It has come to my attention

That I really have no idea how to construct a professional wardrobe. I have a few pieces I've rarely worn that I bought before my Chicago internship but wound up not needing because we were basically a no-collar workplace minus a few days when we were superprofessional and I wore my interview suit, but I have no clue how to start putting together a collection of things to pick and choose from to wear to work each day. And the time to start doing that is now, because the applications are out and the interviews are coming in. I had a phone screening today for a position at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and they want me to come down to DC in a few weeks for a formal interview. (Keep your fingers crossed for me!) The real world is fast approaching, y'all, and my closet is woefully underprepared.

Do I start with suits or with blouses and pants/skirts? Are open-toed pumps appropriate for the office? Does it vary from office to office? Last time, my office culture rendered all the clothes I had bought basically useless most of the time, so maybe I should wait until I know exactly where I'm working and what their office climate is like. But I feel like I'll be able to shop more effectively if I start early! Are there staple pieces that are a definite must that I can begin with? I WANT TO HIT UP THE AFTER CHRISTMAS SALES, Y'ALL. lol


But seriously. Any advice on building a professional wardrobe would be much appreciated.

Integration. It's the future, women.

Ran across an interesting article this morning from the Atlanta Post via Black Girl with Long Hair about how Black-owned and Black-specific beauty companies are being phased out. I learned that Black people didn't own almost any of the companies that make the products we use most regularly from Chris Rock's comedy/documentary Good Hair, and I can't say I was really surprised even then. (You can't tell me relaxing your hair isn't conforming to White standards if ONLY WHITE PEOPLE sell relaxers. #I'mjustsayin) And I don't think I was really even aware that such things as Black-specific makeup brands even EXISTED until I lived in Chicago, which evidently has a large enough black population that CVS sells things like Black Radiance. It excited me to see a whole company devoted just to selling beauty products for Black women, but truth be told, I had just as many issues finding products I wanted from that line, because there was less variety than is provided by the larger cosmetics companies. And no matter who I buy from, I've never found a powder that matches my skin tone perfectly--concealer is a joke. So I think this move towards companies targeting brown-skinned people in general, regardless of race/ethnicity (or curly-haired people in general, regardless of race/ethnicity) is good because it will provide more variety. It allows for increases in specificity, because sure I'm a Black woman, but there are probably women in South America, Latin America, and maybe even the Middle East or India who have skin tones very similar to mine. I have a close friend who is Korean--the last time he went to get a haircut, his stylist recommended that he deep condition with olive oil...hair texture transcends racial categories too. [The jew-fro is another example.] As much as I support Black nationalism, I think my ideal fight is minority nationalism...all peoples of color need their needs to be addressed. If it's hard for us, imagine how hard it is for people of even more diverse shades of beautiful.    

Sigh.

*goes to Forever 21's website because she thinks they sell really cute stuff*


*clicks on Tops* 


*filters by size X-Large* 


*sees ONE MEASLY FUCKING TANK TOP* 


*remembers why Forever 21 mass-marketed standards of beauty piss her the fuck off*

Reblogged from Treasured Tresses

A Man After Mine Own Heart:

Reblogged from Until I Get Married:

"First of all, the only thing better than a fine woman is a fine woman who knows the value of a good deal. When I was a young lad, and could only meet women at the mall, I was all about going for the women who were browsing in the clearance racks. I loved that sort of thing. Found it sexy. And don’t even get me started on the women who would browse through the clearance racks and NOT buy anything. My heart would melt. To see a woman so tight with her money, she didn’t even buy an item that was 70 percent off, that was the kind of thing that made me want to buy them an Orange Julius and cover the costs of a game of air hockey at the arcade."

I'll admit it's hard for me to pass up a good deal just because it's a good deal, but I'm learning. And y'all know I don't buy anything full price. It's nice to see that some brothas appreciate it. :) 

So something y'all might not know about me

is that my Google Reader be POPPIN. I've never been a magazine or newspaper kind of girl, but I subscribe to 81 blogs and counting. Though my little corner of the blogosphere isn't really that big a deal (12 followers, I'm sorry to tell you that I do this more for myself than for any of you. Please don't be offended, I still love you.), I do lots of lurking and some occasional commenting on blogs that are followed by hundreds of people. And one of the blogs I've picked up most recently is The Black Snob. And I love it. And they have these tote bags and I'm very strongly considering buying one, because I think it's just about the best thing ever:

But if I purchase this bag, which given my proclivities towards shopping, is very likely, I will have to come to terms with something I've been trying to deny about myself for the past few years. I...might be a snob. If not an out-and-out snob, definitely a little bougie, a little uppity, maybe even a bit elitist. I don't always play well with others, particularly others who have had less opportunities than me--I want to, I try to, but it can be hard for me to relate. [I broke through to the kids at the school I worked at last summer with the fact that Renegade is my favorite rap song. They grudgingly accepted this as proof of my cultural legitimacy.] It's not that I don't value those who are less fortunate than me--on the contrary, I'm a sociologist--the people who get fucked over by society are my bread and butter, literally. I know that I'm an exception to every single rule in the book and if even the tiniest thing in my past had gone differently I wouldn't be where I am. I am thankful every day for the circumstances of chance and happenstance that got me to where I am. But still...I'm here. And I don't know what it's like to be anywhere else, really. 
I feel pretty similarly to the guy who wrote this article--I can shoot the breeze with professors and high-ups at financial corporations like my mentor last summer in Chicago, but what to talk about with the plumber? I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes I feel disconnected from the larger world...all that ivory tower shit and whatnot. It's the same thing that happened at the Black Solidarity Conference when I wanted to come together with this group of people I identified with and feel like a part of something bigger than me (I love that feeling), but I couldn't because I felt so isolated from everything they were pushing for. It's the same thing that happened at the one and only MCIC (Multi-Cultural Interest Club...our closest thing to a minority-focused group) I went to in high school, at the beginning of my sophomore year; the advisors were trying to convince students that the SAT was worth taking and I had already broken 700 in one of my scores. 
I've talked to some friends at Princeton about this and they say their families got them used to interacting with quote-unquote "regular people", statements that just highlight the degree to which I've always felt isolated from my family. The vast majority of the people who are related to me live in the South and are practically strangers; the small bit of family I grew up with always treated me as different, causing me to self-isolate. Part of it was being an awkward age--my mom's oldest, I'm only 11 years younger than her youngest sister, and as she was the first of my grandmother's five children to have children of her own, there's no one my age in my family (besides two step-cousins in Georgia)--but more of it, I think, just stemmed from a sense that no one knew exactly where I had come from. So they gave up on trying to convince me to play basketball and gave up on trying to convince me to run around outside and let me read. No team sports for me. Very little interaction with others as a child outside of school, in general. My imagination was my childhood playmate, which led me to grow into an adult whose greatest activity is mental.
I often wonder who I would have grown up to be if I Ms. Lambkin hadn't realized that I wasn't a troublemaker by nature in kindergarten, I was just bored. If they hadn't bent the rules to let me start SEEK (Special Educational Experiences for Kids, a program my elementary school did) early. If I didn't have the kind of mother who was willing to take the bus to the library with me and help me carry home huge stacks of books. If I had been involved in some activity that wasn't primarily populated by other students who were very similar to me in their academic focus. If my friends hadn't been pre-screened by simple virtue of the fact that we were in all the same classes for 8 years. If my mother was as lax with her expectations of me as she has been for my siblings. Would that alter-Maya be able to relate? Could she shoot the breeze easily with people who don't consider themselves to be intellectuals? Would she have been friends with black people before Princeton? Would she draw fewer distinctions between black people here and black people "out there"? Would she have said less there instead of fewer? Would hip-hop be a choice rather than a crutch? Would books be a chore rather than a joy? Would she still be curious or would she feel like the questions she can't answer aren't worth knowing? 
On my thesis-reading-list right now is Charles Horton Cooley's Human Nature and the Social Order. On page 7, he says,

"We are born with the need to assert ourselves, but whether we do so as hunters, warriors, fishermen, traders, politicians, or scholars, depends upon the opportunities offered us in the social process."

I agree with him 100%. I know that with any of countless slight changes in my history and those of my parents and their parents etc. I could have ended up on the management track at Wawa store 488 as my career as opposed to my job, or I could have ended up a hustler, a dealer, something worse. I could have gotten a two-year degree in something that would turn into a skilled job, and scoffed at the idea of a liberal-arts-college with a degree that doesn't technically mean anything. I don't blame the people that do, but the system that withholds from them the same opportunities it conferred to me, and above that I recognize that even in a world where everyone starts on the same line, not everyone wants or needs a life like the one I lead. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with choice as long as it leads to fulfillment. 
But despite all of that, I still don't know how to interact. One could look at my education life history (they're really one and the same until I finally get that PhD) as a process of gradually weeding out persons whom society would not deem exceptional in any way. A removing of the masses. I want to be able to dance with a guy at a party and not have him instantly know I go to Princeton as opposed to one of the 10 other schools that are represented. Sometimes I wish I had a diction and a set of mannerisms to fall back on that let me blend in in places like the South Side of Chicago. I wish I had ever felt like I truly belonged in any circles other than the ones I currently frequent. I want to find a way to at least visit peacefully without any inner turmoil.
But at the end of the day, I will never want to be anything but "bougie, brilliant, book-reading, Chai Bigelow brand Lemon Lift tea sipping, uppity, degree-earning, ignorance-eviscerating, talented, tasteful, witty, saddity, uncompromising, revolutionary, daring-yet-caring, in-your-face..." Does that inherently make me a snob? If so, am I allowed to embrace it? Does it have to have a bad connotation? Most of those qualities aren't bad! They're things I strive towards! Can I flip the script somehow like people do with nappy and bitch and the other n-word I don't tolerate?
Can I buy the bag?

It's sad when you lose things you've come to take for granted

RIP Amazon Prime Membership

Having you in my life was lovely, and you will be sorely missed. Amazon did a wonderful thing to recognize the struggles of a college student's limited-real-world-shopping-opportunities experience and gave a free prime membership to anyone with a .edu email address, and the site and I became much closer friends once I could magically get things in two days with free shipping. Even my mom took advantage of you. And now I log back in today to recontemplate whether I'm going to buy Jill Scott's album or just pirate it (arrrrrgh!) and I am saddened to no longer see evidence of you on the site, brightening my Amazon experience. I almost wonder whether it's worth it to buy a real Prime membership like a grown-up. *crosses fingers in the hopes that Amazon will love students again real soon*  

Etsy is going to be the death of me

And by "death" I mean "best thing that's ever happened". I've been getting lots of hair accessories from Etsy vendors for a few weeks. Look at the earrings I bought today:

 

I am all kinds of loving these and can't wait to get them in the mail! Yay presents for me! :) 

[Additionally,]

 

2nd 30 day Letter Challenge--Day 25: Letter to the Last Person You Took a Picture with

Dear K,

Grrrr...I find it very unfortunate when in the course of these challenges I have to write to the same person twice. I briefly pondered who I could see in the course of the day and take a picture with so that I could write to someone else, but the only really viable options were E and T and I've written to both of them already too. So, as we took a small break from the course of E's party because we "needed new profile pictures," this letter is also to you.  Actually, even if I hadn't snapped that pic, this letter would still be to you from when we saw Erykah Badu, haha.


In the week and a half since I last wrote to you, we have partied (not unusual) and we have been shopping twice. I'm glad this has finally happened--we've been talking about shopping forever. You're a good shopping buddy: not above giving me opinions on things, willing to try on lots of hats and debate how they make us look, and evidently you're the only one of my friends who has the good sense to tell me not to buy a shirt just because it's kind of cute and ONLY SIX DOLLARS. [Yo, I still kind of want that shirt though. It was SIX DOLLARS.] Shopping with you tends to bring up questions about changing styles and like, whether the way each of us dresses fits our personalities; this could be me but is this me? It's fun and makes shopping like, more intellectual or artistic or something. It's cool.  You make me think about shopping for the future, as opposed to shopping for the now, which has led to all sorts of wonderful wonderments about how Professor Maya Reid will dress.
KO said you sound like a good guy for me to have around. I think he meant in terms of the fact that you seem to give good advice and be entirely correct about the circumstances of my life when I can't see them, much like T. I learn a lot from you. And who knows, maybe the quickness with which you went from semi-random acquaintance to one of the first people I turn to when something goes wrong is just yet another example of my tendency to care too much about everything too fast, but too bad. I like it. You're semi-stuck with me now.  :P


:D,


Maya


PS--We're supposed to watch American History X sometime. I thought about that when I woke up in the TV room on Saturday. Let's make it happen.

I was introduced to a magical wonderful place today

May I present to you, Wonderland SEPHORA:

I had my first experience as a personal shopper today. My friend needed a fashion intervention to prepare for his new life as a doctoral candidate in NYC, and after learning of my shopaholic tendencies, decided I was the one to help him out. When we walked into Menlo Park Mall, though, the first thing I did was make him promise not to let me buy anything. He could see it was killing me, though, so he eventually relented slightly and let me purchase one accessory: a beautiful pair of purple earrings. Then, as we were about to leave the mall, he pointed to Sephora and asked if I had ever been there. My negative response induced a "WHAT?" from him, and he said, "Come on, let me show you something."

Within seconds of having walked in, two black women working in the front of the store complimented me first on my flower [hair accessory] (as did a cashier at Old Navy :D ) then on my hair itself and asked if I needed help finding anything. When I said it was my first time here, they both actually legitimately GASPED and one said "Girl. I'ma just let you walk around then." The other asked my friend if he'd been there before, and when he said yes, she seemed delighted that he could help me. He wanted to show me a product he uses, and as we walked back there to look at it, an attractive black man with like, impeccable facial hair approached us to ask if we were looking for anything specific. When I said it was my first time here, and that I was feeling a little overwhelmed, he said [paraphrasing here], "Stop. There's no need to be overwhelmed. This is what we're going to do. *throws head back* *takes a very deep breath* Front of the store is the beauty studio where you can have your look done for a wedding or a formal, or just to try out day or night styles. To the right is women's fragrances. To the left is men's fragrances. In the center of the store is the makeup section, where you'll find everything from liquid eyeliner to foundation to concealer to lip gloss to eye shadow. Then back this way we start to care about your skin itself, and we have products for dry skin, itchy skin, acne, oily skin, eczema, sun-damaged skin, [etc. etc.]. On the far side of the room is products for hair, frizzy hair, dry hair, color-treated hair *pauses to look at me* and voluminous hair. And in every section there will be someone to answer any questions you possibly have about any of our products. When you're here a lot, it really doesn't seem like much. But it's your first time..."

So you may have gathered from yesterday's post and/or from knowing me in real life, if you do, that I try to take very good care of my hair. I wouldn't go so far as to say I baby it--I don't wear protective styles or obsess about length retention--but I do sleep on a satin pillow and I do co-wash every day and I am conscious about the ingredients in the products I use. After years of abusing it, I try to spoil my hair and treat it to the finer things in life from time to time. So the first thing I did was run to the hair section. They carried a lot of Carol's Daughters products, but even though I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Lisa Price (Carol's daughter herself), I'm just not the BIGGEST fan of that company. Their products work, but don't work wonders, and I'm always unsure whether they are actually worth the price. Nothing screamed out to me there. But I continued to peruse the hair care section and discovered they had an entire section of shelving dedicated to Ouidad. I've heard some really great things about this line, but never had an opportunity to try it. And then the most amazing thing happened:

They had TESTER BOTTLES. And one of them was for the leave-in conditioner. 

I turned to my friend with a questioning look on my face, and he said I could go ahead and try it. The back of the bottle said it could be applied to wet or dry hair, so I figured what the heck, and squeezed a handful into my palm. It smelled heavenly. I glanced around somewhat self-consciously while I rubbed it between my palms, then I began to apply it to my hair, scrunching it into sections as quickly and hopefully-inconspicuously as I could. I asked my friend whether it had all gone in or if you could see any white stuff in my hair (a problem that has caused unfortunate instances with other products) and he said it was all gone and my hair looked shiny. So I waited a few minutes before putting my hands back in my hair to see how it felt, and MY CURLS HAVE NEVER BEEN SO MOISTURIZED. Granted, the product wasn't fully dry yet, but I could tell right away that my hair loved this. AND the ingredients list didn't contain anything scary! And did I mention the smell??? Everything about this product was loveLoveLOVE, so despite the kind of steep price ($22), I knew I had to have it. 

I then thought about making my way into the makeup section, but decided I actually really and truly didn't need fancy designer eye shadow before I fell in love with any color, and took my leave-in to the register. The cashier asked if I had their membership rewards card, and when I told her that I'd never been there before, she stopped, gave me a puzzled look, and said, "...That's scary." [Evidently I am the embodiment of the kind of woman they try to reach or something, Idk. But every clerk in the store seemed SHOCKED that I wasn't a regular.] Well I know I'll be coming back, so I got the rewards card, and I just walked out of the store with my hair looking shiny and smelling fabulous. I'm still a little overwhelmed, and feel like I could do some serious damage to my bank account there if I were unsupervised, but just...Sephora is a magical wonderful place.     

Moms Say the Darndest Things

"Maya...I don't know how to tell you this...but...you're a shopaholic."

So I've Been on a Now Not-So-Secret Mission

alongside the mission of learning to do cute things with my hair. One of the best (and easiest) ways to do something cute to my hair is to pin a section back with one of those nifty little hideable combs and put something cute in it. Cute things could also decorate the side of a fro-hawk or some other more detailed style, plus, come on, y'all know me...how have I been missing out on this opportunity to accessorize/COLOR-COORDINATE? (Matching is seriously one of my favorite things to do. There was a girl who came into the library one day whose HEADPHONES matched her DRESS and I almost died of jealously.) 

Sooooooo...the results of my interwebz-hunting and gathering thus far:

(Ignore my messy bed)

What do y'all think? I'm really excited by what I have so far, but also really interested in seeing if people have any suggestions for what other types of things I could get and/or know any cool places to look for hair accessories (etsy and ebay are my main places right now, and Forever 21 which surprises me).

Grown-Folks' Business

A lot of my Atlantic City adventure yesterday with K, A, and I revolved around grown-folks and the concept of being/becoming one. 

Like all trips to AC should, ours started with blowing lots of money hitting up sales at the Outlets. We went to H&M and G by Guess, then K wanted to check out the Gap, Ralph Lauren, [side note, I'm lolling at Oxford's attempts to get rid of the Oxford comma and WILL NEVER LET IT GO. NEVER.] and Nautica, then my aunt hooked us up at Banana Republic (the whole store was 50% off and we got 30% off on top of that!), and I am not embarrassed to admit that I went to Old Navy on the way back and got some good deals there too. But K had never been to the outlets before, so while we were walking around he kept asking me what kind of good stores they had. I told him to tell me where he usually shops and I can tell him if it was there or not, but he said he doesn't even know where he usually shops anymore. This led to a conversation about fashion styles growing, changing, and maturing as we get older. We are 21-year-old about-to-be-seniors at Princeton who are destined for big wonderful things in the very near future...is it time we started dressing towards that future? Is the era of the graphic tee coming to an end in our lives? Does it have to? This conversation reminded me of a post on one of my favorite blogs, Black Girl With Long Hair a couple weeks ago about "Buying Grown Woman Clothes". And I just don't know how I feel about this whole change I'm evidently supposed to be ready for. Clothes from the stores that K wanted to browse felt either unnatural to me or like they belonged to 10-years-from-now-Professor-Maya, not 21-year-old-student-Maya. One day when I have a real job in the real world (let's pretend academia is the real world for a second), I can buy a $40 shirt and a $52 skirt and not feel as though I've committed a crime against my wallet. Until then, however, I will do my best to stay under $20/article of clothing even if it means I replace things a lot. I'm not ready for a wardrobe that'll stay with me forever. But the question, I guess, is should I be? And if the answer is yes...do I care? 

Then fast-forward to the show itself [which was phenomenal, see the previous post]. The first words out of K's mouth when we walked into the House of Blues were shock at how adult an environment the venue is. It's a standing room only, dark, interesting blend of Harlem-Renaissance-era and crazy-shit-from-the-70s black art on the walls, painted ceilings, three bars. It's the kind of place you dance during the show. This was a grown-folks' music hall, and he didn't feel old enough to be there. I said K, we are grown folks, and he said he felt like he was skipping school. The four of us were definitely some of the youngest people in the crowd. This was the kind of show people got dressed up for--onlyforthegrownandsexy dressed up, not slutted up--and I felt a little like I should have brought a dress to change into like originally planned. The DJ called out: "If you 25 plus make some noi-ise" and I swear we were the only people who didn't. [Side note: it was weird making noi-ise when the DJ called for single ladies too. K shot me a look like damn. What can I say? Fact: I'm not in any way happy about the reapplicability of this status to my life, but #Iwasjusttrynahaveagoodtime? I know what he meant though...it didn't feel right. Maybe I'll think twice next time.] What really made me feel young was the fact that drinks at the bar were RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE ($13 for a Long Island. $14 for a rum and coke. BITCH PUH-LEASE.) but people were getting them like they were free! A noted that the guys standing in front of us bought so many drinks that they spent more on alcohol than on tickets to the show, and evidently someday that will not be ridiculous to us. It was weird being surrounded by people in their 20s/30s/oldheads and realizing that a) you are actually a part of that first group of people, even if you don't feel like it, and what really struck me was b) we'll be doing things like this for the rest of our lives. Someday some other youngins will come in and see us and wonder if they're old enough to be here. I guess most of the people in our range of this generation were at the Rick Ross concert...we have a grownandsexy musical taste. Going back to the day's earlier thoughts, I loved looking at the range of styles sported by the women around me and wondering who I'll grow up to be. In semi-related news, never in Jersey have I been surround by so many naturalistas! I guess it takes some grownandsexy funky eclecticism along the lines of Erykah Badu's amazing voice to bring us out of the woodwork. 

Anyway, I'm pondering this: I can accurately say that I feel like an adult most of the time, especially more recently as I've done all sorts of adult things for the first time (note to self: I have a utilities bill to pay), and I can say I'm a grown-ass woman, but last night I felt like I was around ACTUAL grown-ass women and thus wondered if I'm really there. I wonder if that wondering ever goes away. My mom says even she doesn't feel like a grown-up sometimes...

#ThingsThatAnnoyMe:

Older black women [or any other person of any other race and/or gender, for that matter] who think they can touch me without permission. This most often happens with regards to my hair, which often beckons the touch of complete strangers (I welcome touches from those I know and love, but randos are a whole different story...). Today's situation, however, went a little something like this:

Me: [approaches register with very full shopping cart at ShopRite. Doesn't notice tank top riding up to expose her lower back.]
Random older black woman: [Reaches over and pulls my shirt down while saying] You should pull your shirt down, okay? 
Me: [stiffens noticeably at the feel of strange fingers on the small of my back, turns around to glare at her]
Her: Okay?
Me: [decides I don't have time to give this woman a propriety lesson. Storms off.] 

What gave this woman the right to think she could just touch me like that? I have two words for her: PERSONAL FUCKING SPACE. If the fact that MY shirt is riding up to expose MY lower back is somehow offensive to YOU, the appropriate thing to do is to keep it to yourself. The also fairly appropriate thing to do is to discreetly mention to me that I might want to fix my shirt. The absolutely inappropriate under every possible circumstance thing to do is to fix it yourself. 

If I hadn't been in a rush, you would have gotten smacked, fyi. Consider it my good deed of the day that you didn't.

2nd 30 Day Letter Challenge--Day Six: Letter to a Store

Dear Charlotte Russe,

You have been T's favorite store for quite some time. I was getting fairly sick of you recently, though. I've drooled over your shoes for a zillion years, but you consistently only carried shoes up to a 10. Strike one. You have the cutest bras I've ever seen, both don't carry them in big enough (or supportive enough) sizes/styles for the girls. Strike two. Your clearance section has been getting less and less cheap, which is unfortunate. And last time I was there, there was a small clearance rack, a medium clearance rack, and a large clearance rack--no love for the extra larges. Strike three. 
But then, you had a little change of heart, Charlotte Russe. You have made a serious move in my favor, and for this I applaud you. The last time I was there, as I was lamenting over the lack of an XL clearance rack, I noticed a collection of fall boots on a rack in the middle of the store, with a large sign advertising that they were on clearance for $4.99. I shook my head at the fact that I had purchased a very similar pair of boots elsewhere for almost $40 this past fall, and rued the day my feet grew past a size 10. And then T ran over to me with a pair of flats that were a size 11. And my shock and curiosity provoked me to inspect the boots on the rack...ALL OF THEM WERE AN ELEVEN. EVERY SINGLE PAIR. 
Confused as to what was happening, I bought three pairs before someone could pinch me and wake me up from this dream. Then, as I was casually windows-shopping (my term for browsing the websites of various stores I frequent without really intending to buy anything, aka a cure for boredom) I clicked on Shoes on charlotterusse.com and discovered that LO AND BEHOLD, SIZE ELEVEN WAS NOW AN OPTION ON THE DROPDOWN MENU. The world is a changed place.
So I thank you, Charlotte Russe, for recognizing that large-footed women wanna be cute too. Now if we could get the same thing going for large-breasted women, you and I wouldn't have any more problems...

Maya

It's the little things in life

I impulse bought the cutest umbrella I've ever seen in my life today. To quote the boyfriend, "If anything could make one look forward to rainy days, that would be it!" I just saw it in the window of a store as I was walking down the street and I had to have it. Sunflowers are my favorite kind of flower. They change your definition of what a flower is a little bit. They're like, overgrown and huge and should be awkward but somehow pull off being majestic. Sunflower seeds are delicious. They can't really be put in vases or shown on your kitchen table...they're meant for bigger things than that. If ever I have a front yard, you'd best believe there will be sunflowers in it, even if they grow to the point where I can't see out the windows. XD

Where do I live?

On Monday when my friend T and I went shopping, a cashier at New York and Company looked up my account and exclaimed, "My, you're in [the computer database] a lot! What's your address?" I stammered, wondering what was the most appropriate answer. I told her I was a college student, that was complicated. She said okay, Mays Landing, Princeton, or Chicago? I told her to get rid of Chicago, but I chuckled because New Brunswick will be added to that list soon. I really hate incidents like this, where I have to tell someone where I live. Where I am is rarely where I'm from, it's also rarely where I'll be for very much longer, and that makes me feel...slightly homeless.