Disappearing

So Google Friend Connect, aka the system that allows me to have followers linked through Blogspot, is shutting down on July 1st. This SUCKS. But, I can't fight it, so it would mean a hella lot to me if you took a few seconds to follow this blog on Bloglovin'. All you have to do is go to THIS LINK RIGHT HERE and just click "follow."

I'm going to keep reminding you forever and ever because I don't wanna lose this cute lil family we have going on, all 76 of us, so it would be best to just get it over with right now and then be able to confidently ignore all further reminders.

The guinea pig sharpening his pencil will stare you down until you do it. He knows and sees all.

Thank you very very very much and good night!

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Get(ty) At Me

Things that are freaking wild: my fambly took a trip to the Getty Center yesterday on the same exact day of the year as we did the first time, June 25th. That wasn't even planned at all. No one had any idea, and probably would never have known, had I not diligently and over-obsessively recorded every moment of my life when I first started this blog. Things that are also, once again, wild, a lot of the photos I took yesterday are nearly identical to ones I took the first time we went. I guess my I-should-turn-this-into-a-postcard instinct hasn't evolved one bit in the last two years. 

After being stuck in approximately an hour and a half of Sunset-Boulevard-traffic, we finally made it in one piece to the Getty Center, but instead of having a leisurely two to three hours to spend there, we had only one. We basically just walked around and I took photographs with my camera while my mom took photos on her iPad (it's the cutest thing in the world to watch her do this) and then I ran into the museum for a quick ten-minute jog around the galleries. I made a pit stop at the gift shop and bought four bangin' postcards. Diary entry terminates here. 

Also, I was wearing clothes, so I forced my sister to take photos of me again. She was less compliant this time, but with brute force, anything is possible! (I AM TOTALLY KIDDING)

[Photos of everything but me by me; photos of me by Rachel.]

Paradoxical architecture is pretty damn awesome. It's not that paradoxical at all I just thought that combo of words looked nice.

Peep the original twin right here. The quality of this photo is way better than the other one, but they're the same exact thing. I must evaluate my originality. 

Dress: Lilka

Sunglasses: France-land

Unamused. I feel like there's always one of those in every outfit post. Also if you look really closely at my shoulder you can get a glimpse of how badly sunburned I got. 

Shoes: thrifted

Lil' flowers that looked like bananas! 

A pair of bee friends j-chillin' on some fleurs. 

This one is almost the same exact photograph, the original just employed crappy iPhoto effects. 

There you have it. A time warp. 

Until next time (isn't that what they say at the end of Blue's Clues?).

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I Hopped Off the Plane at LAX Pt. 3

You know how the old proverb goes: "New summer solstice, new me!" Welp, I decided to live by the oldies and take the plunge I've been gathering the courage to follow through with for a year and a half. On June 21st, I went to my regular hairdresser, a wonderful Greek woman named Suzy, and she chopped off all my hair. How fascinating it was to see it look alive on my head, and seconds later, so dead in my lap. I brushed it to the floor and watched my sister's face for her reaction. It went from contained horror to reluctant approval to vigorous head-nodding. Suzy turned me around and asked if I wanted to go shorter. I said yes, and she took a pair of ragged scissors, grabbed sections of my near nonexistent hair and snipped away. The end result was what you see below. 

A new season means a new me means a new time zone. Today, my family trekked out to Los Angeles for the third time to support my sister's (thus far non-profit) lucrative semi-career. We arrived at LAX at 10 am, local time, stopped at our host house, took a two hour nap, and headed out to Rodeo Drive in our red rental car. I kept on what I had worn on the plane and merely added some sunglasses. 

We ate at a fancy restaurant and learned that mostly everyone in LA comes from my borough, and then we went to the Miu Miu store and tried on shoes and drank sparkling lemonade until closing. But before we peaced out of Rodeo Drive, I had my sister take a few pictures of my new hair and my flying attire. 

[Photos of me by Rachel, photos of my mom by me.]

Tank top: Gap 

Pants: Erika

Denim shirt: Solutions Blues

Sunglasses: French

Shoes: Keds

We take no sass in Los Angeles. None at all. 

When we sat down at the restaurant at which we had dinner, the waiter knew that we were from New York immediately because of my pants. That is how he knew. I'm glad that oversized green plaid pants are indicative of New York City. Good for us. 

Merp

Hello world, this is my dearth of hair. You can pet it if you'd like. You don't even have to ask.

Mama, lookin' fly as a bird in her nice blue blazer that looks identical to mine and her Marc Jacobs sunglasses. 

Iss summah, PLEASE ENJOY IT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. 

Pce n luv from the state of Kalyfornia

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I Begin To Shed

I've been considering getting a pixie cut since January of 2012. My hair is now past my chin and almost shoulder length, and I am BORED. I can put it in a ponytail, in pigtails, in dumplings, or just let it be, but no matter what I do I'm just straight up tired of having hair. It'll look nice the day I take a shower, but then I go to sleep and when I wake up it is a hot mess. Curls --> squished twirly things. It's just a hassle. I've resorted to putting up my hair almost every day, which is kind of lame. I had to wear a ponytail two days in a row last week, and that's when it dawned on me: why don't I just cut it all off like I've always wanted to? It's summer, it's hot, no one can see me...it's the perfect time. So, I'm doing it. I'm not telling you when, but I am doing it. 

So, here are the pictures I used to convince my mom and sister that I'm not making a terrible mistake that's going to ruin my life. 

[Photos via the endless Interwebz.]

Michelle Williams

(We have similar face shapes)

Laurel Pantin

(We have semi-similar face shapes, but I don't want to go that short quite yet)

A runway show that I can't remember right now

(We have similar face shapes plus it's heavier on top which is what I want)

Audrey Hepburn

(She's Audrey Hepburn)

Carey Mulligan

(We have semi-similar face shapes and her hair is more tousled than Michelle Williams's)

Natalie Portman

(We have similar face shapes, and her hair is so effing adorable)

Anne Hathaway

(When she smiles we have have similar face shapes)

Audrey Tautou

(She has curly-ish hair and still rocks a pixie)

GAHHHHHH I AM SO EXCITED
NO HAIR FOR ME
LA LA LA
"ODELIA BECOMES A PIXIE PRINCESS"

P.S. While going on a power walk with my mom yesterday we stopped into a little thrift shop located in our local church and discovered that it's amazing and ridiculously cheap. I got a plaid tunic-y pantsuit, a knee-length denim pencil skirt, a purple sundress with sunflowers embroidered on it, and a big floral denim button-up shirt, all for approximately $20. Magic. But sadly, it's closed until September. We happened to stumble upon it on its last day open. Coincidence? Maybe. Fate??? I think yes.

Tomorrow is Summer Solstice. Get your chinchillas and boomboxes ready.

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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Here comes the semi-juicy stuff. We're working our way up to the finale post of this lil mini-series about Governor's Ball, because I've been waiting months to write about a certain ~thing~ and I had to wait until the day of the concert had come and passed. 

Now that I think about it, there's not really much to relate to all you good people out there except for

a) MUD

b) the music was incredible 

     b1) we saw Dirty Projectors at 3:45 pm. There was a drunk woman and all her annoying friends standing right next to me and at one point said woman began crying and falling on me and being straight up dumb, but eventually they all left. It was a miracle. Also, the band was effing amazing and managed to play nearly the exact playlist that I had sent them telepathically. I think they got a few wrong merely because the signals were interrupted by the stupid lady falling all over me. 

    b2) then we saw Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and it was a spiritual experience. I guess I can't keep the secret in much longer, so I'll just release the information now that that third post is all about Edward Sharpe. They have contributed 23% to saving my life, and for that I owe them everything. And they owe me more music. 

    b3) the last band we saw was Animal Collective. I don't know much of their music, but they happened to only play one song that I knew, so I was just sort of bobbing my head for an hour and twenty minutes waiting for a moment when I could actually sing along. And it was also very dark and very muddy and everyone was very rambunctious. 

c) I had some decent Chinese food 

d) we met a tall Latvian man named Roma 

e) we had to endure twenty minutes of drunken flirtations between a neurosurgeon named Megan and Roma 

f) MUD

g) it was quite loud and we got up pretty close to the stage all three times

h) the whole day was bangin' 

[Photos by me.]

The muddy expanse.

Dirty Projectors! They sounded awesome and were a pleasure to watch. Especially David Longstreth because Alina aptly described him as a baby sloth. And if you rearrange and cut out some letters in his last name it would spell 'sloth.'

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros! Jade and Alexander singing to/with each other! ~~LUV IS IN THE AIR~~

Animal Collective! Lots of crazy sounds and crazy lights and crazy people. 

Now that I have time to do stuff I've spent most of my non-test-taking time going running. But now I feel like a crazy person and need to do some really creative things to get all my insanity out of my system. Who's with me?

P.S. Congrats to my sister and all her friends for graduating high school yesterday, and especially to the entire class of 2013 for completely botching up their rendition of the school's Alma Mater. That was atrocious.

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The Secret Life of Mud

The day finally came. This past Saturday, I went to Governor's Ball. There are another two blog posts dedicated to the actual event coming up in the near future, but in this one I'm just gonna focus on what me and my quasi-date Alina wore. 

Festival fashion is kind of like, a big deal. The fact that there's a certain class of trends dedicated to what people wear to music festivals is telling enough. Since it was hella hot out, most of the ladies were wearing some semblance of shorts and bustiers/bra tops à la the spring 2013 shows. A few women were just wearing straight up bras. Props to them. About one-third of the people had been there on Friday and lived through the rain and knew to wear rain boots. The rest of us were wearing anything but rain boots. Alina was wearing jelly shoes and some people were wearing canvas shoes or flip flops or nothing suitable for mud. I was luckily wearing my hiking boots, but by the end of the day they were just blocks of mud that I was dragging around. I had to hose those puppies down well, but I still feel like there's going to be a little farm inside those shoes forever more. 

I decided to take an alternate route in terms of what I wore. The road less traveled by, if you will. I wore my mom's maternity dress, wrapped a weird black and white flower choker around my neck, put my hair in lil dumplings, got on my Timbs (that's Timberlands for those that don't understand abbreviations), and put a temporary tattoo of a sun on my chest. Alina also wore a dress, a tent dress of sorts from Topshop, with her pink jelly shoes. She had to take them off and walk barefoot because the mud was too slippery. She stepped on a helluva lot of smushed beer cans. 

Enough talking, you must now look. 

[Photos of me by Olive; photos of Alina by me.]

Dress: my mom's maternity dress

Boots: Timberlands

Choker: shared by me and my sister, from the baby years

Watch: present from my mom

Just hangin' in the mud.

This is the point at which I became a puppy. 

Dancing prep. Gotta keep the machine well-oiled, ya know? 

Dress: Topshop

Belt: yo idk this ain't my wardrobe

Choker: on loan from me

Temporary tattoo: probably Claire's....

Baby Alina, bein' cayute. 

Costume change! 

Overalls: Forever 21

Bustier: Topshop

Backpack: Topshop

Mud: courtesy of the stupid effin' weather

The next installment in this series will be about the music and the bands I saw. Despite the mud and the heat, EVERYTHING ROCKED. I was jamming out so hard and I was in my main element. Plus my hair was up in dumplings, so everything was perfect.

Also, today was my last day of school. THANK GOD THANK GOD THANK GOD THANK GOD I'M DONE I MADE IT IT'S OVER HOLY EFF. I can't believe I made it. And that was only 10th grade. ...Fuq.....

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Ashish And His Sequins

Ashish Gupta is a genius. Or a madman. Or likely both. I think to an extent madness and genius are directly proportional. Whatever Ashish is, it's awesome and I love it and he should never stop being that thing. I happened upon his eponymous brand around a year ago and felt like crying and doing a little jig when I saw his Spring/Summer 2012 collection. It was a perfect combination of flowers and cowgirls and braids and sequins. And when one combines those four items gracefully--nay, MAGNIFICENTLY--said person clearly has a great deal of talent and should be showered with rose petals and chocolate chip muffins every morning. 

There isn't a whole lot of info on the designer himself on the Infinite Internet, but I did find a short interview he did with the people at London Fashion Week. He began his line in 2005, interweaving pop culture references and product placement between his messily glamourous clothing right from the get-go. Ashish has been quoted saying that his signature design focal points are, "Sequins, glamour, sportswear, and more sequins."Basically, SEQUINS. He sometimes uses them subtly as small accents, he sometimes dunks the models in bowls of sequins and sends them on the runway, he sometimes loads Nerf guns with sequins and goes on midnight panty raids thus armed. (Disclaimer: nothing I just said is true at all.) 

Ashish gathers inspiration from the cinematic world and pop culture, as well as Tumblr. He thinks Tumblr is fascinating because of how it gathers inspiration and information from millions of people worldwide. He calls it an "ever-evolving giant scrapbook of ideas." That's one way of putting it. 

The thing I love about Ashish is how endlessly funky and fearless it is. Whoever's wearing his clothes obviously does not give a flying fuq about what other people think of them, which I think is highly admirable. Good for them, and good for Ashish for promoting such intense awesomeness. 

You should check out all his collections on his website, I promise promise promise you will not regret it. 

[Photos via Style.com.]

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

FALL/WINTER 2012

FALL/WINTER 2012

SPRING/SUMMER 2013

SPRING/SUMMER 2013

FALL/WINTER 2013

FALL/WINTER 2013

Now I want to destroy all my old pairs of jeans and create a patchwork jumpsuit. Actually, I think I'm going to go do that. Like, right now. 

P.S. Alina and I are going to Governor's Ball this Saturday (along with a bunch of other Can I Have Your Closet veterans, like Octavia and Olive) so I'm definitely going to post about that once I've recovered from the psychedelic experience. We're seeing Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (aka the one band in the entire world that I would follow around the world if I had the funds/means), Animal Collective, and Dirty Projectors, among others. My excitement is ova-flowin'. 

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