Dahlias, Dahling

Dahlias are one of my very favorite fall flowers. As the end of summer looms closer and closer, I find myself searching for ways to make this fact seem less harsh. The prospect of procuring a small bundle for my desk is one such way. In fact, I believe if I ever find a man strong enough to deal with my crazy for all eternity, and if a wedding to said man falls within the autumn months, it will be filled with these whimsical beauties.

Image via wikipedia.

NO LEVAR NONONO

Reading Rainbow is gone, donzo, finito on Friday. My childhood is over and I'm not happy.

Curator, finally

I found out at work last week that I will be co-curating my first art show early next year and I could not be more excited. So excited, in fact, that I was told where the show would be held and immediately forgot. I'll be talking about it more when I'm told specifics and it doesn't go in one ear and out the other.

For now, enjoy this clue: Braque's Woman with a Guitar, image via Wikipedia.

Irresponsible

I'm inappropriate and terribly irresponsible about money and today I did something bad. Really bad. Boredom at the place of business and online sample sales are a problematic situation. Let's just say that I bought a watch I absolutely don't need but was several (seriously, several) hundred dollars off the original price and beautiful and ladylike and sophisticated and I couldn't resist. I suppose I should be more responsible but whatever, I'm 23, working, and totally stupid. I'm okay with it, for there's really only a few years in a girl's life when she can be selfish, irresponsible, and stupid in this respect.

Image via flickr

Maybe Someday...

I'll come back. But these last days of summer have me singing Natasha and running and cooking vitelottes and babysitting David's nieces and nephews with him and doing anything with him and smoking cloves on the porch in the dead of night and eating shrimp and crab pasta and drinking Yingling by the keg and going to the fair and glowing inappropriately. I love the last week of August.

MoMA Design

Back in the days where I couldn't get a job, I thought about working at the MoMA Design Store on Spring Street. I know, however, that I am not cut-out for retail and couldn't cope with the idea of working in a gift shop full time but I must admit, the discount might have been sweet when it came to these bowls. I suppose they're kind of naff, but if I had a beautiful house with big windows I would want these nearby so they could catch the light. While I'm at at it, this would be nice too, please.

Bad Blogger

I have disappeared into a cloud of pet sitting (I am managing, nineteen horses, two dogs, three cats and endless chickens) and cooking for myself and David (who is new and so exciting and scary and makes me queasy). I have done nothing and read nothing and bought nothing, I did arrange some pictures on the wall. They look quite nice. One of these days the horses' owners will return and David will become a fixture and I will start sleeping again and then I will be a better blogger.

In Hiding

Life is such that I would like to hide under my duvet all weekend until I figure out major decisions or until everything sorts itself out for the best. Perhaps I will drag myself out from underneath to attend an arts and crafts fair in Brooklyn and a Mets game in Queens but I cannot promise anything. For now though, I would like a cup of tea and a cute, snugly animal that I could clutch.

Image via flickr.

Yes, please

Since fall is about a millisecond away, and because I was bored at work today, here are beautiful things of gorgeous that I cannot afford and therefore will not buy but will continue to dream about when I'm still wearing my beat-up J. Crew jersey dresses in October.

Miu Miu blazer, cashmere turtleneck, Balenciaga bag (yeah, okay Mary), beautiful books (yeah, I know they don't necessarily go but I might have punched my sister in the face for these in college), headband, earrings, Christian Louboutin leopard-print shoes (have mercy), Skirt, ball earrings

Sigh, or Things I Need for Fall by mcirbus featuring Balenciaga bags

Luminosity, related to Fabulosity

I found these luminous earrings in Union Square on Friday night before seeing 500 Days of Summer. I didn't love the movie but these made my night. Five dolla. Holla.

Stoneware

There's a part of me that wants to just give up the office job and city life and just pick up and go live in the woods in a lakefront Adirondack cabin with a boathouse and a canoe and read books and wear crazy scarves and make pottery all day. I love the beautifully-flawed look and color of stoneware. It just seems so natural. I'm thinking of joining a class to channel some of my angst and anxiety so we shall see what happens. In the meantime, I love this from Dovecotedesign on Etsy.

Summer Monday

This picture is of Split Rock, a waterfall and local watering hole a few miles away from my family's home in the Adirondacks, and nothing makes me long for the mountains like New York Mondays of ninety-degree-plus temperatures and enough humidity to choke commuters like myself as we wait in line in the still-blistering-at-5pm sun for buses.

I never imagined how fast the summer goes by when it must be thought of in terms of weekends. Suddenly it's August and I find myself wanting to ask summer for a refund. As a child my summers were filled with weeks in the Adirondacks, hiking and swimming in the mountain lakes. Now I find myself not having been there once without any hopes of getting there anytime soon. My family is kind of a mess right now, with my father being ill, and come to think of it, my personal life hasn't been so awesome either. Men are stupid and not knowing what to do with your life is stupid and feeling stuck in a rut because you're living at home with your parents is stupid too. Truth be told, this is the first summer I've actually felt like an adult, and having said that, I would give anything to jump in the freezing cold water of Split Rock and yelp out in pain but feel young and carefree and be blissfully unaware of Mondays' existence during the summer.

OH! OH!

Things have been a little rough here at the ol' farm. Living alone doesn't agree with me as much as I had hoped. There has been crying, and yelling at people and trying to convince people to do things that include the dog ("Lets go to the park, I know its 102 degrees but we can do it" and "they have an outdoor patio, I know the flies but it's outside!!") and googling things like 'can I bring my dog into J Crew in my bag? (answer: no) and shouting at Friend F about my eminent death from falling off a chair and resulting consumption by ravinous westie (don't blame Susie, she'll be hungry) all over the interwebs and phone since I am, after all, living alone and then...

Well Mary wins at birthdays. I think Marie Antoinette (not just the real one, the Sofia Coppola one too) would wear these. If only Marie Antoinette had had a J Crew. And these earrings have made me all better. Completely well again.

Guilty as Charged

Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch at the NYT.

I am one of the women who watches television and prints out recipes and I am also one of those who watches eighteen hours of The Food Network a day including all the reality mumbo jumbo. But I do not feel oppressed by cooking, although I do buy pasta sauce in jars. Somehow cooking for one is never as nice though.... or living alone. Thank goodness for Susie.

Birthday, Going Away, Alone

The birthday was wonderful. There were margaritas and The Oldest-and-Best brought me earrings and her pretty face and there was flourless chocolate cake. And these headbands. Which are luminous. Then last night there was the going away party for my parents and sisters and brother who are going to Mississippi tomorrow leaving me and my dog and my cat and my CSA in this big house alone. I am going to volunteer at the barn with the horses and apply for jobs in earnest. Le Sigh.

Happy Birthday Hannah!

The happiest of birthdays to the best-friend-from-college, former roommate, ferocious reader and fellow wedding-judger, derlicte aficionado, golden girls addict, and the only person I trust to shop with.

Have a bottle of vodka, listen to Chaka Kahn and be fabulous. I wish no hangover for you tomorrow.

Have You Met Miss Jones?

I look like the above today. Not even the dress. The pajamas, and the chubby and the limp hair and the blond scruffy, and the alone and the vodka and the Chaka Kahn. And while I am not 32 I am well on my way to a life where my major relationship is with a bottle of wine. This will be my uniform for the week. It will not match. There will be vodka. (and I know that necklace is DONE but you can't be a sad Bridget Jones without a Tiffany heart).

Bridget Jones by Douxstyle featuring GAP

Pretty Flowers

For my hair. For a buck each. I love.

Fight

In general my magazine consumption is organized. I read Vogue, Allure (I got a subscription with my frequent flyer miles when Northwest was bought out) and InStyle every month. Plus The New Yorker and Vanity Fair (even those it's alarmist and crap). I like magazines a lot. This month it's become clear that InStyle is for morons. I already read Allure so my idiot magazine quota is already filled. I think I'm going to stop buying it. First off, is this really the best picture of La Heigl they got? Really? She's hot. I wanna be hot like Heigl. I feel like in real life we might be friends, she dresses straight from the J Crew catalogue and smokes. She swears a lot. And eats pasta, and named her production company after the withered hag in Provide Provide. She's cool. And hot. And someone at InStyle hates her. All the pictures are crap.

Then there is the issue of an article entitled "Display Your Books". This drives me to violence. If you are concerned about displaying your books you do not have enough books, or do not read those books. The argument that Do What You Are (a self help find a job book) and Bernard Shaw's collected plays should be next to each other because they are both orange is preposterous. For serious. This is all before you get to an article about "Rule Breaking." Don't worry, a coffee table can sometimes be an ottoman. And you CAN wear your curly hair short! All I want is pretty pictures of pretty things and people. No words. Thank you. Rant over.

Make This

Burberry (not yet on the website for sale, but listed as $750 in InStyle) made this. I kind of think I could too. Because it is lovely. And I think that with the new winter coat I am plotting it will make the snowy miserable PA winter snuggly and nice.

Update: Make with this pattern.

Peacock

This is an Etsy belt, although I do not like it as such. Rather, I should like it in my hair while wearing a black turtleneck and dark jeans.

Up

This morning I was up before the westie. Which is, for me, unusual. She is usually up before me, staring at me and sometimes doing a very cute growl, pounce and bark (which is very very bad manners and we are trying to make her stop). I was also up before the sun hit the barn and before the mountains were visible. Now the fog has rolled down the mountains and rests at the bottom of the hill like a ribbon, and the sun has revealed a farmer moving things and rearranging in our barn. Susie the westie is still asleep.