Vlog!!!

First Vlog ever time!! Woot! Okay, so normally I don't pause every few seconds and I also have a zit on my face and look like crap on toast but nonetheless, VLOG!!

Don't try to stop the tail that wags the hound

I went to download outfit photos the other day and I found these on my camera card. I had to share them with everyone. For those of you who may not know, this is my puppy Louie! He is a lab-mix, and I love him to death.

Photos by Kyle

Song "Don't lets start" by They Might Be Giants

Last year's model

When Kyle saw this outfit, he exclaimed "Aww! I didn't know it was ballerina day!". I decided to pull this dress out that Kyle bought me last year, that I have only worn once. I remember seeing it and loving it right away. The only other time I wore it, was to go to a party at Cliff Bell's in Detroit and I remember that I had just dyed my hair black and when I put on this dress I felt like Cleopatra. I think I didn't bother styling it up again because last year at this time, it seemed like every fashion blogger had one and I just gave up on trying to style it. After wearing this Rodarte for Target number, I thought up of  a bunch of ways to wear it. Which makes me happy because Kyle bought it for me, and I do want to wear it. 

Oh and check out this pretty necklace I won from Cafe Fashionista's giveaway! I forgot to mention it last time I wore it.Whoops.




Right now I am currently enjoying being the only one awake in the apartment-which is odd since Louie is the one who woke me up and is  now snoozing in my spot in the bed-and it's already past 10am!  I kind of love being the only one awake sometimes. I have a long weekend of homework and paper writing ahead of me, meh. The only thing I really am looking forward to is the break we are getting in three weeks. Time for coffee.

~Toodles.

Details
Dress-Rodarte for Target
Sweater-Thrifted
Necklace-Cafe Fashionista
Boots-Sears
Tights-CVS

Autumn in New York

May-December relationships always pique interest, even if they always seem to be similar.  The male almost always has a head crowned with thick grey hair, and a sense of mischievousness about him. He has managed to keep his single-status and his title of 'Womanizer' well into his adult life while his close friends are sending their kids to preschool. The female, barely into her twenties, is typically artistic and free-spirited. What makes this couple's recipe for heartbreak  different than any of the others strolling through the park on a weekday afternoon with nothing better to do than stare at each other until the other giggles and turns away? How about a dash of long family connection? If that doesn't work, throw in some terminal illness and blend well.

 Will Keane ( played by Richard Gere) is the owner of a trendy restaurant and only a few years away from the title of "silver fox", when one October evening he comes across Charlotte Fielding (Winona Ryder) who happens to be celebrating her 23rd birthday at his fine establishment. Before Will is even able to grace her with his Casanova charm, he is caught up with an old friend by the name of Dolly, who just so happens to be Charlotte's Grandmother. Will and Dolly have a history, on account of him courting (in a manner of speaking) Charlotte's late Mother in the past. When Will and Charlotte finally exchange shy greetings, Will already has planned his next move.

Charlotte accompanies Will on an extravagant date to a benefit dinner, and well...one thing leads to another and...you know. The next morning over the expected homemade breakfast, Will explains their situation, that he cannot offer anything more than what they already have, mostly on account of the vast difference in their age, and that the time that they will spend together is limited, due to his womanizing habits. Charlotte nods in agreement, and further explains how their time is indeed very limited: she is dying.

Instead of breaking it off right away, Will decides to stick around. Which inevitably causes him to fall in love with Charlotte, and Charlotte with him. This begins the anxiety that builds up inside Will, he has never been in love, he has no idea what he is doing or how to treat a woman that he is in love with. Which in turn begs the question; if Charlotte wasn't terminally ill, would he have loved her at all?

That question remains unanswered. However, Will comes to terms with the consequences of his behavior previous to meeting Charlotte. Realizing that time in general is something you cannot control, but what you do with the time you have, you have control over.

Thus concludes the summary for movie #2 for 2011, 22 more from the list to go! I admit that this is not the only sappy flick on the list. I honestly read the back of the case of this movie and thought it was going to be a lot like "Sweet November" and I wanted to find out if that were true. That an I still like Winona Ryder. 

Blogger off duty

What do I do with all of my time when I am not blogging? Homework usually. Saturday I spent most of the day doing homework, I even ventured out of the apartment to the dreadful Starbucks to work. It didn't last more than a few hours, I think the best place to study in Royal Oak has to be the library, if you can find a spare table. Either way, I figured I would share with you what I normally wear when I am not taking outfit photos. Typically I wear what I do share on my blog all day, and on the off days I usually wear an outfit that I already have taken a picture of, then there are days where I wear something simple (aka lazy) and just throw on jeans, thick boots, warm layers and a hat to hide my greasy hair. Why girls with bangs decide to push them to the side when they get oily is beyond me, but I do it anyway. Oh and half the time I don't bother putting on makeup, add some bags under the eyes because of lack of sleep and I look dead sexy!

The most important factor in this outfit is the coat. This was my neighbor Catrina's coat that she gave me when she moved. Well, technically Rob made me take it when he was clearing out the rest of her stuff, but details, details. It is really warm! Kyle also has a new-to-him coat that we picked up at the Salvation army a few weeks back. I need to fix it a little bit, but it is hard to do that when he is constantly wearing it. 




Saturday night Kyle and I were supposed to go see the play "39 steps" since I like Hitchcock but we got the times screwed up and did not end up going. After checking around to see if anyone was interested in hanging out, we decided to just get some Thai food from Ferndale and watch some movies. I still stayed up a little too late but it was a lot of fun. Kyle and I don't spend a lot of time alone so it is nice when we get the chance. Made for a nice, relaxing weekend.



Details
Coat & T-shirt-Gift
Sweater, hat-thrifted
Boots-Garage sale
jeans-OU

The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao

If ever the term 'epic failure' was to be applied to my life, it would be at this moment. I have never felt as much wonder/anger/enjoyment in my life after finishing a book as I have when I closed this book, flipped it over to the cover, traced the lettering of the title, and finally exhaled. What kind of impact will it make on my life? Will/can I apply anything that I learned from this to my life? Will I become a more open-minded person? I don't know. I wish I did. I sometimes believe that the lighter, fluffier literature that I read has more of an impact at times. I know that your favorite book or author cannot cover all genres, and I don't want to be so quick to replace David Sedaris as my literary hero, however....

I am beyond frustrated with myself that I did not read this book before meeting Junot Diaz, then again, what would I say? That I am a product of my environment and have had no exposure to any Dominican culture other than when Carla ripped Turk new one every time he forgot what her nationality was until she finally broke into song during that musical episode of Scrubs, singing her aggravation away to her husband? That I had to keep the internet close-by while reading in order to translate the few phrases that I just did not understand, regardless of the context it was in? That I understood each and every Tolkien, and Star Trek reference that was made and that I would chance learning to play D&D if it meant that I could be Oscar's friend? But then again knowing Oscar's track record with women, would my attempt at friendship conduct more damage than good? I don't know. I don't think I can even manage a decent review of the book, but I will try. Because even though at times I wanted to hurl it across the room, even though at times I had to reach for tissue because the text was so blurred by my hot tears, even though I received many a disproving stares in public for laughing out loud so hard I thought I would piss myself, "The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao" has become one of my favorite books that I have ever read.

Oscar Wao is a misinterpretation of Oscar Wilde in the book, however, the nickname sticks. "The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao" is written in a series of pros, where the narrator is anything but unreliable. There is a blatantly honest tone as the reader is directed into the lives of one family, struggling with an ancient curse that tears a destructive path for generations. The reader is learned through layers of stories of struggle and series of facts, blended and mashed together to eventually form Oscar, the ghetto-nerd who would appear to be too innocent if he wasn't coated in the curse. 

Oscar is the polar opposite of the females in his family, he is weak, he is unattractive, he has a great love for the sci-fi fantasy world and for food, and most importantly,  even though he fails miserably each and every opportunity, women. Oscar fails in almost every way at being a true Dominican. There is a great fear in him that he might die a virgin, blasphemy to Dominican males everywhere. Readers follow his life, set in what we assume is sometime in the 1990's, as well as taking trips to the past through the narrator, who's calm anxiety to get the story to us readers is apparent through each and every f-bomb peppering the pages, but is to be expected when our narrator has to educate the readers on the nature and rein of Trujillo, who is an enormous factor in the story.

Junot Diaz

When reading about all the pain and destruction the family has gone through, the reader might wonder why in the hell they all have to be so damn strong-willed and stubborn. Whether they believe in the curse or not, it all comes full-circle. Each and every time. When Oscar finally accepts the curse, his battle is both the same, and yet very different from his predecessors. In the end, our narrator is left with a bigger job then what he set out for, and even though many questions for us readers have been answered, the story is left with an unpredictable ending: Hope. 

 This completes my first book for 2011. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested, but it just might not be for the faint of heart.

Don't say you're not amazed when you know you are

Here I am, nibbling at the remains of my chicken Caesar salad from the diner up the street and sipping some delicious coffee waiting for my finger tips to regain feeling after a walk with the pup and I feel pretty content for the moment. I had to be to work at 6am this morning so that I could leave at 2:30pm to haul up to the school to conduct an interview with an English professor I had last term for my paper for this term. "Bri-Con" (as he is known to the English majors) is a pretty cool guy. First off, he hung around for me to get there since I had to work, then, knowing that I am an English major and not on the newspaper staff, he helped me out a lot with the interview. I had maybe six measly questions, and he gave me two anecdotes to help fill in the gaps. I am really excited about the paper now and I still have three more interviews to do now. It's funny how you can sometimes be pleasantly surprised when you are out of your element. 

I also decided that since I was already going to be at the school this afternoon, I decided to pack a bag and head over to the rec center after the interview.  Normally I am a little chicken to go to places like that, especially without the aid of an mp3 player (I can be an anti-social asshole sometimes) but I put down on my resolutions that I wanted to lose those last 12 pounds and I want to. I also have said that I want to run again and there is no way my uncoordinated ass is running on the non-salted sidewalks of Royal Oak so, rec center it is. Today I managed a half-hour on the elliptical trainer, and a half-hour on the treadmill (speed walking) and I think I am going to try running on the track next time I go. 

Here is a coat that my parents got me for Christmas and I love it to death! It's plaid and I feel like with the right hat, I can somehow look like a plaid Carmen Sandiego. I also got this purple plaid dress from Lauren for my birthday way back in October and I wore it a few times but never managed to take a picture, but here it is in all it's purple-plaid glory!

Oh and in case you guys were wondering,I have given up on taking my own close-ups and resorted to making ridiculous faces.

Details

Coat, scarf & dress-Gifts

Blazer-Lauren 

Tights-CVS

Boots-Bongo

Song "Merrimack River" By Mandy Moore

Permanent Ink

Every once in awhile I get the urge to get a tattoo, but I have never been able to decide what I want. For others, they have been plotting the specific place where they want to permanently embellish their skin since playgroup.  The thing is, I fear my body will react strange, it happened with piercings so I am nervous about ink. However, some people I know have some pretty awesome tattoo's and I have pretty much made them show me their skin.

My best friend Jamie has the Serenity symbol tattooed on her back. Serenity is a Joss Whedon film that was created to sort of tied up the lose ends to the canceled show Firefly. Both Firefly and Serenity are epically amazing, seriously, it's like Star Wars meets Bonanza, but even better! Needless to say, Jamie has had a few comments on this tattoo and I fully support fan tattoos. I mean, if you really love something, then why not?

Mariah shows off her tattoo that she had done in memory of a loved one. I love that the tattoo is simple, yet obviously sends a strong message to whomever casts a glance at it.

Mark decided to go all out with his tattoos. The first is the anarchy symbol if you didn't  already know, and I personally find it less offensive than that damn creepy rabbit from Donnie Darko. Frank is a creepy guy, take a look for yourself:

And he willingly put this on his arm, I think just to taunt me and to scare the piss out of children and adults alike everywhere! Moving on.

Dan has the batman symbol tattooed on his arm and although it looks a tiny bit faded, there is no denying what that symbol is for. 

Now what would I get personally? If I were going for the fan-based tattoo, I would go for: 

 

Or if I were going to get a comic related tattoo: 

 

But I would most likely go for something like this in the end:

How about you?