the lemon is in play

I wore this to go chasing after little kids at a playground (in an It Was My Little Cousin's Birthday way, not in a Humbert Humbert way). It was really tiring, but it was worth it because I love kids who are still in the early stages of language acquisition. (Their syntax and morphology are so much fun to observe. #maybe this is why i have a linguistics degree)

I rue the day I chopped up my mom's jeans to make these shorts, because I cut them SO UNEVENLY, but the longer leg is the length I wanted.

This pink scarf with metallic gold bits was a gift from Spenser's mom, probably from the day I went over to watch Doctor Who before the summer hiatus and was really, really disappointed (and charmed) by "A Good Man Goes To War."

IT'S JUST SO SHINY HOW COULD I SAY NO

Denim shorts: mother's, Old Navy + scissors. Jacket: gift. Scarf: gift. Thermal peeking out: Kohl's. Tights: BP Nordstrom. Fake Keds worn within an inch of their lives: Payless.

And since my last post was for the Harry Potter fandom, I claim this post in the name of the BBC radio show Cabin Pressure, which is about a tiny private airline and its crew and their shenanigans (and their pathetic lives).


(If you decide to listen to it... you can probably guess my favorite character is Captain Martin Crieff, and it's not even because Benedict Cumberbatch voices him. HE'S JUST SO PATHETIC I WANT TO LOVE HIM.)


Here's a clip from Season 2, Episode 6, where they're flying to Limerick:

And here's a small set of quotes that I literally laughed out loud at:

MARTIN: It seems the cargo hold heating may not have been turned on.
DOUGLAS: Masterly use of the passive voice. 

ARTHUR: Aha, my signature dish. Behold! Surprising Rice.
DOUGLAS: Good lord!
MARTIN: What are those bits?
ARTHUR: Ah, you see, Skipper, if you don't mind me saying so, that question is entirely against the spirit of Surprising Rice. 

CAROLYN: Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has now illuminated the seat belt sign, so please ensure your baggage and duty-free are safely stowed, your tray tables are folded away, and your seat is returned to the upright position. Or, as they say in Limerick ...

The captain has turned on the signs
So stow away bags of all kinds
Then make sure your tray is folded away
And your seatback no longer reclines. 

MARTIN: But I have always wanted to be an airline captain.
DOUGLAS: Really?
MARTIN: Yes, ever since I was six.
DOUGLAS: Ah! And before that?
MARTIN: I wanted to be an aeroplane.

You've been so brave.

This is what I wore to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II. (What I wore for Part I was extremely similar to this, and both of those were extremely similar to what I wore to run around with my brother conversing in British accents looking for sticks to duel with.)

Sweater: vintage UC Berkeley merchandise from my uncle. Tie: gift from my brother. White shirt: probably a Catholic school uniform polo. Skirt: made by my grandmother. Tights: BP Nordstrom. Oxfords: Miz Mooz. Ring: secondhand, cousin's.

This was the exact day I overdid the friendship bracelet-making and gave myself tendinitis. (But I was bored! In line! For five hours! I wasn't even the first person there! Rebecca and Adam and Huitzi whom I met outside gave me Red Vines! Spenser came bearing Chipotle burritos! Shelby came wearing the best socks ever! And my scar was melting off!)

My body looks weirdly proportioned in these photos (to me). I think it was the height of the camera. Anyway.

This ring is from that giant pre-garage sale haul at my cousin's house, although one of the rhinestones has fallen off since this picture was taken.

Basically,

"You've been so brave." 

and

"Does it hurt?"

AND THEN I CRIED AND I WAS IN THE BATH. But not really, because I went home and read Coda to an Epilogue: Twenty Years Later, Or The Kids Are All Right. Which makes me want to laugh and punch things out of overwhelming affection.


Now. Time to attend to my other fandoms.

Nobody could fake being such an annoying dick all the time.

H'OKAY, SO.


I feel like a fraud because I'm posting outfit photos from so long ago that I could have gotten pregnant and had a baby by now and you wouldn't know it from my blog. (Well. Actually I'm slightly more caught up than that, but only just.)


So here's an outfit I wore at the end of January, which is... not enough time for a baby but definitely enough time to write 12,000+ words of fanfiction for BBC Sherlock. (Yes, between my last post and this one, I've added 1,000 words of uneventful domestic life at 221B Baker Street. I hate myself a little bit.)

Uh... I think I only wore this because I was really excited to be exiting the house that day.

Obviously too excited as evidenced by this over-twee pose. Why am I allowed to take photos of myself.

Which is kind of pathetic even if you don't think about it very hard, but I mean. You can read the amount of time I'm spending working on a computer by the number of procrastinatory* tumblr posts I make per day, and it's very (very (painfully)) obvious that this post-grad, living-at-home, online-classes, virtual-internship lifestyle is SUCKING THE MARROW FROM MY BONES AND NOT EVEN IN A SEXY HANSCHEN WAY.

*According to the squiggly line in my editor, that's not a word, but.** 

**That wasn't a sentence, but this is a picture from backstage at Dolce & Gabbana, and if you haven't seen this season's show yet, I advise you to GET ON IT, because DAMN.

So anyway, I was practicing my double French braids ending in pigtails, but they turned out messier than I intended. (They'd probably be better with Benedict a lot of hair gel and more dexterous hands, but I don't like washing my hair often, and my tendinitis isn't going away, so my head only looked a little bit alien.)

Note about this sweater: I've had it for at least nine years. Or, to put that into perspective, I've had this sweater since before I owned a bra. 

It's, um, a bit small now, but that's what I was going for.

Sweater: ellemenno. Skirt: secondhand, cousin's. Socks: Target. Chelsea boots: Cole Haan. Necklaces: mother's. Ring: estate sale.

points of interest

I wore this in July to watch Super 8 and welcome into my arms the $20 worth of Neutrogena Norwegian Formula lip balm I ordered on Amazon.

I don't have much to say about this except that I felt vaguely patriotic because of my blue-and-white striped shorts and my red-and-white socks.

I should probably mention that my socks didn't come like this; I busted holes in the heels of both socks and then patched them with pieces of a red sock. (Socks made of socks. So meta!)

Jacket: Esprit, mother's. Shorts: hand-me-down, aunt's. Tights: generic. Socks: I have no idea. Shoes: Miz Mooz.

The text of this post is boring, so here is a list of unrelated things rendered marginally more interesting by their introductory bullet points:

• I was supposed to go home after this past long weekend in SoCal at my cousins', but, well, I was left behind to save room in the car, so I won't be home until this weekend.
• As a result of only expecting to stay the weekend, I didn't pack a lot of clothes, so I'm currently living out of my cousin's closet.
• I've realized that I really, really, really like Tangled.
• I've been listening to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on audiobook and just finished "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." To be honest, I don't think I'll ever sit down and read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (I've tried; I fell asleep), so if this is the only way I'll consume canon!Holmes, it'll have to do.
• I am drowning in fashion week coverage for my internship. (This sounds more impressive than it actually is. What it actually is is me sitting with my audiobook playing while scrolling through Style.com for appropriate images.)
• (The inspiration/execution at Giles was amazing. The colors and textures at Erdem made me clutch at my heart. Marchesa made me want to throw myself on the ground and weep (what else is new). Ralph Lauren combined with Oscar de la Renta would be my dream wardrobe. And Jason Wu, Rag & Bone, and Burberry Prorsum had gorgeous makeup.)

Here's a picture from Erdem that I stole off style.com to break up the text.

I don't know why looking at this is making me emotional.

• NYFW makes me want to be rich and thin. London Fashion Week makes me want to stand in my closet for hours and plan outfits.
• My BBC Sherlock fanfiction is at 11,000+ words. I don't know how this happened, and I'm slightly terrified that I might be butchering everything that is wonderful about the show, but I can't even be embarrassed because I like these characters too much to not try playing with them.
• I have fallen in love with Cabin Pressure.
• I went fragrance shopping with my brother today, and to our great mutual surprise, Burberry Brit (for men) dried down really nicely on him, so it's going to be his new scent. (I'm a monogamous Burberry London (for women) user myself, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that we both smell good in Burberry? I don't know.)
• I'm currently wearing a Tinkerbell sweatshirt while sprawled on a Beauty and the Beast bedspread with a Flintstones pillow behind me.
• My tendinitis is flaring up.

she was just me mom

I wore this to watch Billy Elliot at the Orpheum. (In July.)

Wow, I look really stiff when other people take my photos. You can even see my smile not reaching my eyes! And usually I find it easy to voluntarily smize without smiling.

...This is why I own the cheapest tripod on Amazon.

(Lex Ishimoto was Billy the night I went. He was phenomenal. I didn't even care for the musical itself all that much (although I do love the movie), but Lex and whoever played his Michael made me all weepy. I think I just like seeing people doing what they love and doing it really well.)


This is one of those outfits that's comprised of individual items I really like but that didn't come together very well. But! On the plus side, I was really comfortable.

Black velvet t-shirt: The Limited, thrifted. Sweater: aunt's, hand-me-down. Pants: aunt's, hand-me-down. Oxfords: Miz Mooz. Socks: probably Target.

Ha-ha. I knew this was coming when I was watching the musical because I'd seen the movie beforehand, but I wasn't expecting to cry as much as I did. But I cry easily.

BUT HOW CAN YOU NOT GET A LITTLE EMOTIONAL ABOUT A BOY SAYING "LOVE YOU FOREVER" TO HIS MUM, ESPECIALLY IN A HARD-TO-PLACE NORTHERN ENGLISH ACCENT. # maybe this is why i have a linguistics degree

You know how sometimes when you watch really talented people, it inspires you to go make cool things or do great work, and sometimes it just makes you feel like a total failure?

Yeah, I give up.

(Just kidding. This is definitely one of those things that make me want to Do Great Things. As opposed to The Social Network, which just makes me want to lie on the ground and give up. SPARKS INSIDE OF MEEEEE!)

boobs, gaussian blur, and other things that were never an option

I wore this to go watch X-Men: First Class last summer (YEAH, WOW, HI. THIS IS A TIMELY AND RELEVANT BLOG).

This may be hard to believe, but I really liked how flat-chested this sweater made me look. (Not that I am always anti-boobs. I just felt like looking extra flat-chested that day.)


Unfortunately, I spent so much time beforehand hearing about the movie through the distortive filter that is tumblr, that by the time I actually got around to watching it, I was under the impression that it was going to be a movie about a groovy mutant and a shark who fall in love because peace was never an option.

Shoes. Thanks, Legolas John Watson.

I hope you hover over this image and take note that its filename is foot-fetishists-were-never-an-option.JPG because I am still getting hits from people Googling things like "Keds fetish."

(When Michael Fassbender as Erik appeared onscreen swimming in the dark, choppy sea, baring his teeth, I almost started laughing in the theater because I was thinking of the Jaws theme.)


As a result, when I went to take these pictures, I tried to be like Charles and mind-bend everything in sight.

Nothing happened. But at least I got the McAvoy eyebrow down.


When that failed, I tried to channel my inner Michael Fassbender shark Erik and, like, bend metal and stuff.

Nothing happened. I didn't even get my teeth visible enough. So I did some minor photo retouching.

Sweater: uncle's, hand-me-down. Light pink thermal: Old Navy, gift. Shorts: aunt's, hand-me-down. Tights: generic. Fake Keds: Payless. Magneto helmet: MS Paint. Gaussian blur: image editing prowess.

you're not mating with me, sunshine

Here's what I wore to my brother's graduation ceremony, which was... ages ago.

Fashion bloggers, listen up: this pose is going to be the next big thing. I call it the Anatomically Incorrect Sixth Grade Pregnancy Test.

It was my first time wearing this dress (aside from that time I put it on just for blog photos and had really ashy knees).

(Not that my knees were any less ashy this time. I just put tights over them.)

I like how my undereye circles make it easy to see exactly where my cheeks scrunch up over my eyes when I smile really hard. Like this: 

I don't get how people wear body-con dresses without getting lines all over the place. Like, can you wear anything underneath that won't show? The waistline of my tights was bulging out, and tights are, like, skin-tight.

Also, I hate bras with plasticky transparent straps. Like the one I'm wearing. I blame my mom for insisting that I wear this outfit and not the frumpy skirt-and-blouse combo I originally wanted to wear.

Also my face is like 15 shades darker than the rest of my body. Which I blame on Berkeley, because at least I was uniformly pasty before college.

I'm actually quite displeased with how cheap this lace looks, which is one of many reasons why I never wear this.

But these are my favorite heels, so they made up for it. (Possibly related fact: these are also my most comfortable heels.)

Black lace-sleeved bodycon dress: H&M. Blue tights: Forever21. Heels: Payless. THIS IS A BLOG ABOUT HIGH FASHION.

An observation that you care about: wearing this made me really uncomfortable. I think this exchange from Doctor Who, Series 4 sums it up well:

DOCTOR: I just want a mate.
DONNA: You just want to mate?! 
DOCTOR : I just want a mate!
DONNA : You're not mating with me, sunshine!
DOCTOR : A mate! I want a mate!

Another thing you care about: I would tell you what my new URL is going to be, but I haven't got the layout set up properly yet and haven't felt like stewing in CSS to fix it up, so I guess it will have to wait.


This is a ring I want.

Baby Skull Ring in 14K Gold with Diamonds, $358 from michellechangjewelry on etsy

have a little priest (and... I believe in Sherlock Holmes)

Okay, so.


I'm done with #reverb11, and I don't have any Write One Leaf prompts to post, but here's an outfit I wore for the sake of trying to look terrifying and neo-Victorian (or like Tim Burton's Mrs. Lovett or something).

I'm not sure I succeeded, but it was a lot of fun because I felt terrifying.

Here's a lot of photos of me trying to look like I might bake someone into a pie.

I wish I'd had really light face powder so I could've made myself really pasty, but I never use powder and my mom's makeup is too dark for my skin color.

Also I wish I could've gotten the circles under my eyes to be more gray because I wanted to look kind of like a zombie.

Cue fingerless gloves: a style preoccupation I blame entirely on Andrew Garfield in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Outerwear: mother's. Black top: probably Target. Vest: Esprit sample sale.  Fingerless gloves: generic + scissors. Skirt: cousin's, hand-me-down. Tights: probably Hot Topic. Oxfords: delia's.

(...And if you're here for my writing, I'm really sorry I won't have anything new for a while. I'm really preoccupied with writing fanfiction for BBC's Sherlock. No, I have never written fanfiction before, not even for Harry Potter, which is by default my biggest, oldest, and most heart-wrenchingest fandom. But something about the Best Friends aspect of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes absolutely breaks my heart, and I just want to play with all the little moments in 221B Baker Street that we don't get to see on film.)


(Oh, and in case you couldn't tell from the fact that I am writing fanfiction for it Mayday Mayday send help, I recommend Sherlock really, really hard. Especially if you like your television fast-paced, your plots clever and twisty, your leading men aloof and alien/lovable and clad in heinous jumpers, and your dialogue in a British accent.)


(To further convince you, here's a peppy!Sherlock fanvideo that is a totally inaccurate representation of what the show is like:

Fandom can, of course, be cringe-worthy, or it can be a beautiful way to bring people together. At times, the BBC Sherlock fandom is the most frightening and/or embarrassing fandom I have ever willingly taken part in (I blame Steven Moffat for thinking that a nighttime shot of John looking up with admiration at Sherlock on a rooftop with the wind blowing through his hair silhouetted against the full moon was a good shot), but I love this video SO MUCH that I claim this blog in the name of BBC Sherlock.)


(P. S. I believe in Sherlock Holmes.)