Things I Love: November 09

Where did this semester go? I feel like it was only a week ago I set off the fire alarm trying to boil an egg on our electric stove. (That was in August.) I'm going to warn you right now this is a very picture-heavy Things I Love.

To me, November is a month for family, food, and gratitude, which is why I gave thanks for...

• coming home to a cooked dinner
  
• apologizing and being forgiven
  
• my mother
• paper snowflakes

Mine!

Minnie's!

• Lincoln
  
• Jeff, Eli, Stuart, Dominique, Catalina, Benjamin, Danielle, Lee, Jake, Rose, Bridget, Danica, Maddy, Matthew, Michelle
  
• Chris
• my bare magazine blog interview
• Jocelyn and Erica and Jessie and Ching and Jessie's place and Jocelyn's place
• that chickdowntown published my guest post
• Running into Brittany from Work It, Berk. She's got a new camera, and things are looking go-o-orgeous!

Greatest use of brown ever.

So pretty!

• late night grocery runs with Kim
• Ben for offering me his water
• the Love's Labour's Lost set, and us all stopping to admire it, and Ben's two-hand shoulder touch and "Wow" because I totally go crazy for that kind of thing
  
• when the bus arrives
• guacamole
• Bryan's haircut. Seriously, once you take away that mane of hair, that boy has a Face.
  
• epic pot pie with Kim

Pot pie filling, obviously not in the pie crust yet.

• realizations about myself and how I love
• cooking with my mum and preparing for Thanksgiving
• our epic Thanksgiving menu
• my mother's birthday earrings from etsy seller redheart13

My mom likes these because they're lightweight but pack a big visual punch.

• Kevin, who is a fucking genius
• Kim, Minnie, and Jessica, and eating at Jessica's sorority house
• yellow and her utterly priceless blog

No, srsly, guys, can you even say no to her?

• singing people in general, and UCSC's Cloud 9
• waking up to no alarm
• phone calls with Ling Ling
• locking eyes from across the room
• Brittany and Christina (who shall henceforth be mentioned as Xtina)
• rehearsals with Lee
• our apartment's public gratitude list

I definitely could not remember everyone's names when I wrote this.

• "At least you're wearing something cute today"
• Lincoln for bothering to lay out arguments about the protest for me
• feeling like there is someone I can ask the big questions
• Jennie, Erin, Christina, Xtina, Vai, Liz, Brittany, Diane, Helen, Katie, Ami, and blogger meetups
  
• actually knowing what was going on during Muscle Orchestra, Part II
• our GSIs for somehow being able to read a spectrogram and come up with what we said. ("Make the final easy. Go Bears.") Um, wow.
  

Okay, this is a recording of me and not the one they used, but still. This says something?! And I have to be able to do this on the final?!

• whoever the guy on his bike checking me out all the way down College was
• Benjamin for play-poke-tickling me during critiques. It reminds me an awful, awful lot of this guy I dubbed The Unicorn.
  
• Doulos SIL, something you cannot understand until you've had to do linguistics homework

These are my really inaccurate Gujarati transcriptions. Quite a few of them have changed since I took this screencap. But I really am pretty bad at transcription. Thanks, Amman, for putting up with me recording you saying the same damn things over and over again.

• Connie
• Lee giving me a ride, the entire block and a half back to my apartment, while blasting Green Day
  
• getting feedback on Burn This because (let's face it) I am proud of Lee
  
• getting really, really positive feedback on my Search and Destroy monologue
• LISA!
• Glee... if for nothing but THE SCHUSTER

MRAWR. What would you do for an A?...

• Allondra, Uncle Peter, and discussing the UC fee increase protests with Frank
  
• old school songs, BSB, N*SYNC, and apple pie-making with my cousin
  
• Genieve, N8, Sebastian, Anelissa, Uncle Francis, my brother
  
• Taboo Extreme with the cousins, played with a Nerf gun held to your head. Every time you say a Taboo word you get shot. We take our Taboo very seriously.
  
• UNCLE FRANCIS: (for the word "juvenile") It rhymes with John!
• BENJI: I want this... SEBASTIAN: Intercourse?
  
• SEBASTIAN: You put... currency into this... ceramic... animal
• Tater and Coco (I didn't take these photos of Tater, and sadly enough I have no photos of Coco, but imagine a girl-dog who looks like an excitable old man and acts like an excitable little boy, and that's Coco.)
  

What's Beethoven's favorite fruit? BA-NA-NA-NA.

CONE OF SHAME!

• that old feeling of picking through hand-me-downs like searching for treasure
• realizing that even really attractive people aren't perfectly attractive
• that there is a Mundari word that means "sound, sight, or motion of a fat person's buttocks rubbing together as they walk" (Evans & Levinson, 2009, thank you Professor Garrett)

And finally, I bring you November's Lookers. Prepare yourself for UNF!

The inimitable Ash Stymest. No seriously, his face. Is. Poetry.

Poetry.

POETRY.

Do I even need to say anything?

All right, this is not Ash Stymest, and I really should know who this is, but I don't. If anyone could enlighten me, that would be wonderful. Or you could just deeply appreciate his hair and eyes.

I always feel really inappropriate about Hugh Grant because how old is he? But still. So. Adorable. I cannot be stopped. Plus, it's winter, which means it's almost time for Love Actually marathons, which means Hugh Grant is adorable let's not argue here.

DanRad, being hilarious and thus attractive. Oh, and playing Harry Potter helps.

Hayden Christensen, who is an atrocious actor.

James. Franco. What a MAN.

I'm just all sorts of inappropriate, aren't I? But really! Really. Can anyone say no to Taylor Lautner? UNFFFF.

I swear this is like the Holy Grail of all Jake Gyllenhaal pictures. If you weren't a fan before, I hope you've been converted. UNF!

starting now

"To change one’s life: start immediately; do it flamboyantly; no exceptions."

- William James

WINNER!!

Congratulations to reader:

Charis Shreill!!!!!!

YAY!

You've won the Cold Plasma cream from Perricone MD!

♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥

On a side note- I just got to NY and have pics to post but forgot my USB cable so I have to go buy one tomorrow. Sorry guys :(

sf/bay area blogger meetup recap

I would deeply appreciate if the world forgave me for taking so long to post an actual recap (as opposed to this sorry excuse for one) because I have a bad habit of not updating until I've emptied out my camera's guts, which doesn't happen often enough, and always feeling compelled to post everything in chronological order.

On Sunday (11/22) I attended the SF Bay Area Blogger Meetup organized by Jennie from Going West, with the other lovely (supernaturally attractive, smart, funny, well-heeled) lady bloggers Erin of calivintage, Christina of profreshstyle, Xtina of candybox, her friend Vai who is studying fashion design at UC Davis, Liz of Late Afternoon, Diane of Darling Darling, Brittany of Work It, Berk, Helen of Chictopia, Katie who writes for AOL's stylelist, and Ami from Song of Style.

I was, unsurprisingly, underdressed, as I was headed to a review session immediately after (and let’s be honest here, I wouldn’t risk not being taken seriously in a classroom setting even if it meant feeling extra out of my comfort zone in a group of intimidatingly put-together people I’ve never met). My attempt to reconcile a blogger meetup with a weekend at home’s worth of stuff and a review session and colder-than-school weather and carrying costumes for my scene with Lee and commute by BART manifested as this:

Above, check my model pose, guys.

Above, no, yeah, this is what I normally look like. Thanks for photos, Kim.

Above, black jacket: gift. Teal fake pashmina: New York street vendor. Satin shorts: Nordstrom Rack. Black tights: generic. Sparkly purple leopard print socks: grandmother’s (damn straight). Shoes: Fafi for Adidas, garage sale.

Above, I was so nervous, I even put on makeup. You can't tell. Just revel in my incomparable beauty.

So, yes, underdressed. A little cleaner-looking than I would have liked, but I liked my Sparkly Purple Leopard Print Socks®, thanks.

We met at Yerba Buena (I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find them but soon realized all I had to do was walk behind the girls wearing the highest shoes in the park) then made our way to the SFMoMA café, where heads turned as our group walked in. You can see photos of everyone else here, here, here, here, and here.

As the youngest blogger in attendance (in terms of life years and in terms of how seriously I blog, I think), I did a lot more listening than talking, but it was enlightening and a lot of fun to be able to sound off on stuff that nobody else talks about in person. Blogging and fashion and running a blog and returning comments, the merits of Chictopia vs. Weardrobe vs. Lookbook, blogging as a hobby vs. blogging as a job, how people felt about ads and sponsorship, selling out, how people who don’t blog don’t understand bloggers, Korean spas (that would be Liz enthusing for like ten minutes… she is a riot), how people don’t take you seriously if you have an interest in fashion, or if you show any consideration for what you wear... They were all very, very nice, and very funny, and smart, dammit. And so well-dressed it was kind of gross in a dying-of-jealousy way.

Anyway, I encourage everyone to go to every blogger meetup you possibly can, regardless of how nervous you are or how unsure you are or how unlegit and amateur you think you may be, because it is so worth it to meet new (um, really talented, really articulate) people with common interests and to learn from other people’s experiences.

TAKEAWAY POINTS:

1. Fuck your fear. It's probably worth it. You gain nothing from sitting back and watching life go by without you.
   
2. Smart + articulate + fierce = the most intimidating combination you will ever find in a person. Be that person.
3. If you're doing it well, people will judge you. Let them, and then prove them wrong.
4. Life will throw things your way. Recognize them. Catch them. Milk them for all they're worth.
   
5. Wear what you want.

Posh Spice Made Me Do It!

So those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I ran into the glamorous alien known as miss Victoria Beckham at Barneys yesterday. Well, the bitch looked hot and her Fendi shoes were TO DIE for.

Obviously I had to have them.

They are SO high and so sexy. I love them.

She was there to return a pair of Christian Louboutins. I peeked in the box to see which pair but I can't find a picture of them online anywhere. They were not cute... A camel colored leather pump with a thin gold t-strap. No wonder she returned them. ;)

Here she is with my sales guy Steve. Hey Steve!! Haha.

And here is a better shot of the shoes...

You can get them HERE, or call and ask Steve to send them to you. They didn't have my size so they're being sent. Yay!

(images x-17 online)

Pleasantly Peasant-y

Off to my Harajuku Lovers meeting today...

I was told that I looked like a hippie, a pilgrim, and a slutty grandma today. Whatever, I liked it.

Love these Louboutin espadrille bottom wedge boots. So comfy and versatile. These will take me all the way through Spring. They're a great slouchy canvas and I'm wearing them here with my Betsey Johnson OTK socks.

Slutty G-ma Hippie Pilgrim dance!!!

(dress- Piko 1988, boots- Louboutin, socks- Betsey Johnson, belt- Urban Outfitters)

JLO... Your Song Sucks.

I am sorry but WTF? JLO's new single that says "I'm throwin on my Louboutins" over and over again is SO annoying. Eww.

Apparently She fell on her ass during her AMA performance but they edited it out on the broadcast. Lame. You can see it HERE. Pretty funny.

She wore flats through most of the song and then changed into her... yes... LOUBOUTIN'S for the last 30 seconds.

Great.

Whatever, I had to vent.