Fitting room wisdom for the fork in the road

Just last week, while pulling a sequined Alice + Olivia dress over her head and then spinning out of her fitting room to peer into the mirror (looking like a million bucks mind you) a customer, we’ll call her J, informed me that she has the hands down best break-up rule, piece of guy advice that anyone could ever offer. I prepared myself for greatness. Wide-eyed as a kid on Christmas morning I awaited her speech. I expected something more profound than I’d ever heard before, something that’d put all the things mothers and girlfriends say to shame, but what she shared with me was simple that I really should pass along…

“When you break up with a guy, you should buy yourself something expensive. Something really pretty, and really expensive. It’s a game my girlfriends and I started playing in college… I’ve got Tory Burch pumps and a Louis Vuitton wallet as a result of two hard-earned break-ups. Oh, and if the boy dumps you, you get something equally pretty and equally expensive… anddddd, if you haven’t started yet, you owe yourself for each previous break-up.”

Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with my life at this time, as I haven’t endured a break-up recently. I am however, getting over one boy– a boy it’s really time to move on from– and considering two. I’m not sure that either of them is worth any trouble, and whether they are or aren’t, my feelings for them remain to be seen. There’s the obvious choice and the not so obvious choice, but like many things in life I think a third and yet to be cleared path may be the route to go. Robert Frost suggested we always take the road less traveled, but when the road less traveled is downright stupid I think you have to skip out on it… and if the other road isn’t worth the tumultuous  journey, maybe it’s best to just sit tight, to curl up under the tree at the fork in the road and hold out for something better. If you’re really lucky, your girl friends will be right there with you.

… but I do love shopping. So on Saturday, confused by the male gender– though not aching– I paid myself out on a past break-up… I took a note from “J” and got new denim leggings.

Here’s to your next break-up, and the back-dated purchases you owe yourselves.

And, quote!

As a mini-post I’d like to share something Tenley said this morning whilst reminiscing and discussing autobiographies: “Whoever said girls were the more complicated sex, never met the guys you date.”

Expect this line to appear in my yet to be written autobiographical tale about dating boys, buying clothes and living on Beacon Hill… it’ll be very, Chelsea Handler meets Adena Halpbern.

Yuppiehood, approaching life stages head on… and wishing hard for Wheaton Terriers

On this quiet Sunday morning curled up on the couch in a second story walk up Beacon Hill apartment grazing on Lender’s bagels with the rest of the 60 Phillips crew I got to thinking about our current tasks…  mostly because Tenley pointed them out. Curled up on her corner of the couch she observed, with actuality in her voice, “this is the most dorkie morning.” Our chosen publications: a Psychology Today lay open between her thumb and forefinger, while spread across my lap was Wired and Ryan curled up in our IKEA chair intently finished The Taming of the Shrew.

It was at this point that I suggested we get a Weekender subscription to the Times… Tenley noted that this would make us seem even more pretentious and the conversation was dropped. It lead me to note a turning point in our lives though, and a bigger one to come. I don’t work Sundays now, something that feels strangely grown-up. A weekend (or at least this one day) has become an actual weekend and not a time to dodge out of the apartment to work and then to a great many group project meetings on campus. I’m finding this a very enjoyable experience.

Last Sunday after watching movies with Tenley and Sara all afternoon, Sara and I had a quiet dinner with friends of hers at The Regal Beagle in Brookline. Today I anticipate some Sunday afternoon football with Ryan and perhaps some low-key weekend catch-up with Laura and Rebecca.

Now don’t get me wrong, Friday evening we dolled up for a new type of quintessential college party: The Jersey Shore theme. The pearls, plaid and black skinnies came off and a large group of Emersonians gelled their hair and pushed up their boobs to find their inner Snookies and The Situations. Never in my life had I considered what some of my more conservatively dressed friends would look like sans J. Crew, French Connection + American Apparel… but after all of the excitement, I was last night thrilled to have Indian Food with Ryan, Tenley and an old friend Tim before falling asleep watching CSI. Call us lame, but it was great.

On a day off last week I grabbed my Starbucks and headed to the Harvard Coop, the Julep and Sweet while strolling around Harvard Square and doing some inner soul-searching about that large commencement to come. And before this post gets longer, I’ll get to my point. All of this has left me noting the things I really enjoy and will not settle on come finding my place in the world this May.

To be comfortable, and happy, I need:

1. Sidewalks in big cities and places to explore

2. A plan, loose as it may happen to be

3. People… who I love

4. Time for perusing trendy things: boutiques, magazines, museums, etc.

5. Things and places are that are new, but have the comfort of old

And if possible, I’d like to add a Wheaton Terrier to my life. Murphy, a small chap of a dog– aged 3 months– has made a home for himself at Crush this week. The way his shaggy hair falls in his eyes, much like my own and he eagerly laps my cheek have increased my yearning for soft, cuddly pups that love to be loved. Now, I know you don’t need a puppy to be a yuppie, but there’s something very grown-up about having a dog… the question remains what kind of time I’ll have and what kind of time a small bear shaped pup would require?

Which brings me to the decision that’s hanging over my head like an umbrella on a rainy day. It’s protecting me from the storm, but I wonder if it’s better to feel the rain. Knowing that I have CB as an option, and holding such passion for the company in my heart makes me want to stay. I’d be so happy to stay, so while things like insurance and pay remain to be seen, I know a life of trade-shows, look books, trendspotting and planning events would be… well, divine. I wonder though if I’m missing out on something by not struggling to find a job, by not doing the stressful late night job applications and uncomfortable interviews. And then in turn, it bears the question: aside from the above, what is it that I really want and will I be cheating myself out of happiness or success based on deciding in one way or the other?

On a final note: look at this little face!

Resolutions for an Impolite Population

I’ve spent plenty of time considering my own resolutions for this year… but what I would like more than anything in 2010 is to see an improvement in the discourteous behavior we all, mostly you and not me, present. I make an honest effort to avoid these things, in fact, I’d never even consider most of them. Things I’d like those around me, both intimate and strangers to do this year:

1. Cease your shoplifting behviors. Perhaps you don’t consider the implications of your actions, but retailers take the time to hand pick pieces representative of themselves and their brand. If you wouldn’t take my left arm, don’t take that dress!

2. Give up you seat on the T. It’s honestly unbearable how many ignorant, able-bodied people fail to give up their seat on public transit to those who are elderly, handicapped, small children, pregnant, distressed… Pay it forward for God’s sake.

3. Acknowledge those around you. It’s not hard. If spoken to, speak. Return a kind word with another.

4. Refrain from answering your phone in: a) a doctor’s office, b) your workplace, c) a restaurant, d) a small store where everyone can hear you, e) the classroom, f) on the commuter rail (unless you can talk quietly about something not too personal for the entire 40 minute train ride)…

5. When it comes to needing a cab, do not take the one that is cleary intended for the person you just cut in front of who’s been standing outside on a cold winter’s day awaiting a white vehicle with a sign atop it that also accepts credit/debit cards as payment. Also, if you’re a cabbie: TELL ME BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR CREDIT CARD MACHINE DOES NOT WORK, you may find it hard to believe, but no one, particularly young women, do not wish to be driven all over creation in the middle of the night to find an ATM so that they can pay you. Sure it’d be ideal if we had cash for you, but sometimes you spend the cash your Dad swears you should aways have on you and you still need to get home, safely, and you expect that you can use your debit card to help you do that with having to drive ten minutes out of the way to get to an ATM.

6. Finally, the correct response for “please” involves “thank you.” Take that one to the grave, it won’t kill you.

… there will be many more, but don’t hold your breath, that will in fact lead to the results that #6 will not.

Living la vida loca… or ummm, getting ready for it

“It’s the job a million girls would die to have.”

So opens The Devil Wears Prada… the tale of a fresh-faced, bubbly, eager beaver  new graduate who finds her self the second assistant to the woman who decides what women will wear, not just this season, but for every season to come: the editor of fictional fashion magazine Runway.

Making crappy money, but reaping couture benefits, Andrea Sachs is a woe-be-gone not-so Fashionista who finds herself battling vivacious, and vicious, models and editors who are hungry for anything but food.

I recently recalled reading this tale Freshman year of college, jealous of Andy’s position in life: out of college, living on her own, closet full of designer frills, taking on Manhattan one leather pump at a time. It occurred to me then, that minus the Gucci leather pants and Manhattanite squandor, I’ve turned into Andy.

Let me start by saying that I loooove my job, and that Penner and Laura are NOTHING like Miranda Priestly, but I do, in fact, have the job that “a million girls [might] die for.”

Last week I opened a box of Spring delivery Alice + Olivia dresses in a manner reminiscent of Christmas morning and this evening, I blogged about a year in a boutique… It was all very romantic.

Now, I’m an undergrad struggling to pay rent, trying to remember to add items other than greek yogurt and grapefruit to the grocery list, and spending very likely more money on wine than clothes and electric each month… but c’est la vie, I suppose.

And here comes the hard part: deciding where that $40k/year diploma is going to take me. Year 1 of college I anticipated taking the world by storm and writing a column for Lucky while loving all things Sartorial and couture… then I transferred. New plan for Year 2: Marketing… all marketing, all the time… big business, see you in ten years in a skirt suit… Oh wait, that doesn’t sound like fun anymore by Year 3 when I discover: Brand Planning. Oh the world of Planning: trendspotting, research, focus groups, interviews, Iconoculture, consumer insights… how, intelligently delicious. Well here I am,Year 4. Balancing an internship at a killer ad agency, a full class schedule and “the job a million girls would die for” and I’ve got to tell you, things seemed a lot clearer to me pre-collegiate education.

It never seemed like it’d be so difficult, or so easy, to choose a career path. Nothing is forever, and plans change..t . but I’m so eager to find my calling. I know that there are Andy Sachs’ in every industry and so the question is, how do I keep that earnest excitement for learning and going to work, without having the earth pulled out from underneath me… or worse, having to pull it out from under myself because I’m unhappy?

It appears time will tell, but the magic 8 ball I bought at fourteen is still in my parents’ basement, and I plan to retrieve it the next time I find myself in the ‘burbs.

Eeeek.

“Handmade? It looks like you made it with your feet.”

I love a viscious tagline. I also love handmade things, small businesses, trinkets, hoarding things I don’t need and shopping online… obviously my passion for Etsy.com stems from these traits. This morning though, Tenley introduced me to the next best thing to a site of cool, up and coming, hard working designers, woodshoppers, knitters, jewelers, etc. It’s a site that makes fun of the random-ass, unnecessary, slightly fucked up, questionable stuff that can exist on site on which anyone can become a member. It’s name: Regretsy. Get it? Regretsy? I’m still laughing. I’m serious.

Categories include: Dead Things, Not Remotely Handmade, Don’t Ask Me, Pet Humiliation, Copyright Infringements, Self Gratification, Annoying Descriptions, Fairies and Michael Jackson, among many others. It’s a hoot. In one disgusting display below, a squirrel is eating what appears to be a mouse. Frankly, I could vom. The sight of this is actually causing me to gag. I’ll be foaming at the mouth any second now. Can you believe people actually have this shit up on Etsy? Thank god it’s not very prominent, it’d completely destroy their image. I honestly don’t think that Regretsy is out to harm Etsy in anyway, I think/hope, they essentially just want to bring out the message that some people really, really suck at making cool, handmade things and must be stopped. Well, they’ve won me over.

You can’t win every time, but you sure can try…

I have an awful habit of throwing myself on my bed. My mattress is nice and fluffy, my blankets are toasty, I have ergonomic pillows. It’s a haven… except for one thing: it’s from Ikea and the slats that hold up the mattres have a habit of unhooking themselves and falling down. Then I sink. I sink with the mattress through until the bottom of the cushy, cloudlike surface on which I lay my head is neary touching the floor. At least once a week this happens. Usually it’s Thursday evenings when I get out of class at 9:45pm after having an 8am class, 10am class and work during the day. After a few minutes I’ve sunken in and am so annoyed that I pull my act together and head out… I recognize it may be hard to see the logic in this, but please humor me just the same.

What’s really funny is how all of this is tied to memory (I’m obsessed with memory right now because of my psychology class, in fact I think I’ll write something on memory soon) and how just now, on this quiet Wednesday evening when I ought to be out at a show, but am stuck in working on a project that my group members are biting dust on,  I flung myself on the bed and the memory that came to me was of the person who repaired it when I performed this lazy routine. Like the repair, the relationship has dwindled, but in a few minutes, I’ll pull off the comforter and throw the pillows on the floor in an attempt to lighten the load. Then, I’ll struggle until I’m blue in the face to lift the mattress. For a while it’ll be to no avail, but in time I’ll lift the mattress because in reality it wasn’t that big of a thing to begin with. The value of getting over it will carry more weight than the fall of the mattress itself.

It doesn’t get any easier, the lifting of the mattress and fixing of the slats and remaking of the bed. It’s always a similar process. In fact it seems more challenging each time, but I suppose that’s because in retrospect it’s always easy to say that I was a muscle man who lifted my entire bed with one finger, mattress, fluffy top, box spring, slats and all, and that I came out on top. Sometimes you just want to be able to say that you won… You won the game, you won the promotion, you won the break-up, you won the mattress challenge. And if you keep telling yourself that you won, eventually, you have.

… I guess I’ll go make my bed now.

Being British Must Be Better

When you realize your undergraduate career is almost over and you can’t seem to figure out what’s up or down and left or right and you’re dizzy from the anxiety of not knowing what to do with your life, you’ll very likely need to recount a British saying from 1939 an awful lot. You might also take longer showers and drink more coffee, because god knows you need more stimulants.

This is hanging in Tenley’s room… but I’m starting to feel like stapling it to my forhead might make all the difference.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

…They’re the people that you meet when you’re walking down the street… the people that you meet each day.

I’ve reached a point where I officially have made the Hill my home. You know you really live in a place when the guy at the Shangri La recognizes your roommate’s debt card, the liquor store employee knows your first name, the Starbucks guy asks if Crush has been busy that day and the homeless guy on the corner of Anderson and Cambridge expects that you’ll give him a plum. It’s whatever.

Recent highlights: I live in the same neighborhood as the personal shopper at Anthropologie, when I walk home from my internship at Arnold we often pass each other or run into each other en route home… obviously she doesn’t know who I am, but I recognize her and she probably thinks I’m a stalker. Until she has me falsely arrested, it’ll all be fine.

I can’t walk down the street anymore without knowing at least six people. When you work at a boutique at Charles, you know the customers, the neighborhood business owners, the guys who work at Top Shelf, all dry cleaning staff on the street, and who the Fashionably Late designer is at The Liberty each Thursday. It’s all downright awesome until you go to pick up a prescription or tampons and you have to circle the store three or four times so you don’t pee your pants in embarrassment.

Michael is the homeless man on the corner of Charles and Beacon… you know the one that opens the door and pats every pup that walks by on the head? Tenley’s almost on a first name basis with him, just like a true local. The guy on the corner of Pinckney and Charles is kind of a pain only because he wants you to buy the Phoenix or the Metro which you can get for free from him… not clear on the point, and frankly he’s a bit harassing so even though I feel bad I’ve never given him a dime. The guy on Anderson and Cambridge though I toss a piece of fruit to on the way home from Whole Foods sometimes, he’s not a cat caller like the guys outside Grampy’s, the gas station/Mexican restaurant that I avoid at all costs. It’s got to be the worst business idea ever, it’s down right nauseating, but for some reason it was in the Map Boston last year. Who decided to put that on Beacon Hill? It doesn’t exactly fit well next to Antonio’s, but I guess that’s why it’s close to Felcaro and all the nail salons… it’s not exactly Mt. Vernon Street.

I run into customers a lot, I love customers. Really though I do. It’s pretty much because I love people. I actually love girlfriends, and customers at Crush are like girlfriends. They pop in and out for a laugh, a dress, help/advice on boy trouble, help/advice for your boy trouble, a chat about their job or lack thereof and plans for the weekend. They also tend to like wine, friends and Sex and the City. And now really, what’s more fun than being wine drunk and watching Sex and the City, or When Harry Met Sally? If I could bottle up one feeling in the world, aside from maybe laughter, it’d be “Wine Buzz.” In fact, if I ever have a candle line or aromatherapy product, it’ll be Wine Buzz. An intoxicating aroma of red grapes, with wood undertones and a dash of spice for some kick. Maybe a hint of mint for cleanliness. God I love mint, it’s so clean.

Honestly, if there’s one thing I can do it’s ramble. To pull this all back together, Beacon Hillers love wine, you should see what recycling nigh looks like down her on Phillips Street, cases upon cases of empty bottles.

So anyways, those are the people in my neighborhood… The people that I meet when I’m walking down the street love wine, give money to Michael, think the Shang is disgusting and still go there because it’s the online Chinese food option, and know each other’s faces in a very suburban town meeting kind of way. That’s the view from my corner of the Hill, I should note that it’s the exact opposite corner that The State House is on.

 

Some things I just [don't] know for sure

At twenty-one, there are some things I haven’t quite figured out. Love is one of them. Lust is another. Why jeans feel so good one day, and so bad the next. I don’t know why I leave the stove on every time I cook, or why I hate bananas so much, and I really can’t wrap my head around why having a beer after a few vodka drinks gets me a little teary eyed. There are some things I’m completely certain of though:

1. Value is relative, but pennies are from Heaven. It may be a step toward your first meal in a week, or pocket change from your Starbucks… it will at some point bring a smile to someone’s face.

2. Honesty is best, for the most part… It’s likely not the most popular option, but it’s the respectable choice. A subcategory of this is: Integrity is in fact the most respectable quality.

3. Irony will always bite you in the ass… especially when it comes to guys.

4. Wearing white after Labor Day is fine. Wearing Black and Navy is French and sophisticated. Black and Brown are now trendy, and if bronze is involved you might as well be Kate Moss. Also: a pop of color never hurt anyone.

5. Red lipstick can, and will, change your life.

6. Toothless eight-year-old grins will  break your heart again and again, but someday you’re little sister will be nine. She won’t have nearly as many teeth left to lose and she’ll want knee-high boots because both you and Hannah Montana have them… so cherish every tear you shed for that silly grin, and each moment that small pain in the ass calls you “Mom” in the grocery story to embarrass you.

7. Burning the edge of a piece of ribbon keeps it from fraying. Burning the edge of a ribbon when it’s already on a headband that you’ve covered in Krazy Glue will start a small fire.

8. Wisdom is subjective, and usually unwanted. That said, if someone had properly taught me how to blow dry my hair straight my middle school years would have gone much more smoothly and if someone had told me that going to Fisher would be a mistake, I might have believed them… but I’d have lost out on a hysterical, albeit traumatizing, experience.

9. No one can compare to your best friend. If you find a good one, hang onto her. You’ll know she’s a keeper if: she can go glass for glass with you on a (or ten) bottles of wine, she’s so well read that she could fill the BPL with books, she takes pictures of your family/halloweencostume/olddesignerhandbags/boyyou’rekindofseeing/apartment just because you ask (and because frankly she wants to laugh at you), she can’t come out of a hangover without and ice pack and an Alka Seltzer but stands by the fact that these crises can’t last past 5pm, she thinks of your little sisters as her own, she tells you to buy it even when you don’t need it, she could really use an IV drip for coffee and agrees that you’ll both be more fun at 30 than at 22.

10. Sharpies can fix anything, from a scratch on your bumper to a scuff on your shoe. If you’re pale they’ll stain for days, and they smell like victory.

11. Studying for midterms does not get easier as you age, it actually just becomes more annoying because you have more to do.

12. In Ghana, wild boars chill out on the beach… Everything is 10x more interesting when your friend blogs about it and posts it on Facebook because she’s there and teaching children amazing things like the English language.

13. On the other side, the grass may be greener; the snow may be whiter; the ocean could be bluer; the light might even be better. So explore, every day… and if it’s risky, try it anyways… you know, just to overcome the anxiety.