STYLE OF THE DAY (PART 2)

Today I decided to be a copycat and try pictures in the library! I had to go to the third floor, where the boring books are, because no one ever goes up there. It's really odd how every little sound is so much louder in a library.



I also spent most of last night pulling apart the flowers I bought from H&M and reworking them into hair pieces. Most of them were attached to hair elastics, but seeing as I hardly ever wear my hair down, and tend to favor clips in general, they needed some fixing.



I only did a few, but I'm rather pleased with the results, and now I quite happily have several clips to get me through the summer! I've become quite the floral accessory addict. These pins were on sale at Gap, and for less than a dollar I wanted to grab fistfuls of them:



I've also amassed a little army of flower jewelry, not to mention flats and bags. Today I was all about the flowers, perhaps a bit too much, but it was really grey and chilly out. It never actually rained, which I suppose was alright, but was just generally dreary, so some flower over-dose was necessary. (I know, the pictures are huge, but I haven't the patience at this hour to properly deal with that fact).

Thus far pictures from the filming promise something wonderful. Sienna Miller (as Caitlin) and Keira Knightly (as Vera Phillips)are the subject of most of them thus far, and their clothes are certainly in line with much of what it seems we're longing for lately, or at least I am. Floral skirts, blouses, streamlined (or the occasional utilitarian frumpy) jackets, and boots suitable for traipsing around water's edge are all deeply appealing at the moment. There is something definitely vintage but contemporary about it all. Perhaps that's just a general sense of nostalgia in current trends and minds, but either way my brain likes it.

I have come to catch your voice,
Your constructed notes going out of the throat
With dry, mechanical gestures,
To catch the shaft
Although it is so straight and unbending;
Then, when I open my mouth,
The light will come in an unwavering line.
Then to catch night
Wading through her dark cave on ferocious wings.
Oh, eagle-mouthed,
I have come to pluck you,
And take away your exotic plumage,
Although your anger is not a slight thing,
Take you into my own place
Where the frost can never fall,
Nor the petals of any flower drop.

--Dylan Thomas










Perhaps it's just the patterns, but it reminds me a bit of this:



Despite the presence of the bright, bright blue, it is similar to me. Perhaps it's just my English major-y brain reaching to make connections, but you know. Since we don't all get to be frolicking exuberantly by the sea, we wear blue tights to evoke it with our florals.

What an unfortunate face I happened to be making! It was very difficult getting pictures this morning. The LCD is broken on my camera (I dropped it, woe!) so I have to set the self-timer and flash by memory and for some reason the flash kept going off this morning! The unfortunate fact was compounded with the embarassing appearence of people late for classes; I accidently startled one person. Apologies!

So far the day in shorts is not too bad. They are somewhat unflattering while sitting, but I console myself with the fact that it is not a problem unique to me, and as I walk around campus I notice many people wearing scandalizingly tiny shorts.

On a side note, I have been waiting to post about some floral dresses from Express. I walked by, as is my usual custom on my way to buy chocolate at work, and there are some really lovely dresses on display. The prints are wonderful wonderful wonderful, and the shapes are really pretty. They also have some maxi floral dresses where the print is decidedly (Dear self: stop over-using adverbs and adjectives) abstract and loud. I love them all. On the downside they are ridiculously over-priced, I think, but I also just got a 30$ off coupon in my e-mail and so I am tempted. 

 

It seems the key to not getting caught taking pictures in campus stairwells is to wait until classes have been on for 20 minutes or so. It was far too warm today to be wearing stockings, but I'm not quite ready to give them up yet! I know I will be complaining all summer about not being able to wear them so I am trying to cling to them for as long as possible. Tomorrow, will wear shorts.

For years I have said no to shorts. It is not so much the fact that my legs are basically clear (last summer a crazy man in the grocery store parking lot told me I needed a tan and then asked me if I was an albino. A customer at work also asked me what color my tights were, they looked like a very very pale grey, and looked very embarrassed when I told her I wasn't wearing any), but more that my legs are lacking in any sign of being toned. However, I am going to venture out into the world with almost bare legs (I'm cheating. My plan is to wear my super-sheer flesh colored stockings) and see how I feel. I can't remember the last time I wore shorts in public. I think it was at camp when I was 16 or so, but that was only because I was forced. I will document this event.

(Also, tomorrow, I am getting my hair cut. Not a lot, but still. It is just getting too long and with the warmer weather it's more of a pain. I used to get my hair cut like regular people, but as my schedule has gotten busier, I go forever. Like, once every 8 months. I'm scared!)

 

Aesthetically, it's nothing but deliciously appealing. Of course everyone loves Sebastian because he is deliriously beautiful, wears white suits and carries around a teddy bear (not to mention, spoiled, blonde, possibly gay, and British is almost unfalteringly my type) and spirals tragically downward until I think I just might perish of sadness. Besides him, I love the look of the movie. Castle Howard is huge and gorgeous, Julia's clothes are generally hideous but she has the greatest 20s haircut and is really beautiful. Oxford, Venice, it's all fantastically beautiful and I can't stand it. It makes me want to go punting, take up smoking, drink champagne, eat berries, and sit by fountains.

Sadly, I've had a hard time finding many pictures from it, if I ever decide to cap it myself then we'll have something, but in the meantime I have plenty of Charles, Sebastian, and Aloysious. Also, in the time it took for write this post, I found my book. It was in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings section of my bookshelf, which though the Oxford connection to the latter makes it appropriate, it does not go there.


"I knew Sebastian by sight long before I met him. That was unavoidable for, from his first week, he was the most conspicuous man of his year by reason of his beauty, which was arresting, and his eccentricities of behaviour which seemed to know no bounds. My first sight of him was as we passed in the door of the Germer's, and, on that occasion, I was struck less by his looks than by the fact that he was carrying a large Teddy-bear."







"She is one thing only, Renaissance tragedy [...] Dogs and children love her, other girls love her--my dear she's a fiend--a passionless, acquisitive, intriguing, ruthless killer. I wonder if she's incestuous. I doubt it, all she wants is power. There ought to be an inquisition especially set up to burn her."


"There's another sister, too, I believe, in the schoolroom. Nothing is known of her except that her governess went mad and drowned herself not long ago."


"Living in sin, with sin, by sin, for sin, every hour, every day, year in, year out. Waking up with sin in the morning, clipping diamonds to it, feeding it, showing it round, giving it a good time, putting it to sleep at night with a tablet of Dial if it's fretful. Always the same, like an idiot child carefully nursed, guarded from the world. 'Poor Julia,' they say, 'she can't go out. She's got to take care of her little sin. A pity it ever lived,' they say, 'but it's so strong. Children like that always are. Julia's so good to her little, mad sin.'"


"'I don't want to make it easier for you,' I said; ' I hope your heart may break; but I do understand.'"

 

 

(I look fantastically deranged here, and the flash went off and ruined the atmosphere, but I think it lends itself nicely to my drowned ghost dream thing.)





alphabet (an excerpt)

1
apricot trees exist, apricot trees exist

2
bracken exists; and blackberries, blackberries;
bromine exists; and hydrogen, hydrogen

3
cicadas exist; chicory, chromium
citrus trees; cicadas exist;
cicadas, cedars, cypresses, the cerebellum

4
doves exist, dreamers, and dolls;
killers exist, and doves, and doves;
haze, dioxin, and days; days
exist, days and death; and poems
exist; poems, days, death

SPRING REMEMBERED

I remember Spring. The lilacs and the stars. The rose and the dew. You and the night. I remember. I remember holding hands beneath the moon which was suspended like a silver locket upon a chain of stars from the neckline of a cloud. I remember the leaves whispering the lacy gossips in the trees. I remember the lake lapping. I remember how sharp like a thorn was love. Why do I not remember your Name?

-Up the Down Staircase

I did not go to my last class today, how shameful! Instead John and I ate breakfast for lunch and went to the NYS Museum. We always talk about going and hardly ever make it down there but it was a nice day for it. My favorite is the Bird Hall, which I suppose goes along with my strange obsession with birds, and the New York City Subway train from the 50s you can hang out inside.

In other news, I have to say I've done reasonably well not buying new clothes as of late. I did buy some tights from work but I don't count that (too much anyway). Most of the time I find myself feeling it's pointless and silly to buy things new for twenty bucks or more when I wonder if I could find something better thrifting (although those excursions have been mostly fruitless these days, but I will blame that on my bout with illness). On the other hand, I've been spending loads of money on snacks and food. It's very easy for me to justify eating. I'm such a snacker and I love food. My bank statement is practically edible. Maybe it's the rising gas prices, but I am becoming less and less tolerant of clothing prices. It also might be because I have more clothes than I can shake a stick at.

In addition, it seems our feline star from the previous post is somewhat of a sneaky little thing. Last night my mother was sitting watching TV when who comes down our stairs but Magic. Magic is not our cat. He had somehow broken into our house and spent heaven only knows how much time wandering around with our Baby (who, mom says, was walking right around him and not giving it much of a thought). He's a really strange animal.

 

My neighbors have a very social cat named Magic. He is huge. He is basically a small bear, and he is also gorgeous and lies in the road and almost gets hit by cars. This morning I attempted to get him to participate in pictures, but many things were not cooperating. There were men fixing the concrete foundation of the house, so I couldn't use my usual place!


I call this: Off With Her Head, or, Red Shoes That Are Too Small, Featuring a Wire.


I am not pulling his tail, I swear, I was petting him.


(So no flattering.)


Then he went away...


And then came back. Seriously, he's basically up to my knees. This would have been an excellent outfit picture, had the beast not blocked my tights and shoes.  

(Apologies for the pointless colon!)


(The ubiquitous H&M jacket and dress!)

I'm afraid I've been absent! Nothing has struck me to say really, and I've been repeating outfits, and just reading other blogs ravenously. I didn't actually wear this outfit today, instead I wore a pair of roper boots I thought I had gotten rid of (I'll make a post about them later, I love them so!) partly because I found them and was too attached to the sweet pang of reunion not to do so and partly because it was supposed to rain. I love the adolescent feeling boots give me. I can stomp around to my hearts content and not worry about mud or puddles or stepping in disgusting things like spit (which I detest, I do not see why anyone needs to spit on the ground, and even when wearing biohazard-proof footwear I avoid it). It's a real kind of confidence that is different from wearing say, a fabulous pair of heels.

To veer off in a totally different vein, I've been wearing braids often. So has everyone else, I know, but it's really quite practical. My hair has gotten obscenely long and I constantly forget to make an appointment, it's too heavy even to hold much of a curl so my solution is to throw it into a messy braid and pin it to the back of my head in the most lackadaisical way possible.



I've always loved this image from Nylon:



Though I've never attempted to recreate it myself since my patience with hair is terribly thin and braids are a puzzle to do on one's own. I also tend to think braids suit lighter shades better. Blonde, red, lighter browns are better for it, where braids tend to disappear into my own dark brown. Nevertheless, this does not stop me! I used to braid my hair in class in high school all the time. I was particularly fond of the fishtail braid, since it looked intricate and impressive but really held well in that messy J.W. Waterhouse hair kind of way, with wisps and lose waves.

I always remember being very impressed by the hair at Dreamweaver Braiding (very useful for instructions, I like it because they have pictures for every step so it's very easy to follow, although not so much if you're on your own).


Fair Rosamund, J.W. Waterhouse