Jack of All Trades, Master of None, Cry All The Time 'Cause I'm Not Having Fun

I'm an old lady. I live in the suburbs. I volunteer. And I collage.

I'm also a loyal user of the United States Postal Service. That's right, I write old-fashioned letters and I mail them ... in the mail. In fact, if you haven't been postal serviced recently, you oughta hit me up. Unless you're a weird lame-o who eats kittens for breakfast, but even then I might send you something, because why not?

Knocking my old lady cred: I'm also in the biz-ness of making mail-order mixtapes. But that's a surprise. More on that later!

Lately, I've been dabbling in monochrome, the color red, and glitter/glam. That gauche, flashy red is exactly what I'm talking about. Actually -- gauche? Flashy? What are these words? I just look and know that I want it.

Like this:

What what? An oversized red satin "Intimate Moods" dress top? Someone must have given in to Goodwill temptation. Now, you scold, isn't it tacky to post your lingerie items on the Internet for everyone to see? Well, nothing says schlock like red satin. It's incredibly cheesy! And surprise surprise, I am not actually gonna try on the thing.

Now, on to those glam moods that I was mentioning:

Glittery bon bons on a dress! Puts me in mind of France Gall's "Les Sucettes." (You should also watch the crazy music video with folks dressed in bonbon costumes, because subtlety is overrated.)

I've got some kinda 'tude here. Or maybe not enough for a black sheer dress (pack your slip!) with a glammed-up top that I found at Goodwill. Someone throw a party so I can wear it! But I'm resourceful, I'll keep on wearing it to my late-night runs to the grocery store. Are we having fun yet?

On a final note, this old lady has gotten tired of listening to Bobby Vinton croon to girls that they must be earth angels (poor dears, what a burden), so I've been rediscovering my old music and downloading all kinds of new music. If you haven't listened to The Organ before, it's time you did. And sad parties are every girl's favorite, so peep this:

Next blog post might look something like this: mixtapes, Southern bouffants, monochrome, The Feminine Mystique, and Missy Elliott.

Ain't No Cure For The Summertime Blues

From time to time, I like to make weird investments. My most recent one has been black lipstick, which I bought on a whim at the pharmacy while browsing the aisles for nail polish. Now, what would a girl need black lipstick for, you ask? I mean, you really can't wear the stuff to most social occasions.

Well, it was a weird investment -- one of those, "Hot dang, I never know when I might need one of these!" kind of purchases. Now, the brand I chose was completely arbitrary. No product endorsement intended. But I'm gonna spill the beans anyway.

In the ad for Revlon's Black Cherry lipstick pictured below, the model's giving you the pouty downcast look while clutching a silver purse to her face with her black-painted nails (nice touch). Thanks to the lipstick, she's a "Drama Queen," or so the ad claims.

Revlon ad via the Internetz.

Really? Well, maybe that worked for the Revlon model. Good for her. Female empowerment through cosmetics! But what happens when I, a mere peasant with no real photo tools at my disposal, wear black lipstick? This is what happens:

I end up looking like I've been eating a real juicy steak, folks! Or in this case, bacon, because that's all I could find in the freezer to use as a prop. Good for me. Meat is murder anyway, hardy har har.

Now, back to business! In other news, this is a dress that I found at the Goodwill Bins. It's an '80s does '50s floral halter dress, maybe Hawaiian-style. Pockets included. Mid-calf length. And as you can see, I've paired this dress with a fetching red belt, also a Goodwill find. This is my favorite summer dress, which I'm showcasing a little on the late side of the season. 

But then again, when you're living in Texas, YOU DON'T GET NO SEASONS, PARDNER. This is why you do silly things like buy lipstick shades you won't wear, because living through three straight weeks at 100 degrees has fried your gray matter. On the other hand, whatchu gonna do if you don't have something crazy to blog about?

Dress Sexy At My Funeral

Dress sexy ... at a funeral? What is this tasteless nonsense, you ask? Well, it's the name of a song by the band Smog, and it's a fitting title for the item of clothing du jour. 

Remember that classic line (dating from, like, the moment Audrey Hepburn slunk out as Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's) about how every woman worth her nylons should own a little black dress?

Well, dear readers, here is mine.

What's it, now? It's a black fringe dress with firm-lookin' shoulder pads, a faux-diamond decolletage pin, lace sleeves, and ... more fringe than should legally be allowed on a dress. If there were legal limits to fringe. Which there are not, thank your lucky stars, guys and gals.

Props are a handy trick for making photos about clothes more about props.

Is it Western, is it punk, is it machine washable?

In case you forgot, THERE ARE SHOULDERPADS INVOLVED.

Now, just where did this lil' black dress come from? Well ... today is Cheat Day, my friends!

In which ... shhh!  I feature an item that I did not actually buy from Goodwill, NAM, or Salvation Army. This dress was purchased at Red Light, Portland, OR's favorite vintage store, according to the local press-mob.

This dress has also made a few appearances (with me in it, of course, not by itself) at Portland's one and only punk bar. While there, I got tons of phone numbers from greaser punks in leather jackets. Or maybe I just got friendly indications that I could go ahead of them in the line for the toilet-hole.

Nonetheless! This dress is a winner and a keeper, my dears. I might even wear it to David Bowie's funeral, when the poor sod - I mean, glam genius - kicks the bucket. Y'know, if I could get invited.

What Not To Wear

As consumers, we are a weak species. Every so often, we impulsively buy something that seems so unusual, necessary and absolutely worthwhile on the rack - or in a bin - and then experience shopper's regret once the thing is hanging in our own closet.

Not so with this decorated jean jacket, however. Not for a minute have I regretted being the owner of someone else's faded jean jacket with collar and cuffs painted to a bright pink crisp. They're crispy, alright.

Why the cowgirl-leanin'-on-a-fencepost pose? Well, when you're wearing a size large Levi Strauss jacket smattered with chili pepper and cowboy boot pins, you oughta show some confidence. I wore this jacket to the PDX airport for a flight to Houston through Phoenix, and let me tell you, I made no friends.

This is the great cultural divide, readers, represented by what you should and shouldn't wear depending on a city's vibe. What flies in Portland, crashes and burns in Phoenix. (Maybe that was an unfortunate pun considering we're talking about airports.) In any case, everyone on that airplane stared at me in slack-faced despair when I boarded in my denim. Not to mention that it was a seat yourself kind of flight, and I got stared down like the new girl from the Soviet block on the bus to American Central High in 1991. No one wanted to sit next to that ... jacket.

I'm sure some of these Arizona folks assumed that I must be too poor to shop at Juicy Couture, or that I was stuck in a time warp where 21 Jump Street was still on TV. Why else would I be swaddled in a glammed up jean jacket instead of trendy athletic gear?

This fashion tour bus hasn't come to a complete stop yet, though. You thought everyone was bowled over by the front of this jacket? Well, that ain't the full story.

What's this, you ask? It's a classic example of what a friend of mine likes to call New Mexico moon people art. That's right, it's a montage of coyotes in bandanas howling at the moon next to a couple of mountains and a cactus, and it's staring right at you when I'm standing in front of you in line. You see why those airport folk might have been a bit unfriendly and edgy?

Also, it was, like, 90 degrees where we were headed. So, you must be thinking, after all that flack, did I learn my lesson about what not to wear?

Of course! Now I know for next time, when I suit up in this piece of art on a jacket, I'll be polite as you please, I just gotta look a little surly. Where did I pick up this attitude? Well, I've owned it since I found it at the Goodwill Bins in Portland, Oregon.

Dress Me In the Fashion of the 1980's

What draws us to the bizarro fashions of the '80s, my friends? How is it that, twenty some years later, we are still entranced by the too-big hair, the massively overdone shoulderpads, the unapologetically garish eyeshadow?

There's just something about eighties decadence, sartorially and beyond, that we can't get enough of in our economically depressed and stylistically repressed times.

Partyin' like it's 1980-something. (Posed for satirical purposes. Duh.)

That's right, repressed. Challenge: can you think of something over-the-top and innovative that has come out of the last decade of fashion? Nope? Even idiosyncratic fashionistas like Nicki Minaj and Lady Gaga are just recycling latter-day styles. (And I don't count monster shoes or heel-less shoes, 'cause they haven't become a must-have item of the hoi-polloi).

So, back to the time machine. In the '80s, there was simply far too much going on. Everything was in excess: patterns and colors, the size of hair and jewelry, the amount of coke at parties. People didn't know which drug to hang their hat on.

And do we miss it? Heck yeah! We remember this decade of excess every time we slip into something more kitsch than comfortable. Here, from NAM, a magenta Alfred Nipon dress with a floral pattern, decorative buttons, and sleeves so puffed that they could probably be spotted by telescope.

Now, I'm sure you're pondering the great and timeless question of the purpose of shoulderpads. Are they a frivolous detail, a power symbol, or a figure-shaping strategy? Did businesswomen of the '80s feel empowered by dressing in suits with extra shoulder padding? Or was extra shoulder girth meant to call attention to a waistline made tiny by comparison?

That's for you to decide, dear reader.

Meanwhile, as a take-away message, I'd like to remind all the kids in the reading audience that even bloggers get hungry, and when they do, they always eat their fruits and veggies, and furthermore, they never smoke or drink or take pills, except when prescribed by a doctor.

You can always trust a lady in a blue blazer, especially when it's a blue rayon Nouveaux blazer with mother-of-pearl buttons, a thrifted hand-me-down from Goodwill.

Look At This Frugal Love Connection

Could there be anything more romantic than white lace? Especially when it's an Ann Taylor white lace leotard dug out of a large plastic bin at Goodwill?

Well, yeah, I can think of a lot of things more romantic. Such as this:

This is my best American Apparel impression. And what's this? Duh, an Ann Taylor leotard tucked into a pair of high-waisted, acid-washed Palmetto's jeans. Could this ensemble be tantamount to holy matrimony? Well, glory, glory, Hallelujah, I'll tell you what: these jeans are like a denim corset.

And if you do a quick Google search, you'll discover that Palmetto's, once upon the 1980's, was a brand that many a denim-lover depended upon for looking fit.

However, as I'm sure you recall from, like, 2005, high-waisted jeans could easily go the way of mom jeans. Now, our favorite comedienne Tina Fey poked fun at jeans that suit the maternal figure, but what about mom jeans worn by young, non-lactating (made you squirm!) ladies?

Hey now, you say, high-waisted mom jeans are a hipster icon.  Well, lest you pooh-pooh this entire outfit as hipster trash, I say: no lace-up ankle boots for me, I'm wearing camel-colored platform wedges (Report brand) retrieved from the Salvo Army.

Ironic fashion? Oh, no, sir. You can bet the acid in my wash that I'm very serious about these jeans.  And I wear that buckle-me-down-low leotard with utmost sincerity. And no one's more an honest Abe than me when I struggle into those wedges. Put 'em all together, and that's what I call an inspired match.

Celebrity Re-Hash

An alternate name for this blog could be: Things I Actually Wore in Public, and Will Probably Wear Again.

Today's theme: Celebrity Re-hash.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a white, turtle-necked sweater ... smock. And it's slouchy.

I've been trying to pinpoint the decade that this smock belongs to. After all, what does this smock-thing remind us of, darling nerds? Princess Leia in A New Hope, perhaps?

Leia's smiling 'cause she ain't giving anything away. You'll have to wait until Return of the Jedi for that (something about an infamous gold bikini?) 

And just like Princess Leia's robe, this, uh, replica has no shape. Or rather, it's a bag with a potential for shape. The challenge for today is: is there a woman under there?

What's the verdict? Hag in a bag? Not once you've rolled up the sleeves and cinched the waist with that magic accessory of womanhood - a belt! An oversized sweater dress like this just needs a good ol’ oversized belt.

Voilà! This dress also needs a place to put your hands when they get cold. Those pockets are false advertising, sister.

But wait, what about the second half of this outfit? How does one complete a Princess Leia dress? With space boots and a stuffed Wookie? No, with Beyoncé boots, of course! Flats would be too understated and classy, and thus a waste of your discount shopping time.

 

I guarantee that these are bona fide mustard-yellow Beyoncé boots (pay attention to the phone booth scene!), which for some reason no other fashionable young professional ... shopper wanted to add to his/her shoe collection at a discounted price. So I bagged 'em.

And where did this heap of sartorial destiny, if you will, originate? Well, that I can't tell you. But I picked up the dress, belt, and boots at the Salvation Army. And I found the hair ribbon (points if you noticed it!) and ribbed red tights (which, dear reader, are actually a secret unitard) from the Goodwill bins.

And that's the magic of celebrity re-hash. 

Masculin et Feminin

Howdy there! This is my foray into what could be a semi-weekly ode to things I find and wear at the Holy Trinity of Second-Hand Style - the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and NAM. What to expect?  Oh, y'know, clothes and accessories ranging from the bizarre, off-kilter, and strange, to things dull, outdated, and/or dorky. 

This time around, I'm using some Goodwill glories to try out that classic style trick, the Masculine/Feminine.

Exhibit A, an '80s carnation pink lace dress with ... no shoulderpads? Could it still be from that hallowed decade? Yes, ma'am, it's a dress from the era of Molly Ringwald and cocaine-stained business suits. Mid-calf length, so it reaches past modesty to sainthood. On the other hand, if you've got a shapely figure, it'll give you a nice hug. I like to think I've got one of those, along with a talent for matching the wallpaper.

What's this thing of beauty? It's a black leather bomber jacket with fitted waist and optional hood (attach and remove with a zipper), another '80s acquisition. It's got nice deep pockets for stashing your wallet and your huge mobile phone with space-age antenna.

Team it with pink lace, and you've accomplished le Masculine/Feminine look. It also helps to pose at a jaunty angle, and cover one eye with your hair to enhance your enigma. Who knows? Maybe you wear an eyepatch. Maybe you lost the other eye in a fight over who would take home that jacket. Worth it.

This post brought to you by the Bins, my favorite local Goodwill Outlet store, where I regularly brush elbows with Russian grandmothers, creepy men with odd facial hair, and friendly hoarders.