in a sartorial rut

I would like to think I have some amount of style.

When I was little, I even convinced myself that I would make a great fashion designer and created sketchbooks of patchwork jeans and one-shoulder tops and whatever else was popular in 1998.

But lately I have been in a huge rut, wearing the same jeans with a BU sweatshirt or one of three nearly identical (but different color) blouses. And the same boots. And the same cardigans. And when all that fails, the same large white T. And in the past few weeks it has just started to feel so blahhhhhhh.

Part of it is that the fun dressing up events from college don't exist here in grad school. No swaps or theme parties to create some elaborate costume for, no semiformals to get excited about buying a new dress for, not even pin attire to motivate me to dress well. It was fun to put together cute (and sometimes ridiculous) outfits at Millsaps because a) everyone knows everyone on campus and no one wants to be known as the girl that dresses like a hobo/colorblind epileptic/desperate D-list celebrity*, b) there was a 87% chance I would be photographed any given day and therefore that outfit would live on forever, and c) I hadn't a care in the world - seriously, the most important decisions of the day were typically what to wear, whether to eat in the Caf' or Kava House, and whether I should do my reading tonight or in the morning.

Part of it is the weather. Knowing I will be wearing the same (very bulky and warm) coat every day, piling on hats and scarves and gloves and god know what else to make the trek without frostbite somewhat limits my options (and my motivation).

Part of it is also that being an adult costs money. Money that used to be spent on beautiful clothes is now extracted mercilessly by my apartment rental office, one painful dollar at a time.

Part of it is, despite the aforementioned soul-sucking rent, our closet is fairly wee and my side of it is so piled high with clothes, shoes, scarves/gloves/hats/tights, suitcases, an extra comforter, towels, cleaning supplies, unused frames and other random knickknacks that it is almost impossible to navigate, so I usually just end up reaching for the same things over and over again.

In any case, my rut sucks. I read a lot of blogs out there in the interwebs, including several fashion blogs, and I keep getting partially inspired and partially depressed by what some of the internet fashionistas are putting together out there. They are so creative with their pairings of new and vintage pieces, funky jewelry, use of color and, best of all, a lot of them get FREE CLOTHES because they blog about them!

But unfortunately I believe that dressing well and cultivating style, no matter who you are, inevitably takes time and money, two things that are scarce in grad school.

What I REALLY want is for Real Simple to come organize my closet, a personal shopper to load me up with beautiful unique vintage pieces, several Etsy artists to send me jewelry/hair pieces/funky tidbits and all the stores on Newbury street to open their doors to me... for free.

I mean, really, is that too much to ask??

* No offense intended toward hoboes, colorblind epileptics or desperate D-list celebrities.

The Facebook Conundrum

I've been struggling lately with what to do about my facebook and twitter accounts now that I'm a real person in the real world, not a ridiculous college student softly cushioned in the Millsaps Bubble.

Most of my peers have heard it a million trillion times: You have to keep your facebook, etc "clean" or potential employers WILL find you and they WILL hate you and you WILL be fired/not hired.

Lately I've been getting a somewhat different story from my professors, who are much more tech-savvy than last semester. These professors are saying you HAVE to have a blog and you HAVE to tweet and you HAVE to facebook and you HAVE to read every news site and blog and tweet out there and you HAVE to make all those things news-centric and compatible to build your brand or you WILL be left choking on the dust of others.

And I get it and I'm excited by it and it is one of the things that I really like about journalism today. I have already admitted to being a social media whore. I spend just as much time planning posts for this blog as I do actual assignments for a grade. (Just kidding, Mom and Dad! I was exaggerating for comedic effect! I spend over 86% of my time thinking about, doing and reflecting on homework!)

But for me, the blog/facebook/twitter me has always been somewhat separate from the professional me. They are both sides of me and they both co-exist happily inside me, but I just don't know if they co-exist as happily outside of me. Here's the thing: I like news and journalism and following news and journalists on twitter and sharing cool articles on facebook and writing my responses to the changing media world on my blog.

Buuuuuuuut.... I am twenty-two. I also like wine and I like to tweet about it. I like to dance my ass off and make ridiculous faces and put pictures of such things on facebook. I like to write the word "ass" (along with other colorful words) on my blog. I am not ashamed of any of this. I like telling funny and/or embarrassing stories about some of the ridiculous things that occur around me. I don't want to give that up, but I also don't want my potential employers to hate me and fire/not hire me just because I tweet more about wine, Penny and bacon than international crises.

I want to be professional. But I don't want to lose my online self - a self I enjoy expressing - in order to be so.

our song

Y'all we might have found it! After considering long and hard, we might have picked our wedding song.

Picture it: me in a big white dress, Brian in a tux, twirling on the dance floor for the first time as husband and wife to this:

Kyleasaurus Rex

So this semester started and I got really busy trying (and mostly failing) to stay super on top of things and obviously the ole blog has suffered for it. I swear one of these days everything in my life will just fall into place and I will master the art of writing articles while washing dishes while teaching Penny to fold clothes while blogging* BUT UNTIL THEN please enjoy Kyle's head on a Tyrannosaurus Rex's body.

* Just kidding, we all know the likelihood of me overcoming procrastination and mastering the art of multitasking on things that actually matter is approximately 0.00000003%

Brides and Bridezillas

I don't know if there is anything that turns sane women into frothing, frenzied, frantic lunatics faster than a wedding. Society has turned a woman's wedding day into THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY EVER IN LIFE EVER IT MUST BE PERFECT OR ELSE. Women go to really insane extremes to make their day flawless. (Can you say Bridalplasty?) From stuff like Say Yes to the Dress (which I totally watch every time it's on, to my own chagrin), where the consultants regularly scoff at customers wishing to spend less than $2,000 on a dress they will wear once, to Mississippi Magazine's very popular wedding issue (which I worked on one summer and got to interact with some of these brides and worse - brides' moms), featuring Southern brides who insist on a full marching band, a 12 tier cake and 26 attendants, all decked out in fuchsia satin.

Whether it's their own wedding, Kate Middleton's, their best friend's or some random stranger's, women are obsessed.

And I think that is kind of dangerous. To make one day and the success thereof the indicating factor in not only the triumph of your marriage but the worth of your life is terrible. To put such pressure on the day will inevitably lead to failure - nothing is perfect, nothing can withstand that kind of scrutiny. Someone is going to spill or step or sneeze on your dress. Some family member is going to get too drunk and be embarrassing. Your nose or your ears or your knobbly knuckles are going to stick out and won't look like Kate Middleton's will (damn her). The flowers are going to droop, or the cake is going to smear or you are going to get a puffy red nose by sobbing through your vows (this WILL happen to me).

Once I start immersing myself in the planning process for this leviathan, my goal is to remind myself every day of these facts. And to remind myself that it's okay. I think I'm far too susceptible to wanting or expecting perfection for my own good. I want my wedding to be the best day of my life. But I want it to be so because I spend it with my very best friend (who also happens to be a hot piece of ass that is now stuck with me forever, yesssss). I want it to be so because all my family and friends are there, having the time of their lives. Not because I look really skinny that day or the decorator got the Chinese lanterns just right - although, you know, that stuff would be cool.

I want our day to be a reflection of us - every nerdy, silly, messy, geeky, inebriated, beautiful piece of us.

adventures with kittens: acrocat

I have already bragged about Penny's clearly superior athleticism in fetching mice. But there has been a new and even better development in the past month or so... A development that is taking her to new heights (and yes, that is a pun worthy of Horatio Caine).

Brian and Kathleen's Big Redneck Wedding

Brian and I are watching bits of "My Big Redneck Wedding" during commercials of the AFC championship game - specifically the "Tamzen and Kevin" episode, if that means anything to anyone. Mainly you just have to know that the bride is a 27-year old, 300-pound country girl and the groom is a 40-year old, 105 pound "dripping ass wet" man and they both love mud and trailers and mullets.

Brian just said, "This show kind of makes me miss Mississippi."

WHAT. Okay, just so y'all know, we are from a place where people do NOT regularly act like this. Or at least, not everybody acts like this. Brian clarified his statement by saying, "I mean people that are unique like this."

But still, WHAT.

Mississippi holds such interesting connotations for me. I have run the full gamut of emotions in my relationship with that state, and yet I know living there absolutely made me the person I am now. It is a place of both complete ignorance and total openmindedness. It is a place of bigotry and acceptance. I suppose, in a way, it is just like any other state, because you will find both terrible judgmental people and awesome, tolerant people. You will find selfish people and philanthropic people. You will find the Tamzen and Kevin's of the world (I'm sure they are very nice people), but you will also find crazy Millsaps professors cussing at their students and hosting classes in bars - and crazy Millsaps students who are the best people I've ever met in my life.

Brian and I will (most likely) be married in Jackson, Mississippi. I will take on a new name and a new role there. It seems fitting - I guess Mississippi isn't done making me the person I am yet.

P.s. Somehow I don't think our wedding will be featured on CMT, however.