In a general state of "Blah".

Here's a great idea for a fun thing to do: Have a fight with the man you love, then go take pictures of yourself. They will turn out amazing. Or they might turn out something like this:

And it wasn't even a big fight - he told me to hurry up and boil the carrot I was having with my dinner, I snapped at him because I'd been busy hanging up laundry. That, in a nutshell, was the fight. But it still sucked.

We're cool now, though. We chilled out with some grilled salmon and the last two episodes of the Wolverine anime (his Japanese enemies all call him "VULVARINE!" - which never fails to make me grin). And now we're listening to the new Eurovision entries, while I look at these pictures and wish I'd worn a paper bag over my face. I could've just drawn a smiley-face on it, that would've been perfect. Oh well...

When polkadots are the lesser evil...

For reasons of hygiene, I have bought a new tablecloth. Because our flat is so small that you can't fit a table in the kitchen, we have all our meals + put our laptops, and sometimes my sewing-machine, on the table in the living room. So unsurprisingly, our tablecloths were getting increasingly gross, and it was such a pain to keep changing them every time there was one stain... so yeah, last night I looked at it, and really looked, and my soul just curled up in a little shuddering ball. "Bacteria," I thought. Then, "Oilcloth! Wipe-clean!" Ingenious. 

So that's our new tablecloth. I figured, since I was investing in oilcloth anyway, I might as well get it from Cath Kidston. (Yes, there is a logical leap there. But a very short one, if you're me.) And the only pattern they had that wouldn't clash horribly with our crazy sliding door wallpaper (left over from the last tenant, we didn't put it up, we need to be clear on that) was, well, the pink polkadots one. I was so sure Victor was going to go spare, but he actually liked it! I bet he was just happy it wasn't floral. That's his happy face, right there.

Also, I wore clothes today, as you do. It was warm enough for me to actually dig out my shorts, and my (fake) leather jacket. (Forgot to take pictures with that on. Oh well.) 

 I used to be afraid of showing my legs in shorts, but 2011 is the year of doing all sorts of scary things. What would be really cool would be if I could find a cheap jacket in exactly the same tweedy fabric. That would rock my socks. 

When I went past some builders wearing this, I got - well, not exactly wolf-whistled, more like... monkey-grunted. But they were definitely grunts of approval. Go me, I've still got it...  

Subversive action.

Late last year, my friend Aashild invited me to, ahem, "go shopping in her closet". One of the things she gave me was this military jacket. And since I'm not really a very militant person, but love the cut and colour, I decided to subvert it a little. Hence this.

Let's pretend some army dude was wearing this while he got drunk. Eventually, he would pass out, reeking of alcohol. And a hippie dude, smelling of interesting herbs, would sneak up to him, "liberating" him of the jacket. He'd talk to it as he carried it away to his trailer, which he'd painted with daisies and slogans, saying things like, "I can see the true potential in you jacket - and I will set the real you free!" So I put peace flag buttons on an army jacket. They only had three in the shop, but that means I can finally close the thing (top button was missing) so that's okay with me. I can wait two weeks for them to restock. I'm just happy the jacket looks that bit closer to what it looked like in my head when I first pictured this.

Also, I wore this dress with my brand new yellow tights that I bought for it. That's right, the dress told me it needed yellow tights, and I listened. It's also told me to kill everyone, but I'm holding off on that.

Now, while I was wearing this, and looking like I ran away from the set of some 40's wartime drama, I spotted a girl who was dressed exactly like my friend Ruby would dress. And I always thought my friend's style was really unique, but this girl... this girl wore an oversized jacket over a short dress, similar style jewellery, chunky boots, damn near identical watch, she even had similar colour hair - though her hair was a more orangey red. "Fake Ruby," I thought, and I may have glared at her menacingly. The nerve of some people, eh?

Finally, here's an accidental self portrait from this afternoon - this is me wearing my Asia lipstick and a necklace Maike gave me for Christmas. The necklace was the final drop in making this outfit wannabe 40's. It's one long, long chain, so I have to loop it or risk smacking myself in the face with it when I run for the bus. I just need to make a petticoat to wear under this dress, and then the time-warp will be complete. I've never made a petticoat before, though, so that could take a while. 

I had my CAKE and ate it all.

Friday night was a big night for me - wearing my old CAKE T-shirt and yellow nail polish to match the writing on the shirt - because no, I'm not a psychotic dorky fan at all - I watched one of my all-time favourite bands play at the Troxy in London. It was so. Damn. AWESOME! Fifty-two flavours of awesome, to be exact. They sang so many of my favourites, they gave away a cherry tree to a member of the audience (you had to a) have a garden and b) correctly guess which kind of tree it was), and I think they did like four encores. Sure there were some pretty iffy audience members making idiots of themselves, but even the little curly-haired hobbit-guy who put our lives at risk by doing arm-wavy dancing right in front of us (not to mention that this blocked my view) couldn't ruin such a good night out.

I also bought a new CAKE shirt - the old one is navy blue and has the crown logo thing from one of their old albums, and is now curled up in the laundry bin, smelling of sweat and beer and other peoples' cigarettes. I actually had that "shop for your closet" thing running in my head when I picked this shirt (they had two other designs) - and even as I bought it, I was planning to wear it with my orange cardigan. That's either very clever or very sad. I love brown and orange together, it's so 70's.

The skirt and the blue belt were both post-30 for 30 purchases that I'd spent most of my non-shopping month lusting after. That skirt is definitely what you'd call an investment piece, i.e. I probably paid too much for it. It's so versatile though, it seems to go with absolutely any colour I pair it with, and I just love it. (In case you're wondering, the belt was from UniQlo, and is also fantastic. It even matches my blue flats.) Anyway, it's been two days and my brain is still playing "Opera Singer" on repeat while I grin like an idiot. It's like Last.fm inside my head!  

  

No woman, no blog

I really did do five days of dresses in a row, and I even took pictures of the last outfit. Here it is:

This dress is a weird one to photograph because of the pattern. It looks scrunched up and nasty when the picture's small, but click on it and you'll see what a pretty pattern it is. I keep trying to come up with different things to pair this dress with, here I am recycling my shoes and tights combo that I wore with my triangle dress. Works better with this one,  I think.

The reason I forgot to post was of course the tsunami and earth quakes in Japan, which I found out about later that same day (pics were taken in the morning). We know a couple who live in Tokyo, so I was really worried for a while - I sent an email to the girl, Mariko, and went weak in the knees with relief when she responded two days later to tell me they were unhurt. But I just couldn't make myself write about cute clothes and fluffy stuff for a while because my brain was just reeling from all the terrible things that were happening. One thing that amazes me, though, is how well the people of Japan are co-operating to save lives. Unlike New Orleans, where it was just mayhem and every man for himself, the prime minister goes, "Here, have half the army!" and ordinary people also band together to look for survivors. That just gives you hope for the future of mankind right there.

Safety-pins: they come in handy

It's so late. I'm so tired. But I took photos of my outfit, and I'm going to post them before I keel over and fall asleep, so here I am in a wool dress that I inherited from my friend:

Do you think brown and purple is a weird combination? Yeah? You wanna come to London and say it to my face? Hehe. I thought those colours actually looked okay, the purple brightened the brown up nicely. I randomly put this scarf on before going out, since it's still not exactly spring here and my jacket has to be closed with a safety-pin on top. Yes, that's pretty ghetto of me, but I don't want pneumonia - who does? - so safety pin it is. And scarf. Which I too off for the photos because it clashes so badly with the jacket.

It seems I have developed a liking for triangles. Which I just spelled triankles, which should give you an idea of just how tired I am. Maybe trianklets is what happens when you grow a second ankle out of a person's ankle, the way they grew that ear on the back of that poor mouse? Anyways, you can just see my pretty necklace, bought in the airport in Montreal when we went there for a wedding last year. Made by Native Americans at a Native American owned factory, and the proceeds went to a worthy cause that I can't remember right now because I'm so tired. But it was worthy enough that I felt extra smug when I'd bought this. And yeah, this is the jacket without the safety-pin - see why I had to d.i.y. it? I'd catch my death otherwise. And on that cheerful note, good night.

Bright spark

What do you do when the day is grey and overcast? Today, my counter-measure was wearing the brightest combo I could think of. Victor actually picked that dress out for me sometime last year - as in, he grabbed it, went "This is really nice!", held it up in front of me and made happy man noises. Then he saw the price tag, swore, and put it back. So when I found it on sale a few months later, I couldn't not buy it, right?

I felt a bit like a character from Sarah of Avonlea wearing this. Which was a Canadian show that somehow made it to Norwegian television, so there's a high chance you don't even know what I'm talking about here. But those characters wore aprons over everything, and every time Sarah's cousin Felicity was being bitchy about rich girl Sarah wearing yet another expensive super-special dress, I'd be like, "But you can't even see the damn thing under that apron!" I'm sure there was a funeral episode where they all showed up with white aprons over their mourning clothes.

I've got to add that I actually got a compliment from a co-worker for this outfit! She said, *ahem*, "I love your 70's chic!" I also got given a free Krispy Kreme doughnut, so all in all, today was a good day.