Tights, Tights, Tights!

I knew I wanted to do a post about tights so I started looking around for examples of ones I liked this season. I definitely wasn't looking for these, but when I found them I couldn't NOT share. Seriously, I want someone to please have the guts to wear these because I don't think it is going to be me. The first thing I imagine happening when I pull these on is some ballsy elderly woman on the train jumping out of her seat and yelling "You've got to be kidding me! You are wearing those for FUN?! What kind of a sick person are you?" But then again, you never know, she might just laugh and exchange a knowing glance with me like , "Ah haha, yep, I see what you did there, too funny, too funny missy." I can imagine either scenario. If anyone can actually find these on sale somewhere, give them a try and let me know. I'm a wimp.
So anyhow, what I really wanted to talk about is how adding tights to your outfit in the winter can really be a game changer. Since wearing pants everyday isn't very much fun, and buying a huge assortment of skirts and dresses is quite expensive, it is more affordable and (more fun I might add) to pick up some eye-catching tights. I have been looking for some lace ones, or some boldly patterned ones like the paisley ones below...

Hmm, nice you say, but you were more impressed by varicose veins. I have something else for you then.....

Secret Wish

After all of the holiday shopping I did this weekend, I couldn't help but see a few things I wouldn't mind having myself. Especially the Ritz cracker necklace. C'mere, lemme take a bite, arrr.

Liquid Courage

I can thank a shot of whiskey for these boots. Otherwise, I may have never made my choice. With the shortest day of the year approaching I had to act fast. Another season of boot hunting has come to a close. Here here!

doilies, doilies, everywhere!

I love looking at design blogs, especially Design*Sponge and Decor8, both of which have been proponents of doilies for some time now. I saw one here, another there, and before I knew it I started seeing doilies everywhere! It's even inspired me to consider bringing my crochet hooks out of retirement and making some doilies of my own to use as clothing and hair accessories, for home decor, and for gift wrapping (favorite use I've seen so far). What can I say? Grandma's back in style!

Here are some awesome examples:

1. doilies to dress up simple gift wrapping (from Decor8)

2. little dwarves dancing among snowflake doilies (from Elisabeth Dunker's awesome blog, Fine Little Day)

3. a doily-inspired rug (from Decor8)

4. a doily-adorned scarf (from anthropologie)

5. another doily rug (created by ladies + gentlemen via Design*Sponge)

6. i so want this doily throw! (from Decor8)

7. doily pillows (by LAMA)

Don't they know it's Christmas time at all.....

This past weekend, some of my family and I went Christmas shopping downtown. This a family tradition of at least the past 10 years, but likely more. When I was in high school, I used to relish this weekend because it meant that I got to go to Urban Outfitters. Seriously. To really understand what this was like, you have to imagine a time when there weren't Urban Outfitters all over the place, but only in a few big cities. If I wanted to really go for it, I could browse Pacific Sunwear (where, regrettably, I did work one sad, lonely Christmas season), or perhaps the suburban mall staples: JC Penny, and Macy's. PLUS! Let us not forget Wet Seal. Oh how I could spend my babysitting money in two seconds flat between those walls. But Urban Outfitters was different. True, my parents did think it was a bit wild that a pair of jeans and a sweater could total up at $70 (in 1996!), but I think they understood that I was I in heaven, and to just let me be. So much variety! Everything was so cool. Well, now that I have been living in San Francisco for several years, I admit I don't feel that distinct thrill when walking into Urban Outfitters anymore. I can go there whenever I want; where is the fun in that? This weekend though, we went somewhere completely foriegn to me: Hermès.
Walking into this store was like stumbling into a WASP's nest. (see what I did there? mmmkay moving on....) Overhearing comely gay gentlemen discussing the strange loveliness of a Yak hair blanket. Browsing $400 glazed ashtrays. Lisa just had to try on a bracelet she spotted in one of the cases that caught her eye. When I remarked that it looked like a horse's bit, I realized how obviously the entire brand is designed around that very image. "Yes," the sales lady said politely, "...that is exactly what it is." Uh, right. Exactly. I guess you could say I felt a little out of my element. Until I saw these enamel bangles, which come in 3 different widths and a candy store assortment of colors and patterns. They are my new little fashion obsession. At $200-$600 dollars a piece, I think it is best to keep Looking....

From a New Year long gone...

I'm lying in bed thinking about infinite space. I had a dream the other night about "infiniteness" and woke up rather startled, as if God was looking down and saying "don't think about that, it's dangerous". I felt like I was being watched. The dream is hard to explain as most are. I was only left with the essence of it. It seemed to go something like this: If we as humans were able to see infinity all at once, in a small frame, a space that makes sense to us in our everyday lives, it would be as if ordinary objects could multiply themselves out of thin air. Written it seems to make little sense. It was most likely my brain doing some kind of a somersault into a belly flop. A few minutes ago I was pondering a description I had read of the Big Bang. All of space and matter contracting tighter and tighter until it was the size of a single point, heavier and hotter than two teenagers at a drive-in movie. This unlike a bomb ready to explode, because a bomb explodes somewhere in space at a particular time. This is all of space contracting so there is no space, there is nothing but the point. And with no space as we know it, there can be no time as we know it and everything is frozen. My first thought is, how can anything, any "event" occur outside of space and time? For the Big Bang to be an event, it seems that it would have to be executed at a particular time in a particular place. But we already know that time is not definite or constant anyhow. It seems that the billionth of a second prior to a Big Bang and the immediate moment following one surely exist, but what happens to the bang itself? If we picture space and matter contracting, we can visualize everything in all universes, planets and stars etc. getting closer and closer together so the amount of empty space is shrinking. It also seems then that time should be getting slower as all matter starts to cling together and become more massive. Does time just get slower and slower as the universes contract until it all stops at the peak, the very peak with all of existance in suspended animation? How long would it stop for? How would it begin again? How shall I ever be able to fall asleep now? Perhaps in this...

Dreaming of a Black Christmas

My mother has always had a very specific idea in her mind of how I should dress and what I should look like—right down to the length and color of my hair, which in her view should be long, layered and loaded with caramel-tinted highlights. (If you’ve ever met an Iranian American middle-aged mom, this will be of no surprise to you.) Unfortunately for her, my personal style as a teen was heavily influenced by grunge, punk rock, riot grrl and indie aesthetics, which typically led to hairstyles that were short, uneven and multicolored. As you might imagine, this led to years of mutual frustration, clashes over personal taste and loads of awful holiday gifts. It didn’t matter how many times I told her I wasn’t ever, ever, ever going to wear anything pink or covered in rhinestones. I still got bedazzled shirts, gold jewelry, knock-off Fendi purses and other items more suited to my cheerleading peers than to me—a young Kathleen Hannah wannabe.

So how did we solve this? Well, we didn’t…but the short answer is: BLACK.

I realized one day that half of the stuff she got me wouldn’t be so bad if it was much plainer or all black, so I told her and it kind of worked. I still get weird gifts here and there, but I think she’s gotten the hang of it. Pictured above are a couple of cute items she’s blessed me with recently. She still wishes I’d grow my hair out longer, but there’s no more crying over holiday gifts.

If you have a picky person in your life (I admit I’m picky!), I recommend keeping it simple and considering their favorite colors and brands. I would stay away from jewelry unless you are confident they’ll like it. I think the most important thing, however, is putting some honest-to-goodness thought into what will make them happy, and giving yourself enough time to seek it out. I’d rather give something as simple as a handwritten letter over some silly tchotchke any day of the year.

Good luck out there with giving and getting presents this year!