus twins for my fiction workshop. Here's a little passage from it:

On the night of the trick’s debut, I stood backstage with my stomach in more knots than
Rapunzel Man had in his hair. Eric was next to me, counting out loud and marking his movements.

“Five, six, seven, eight, one, two…”

“You’re counting too fast, Eric,” I said to him with a scowl. I just knew he was going to mess it up in some way.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” he said, elbowing me lightly in the gut, “it always is.”

The first twinkling notes of our music began to swell around us. “Yeah well, just count slower,” I said as we stepped up to our marks.

“And now the Winkleton Twins!” boomed the deep voice from the large speakers lining the perimeter of the tent.

We marched out slowly, our steps instinctively synchronized. We wore matching purple harem pants that made a quiet whooshing sound I could still somehow hear beneath the crowd’s thunderous applause. I looked to my left and saw Eric smiling that smile of his, soaking in the adoration of everyone around him. I felt my mouth twitch and I shook my face back into a smile. The drum-roll began, cuing us to the start of our routine. The announcer’s voice was exiting the speakers in what sounded to me like garbled nonsense, but the cheers continued.

I squatted down so Eric could step onto my shoulders. With his toes digging into my skin, I turned full circle so he could wave at the audience. I positioned my hands under the arches of his feet, readying myself. Dip once, twice, a third time and then, with a flick of my wrists, he was soaring through the air towards his target of the canon.

A loud explosion and he was back in the air, rotating in a forward motion in my direction. I quickly tossed the vat as hard as I could and popped into a handstand, bracing myself.

OH and check out this awesome book I found at The Arc the other day. OF COURSE I had to snatch it.

Love Cats

Many sorries for the lack of posts, I'm living in a house with no internet for the summer and I can only steal my school's network from the front yard if I'm reaalllyy lucky. It's like the 1990s or something. I'll be back to civilization soon though, I promise.

Anyway, this post is all about cats! Mostly because of this outfit:

Isn't the cat shirt fantastic??

shirt: Goodwill
skirt: Zara
mary-janes: Goodwill

I took these pictures in the awesome two room suite I've been living in while I take this summer fiction workshop. Definitely more to come on that and my thrifty interior design tricks.
The cat theme also continues with some of the incredible photos my boyfriend Xander took on his African Safari earlier in the summer. He's somewhat of a feline fanatic like I am.

Isn't he amazing? And a great sport :). He dressed up as "love cats" with me last Halloween because a) we're cheesy, b) catz rule and c) that awesome song by The Cure.

That may or may not be a wolverine wig on Xander's head and I may or may not have drawn on his nose and whiskers with eye liner...Can you crack my code?

And now I will leave you with that oh so wonderful song I dedicated an entire costume (and blog post) to:

Please Don't Wear Red Tonight

"Please don't wear red tonight."
This is what I said tonight.
For red is the colour that will make me blue,
In spite of you, it's true,
Yes it is, it's true.
Yes it is.

-The Beatles, Yes It Is

I love this dress because it's literally the most comfortable thing that has ever been made AND it's tie-dye. You can't get much better than that. This is one of my go-to outfits when I'm feeling lazy because it's perfectly adorable and effortless at the same time. 

necklace: Old Colorado City: $10
Dress: The Arc Thrift Store: $5
Shoes: T.J. Maxx: $12

 My class has been going...pretty well I guess. It's hard to be creative when your mind is in a million different places, but I'm trying my verrryyy hardest!

Here are some lists we had to come up with:


Things I Love:
1. Puppies: their fur, their noses, the way they get all warm when they fall asleep
2. Thrift stores
3. Silly hats
4. Getting mail (but not junk mail or flyers)
5. Making douche bags cry
6. Having a good cry
7. Taking a really big bite of cake/ bong rip/ poop
8. Gourmet snack food
9. Fried food
10. Piles of pillows
11. Blank notebooks and slates
12. "Can I help you with that?" (But not when it's condescending)
13. Wearing a long skirt on a sunny day so I can lay on the grass without feeling confined or getting itchy.
14. Pantsuits and/or rompers
15. Eating a lemon


Things I Hate:
1. Sexism and sexists (they're different)
2. When someone eats my left-overs
3. When my mom tells me not to eat cookie dough because, "you'll get salmonella!"
4. Dieting (Instead of rioting)
5. Smoke alarms
6. The government cheese conspiracy
7. The imprisonment of nonviolent drug offenders
8. Getting shampoo in my eye
9. When people don't take me seriously because I'm small and/or female.
10. Christmas music in the summer time
11. Being broke
12. Losing things
13. Hot soup gone cold
14. When people assume my boyfriend is in charge of me
15. Being bossed around


Things I Do Sometimes But Not All The Time:
1. Steal nail polish
2. Fart in public
3. Pick my nose
4. Listen to old school hip hop
5. Follow directions
6. Remember to use Pam when baking
7. Ignore people I know when I see them in public
8. Bathe regularly
9. Remember peoples' names/birthdays
10. Pee outside and call it, "using the litter box"
11. Smoke cigarettes (only when I'm drunk, studying or stressed)
12. Feel insecure
13. Start unnecessary, verbal arguments for fun
14. Listen to my mother
15. Lie