Rock and Roll Lifestyle

Wende suggested we all make a Top 10 (or 11) list of our winter clothing items, and since I do everything Wende says, I complied.

(Rambling Side Note) I hate in fashion books where the author recommends "wardrobe staples" like black dress pants, plain black pumps, and a crisp white shirt. I have all those items, and I wear them about once a year, if that. Mostly, they sit in my closet and remind me of the time I had a job that required business casual attire. With my current lifestyle, I can get away with flip-flops and a T-shirt 60% of the time, and a bikini and flip-flops 30 percent. And the other 10%, I'm nekkid. Maybe in the winter I'll throw a hoodie over the whole ensemble. (this makes me sound like a hobo and/or a beach bum, but....uh...I work in a creative profession, k?)

Someone needs to write a fashion book for people like me. It would talk about hot jeans, comfy tees, shoes you can dance in for six hours straight, sweaters you can throw in the dryer, and how to avoid spending all your money at Anthropologie. (End of Rambling Side Note)

Anyway, in this vein, I tried to make my Top 10 not totally boring.

1. Blush pink push-up bra that I like to show to my friends because it's so cute (dear friends: are you tired of getting flashed? No? OK.)
2. Flannel PJs from my grandma, for lounging/sleeping/"I don't give a fuck" days
3. Kiss Me mascara (slogan: Don't Paint Your Lashes, Tube Them!). It's amazing. Tube your lashes, indeed.
4. ACDC T-shirt. I don't wear it all that much, I just...have it. My Interpol T-shirt would go in this category also.
5. Dark wash, curve-hugging jeans (gotta highlight mah junk in the trunk)
6. Metallic ballet flats
7. Easy-to-wear high heels - this is totally a toss-up between my Dolce Vita peep-toes and BCBG T-straps
8. Black scoopneck sweater. It's totally acrylic and from Express, but it fits like a glove and seems to be aging just fine
9. Hamster undies (come to think of it, I haven't seen these for awhile. If my ex stole them, he's gonna have to die)
10. A fun scarf I can wear in a messy knot. It makes me look like a breezy, cosmopolitan person who just doesn't have time to tie a perfect knot, when in reality I'm a stuck-up bitch. Also, it keeps my neck warm.

Honorary mentions: fitted t-shirts in jewel tones; any and all items of clothing stolen from present or past boyfriends; cubic zirconia stud earrings; my black silk Karanina dress.

P.S. I don't actually wear T-shirts and flip-flops to work. I'm just saying, I could.

P.P.S. Just for the record, I have on black heels, gray wool dress pants, a white eyelet blouse, and a pink corduroy blazer today. But only because there's an industry mixer after work and they asked for cocktail/business casual attire.

Booted

Ok, for someone who claims to be unable to wear boots (my feet like to breathe, k?), I'm really enamored with some of the styles I've found. Specifically, these:

And these too:


Predictably, both pairs are tall and fierce. The first are from Dolce Vita, my favoritest brand of shoes in the world. And the second...you guys, I used to think ankle boots were the ugliest fucking things on the planet. I can't decide if this pair is totally heinous or totally hot, but people on Zappos seem to like them, and I must admit, they are oddly compelling.

Oh but the leather on the Dolce Vita pair looks so soft, and the height is nice for sweater dresses and such.

I don't know. I think a trip to DSW is in order.

Good Taste Runs in the Family

My older cousin (this guy) flew in on Wednesday for a visit. We ate at excellent restaurants, got rained on while exploring the marina, and even headed up to Los Angeles to see improv comedy performed by the Upright Citizen's Brigade. We also saw a couple movies and he got to try my garlicky cheesy potatoes.

All in all, a good visit. And the man was so enamored with the design of my apartment, he wants me to go to Portland to decorate his own home! I'm flattered, but doesn't designing for a family member seem like a risky proposition? Though I haven't seen pictures of his place, I've heard it's beautiful and full of potential. But I can see my cousin sighing with disgust (or erupting with frustration) as I show him a piece of furniture he considers too expensive, or ugly, or just not his style. And as my decorating style is decidedly feminine, I'm not sure how well I would do choosing a decorating scheme for a 30-ish bachelor - a man, I might add, who has lived in his newly purchased apartment for over a year without even attempting to decorate.

Still, I love projects, I love doing favors for people who will (hopefully) appreciate them, and I was fishing around for an excuse to go to Portland over Christmas.

Thoughts?

Superstar of the Day: This Girl

I love the Sartorialist (who doesn't?), and when this picture scrolled past me in Google Reader this mroning, I instantly starred it.

I kept peeking at it throughout the day, and finally realized why it's so awesome.

First: the shoes. I'd almost expect the woman to be wearing boots with this look, but no! She has on fabulous D'Orsays that would look just as great with a slinky evening dress as with this outfit. Love.

Second: The scarf! I must confess, I love scarves. Yesterday I wore an off-white scarf woven of Tibetan lamb's wool my sister gave me. And people could not stop commenting on it, including my cousin when I picked him up from the airport. "You must love clothes to wear that scarf!" he exclaimed. Yes...yes i do.

Scarves - thick, fluffy, sensuous scarves - are practical (a warm neck/throat is a great defense against germs) and add a special little something to the right outfit. If the woman in the picture had worn a red scarf, it would have been too matchy-matchy; black, too bland. But grey! She could wear that gray scarf every day, and I guarantee it would look great with a wide variety of outfits.

Getting the Boot

Today I was thinking about Ugg boots and how much I despise them. I decided to channel my anger and browse for cool boots that don't throw me into a homicidal rage. Behold:



As you can probably tell from my selections, I am dogmatic when it comes to boots. They must be waterproof, yet the leather should not be overly stiff. They cannot be made of fake leather, because fake leather boots make your feet into stiff, sore, sweaty messes in 2.5 seconds flat.

They should be sleek, not clunky. They should have a stiletto heel or, barring that, a chunky but very high heel. They should have pointy or round toes; square toes do nothing to elongate the leg (this goes for footwear in general). They should not be flat, unless you enjoy looking like a hobbit. A 1"-2" heel is ok if you are tall/slim; otherwise, a heel that's at least 3" is better, if you can handle it.

Motorcycle-inspired boots are hot because they make you look like a badass. Also, I had a sociology TA with greased-back hair who wore a leather jacket, tight-ish jeans and motorcycle boots every day. He was oddly hot.

And Frye boots are cool, because serious boot-wearers swear by them, and they appear to be well-designed and well-constructed.

Suede is ok, but only as long as you are willing to waterproof it and take care of it.

Boots should be black, brown, toffee or tan; or, if you can pull it off, go for purple, burgundy, or dark green.

Over-the-knee boots should be saved for the bedroom. Avoid slouchy boots, because they make your legs and ankles look fat.

And I was going to say that ankle boots are stupid, but as I've been browsing I've found some cute ankle boots, so I guess they're ok. I hate when they are called "booties" or worn with dresses/skirts, because they make you look stumpy (Olsen twins, I blame you for this trend). Still, I think mid-calf boots are best in terms of looks and practicality.

Black is Back

I finally got the blue silk Armani Exchange dress in my hot little hands and ya know what? It doesn't look that great on me. It adds pounds and plunges too low for my modest breasticles. Oh, and the long sleeves just make me feel weird. I guess I like showing off my shoulders.

However!

Now that my black Karanina dress was hemmed a good six inches, it is flattering beyond belief. I have an overwhelming desire to wear it every day for the rest of my life. Ok, more realistically, I will wear it to holiday parties for the next, say, ten years. Then I will retire it, lovingly tucking it into the closet for my daughter to wear one day. Girl better be a size 4.

And now, for something completely different

BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow has some interesting thoughts about Facebook in an InformationWeek column posted today.

The title is “How Your Creepy Ex-Co-Workers Will Kill Facebook." The article is much more unfocused than this title would suggest, and Cory touches on quite a few irksome features of Facebook – like those totally useless “you have a message” emails that force you to log on to Facebook to actually see the contents of the message – and the increasing commercialization of the site.

Here’s a passage I found interesting:

"The debate about redeeming Facebook starts from the assumption that Facebook is snowballing toward critical mass, the point at which it begins to define "the Internet" for a large slice of the world's netizens, growing steadily every day. But I think that this is far from a sure thing."

I have to agree, and I have to pray that Facebook doesn’t become an Internet hub. Facebook is fun, but it's a total time-killer with few useful features other than keeping track of your friends. More and more, it's clogged with irrelevant stuff - status updates from my "friends" who are actually people I actively dislike or don’t care to keep up with; silly movie quizzes and zombie/pirate stuff; inane wall posts.

Call me a Google whore, but my Google Reader feeds define my Internet experience. I subscribe to personal finance blogs, science blogs, home decor blogs, a ton of news sites, feminist blogs, gossip blogs, blogs written by people I know or just love, and a lot more. And I read items pretty regularly throughout the day (it's ok, I work in a creative field, and reading feeds keeps writer's block from striking). Despite the time I invest in reading my feeds, starring them, and tagging them for easy reference later, I hardly ever bring my number of unread items to zero. It's a treadmill, but a really enjoyable one.

In contrast to Facebook, Google Reader lets me read more in less time. Google Reader brings the Internet to me – the parts of the Internet I care to see, at least, while Facebook is like a party filled with an odd mix of friends, ex-friends, and people I used to know (to quote Nada Surf, one of my favorite bands). Google Reader doesn't have a social element, really, but that's because I haven't gotten very savvy about sharing items - but I plan to push items to my blog very soon.

Facebook is increasingly depressing and irrelevant for me. Depressing because most of my Facebook friends are not my real friends; they do not top my list of people I keep up-to-date with. Part of that is, of course, my own fault - I should be more vigilant with friending people as I meet them in real life. Or, ya know, not. Between my cell phone, email, and AIM, I'm easily accessed by all the important people on my life.

Anyway, here’s Cory writing about the issue referenced in the title of the article:

"For every long-lost chum who reaches out to me on Facebook, there's a guy who beat me up on a weekly basis through the whole seventh grade but now wants to be my buddy; or the crazy person who was fun in college but is now kind of sad; or the creepy ex-co-worker who I'd cross the street to avoid but who now wants to know, "Am I your friend?" yes or no, this instant, please.

It's not just Facebook and it's not just me. Every "social networking service" has had this problem and every user I've spoken to has been frustrated by it. I think that's why these services are so volatile: why we're so willing to flee from Friendster and into MySpace's loving arms; from MySpace to Facebook. It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system and send out some invites (of course, chances are at least one of those invites will go to someone who'll groan and wonder why we're dumb enough to think that we're pals)."

Interesting theory and I honestly wonder if it's true. It’s true for me, to a point. Back in the Friendster days, many people would message me over the system and I met a few not-so-cool people over the site. Perhaps this contributed to me happily switching over to Facebook. However, I also anticipated that Friendster was a dinosaur with a lack of useful features, while Facebook offered a much sleeker interface and was attracting all my classmates, buddies, and the sheer number of users that makes a social networking site useful and fun.

Still, my Facebook friend list is a testament that especially when a person is young, and hops from job to job and college to full-time employment, friends change quickly. Whereas in real life, friends, ex-lovers and ex-co-workers simply fade into a person’s past, they do not automatically disappear from your friends list.

Maybe they should. Maybe that would ease the awkwardness of having to "de-friend" someone - which many would construe as a hostile gesture even if, in my case at least, it's simply a sign that the relationship is over, and has been over for awhile.

I would love a feature that automatically deleted a person from your friends list if you haven't messaged them or otherwise interacted with them for, say, 30 days. At 30 days, you could elect to "maintain" the relationship as it exists on Facebook, or let it lapse. Or you could designate someone as a "permanent" friend, whose relationship would not lapse even if you don't interact - which may be perfect for, say, a relative who you communicate with on the phone.

This feature would let online relationships ebb and flow just as they do offline. Facebook does well with the flow of relationships – people are only too happy to add someone as a friend or change a friend to a significant other. It’s the ebb they don’t do well with.

Of course, it's terrible that we let relationships lapse. We all have friends who we lost because we got too busy to call, moved to another state, got married, switched schools, or what have you. And part of the utility of social networks is keeping all sorts of relationships and far-flung friends and family right at your fingertips.

Still, some relationships lapse for a reason. We all break up with significant others, have fallings-out with friends, and cut ties for excellent reasons. And having these people lingering on our friends lists - when they are nothing of the sort - is merely a reminder of breakups, arguments, changes of heart, and so on. Sometimes, visiting Facebook feels like seeing your idiot ex at your favorite coffee shop – day after day after day.

Now, as much as I admit my friends list is inaccurate and a little depressing, and as much as I argue that Facebook is a total time-suck, I don’t plan on abandoning the service anytime soon. I like that long-lost friends, relatives or classmates can find me on it, and the site helps me keep many long-distance friendships alive.

The messaging system is still lame and infuriating, and the MySpace-esque applications (graffiti walls and gifts and zombie attacks and such) are infantile, useless, and not nearly as fun as, say, talking on the phone with a friend. But my profile is carefully crafted, enjoyable to update, and a reasonable reflection of who I am; and I like dropping lines to far-flung acquaintances without leaving my computer.

Anyway, be sure to check out Cory’s article and weigh in on Facebook’s usefulness, foibles and future.