Thursday, September 30, 2010

If I were a rich girl: September Edition

So Im super late on this Lasse R. Jensen "LV must die" necklace, there is a t-shirt as well and I don't know the price but I think this piece is SFC! (So Fucking Cool- trying to start my own popular abbreviation just roll with it LOL) It says more about my styling aesthetic than most conceptual pieces can.



So I probably want this more than anything else in this post. This Luv Aj- Heart of Armour Hand piece is so the me I want to be. $143


I don't do Skulls period, this Pamela Love- Picado Cuff is encouraging me to make an exception. $575



House Of Harlow 1960- Five Stack $200


I'll take this A.L.C. light sweater, a tad smaller though $245.


I would never wear this Alice+Olivia skirt styled this way but you best believe I would rock it. $330.
Everything in this post can be found on Shopbop, except the Lasse R. Jensen LV must die piece, I spotted that on the blog I mentioned in the last post. 11:47p.m.

Try to keep this short

...but Im long winded so here it goes. Been on the computer pretty much all day. When I decided to get down to business (applying for this fashion writing job a friend sent me) I google my name with the intention of finding an old writing sample to send with an application and I notice something else, a comment I made on a blog I stumbled upon a month or so ago. Someone who had something to do with the post I commented on commented back and simply said she loved my blog as was recently in Chicago. Now of course I had to check hers out. I ended up scrolling through basically the entire thing fasasha was pretty cool and Im so glad I discovered it. These photos by Kwesi Abbensatts were stolen from that blog and simultaneously coddled by my spirits. Click here for more of his work.


That wasn't to long was it? Well off to Project Runway, but I might see you again tonight, I have like four post ideas I really need to get out. This month is a low post month, but October is here in a few hours and I'm ready to make some changes.7:50p.m.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Ready ....As I'll Ever Be




12:40a.m.
Ahhh just three days till I'm honey molasses,
chocolate brown sugar on my way to an epiphany.
All I need is my camera, a magazine and me.
No need for a "Do Not Disturb" sign
because where I'm going nothing negative can reach me.
I pray my family the lord to keep,
while the deepest blue of the Atlantic washes over me
and makes me new.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

...It never ends


We all just looking at each other crazy

Right now that Big K.R.I.T. song, “ They got us all fucked up,” is playing in my head.
I mean WHAT a day.

You ever been in a situation where a friend is telling you a situation they were in and you want to understand and be supportive, but you really don’t agree with the logic they used to react in the way they did, but because its your buddy you kind of smile and nod or kindly say well I understand both sides or something like that, but in the end here you both are just kind of looking at each other crazy because each of you can’t understand why the other can’t understand the other and maybe because you feel your right, there’s really no need to keep trying, you just know its time to move on. Well in hindsight, that was what my whole day was like, I didn’t understand people, that I thought I had and understanding with.
Let me start a little backwards and just plan out my tomorrow. So I’m going to wake up late, and I’m not going to leave this house. I’ll get up around 10, maybe even 11 a.m. make few phone calls then FOCUS on creating my own watermark/ little signature thingie, that I feel the need to put on the bottom of all my pictures just so my work that’s out there is attached to a name. I notice it on the photos of almost everyone who considers themselves a photographer on facebook, but a couple days ago when I discovered this blog therealkesh.blogspot.com, I noticed her little signature at the bottom right of all the photos she takes. I notice most bloggers photographers or not, don’t have it. Anyway between that and Project Runway, I really don’t plan on doing shit on this day off, I just need another moment.
Now back to the beginning. After a bit of washing, a little facebook stalking, and downloading a couple songs I got ready for work. We all know I hate my job, and if you aren’t aware I work for a large chain, big box, discount retailer. I won’t say the name of course. So I get to work and as usual, my hard shell formed around me by the time I hit the sales floor, these people, as in my co-workers were already pissing me off and I had been on the clock all of 5 minutes. The hard shell, just for clarity is my attitude change. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not nessesarily he nicest person, and can be mean, but I’m good-hearted and goofy, when I’m in my natural habitat, ain’t a damn thing natural about this job, this is how a shell formed around my, my attitude there is very rude, and patience very short.
In the restroom right after I decided I wasn't doing anymore work for the night.

So today was going like most other awful days there, and today I was looking forward to my work buddy coming in so at least I’d have someone to be goofy with and not feel like I’m doing all the work, but today, my work buddy became just one of the people I work with. Basically, I called her to come help me do something, we needed to do to make the rest of the night go smoother and faster for us, and she completely ignored me, I tried to justify it like maybe she didn’t here me, maybe she’s on break, maybe… well there is no maybe because we’re work buddies, not just people who work in the same department. Her ignoring gesture set the tone for the rest of the night bullshit because of course, I worked my ass off with no help, while she worked her smaller side with help from the store manager, further giving me an attitude because now I really can’t understand why you can’t come to the side we ALL have to do before it gets bad, which it got really bad and at that point I’m realizing that I’m getting NO help probably because these mutherfuckers are used to me being the only hard worker and take for granted that I take care of business with out much direction or assisting. Well I thought at a certain point I’m just going to stop and see what they do then, I’d already been working as if I was 3 people that day and after the customers left I was going to slow down to not just being one person, but be one average worker, like the buddy who ignored me. I just needed to see how far they would try to push me without so much as an acknowledgement to how much I’ve already done. Well, they pushed me even further, this time right off the edge, but it took me complaining to my friend about this fucked up day to realized that I’d been pushed over the edge a long time ago, and didn’t even fucking realized it.

I have become average. A slave to that mutherfucking paycheck, and some semblance of security in knowing its coming every week. I was pushed over the edge exactly a year and a month ago, I had just about finished building the website all on my own, when I endured a series of events at that job that didn’t lead to me just quiting, and going even harder on what I was already working hard on at the time, which was my online magazine. From being overused, my money being stolen out my locker by a co-worker, to being told by my manager that I got a promotion, then being told during my review, not to long after my money was stolen, that my attitude changed because I wasn’t promoted. Mind you the manager telling me this is the same one who told me to apply for the promotion, because I was getting it.
All of this negative stuff happened at this job in the short time frame between July and August and I didn’t react like a natural go-getter would and QUIT! All because I wanted to keep my credit good and pay off my two credit cards first and more importantly I was saving up to pay for a couple trademarks and fees for forming my LLC. Good reasons, but that should never have kept me in fear of letting the bullshit go and seeing the quiting as my golden opportunity to spend more time on my company. Instead I just hit the bottom when they pushed me over that proverbial edge. I stayed there long enough to allow myself a hard time with the climbing back up. Just like exercise when you stop for a while it becomes hard all over again to get back in the habit of doing. I was used to climbing, I’ve been climbing my way to the top for a long time and I somehow let this bullshit job, with it’s lazy bullshit people knock me off stride so much so that I have get back used to doing what I been doing, climbing.


Not taking it personal, just saying…

Now on to the next story of the night, which is just me telling you about some shit I learned a long time ago, that I had to remind myself of a couple hours ago. So I’m damn near running skipping down stares to catch my train tonight after I left this bullshit job and just as the train comes to a stop I notice my old college pal on the platform. We acknowledge each other with a hug and all that smiling “heeey, funny seeing you here?” stuff and I’m thinking aww, this should make for an interesting spin on my usual train ride, definitely keep my mind off the bullshit job.
Graffiti on the train ride home with old college friend that pretty much summed up the night.

Well the main thing I’m going to remember about this conversation was when he said
“How you plan on having a (successful) magazine, if you don’t watch tv?” Black girl, furrowed eybrows attitude begins here. What! Hold on Hold On hold on, let me explain. Apparently because I said I don’t watch much television, he assumed, I somehow don’t stay abreast of current events. Before I said anything about the internet duh! Or why would he say such a dumb thing to me I asked for other examples of how he came to this conclusion about me not being abreast of current events his examples goes back to the beginning of our small talk. He was coming from a free screening of some movie call The Town with Ben Affleck and other mutherfuckers I could care less about. Anyway when he said the name of the movie and dropped Ben Affleck’s name like we all went to college together and I failed to say “Ohh yea I saw the commercial on tv, how cool, I want to see that, was it good?” he kind of mentally gave me a strike 1, then I don’t know what we were talking about when he likened whatever it was to a fifty Tyson of 50 Tyson or #fiddyTyson and I had no idea what he was talking about he gave me a strike 2. So when we got to him exclaiming “ how you gone start a magazine, and you don’t watch tv” I’d already striked out. Before I hit him with the leftover attitude I as calmly as possible asked him why I needed tv, to have a successful magazine, he said I’m not aware of current events. This is when my attitude spilled out a little. So all because I don’t know about the movie you just saw and some dumb ass trending topic on Twitter (which I’m not on but didn’t tell him so he would have further ammunition for his stupidity), I’m not going to be able to get a successful magazine off the ground?! For starters you have no idea what the magazine is about for two are you not aware that before there was tv, there was newspaper and magazine! And last and most importantly are you serious, with a movie and a trending topic being “current events” REALLY? I mean I could see if I was like Oh I’ didn’t know Obama just mentioned something about the war being over and troops coming home, or Oh I had no idea Daley is about to retire or Ohh the oil not spilling anymore. Those and the almost countless amounts of misguided Black kids killing each other along with what songs Kanye is leaking off his upcoming album are trending fucking topics to me smart ass!
Wheew, now that that’s off my chest, the lesson I learned from my encounter with him, is that I already know and accepted the kind of person he is. I’ve known him from the beginning of college to be just who he is and we were friends once, And I knew then not to get in depth with him on certain things because we would just be looking at each other crazy. I learned then that sometimes you don’t understand people, you think you have an understanding with, and that doesn’t have to make you any less understanding toward them.
The day was September 15, 2010 Wednesday3:05a.m.


Could've used a little bit of this, before work today.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Week in deals and other good shit

The week is coming to an end, the summer is coming to an end and yet I still feel like where to I begin? Well let’s start at the beginning, its been a good week thus far. I went to my first meeting for Legacy Builders, a non-profit organization who’s exact mission statement I do not know but it’s all about the community and kids and giving back and all kinds of good shit with all kinds of good people.
Kanye West finally dropped “Devil in a new dress,” a song off his forthcoming album that I can see me liking for a long time, and J.Cole followed suit with a mixtape song “Villematic” that shares the same beat as the new Kanyeezy song. Willow Smith dropped her single, and though she’s only nine years old, I’m rooting for her, my last post showed why her dad is one of my favorite people. Speaking of favorite people my buddy Senyo landed back in town and promptly played me and that’s okay because I have a feeling this weekend will erase that. Oh and mayor Daley is retiring, this is probably only a good thing if we Chicagoans get a less corrupt person in his place but being that this is Chicago, the best we can hope for is slightly less. Oh and I got some pretty good FREE books.
And saving the best for last, I got ShOe DEALS!!! End of the season markdowns and I was looking for a black bikini top to go with some cover up shorts I also just got. I can’t wait to show you why in September I’m looking for swimsuits, just a couple weeks (hehehe smiling from ear to ear) I came up on pretty close to what I was looking for and some stuff I’d given up on…



So I thought these were cute and for $7 I couldn't leave them on the shelf, but when I go them home, I wasn't as in like with them and they're just to big so I was planning on selling them or taking back if I couldn't sell them for a bit more sooner than later. Then when my sister came to pick up my nephews I started showing her all good stuff I got in the last couple days for a little of nothing. Then she decided she just has to have the shoes and gave me $10 for them. No, I'd never hustle my sister.










I love Frye and I've been meaning for the last two years, since I got my first pair, to look up to company a bit further than the tag that comes with the product to see if the brand is as good as I'm feeling it is. So I've ben eyeing this shoe for maybe 3 months now? They started at $130 (though they retail for much more than that) and I was hoping not to many people would see in them what I did, so that they could stay around for the markdowns. They finally went down to $99, still to much and then when I thought there was only a 6 left, they went down some more and if my buddy wouldn't have alerted me to the price drop, I would've never discovered the $20 size 10 that was just sitting there waiting on me. Yes the 10 is a bit to large, but because of the shoe all I have to do is make another hole in the ankle band and they'll be perfect! I'm still in disbelief that I finally, actually got them. 1:23a.m.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Talent and Skill


I find it necessary to watch this video ever so often, if you watched it you can probably guess why.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Art Institute: Bresson and more...

Back at the Museum today to visit my old buddy Bresson. I just had to take advantage again of being able see again up close and personal some of the images that are so hard to come across on the internet.





I glanced at the Archibald Motley that I always stop and take a look at when I'm there. Blues 1929 which I had as a poster in college, I still have it around here somewhere and plan on getting my cheap reproduction framed one of these days.

I walked around a bit longer to try to avoid some rush hour traffic before I headed home...




Just when I thought it was safe to go home Fashion at the Museum stopped me in my tracks... I wonder if this 1967 ad was on Beyonce's inspiration board when she did that Diva video, or on the inspiration board of the designer who made the similar one's Beyonce wore.

Upon exploring more of the museum today I discovered Alice Springs better known as Helmut Newtons wife June Newton (Brunell). I found her in a Taschen book in a museum shop when I was trying to find out who is the photographer responsible for this iconic photo of Donyale Luna which is also the cover of the book I was leafing through.(Charlotte March took this photo which was published in 1966 in Twen magazine)


this is just a better photo I found online.


I didn't have this on today but this is what I wore the last time I attempted to go so I just posted it, just because lol. 12:00a.m.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Dressmaking

Old cell phone pic from earlier this year when my dressform came in the mail, but I did do some draping on the dress for Erica today, though she wont be getting a dress from me for her birthday unfortunately. Also my hair will probably never look like that again as I have been growing the perm out since April, but thats a whole new page to this blog coming soon.9:21p.m.