Not a Celebrity Watcher

Day 3: Copy a Celeb -- Wednesday, 10/29/14

OK, I've gotta say, this one was really hard for me to do.  I really don't pay any attention to celebrities--I don't read those kinds of magazines, watch those kinds of TV shows, any of it.  I don't have a sense of any celebrities and what they wear except as shows up on some of the blogs I read...which is where I turned in desperation when I got this prompt. 

The Outfit Posts blog always shows an inspiration photo with every outfit, so I went there and worked back through the archives until I found a celebrity outfit that was work compatible, weather compatible, and consisted of items I have (reasonable substitutes for) in my closet.  I settled on this post from 9/24/14 with a photo of Jessica Alba in black pants, black polka dot blouse, and pink jacket.

And here is my version with standard flat-front regular length trousers instead of pleated cuffed crop pants (uh, no...even Jessica Alba is barely pulling that off with her long thin legs and high heels), a more colorfully dotted black shirt (that I shortened to be a more useful length than its original almost crotch length--Target, what are you thinking with these really long shirts?--anyway, yay for doing clothing alterations), and a magenta blazer in an entirely different shape.

Black/pink/white knit top (thrifted, Target--newly shortened)
*Magenta 3/4 length sleeve knit jacket (thrifted, Ann Taylor)
Black-on-black striped pants (thrifted, JCP)
Black pointy-toed flats (Nordstrom)
Gold chain link necklace (Ann Taylor)

Verdict:  I loved this outfit!  It was comfy and felt pretty polished and snazzy.  I don't think I ever would have put these items together without the Jessica Alba outfit inspiration photo.  (And bonus, I pulled out a jacket that I've had for a little while but hadn't gotten around to wearing until I was specifically on the search for a pink jacket to match the photo.)

This makes me think that using celebrity outfit inspiration photos is a good idea, especially since the Outfit Posts blog is doing all the work of curating the photos, selecting inspirations that are relevant to normal women with normal jobs.  I like that she shows both the inspiration photo and her own outfit photo because that's really two inspirations in one.  Of course, there are a lot of blogger (not celebrity) outfit posts I could use as inspiration as well.  I'm thinking it would be fun, after this 31 day challenge is over, to create my own blogger challenge, where I use outfit posts from bloggers I follow to inspire a series of my own outfits.

In Cuffs

Book Review:  The Likeness by Tana French

5 stars

Another excellent mystery in the Dublin Murder Squad series.  I liked this one a bit more more than I did The Secret Place.  An undercover cop turned murder detective turned domestic violence detective gets back into the undercover game by taking the place of a dead doctoral student who happens to look exactly like her.  (The student is found dead in circumstances that allow the cops to pass her off as having been attacked, abandoned, found in a coma, watched in a coma for a while in the hospital--giving the cop time to prep for the gig--before waking up, recovering of her wounds, and returning to her regular life.)  Among other things, she discovers that the lifestyle of an English PhD student who is past her courses/quals and whose advisor is reluctant to push for any progress on the dissertation after her near death experience is much, much easier than that of a domestic violence cop.  Harder is keeping up the pretense under the watchful eyes of her four housemates/fellow grad students/de facto family, one of whom just might be the killer.  Will she get someone in cuffs by the end of the book?

Day 2: Add a Cuff -- Tuesday, 10/28/14

I have a lot of shirts I could cuff, but I decided this was the perfect opportunity to debut a pullover sweater I bought recently at Goodwill.  Because I was interested in a few roomy sweaters I could easily layer shirts under, I checked out the men's sweater selection as well.  This cream pullover was a nice find--a useful color, a collar unlike any of my other sweaters.  I visualized it with jeans for the weekend but put it into an outfit for work here.

The sizing on this thing is insane.  It is a Men's Large Tall.  But it's more like a medium around the body and it is not very long at all, shorter than most men's sweaters, I think.  However, the sleeves are crazy long.  It is hard to imagine any human for whom this combination of dimensions is right, though perhaps a chimpanzee or other monkey-type critter would love it.

Anyway, thus: the cuffing of the sleeves.  (I have a sorta wonky photo trim job here because I wanted to show off both cuffs.)

*Cream pullover sweater (thrifted, Field Gear--men's)
Brown pinstriped pants (thrifted, Chaps)
Gold pointy-toed flats (Nordstrom)

Verdict:  It felt a bit odd to wear an outfit without a scarf or a necklace.  I would wear this again, though I think I would wear my brown flats and would wait for a day it's cool enough that I would want a scarf with it, too.  It occurs to me that my selection of scarves with brown in them truly suck.  Something to keep in mind.

31 Days, 31 Ways

I decided to up my game by participating in the 31 Days, 31 Ways style challenge that I saw linked to approximately everywhere on the Internet.  If you don't read this kind of blogs, you may not be aware but this is a thing.  The idea is that it pushes you to mix items together that you already own to create new outfits without having to shop.  People at more advanced levels will even pick a certain number of clothing items (e.g., 20 or 30 items) and attempt to make a bunch of outfits out of that limited set.  (This is a related concept to that of the wardrobe capsule, in which you pick a set of items that can all be mixed and matched together.)

But I'm playing this game on the beginner level, so I'm using my entire wardrobe for the challenge.  After all, part of my challenge is to wear the new items I haven't worn yet.  (I also only over-buy for my closet space, not my budget, so that's less of a concern for me.)

This remix challenge is a bit different from many (most) because instead of just coming up with X new outfits from your items, you are given a prompt to guide each day's outfit.  These prompts put extra difficulty into the game because some of them might be a reach for you, encouraging you to put outfits together in ways you aren't used to.

Day 1: Pairing Print and Color -- Monday, 10/27/14

This is a mega-easy one for me because print + color is a very common approach for my outfits.  I took advantage of the warmer weather (high of 65) to wear a new short-sleeve cardigan that I could not resist buying at Goodwill even though it's not quite seasonally appropriate.

I read somewhere recently that it's a good idea to strive to wear your clothes enough to get down to a $1 cost per wear.  So I would only need to wear this cardigan four more times to get there.  I've already got this striped skirt down to $1.25 per wear after two days!

*Black t-shirt (Target) -- this t-shirt has been too long for a lot of situations, but it's perfect with this pencil skirt that is loose in the waist so I wear it down lower on the hips (bonus: the skirt's knee length this way, a common theme of mine).
Black/white striped knit pencil skirt (thrifted, Target)
*Aqua short-sleeved cardigan (thrifted, Loft)
Black LifeStrider flats
Aqua/red necklace (Target)

Verdict:  I was very pleased with how this outfit turned out.  I'm glad I decided to keep the aqua/red necklace because it really adds a nice pop to my many aqua and/or red outfits.  Best of all, I think the t-shirt and skirt create a base I could use over and over again with different cardigans (of which I have, well, a lot), necklaces/scarves, and shoes/boots/tights to make a ton of new outfits.  So even though this prompt didn't get me to do something I don't already do (mix print and color), it helped me find a specific shirt/skirt combination that seems pretty much endlessly wearable.  If I add this combination to the way I wore the skirt before (with a black cardigan and a colored t-shirt--and I have a lot of colored t-shirts), I'll get the cost per wear down to pennies.

Finishing Up the Week

Black and White and Pink All Over -- Thursday, 10/23/14

I just love that color combination.  And pencil skirts.  With bare legs.  As evidenced below.
 

*Black/white knit top (Target)
Pink pencil skirt (JCP)
Black jersey cardigan (thrifted)
Black point-toed flats (Nordstrom)
Pink "floral" necklace (Target)

Comfier Than Pajamas -- Friday, 10/24/14

Seriously, a skirt, top, and cardigan all made from soft knit material can be comfier than pajamas.

I bought this skirt in a big order of knit pencil skirts from Old Navy, and this was the only one I kept.  The ridiculous and unacceptable variation in Old Navy's clothing sizing/shaping continues to drive me crazy.  But I'm still glad that I found this skirt.

One thing that's weird about it is the waistband.  It has a thick band of elastic that the skirt material is sewn onto (it's not elastic encased in fabric, just elastic) that is supposed to then fold down underneath the top of the skirt so that it doesn't show.  Does that make sense?  The waist is supposed to be two layers -- the elastic that folded down behind, and the knit fabric on the front (on the other side of the fold).  But there is nothing to keep the elastic folded down behind the fabric properly so it slides and bulges oddly.  Fortunately, it was easy-peasy to just unroll the skirt so the elastic is at the top with the fabric sewn on below it, cut out the tag in the back that is now sticking up over the edge of the elastic, and wear it that way.  It's more comfortable, more stable, and gives the skirt that extra 1.5" or so in length that makes it perfect.

*Black knit peasant top (thrifted, Banana Republic)
*Black "Y-dye" knit pencil skirt (Old Navy)
Cream jersey cardigan (Kohls)
Captoe nude flats by Clarks
Black/white floral necklace (Kohls)

I Forget

Book Review: Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson

4 stars

Ironically, I don't remember this book very well.  The setup is that the protagonist has a particularly (weird) kind of amnesia: she has lost her memory of her life since her early 20s (though on bad days, she forgets everything past childhood) and wakes up every day expecting to be very much younger and in a different place in her life.  Every morning, she, with the help of her husband Ben (who is a total stranger to her), figures out that she's married, middle-aged, and an amnesiac.  During the day, her memory functions like normal (this is not like other books/movies in which characters are unable to create new memories and thus live their days in confusing 30-second chunks or whatever), but something about sleeping at night resets her memory again.  Fortunately, she's keeping a (secret) diary, which gives her (and us) information about her recent past.  The book is marketed as a psychological thriller, but I found it much more psychological than I did thriller.  However, that worked for me.

What to Wear to the Most Awkward Work Meeting of Your Life -- Wednesday, 10/22/14

My group met with some people from the technology department, including their top dog, about a big project that the two groups are working on and it was super awkward.  Up until this point, I'd been sort of astonished by how nice, professional, collaborative, etc. everyone I'd met at my workplace is -- how can everybody be so easy to work with?  Then I met the boss of the technology department and it was immediately like, Oh, OK, this guy is a jerk.  A particular kind of calm, rational-seeming, manipulative jerk.  There's a lot I could say about it, but I will just make two observations:

(1)  It was one of the most blatant "yep, I'm obviously operating from a position of male leadership privilege and so you [our department head, who is a woman] are just fucked in this situation" displays I've seen in real life.  For example, he could make totally rude statements, in his calm, matter-of-fact way, and she could not respond with any kind of appropriate annoyance, anger, etc., without seeming like an "emotional female."  And if she were to make any kind of similar comments, she would be at risk of moving into the "bitch" category.  (One of the stylized facts of organizational behavior research on leadership is that men can be successful if they are seen as competent, but women have to be both competent and nice.)

(2)  When there is nobody in the technology department who knows XML, he describes this as "We don't support that."  When there are only a few people in our department who know SQL, he describes this as "Your people do not have the basic skill set they need to have" and says that her people are too deficient in technical skills for his people to be expected to talk to us or explain anything to us.

Blue tie-neck shirt (Lands End)
Navy pants (Dockers)
Blue pointy-toed flats (Nordstrom)
Blue sparkle necklace (Kohls)

Could Not Get Comfortable

Abandoned Book: Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood

I couldn't get into Oryx and Crake (the first of the MaddAddams series), despite its excellent reviews, and so have not read Atwood's recent books.  But I decided to give this book of short stories a try.  Well....couldn't get into it either.  I actually read the first 2 stories (the first didn't really go anywhere, the second one the main character was annoying), half of the third story (both characters were annoying and boring), skipped the fourth story because the physical description of the girl creeped me out, and read the fifth story (better, but it also really didn't go anywhere).  At that point, I just decided, meh, what's the point.

I cannot deny that Atwood's sentences were excellent, and she did limn characters that were distinctive (if unpleasant and uninteresting).  But I was unsatisfied with how the stories just ended, leaving you like, Um, okay.

The Last Target Necklace -- Tuesday, 10/21/14

This button up blouse has a very clever fix for the common gaping-at-the-bust problem: the center where the buttons and buttonholes are has been sewn down.  I like how this necklace encouraged me to wear red shoes with the outfit, which I would not have otherwise done -- I liked the effect.

*Turquoise animal print blouse (thrifted, Express)
*Black pants (thrifted)
Red buckle flats by Me Too
*Turquoise/red necklace (Target)

I didn't like the necklace when I first saw it, but it looks better on.  After wearing it for a day, it really grew on me.  (Luckily, not literally.  You know, Margaret Atwood could write some top-notch pages of writing based on this premise, but I don't think that story would go anywhere either.)

Unexpectedly Great SF Novel

Book Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

4.5 stars

This quiet, unassuming little post-apocalyptic novel packs an amazing punch.  The backstory structure is handled brilliantly and the threads of the narrative come together in a very emotionally satisfying way.  I want to read the Dr. Eleven series of comics (even if there are only two issues).  I love that a group in the book takes their motto from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager and that the set-up of Justin Cronin's excellent The Passage is described by one character to another.  (You have read The Passage trilogy right?  That was a series that was good all the way to the end.)  But this isn't a book that tends to be funny or something you immediately want to start reading half of to people who are trying to play a computer game at the time (I mean, you know, theoretically a person could want to do that).  It's something that builds slowly and sucks you in.

One thing to be aware of going in is that it is not a semi- (pseudo-) realistic portrayal of how a segment of humanity survives a modern-day plague and the collapse of civilization.  There is no loving three page description of how somebody builds a crossbow, MacGyver-style, out of random metal scraps, etc.  It's more a story about relationships at the end of the world.

Read this book!

Starting a Long Week of Meetings -- Monday, 10/20/14

What a tiring week that was.  It's nice that I went into work on Monday oblivious to the mild tribulations to come...and wearing a spiffy necklace/scarf combo.

*Textured white button up shirt (thrifted, Foxcroft--I haven't owned this brand before but I've heard good things about the fit of their shirts, and here is a very similar style for $88)
Green trousers (Kohls)
*Black/blue/white/brown silk scarf (thrifted, Adrienne Vittadini)
White/black necklace (gift from Mom)
Black button suede shoes (thrifted, Franco Sarto)

(I feel a little silly because I took this picture before deciding to put a camisole under the shirt.  Duh, white shirt means: needs camisole.  Awkward.  At least I remembered before going to work!)