Peg Bundy Meets Joan Holloway

Dress - Marni

Jacket - vintage

Belt - Salvatore Ferragamo

Shoes - Giuseppe Zanotti

Tangerine Lemonade

Dress - Issa

Necklace - family heirloom

Shoes - Jimmy Choo

7x7's Neighborhoods Issue

Hey everybody. In case you happen to pick up an issue of this month's 7x7, be sure to take a peek at my essay on page 63, a love letter to the neighborhood in which I dwell.

Overall, I think the essays about the Mission and the Tenderloin are my favorites. Also, a super big thanks to everyone at 7x7 magazine.

Chain of Fools

Top - Missoni

Skirt - Banana Republic

Necklace - H&M

Shoes - Jimmy Choo

The Weekend In Which I Learned to Shuck Corn

I was in my old hometown of Portland, Ore. for about 36 hours this past weekend.

I had a facial at Dosha (which I highly recommend) on 5th and Washington early Saturday morning, and wandered around town for half an hour beforehand.


It was so calming to traipse through the city so early in the morning, when it was almost completely empty.

Even though there was so much going on this weekend (Zine Symposium, Farmer's Market, PDX Pop Now, Brewfest, etc.) I didn't try to rush around and 'do it all,' instead opting to spend much of my time at my friend Diane's kitchen table, and in her backyard.

Leave it to Rocco's to start serving vegan pizza after I move away.

Here's Erin, who taught me how to shuck corn for the grill. I suppose it wasn't authentic shucking, as we didn't peel the husk all the way off. Diane's recipe for grilling corn on the cob is slathering the corn with butter, spinkling on some salt and pepper, then pulling the husk back up over the corn ear before setting it on the grill.

Erin also had this awesome vintage gold and white purse. I was having some major purse envy.

Diane and her brother Greg load up the grills.

Greg brought mint from his garden and raspberries from Sauvie Island and we made Carol Channing Mojitos. Rasssshhzzzberrrries!

Those tofu dogs had my name on them.

Di's 14-year old tuxedo shorthair Scout loves parties. She wore her favorite sailor collar for the occassion.

Dana kicks it in Diane's hammock, aka The Pleasure Swing.

Diane decorates her home with vintage-y kick knacks and images of animal friends. It's easy to see that I take a few domestic styling cues from her.

I was really coveting this little fella. Obviously.

Sight for Sore Eyes

This past weekend I was reunited with a few small (and one very large) trinkets from the past. My sideboard had been sitting in my mom's garage for the past two years and finally some prime real estate space opened up on my east-facing wall (a valued commodity in teeny-tiny city apartments like mine) so here it now rests.
I sprinkled a few books and other things on top of it for the moment, including my letters from high school sports. I never had a letterman's jacket in high school because I thought they were show-offy, unattractive, and redundant, so I displayed everything in a silver frame instead.

These days, I've had passing thoughts of maybe having not a letterman's jacket made, but a letterman's sweater.

You know? They're not as bulky, and have a decidedly more retro feel to them. A little bit of American Graffiti if you will.

I guess my main thing would be forcing myself to ask the question of where the hell and under what hair-brained circumstances would I ever want to wear the thing. And then the question that immediately follows that one is, what kind of person would wear their letterman's sweater out and about when they haven't been to high school in four hundred years?

To-may-to, To-mah-to

All evidence points to the fact that this is a dress. But a tall lass such as myself calls it a tunic.

Top - Marc Jacobs

Trousers - Banana Republic

Shoes - Christian Louboutin

All Growed Up

I explained Twitter to The Moms this weekend. Only because she asked me, and also because I am on it and therefore in her eyes can possibly be considered a reliable source. I kept things pretty basic. I said it was like sending text messages to all of your friends at the same time, except the whole wide interwebs could read them, too. She seemed to understand that, and by 'understand' I mean she shrugged and was like, why would anyone want to do that? First it was the Game Boy, AND NOW THIS?

I didn't bother delving into the endless hash-marked memes about #lameclaimtofame, #liesboytell and rumors of Jeff Goldblum's demise. Mostly because I don't often get into those, the one exception being #Shoesday, which is every (you guessed it!) Tuesday. 

I inherited my love of shoes from my mother, of this I have no doubt.  However, over the past couple of years I have made the conscious choice to have less pairs of shoes in my life.   I replaced quantity with quality, in slow fits and starts.  It was a good decision.  Today I was so lucky to trot around town in the very first pair of shoes that I purchased with this new outlook in mind.   

Those kitten heel Choos, purchased at the Nordstrom Rack on State Street in Chicago during the summer of 2006, represented a lot for me.  This was the point in my life when I really began to notice fashion as being more than just extraneous fluff.  These shoes accompanied me down a new career path, a new direction for my graduate thesis, a new activity to do on my lunch breaks from my office job in downtown Chicago (walking in the shoes to the post office and back, feeling like such a grown-up).  Even though with tax they were less than two hundred dollars, at the time for me that was still so much money to spend on one single item of clothing.  I had never done anything like that before, and the very act felt foreign and strange.  But looking at the mileage (thanks to great craftsmanship and one sole replacement) that I have and will continue to have with these shoes, they have more than paid for themselves.  Maybe you just never forget your first.  I don't remember the highest level I achieved playing Tetris on my old Game Boy, but me and this here pair of shoes still have many more miles ahead of us.

The Fuzzy End of the Lollipop

I had a total Marilyn Monroe moment earlier today, which involved the bottom half of this dress and a gust of wind. Not quite Seven Year Itch material, but close.

Dress - vintage

Necklace - vintage Bakelite

Shoes - Manolo Blahnik

When a Problem Comes Along, You Must Zip It

This weekend I spent some time cleaning out part of my mom's garage.  Years and years worth of personal accumulations sat in clear storage tubs and cardboard boxes, waiting (as was my mom's hope) for my sister and I to throw them all away with one sweep of our hands.  This was hardly the case, especially when we started unearthing truly Smithsonian-worthy stuff, like my sister's scrapbook of every note the Tooth Fairy ever wrote her, and a long-forgotten box where I once kept all my jewelry from sixth and seventh grade.   

The true gold mine was my small collection of earrings. 

In the early 1990s, how better could one accessorize oneself while giving her current events report on the Gulf War or dancing in her bedroom to Bobby Brown than with a stunning pair of earrings such as the ones you see above?  

But my weekend reached its peak when this pair surfaced a few seconds later. 

Gold. Zippers.  It was like seeing the Virgin Mary in  a flour tortilla.  

I put them on immediately, and I'm not sure if I'll ever take them off again.

Hotel Yorba

Blouse - H&M

Trousers - Marc Jacobs

Earrings - my godmother

Shoes - Christian Louboutin

Dressy Bessy

Dress - Marc Jacobs 

Sweater - H&M

Belt - Salvatore Ferragamo

Shoes - Christian Louboutin

Missoni Pantglings!

Are they pants or leggings?  This I cannot answer.  I can however say that if there is only one thing I could add to my wardrobe for the rest of the year it would be this utterly fabulous and wholy extraneous article of clothing as modeled by Caroline Trentini: 

Currently available on Net-a-Porter for $1,900.  I love these things, but...yikes.

So Nice, So Smart

Blouse - vintage

Skirt - Lela Rose

Necklace - vintage

Shoes - Jimmy Choo

It's Business Time

Blouse - Tory Burch

Trousers - Banana Republic

Shoes - Christian Louboutin

Givenchy Couture Fall 2009

You can find a zillion images of the couture shows seconds after the models start stomping the runway. Seconds after that they are reposted on countless websites and I am certainly no different. With the couture shows I normally browse, enjoy it for what it is, and move on, but this time Givenchy really blew me out of the water. The collection is also totally approachable and you can't always say that about couture. Riccardo Tisci has given us something spectacular.

I really adore the white and gold jacket and the cream dress with the pink embellishments. It's also interesting to see Lara Stone with dark hair. I almost didn't recognize her.

These photos are from style.com and Jak & Jil; go there to see more.

Love is a Drug

And so is caffeine.
This is what my lovely barista wrote on my drink last week. He could not remember my real name and made do with what he could. What a doll.

Just a Small Town Girl

Ted and I opted for a super quiet mini vacation and spent this past weekend at a bed and breakfast in middle-of-nowhere Texas hill country. Specifically, a town called Fredericksburg, population eight or nine thousand, give or take.

This photo was taken on the end of Main Street.  Appropriately named. 

Is it a lawn mower or a mailbox?  Stop!  You're both right!

Gratutitous picture of ironic city folk enjoying the double entendre possibilties of a quaint, folksy sign. (Bonus double entendre: the name of the completely innocent lawn ornament storefront behind the Rock Shop. I mean, any place else in the world and it would be a porno store.  The extra 'x' on the end of 'box' just seals the deal.) 

Seriously though, Frederickburg was truly delightful. It is a town famous for its peaches and peach products.  Or, peaches and peach accessories.  GONG!  Okay, I'll stop.

Far and away, my favorite part was a vintage shop called Deja Vu.  Espresso and gelato in the front, and clothing and household knick nacks in the back.

Our bed and breakfast had a lovely bathtub, along with this handy piece of gentle advice for The Ladies:

On the last day we went to a bonafide five and dime, where coonskin hats, armadillo-shaped magnets, jackalope postcards, and candy cigarettes abounded, and Ted chided me for taking photos of all the tacky stuff and none of the 'good stuff.'

Sometimes, they're one and the same.