I read an article about the ubiquitous Tory Burch a couple of weeks ago that basically claimed her husband rescued her from being a no-name PR girl, gave her her company, and then decided he wanted an exact replica of that company for himself. Only instead of selling things “two-yacht housewife” can afford like Tory does, he wants to sell to every woman.
I am that every woman, and I love his store, C. Wonder. Here’s a sampling of what you can buy at the NYC location (which looks like it was designed by Willy Wonka) and online:
The thing that really knocked my socks off was that when you order something from C. Wonder (like the slow-cooker, which I got on sale for, like, $11), your receipt comes in this packaging:
Mrs. Bachelor Girl is one of the first and best supporters of this blog, and the random number generator has rewarded her for her time. I’ll be e-mailing you, lady!
I’m not the sort of person you’d look at and think, “Now there’s someone who can probably cut a rug.” I’m fairly awkward, certainly clumsy, and not exactly, um, built like someone with a lot of rhythm and grace. (Although I want to cut the judges on “So You Think You Can Dance” when they scoff at a good dancer just because she doesn’t look good in a belly shirt and cameltoe shorts.) But I really love to dance. I don’t need to pound four amaretto sours to feel comfortable doing it, and I don’t care if other people are gawking at me.
So I was overjoyed when my best friend, Tracey, bought me Just Dance 3 for the Wii for Christmas. Having basically no experience with pop music, I was worried that not knowing LMO from LMFAO would make it less fun for me, but the makers of this game somehow managed to find only tracks that would wedge wildly into my brain for days at a time.
My immediate favourite was Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous”, because I’d actually heard it before and also used to love Nelly back when she wasn’t a slutty sell-out (nothing against slutty sell-outs):
My next earworm came from Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite”. I had no idea who Taio Cruz is, but I was so pleased that his song talked about Galileo:
I throw my hands up in the air sometimes
Saying ayo
Galileo
“Now there’s a man who doesn’t care about alienating his uneducated fans,” I thought. And then I learned that he actually says, “Gotta let go.” But it was close enough for me.
My other favourite song is now “Boom” by Reggaeton Storm, which is literally the last genre I would ever expect to get stuck in my head. And since it’s in Spanish, I sing ridiculous nonsensical lyrics to myself all day. Like:
Boom
Bop bop
Can I get a b’rito?
That’s right. I leave letters out of burrito in my head to make it fit.
Kamran’s leaving for California at the end of this week to take the bar exam out there, so he’s been waking up with me in the mornings and studying while I play the game. And since he has a one-room apartment, it’s meant a lot of him sitting around and critiquing/mocking my performances as he lounges on his bed mere steps from me. But he gets the songs stuck in his head just as hard as I do, and I feel like that’s revenge enough.
The funny thing is that the earworms only make me want to play the game more. I play in the mornings before work and then spend all day thinking about how I can’t wait to get home and play again. I can’t motivate myself to go to the gym unless Kamran’s threatening to put me in one of those 1950s-style vibrating belt machines that jiggles your fat off, but this game is so fun I actually look forward to it and want to keep playing long after my knickers are soaked with sweat and I need to go shower for work.
I was concerned it was going to be too easy after playing the Xbox Kinect version, Dance Central, where the creepy Kinect camera watches your full body with its beady robot eyes. I figured I’d just move the one arm with the Wiimote in it and let the rest of my body hang limply if the Wiimote couldn’t sense it and judge me accordingly; I thought about playing the game sitting down. But it turns out that Just Dance is harder than Dance Central. Where Dance Central is repetitious, Just Dance throws an intricate move at you once and then goes right on to something else. Just Dance doesn’t have any differing difficulty levels, but you’ll find yourself making your own as you start dancing first with just the arm holding the Wiimote, then with both arms after you’ve played a song 150 times, then finally with your legs. All while looking like an octopus with epilepsy.
Now I’m dying to try Just Dance 1 and 2 and am envisioning a future version where I get to choose my own songs from a list of a hundred and then receive my personalized game in eight to ten business days. The only thing I’m wishing for is a glove that I can strap the Wiimote into so I don’t have to hold onto it while I’m dancing; I’ve actually thought about buying Wii boxing gloves but wonder if that’s even weirder than holding on to the thing myself.
But hey, if my biggest complaint about the game is that I want to get more into it, they’re doing something right. If this is the thing that gets me fit, it’s going to be sooooo hilarious.
Liesi over at Too Crewel held a contest for a custom embroidery piece recently, and I was the lucky winner! I’d been slobbering over her Etsy shop nonstop, especially the United States pillow and the paper airplane hoop, so I asked her to combine the two ideas for me to make this:
It’s the U.S., with a heart where Ohio is and a star where New York is and an airplane trail connecting the two. <3 <3 <3!
She also did a piece for my friend Dishy that involves the entire family, the pet bird, the chickens, the rats, and the dog. If I never wanted to cram a chicken coop into the corner of my 900-square-foot apartment before (yeah, right), I sure do now.
I think I have split personalities. At least when it comes to my personal style.
See, most of me likes kid stuff. I’m super-nostalgic and get a lot of joy from surrounding myself with toys and games that remind me of my childhood. I grew up wearing clothes other people described as “funky”: tacky plastic rings as big as my fist, polyester bowling shirts, patent leather sneakers, corduroy pants when tight-rolled jeans were cool. I’ve grown up a little since then, but I still like weird t-shirts, earrings made out of Barbie shoes, my bedspread covered in giant jewel-toned polka-dots, and my record player that looks like the hood of a 1950s car.
But a little part of me likes beautiful things, too. The brown brocade curtains my roommate and I picked out for our apartment, the vintage mink stole Kamran bought me two Christmases ago, lace dresses worn with crinolines, pearls and pearls and pearls. Part of me yearns to be someone people would describe as “put together”. But I’m too scared of being generic to shop for sweater sets and riding boots.
I reconcile these two sides of myself by buying frilly party dresses from little girl stores like Forever 21 and ModCloth, but I remain torn. When I go to all of these nice restaurants with Kamran, I feel underdressed in even my poufiest taffeta number. But when I’m out on a Friday night in Williamsburg or the Lower East Side, I feel overdressed in my satin-trimmed “Real Housewives of Orange County”-looking shirts. When I see older women on the bus trying to look like Betsey Johnson, though, it just seems so pathetic. I don’t want to still be wearing teenager jeans when I’m 50.
I want to look like the kind of girl who lives in NYC, dates a lawyer with a Ph.D., and goes to all of the best restaurants but can still hang out at a $10 rock show in the back of some ugly bar. Does that have to involve leather pants and six-inch stiletos? If so, I’m clearly a failure, because I tried to buy expensive-looking jewelry from Etsy for myself yesterday and ended up adding this to my cart:
Can my “personal style” be a mix of polar opposite things?
Recently, Kamran and I were watching a nerdy “NOVA” special about the monarch butterfly’s migration from Canada to Mexico. Apparently they travel through the U.S. from different parts of Canada, avoiding death at every turn, and then converge in Texas, where they form a giant swarm and fly to Mexico to spend the cold months cuddling together on trees like this:
Growing up in Ohio, we saw bazillions of monarchs every summer, and I remember my mom always telling me not to touch their wings or they wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. I guess it’s because of her that I didn’t grow up to strangle kittens and set them on fire on the high school football field like everyone else in my town. Thanks, Mom.
Inspired by this, here’s a collection of monarch-related finds from Etsy:
• Confederate flag monarch barrette (Oh, crap, the seller removed this! But I want the record to reflect that a Confederate flag butterfly barrette totally existed on Etsy and was horrendous.)
I'm Katie, a farmgirl originally from Ohio who moved to NYC in 2005 for no apparent reason. I like vintage-looking things that are actually new, filagree everything, people who don't make me feel awkward, meaning it when I say "no sleep till Brooklyn", and not trying too hard.
