I Want to Hold Your Hand

Dress, Cardigan 

Academia: I've been an advisor in my program for almost a year now, and over that time, I've learned a lot. I've learned that Google Translate is my BFF. I've learned that you can giggle just as easily with a woman who speaks two words of your language as you can with a girlfriend, because the things we giggle about - like men - don't change from culture to culture. And I've learned that while some students never need my help, some students always need my help. This is true every day, but I saw a few "always need help" students today, so I've been turning it over in my mind this afternoon.

I think it's that moving to a new country affects different people in different ways. Some people hit the ground running and are perfectly happy figuring things out on their own. Others reach for the nearest outstretched hand (mine) and grab on tight. I'm happy working with both kinds of students, but I get to know the hand-holders a lot better because I see them all the time. I know when I see them in the hall that they are going to have a question, even if they hadn't thought of it until the moment they saw me. Living abroad is scary, you know? If I can make it less scary, even if I have to do the same things over and over for the same students, I think it's worthwhile.

Sartorial: Holding people's hands is easier in comfortable clothes, and this outfit is supremely comfortable. I didn't change when I got home because it's so comfortable. I had something different planned, but overslept and didn't have time to iron. And while this is yet another black dress belted with this cardigan, I felt happy in it, so I declare that it worked. I like declaring things. I also declare that "supposably" is not a word, that the beach at Pawleys Island, SC, is the best in the world, and that everyone should watch and love Doctor Who.

A Shorts Story

Shirt, Shoes, Earrings 

Academia: Happy Memorial Day! I hope y'all are enjoying the holiday. I celebrated by spending the morning in my pajamas, taking an online traffic course to avoid getting points on my license after getting a speeding ticket a couple of months ago. Turns out that a "four hour traffic course" really only has about 90 minutes of actual content, but since four hours are required, you can't complete the course until you've logged that much time online. I've got about an hour left and I'm pretty much done with all the reading. Fun times.

To alleviate the total thrill that is online traffic school, I took a break this afternoon, got dressed, and went to see Bridesmaids with some girlfriends from work. And I thought it was great. There were a few parts that were a little raunchy for me, but those moments weren't too many and I thought the movie did a wonderful job showing what it's like when one friend is moving on to a new stage in life and another isn't. So, two thumbs up (with one eye shut during some of the gross moments).

Sartorial: Since I didn't go to work today, I took advantage of the rare opportunity to wear shorts on this blog. Hello, legs! I got these shorts a few weeks ago at Old Navy and they have become my go-to weekend wear. I love that they're a little baggy and a little long, and that they have giant pockets. They're so comfy that I left them on to sit on the couch, blog, finish traffic school, and watch reruns of Doctor Who on Netflix. And that's really saying something. Couch-sitting is usually a job for yoga pants.

I Was So Right On Thursday...

... about The Baby-sitters Club being like Sex and the City in terms of fans comparing themselves to characters. I just found this article at Zooey Deschanel's new(ish) entertainment site for women, Hello Giggles, called "Which Babysitters Club Member Are You?" Although the author forgets to mention a few characters (sorry, Jessi), she firmly cements my childhood perception of myself as wanting to be Claudia (she had her own phone line), but actually being Mary Anne.

PLUS, there's a link to an article called, "Which American Girl Are You?" I'd better be Felicity because that's the doll I had and I went to Williamsburg, Virginia on my honeymoon. Not because of the doll. Just because it sounded nice and we could drive there. Although I did spend our day in colonial Williamsburg saying, "This isn't how I pictured it in Changes for Felicity." Luckily, Cary didn't get creeped out and try to trade me in for a less weird wife when we got home.

EDIT: I just read the article, and I am Felicity! Just like the article says, I wanted Felicity because her clothes were the prettiest, I have an affinity for lovely things, I've always tended towards self-righteousness a little bit, and I have a latent familiarity with colonial Williamsburg! Yay!

Dresser's Block and Friend Friday

Jeans, Brian's Etsy shop

Academia: After work, Cary and I went to the AT&T store and he got an iPhone 4, which we used to take these super-high def pictures on campus this evening. Brian was with us, and it was fun to pose in a pretty location with what felt like my personal team of photographers. Maybe this will inspire me to venture out into the world more often, which I'm sure will be a relief to y'all - you must be starting to feel like you've been trapped in my backyard forever!

Sartorial: Y'all ever have a day where you're just plain out of creativity? Today is that day for me. Can we call it dresser's block? Inventing a catchphrase like "dresser's block" would be really exciting for me. I know you've seen these jeans with pretty much every t-shirt I own, but I just wasn't feeling any of my dresses or skirts today and I didn't have time to iron my other pants. So I put this on and added a fancy necklace in the hope that you would be distracted. Did it work? No? Ummm... oh look, Friend Friday questions!

1. How often do you get your hair cut? Even though I'm growing it out right now, I still go every five weeks or so. Short hair can get ugly real fast when it's in an in-between stage, so I regularly check in with the salon to keep it maintained. Once it's the length I want (a little above shoulder-length), I'll probably go every 2-3 months to keep it the right length and looking healthy.
2. Do you go to the same stylist each time, try someone new, go to the cheap hair cutting chains, or live it up in a salon? I go to the same stylist each time, and she works in a salon. She charges $20 for a shampoo, cut, and blow dry, which I think it pretty reasonable, considering the peace of mind I get from never having to worry that she's going to wreck my hair.
3. Do you color your hair? How often? What's your natural color? This is my natural color. I've never colored my hair, except with Sun-In at the beach once or twice. Coloring seems like an expensive regimen (if it's done well) that's hard to quit once you start, and I like my natural color anyway. I'm not anti-coloring, it's just not for me.
4. The one thing you always do to keep your hair looking great is: Wash every day with volumizing shampoo and conditioner, and blow dry with a round brush. I have super-fine hair that looks greasy after 24 hours of not washing, so washing every day is a must. And if I don't blow it dry, it just hangs there, looking flat, so I blow dry upside down for a minute, then stand back up and use the brush to help dry from the roots and turn the ends under.
5. What hair trend do you love and wish you could rock? I've had short hair since high school, and I really miss being able to put it up. I'm anxiously awaiting the day when it's long enough to put in the milkmaid braids or bun that every fashion blogger seems to wear so well!

A portrait of the artist. This is Brian, whose jewelry I wear pretty much every day.

The Baby-sitters Club

Earrings

Academia: Today at work, I had to be a little mean. I don't like being mean to students. I like being happy and smiling at them. But sometimes they don't follow directions, and then I have to start nagging. Fun fact: the word for nag is pronounced almost the same in Arabic as it is in English. Thanks, former students from the Middle East who taught me this when I nagged them! All of our students have to have health insurance and get immunized to take classes. Most of them take care of this right away, but a few don't, and then they ignore my pleasant reminders, and then I have to bar them from class, which I hate doing because it's a giant inconvenience to everyone involved.

So today was the day people got barred from class, and therefore the day they turned up in my office saying, "What? What I do now?" Part of the problem is obviously a communication breakdown, since many of these students are beginners. But another part is that they're basically kids. They're all 19 or 20 years old, away from home for the first time. And so, like all kids, they need a little nagging sometimes...

Sartorial: ... which I was appropriately dressed for today, since I felt like I was channeling a famous fictional babysitter, Claudia from The Baby-sitters Club, a little bit. Did y'all read The Baby-sitters Club? Who am I kidding, if you grew up in mid-80s to mid-90s, of course you did. Of all the girls in the club, Claudia was the arty one. She was always wearing things that didn't seem to belong together, like giant ripped-up neon shirts with striped mini-skirts and polka-dot tights. In other words, she was a fashion blogger before "fashion blogger" was even a thing.

I really wanted to be like Claudia when I was 10, but I was actually Mary Anne, the rule-follower. The Baby-sitters Club was basically the forerunner of Sex and the City, as far as its fans' comparisons of its characters and themselves went. For the record, I'm also Charlotte. But today, I felt a little like Claudia in this outfit. The dress and Victorian-looking earrings are kind of an unexpected juxtaposition with the super-casual jeans and Chucks, which seemed like something Claudia might wear. Just give me some giant bangle bracelets, a dozen chocolate bars under my pillow, and a failing grade in pre-algebra, and I'm all set to be the vice-president of the BSC.

University of Five Guys Fashion

Earrings

Academia: Today, I went to work and tried to make my body forget I ate Five Guys for dinner last night. That restaurant is so delicious, and so likely to make you feel gross after you eat it. My Five Guys belly played a big role in my fashion choices today...

Sartorial: ... mainly in that I didn't want to wear a belt (gasp, but I'm a blogger!), denim, pants of any kind, really, or anything that would squeeze my midsection in any way, shape, or form. So I pulled out this skirt and top and all of a sudden became College Emily again.

I got both of these pieces in college, and they're pretty representative of what "dressed up" meant to me when I was 21. Solid colored shirt, patterned a-line skirt. I didn't wear this every day (shorts and t-shirts were for every day), but for fancy occasions, this was what I relied on.

I actually got the skirt to wear when I studied abroad in Spain in 2005, because I heard that Spanish women dressed up more than American women. Which turned out to be 100% true - it was not quite as hot as the surface of the sun in Sevilla that summer, and everyone was walking around in dresses and heels. I wore skirts or capris every day. It was a good sartorial experience - got me out of my t-shirt rut. And, you know, that whole "living in another country" thing was a good experience too. 

College Me in the skirt during a weekend trip to Portugal.

Also, I joined Independent Fashion Bloggers today. I thought it seemed like a good way to get plugged in to the blogging community. I haven't set up my profile or even figured out where to find the button so I can put it on my homepage (help, anyone?), but I've gotten a LOT of friend requests. So, is that normal, my more experienced blogger friends? I mean, I'm happy to be friends with anyone. But did I get all these requests because I am so plainly fabulous that everyone wants to be friends with me, or because this is pretty normal for everyone who joins IFB?

Edit: Five minutes after I posted this, I went back to IFB and saw the big "Get the IFB badge!" link on my dashboard. It took six years of higher education to attain this level of intelligence, y'all.

The Good Wife

Cardigan

Academia: Today is Cary's birthday, and I've been an awesome wife for it, if I do say so myself. Things I did to be awesome today:

1. Got us tickets to see Les Miserables when we're in Los Angeles on vacation next month.
2. Got the batteries replaced on all his dead watches.
3. Stayed up late to put birthday notes around the house (a tradition in his family that we've carried on into ours).
4. Got up early to watch him find the birthday notes.
5. Organized our friends to eat dinner at Five Guys.
6. Wore this dress, which is one of his favorites.

Let me be clear: Cary is a wonderful husband and totally deserved all of this. He may or may not be reading this over my shoulder right now. But it's true either way. It's also true that I'm basically the best wife ever.

Sartorial: Like I said, this dress is one of Cary's favorites, so I pulled it out and tried to remix it for his birthday. I wore a similar color combination last week, but I think this has a slightly different look. Also, I know I wore this cardigan yesterday, but it was the best choice for covering my shoulders and back. I tried wearing a t-shirt underneath and felt like I was getting dressed for my 5th grade class picture, so that was out. So in the end, this turned into several remixes at once. I think it's okay though. I felt pretty, and that's pretty much my only measure for whether an outfit works.

Also, this watch! This was my great-grandmother's, whose name was Emilie (my parents changed the spelling to make it more likely to be spelled right). It has her maiden initials engraved on the back, so it's from the 1920s at the latest, since her oldest child, my grandfather, was born in 1929. It's in good working order, but the leather band was broken and I hadn't worn it in a couple of years. So when I was getting Cary's watches fixed, I got mine fixed too. 

Answered Prayer = Busy Day

Cardigan, Brian's Etsy shop 

Academia: It was a busy, busy day. I started at 8:00 with the first meeting of my work prayer group. I've started getting together with two other Christian faculty members once a week to pray for our students and each other. It was such a great way to start the week, and it quickly became clear that God was definitely listening when I prayed to be given lots of opportunities to help the students this week. I ended up needing to walk to the infirmary (20 minutes from my office) to help a beginning-level student get immunized because he had no idea what any of the nurses were saying to him, as well as write an insurance appeal letter for another student, two things I've never done before. It was great to help in new ways, but between all of that and getting ready for Cary's birthday tomorrow and a meeting at church this evening, I'm wiped out!

Also, I was checking blogs in a slow minute this morning and saw that I got a shout-out from Shea at Bon Chic Bon Gastronomique today. It was a great surprise. Thanks, Shea!

Sartorial: I've been searching for the perfect cardigan for this dress forever, and I think I've finally found it. I felt polished and stayed cool, except for my 40-minute round trip to the infirmary, because it's really impossible to stay cool for 40 minutes in 95-degree heat. But I loved the nude shade with the bright turquoise of the dress, and got an, "Oooh, teacher!" from a student. A high compliment indeed.

Going to the Chapel

Academia: Cary and I went to a wedding yesterday, in the neighboring town to the town where we got married almost five years ago. It was a morning wedding, starting at 11:30, and the ceremony was a traditional Episcopal service. The reception began with a cocktail hour, followed by a buffet lunch. It was a beautiful day - a lovely ceremony and a great party. I love weddings.

Also, we got to hang out with one of my very dearest friends, Debra. I met Debra the same week I met Cary, working at camp the summer after my freshman year of college. So yeah, that was a pretty good week for me. Because the wedding was early in the day and about three hours away from our town and Debra's, we all spent Friday night in the hotel where we had our wedding reception. It was great to revisit a place that holds such happy memories for us, and to spend time with Debra.

Yep, we're classy ladies.

Sartorial: To me, morning weddings, especially in the South in the summer, call for breezy skirts and blouses or brightly colored sundresses for women, and ties (but not necessarily jackets) for men. I thought this skirt and blouse fit the bill. Most of the people at the wedding were dressed similarly, but a few seemed not to have gotten the memo. A couple were in satin and sequined mini-dresses, which I think would be borderline even for an evening wedding, or untucked polo shirts. Not even for a beach wedding, y'all.

I may be a bit too judgy. I should probably work on that. But really, sequined mini-dresses to a church wedding? Really?

Debra and I getting dressed the morning of my wedding. I'm trying to pin her in place, not punch her in the shoulder.

Friend Friday: Y-O-U-R Means "Your"

T-shirt, Jeans, Earrings

It's Friday again, which means another set of Friend Friday questions. Let me quickly go through the Academia/Sartorial sections, and then we'll get straight to the good stuff: talking about blogging pet peeves.

Academia: Today is going to be a short day at work and a long day in the car for me. Cary and I are heading three hours south to the wedding of a young woman who was my junior counselor when I was a camp counselor in college. We're pretty excited because we met and got married at that summer camp, and the wedding tomorrow is in the next town over. We're going to spend the night at the hotel where we had our reception (and where, Cary points out, we've never actually stayed together, unless you count separate rooms on opposite ends of the hotel the night before our wedding as "together"), and we're going to see lots of camp friends. I'll post outfit pictures on Sunday.

Sartorial: Still not tired of the jeans. Glad to know y'all aren't either. I really like them with this t-shirt. I feel like the grown-up version of the cast of ET. I almost wore my Chucks just to drive the early-80s point home, but sandals are easier to take off in the car.

On to the questions! Or rather, the list of my blogging pet peeves. Honestly, I don't have that many. But here are the ones I do have, in no particular order:

1. Misspellings and bad grammar/punctuation. I know that blogs are informal and that everyone, including me, falls victim to typos every now and then. But habitual errors bother me. I'ma let my buddy Ross Geller break it down for you. Seriously, "I'ma?" "Break it down?" Who am I?
2. A billion pictures of other people's outfits, none of your own. This is really just a personal preference, but I can go to the mall and look at what designers and retailers have put together. What I want to see is what you put together, because you are a lot more interesting.
3. Music. I like music. But I don't like having to turn your music off when I visit your blog, especially when I'm surreptitiously looking at blogs at work. A sudden blast of "I Hope You Dance" makes people stop and look in my office to see what's going on. And then I have to pretend I'm writing an important email. So please, no music.
4. Everything you're wearing costs more than $100, and it was all free because you're a super-awesome, super-successful blogger. I'm just jealous and wish I had free clothes. It's not your fault. Keep doing your thing, and I'll try to be a grown-up about it.
5. Buttons out the wazoo. Buttons are fun. But when it's hard to find other features of your blog because there are so many buttons, you start to look like the internet equivalent of a college girl who only ever wears the t-shirts from her sorority's latest party or weekend away. Those shirts are fine in moderation, as are buttons. But with too many of either, it seems like you're really desperate for people to know you participate in stuff. This has to do with the organization of your homepage as well. If you have a lot of buttons but keep them all in one place and it's easy for me to see other features, I don't even notice that they're there.

So there you have it. And let me disclaim: if I've ever commented on your blog, you don't do these things and I'm not talking about you. All y'all are fabulous.

Gifted

Academia: Today, things were pretty chill. The highlight of my day was having lunch with my friend and colleague Melina. Melina and I have worked together since we were in grad school and both on teaching assistantships, and we both stuck around as adjuncts after graduation because we liked being here so much. And we were both just hired as core faculty members in our department, hooray!

Melina and I were officemates for years, which is how we got to be friends, bonding over our mutual students and our mutual dorkiness (girlfriend's master's thesis was a linguistic analysis of the special features on the Lord of the Rings DVDs, and I read those books/saw those movies approximately 700 times in college. Just call me Eowyn, y'all). This is one of the best things about working in academia: there's probably someone you work with who is dorky in the same ways you are, and if you work in a small department, you're probably going to become friends. It's basically every high school nerd's dream come true: a whole university full of smart coworkers with slightly non-mainstream interests, and you're together all. the. time. Okay, I can't speak for all high school nerds. But it was definitely this high school nerd's dream.

Another reason Melina is awesome is that she a secondhand shopping heroine. Everything she buys is adorable and she always pays like $3 for it. I wish she had a blog so y'all could see her fabulosity first hand. On our way to lunch, we were discussing where she got today's cute outfit (which, again, was a steal), and I realized...

Sartorial:... that almost everything I'm wearing today was a gift from someone. Hence the title of this post, which is a reference to the freebie nature of my wardrobe and not my super-intellect. I'm sure my super-intellect is so obvious that further discussion of it is unnecessary. My blouse and skirt were both gifts from my parents. My necklace was a gift from Cary's mom. My bracelet was a gift from my aunt Melissa. My earrings, which you can't see in the pictures, were a gift from Brian. The only things I'm wearing that I actually purchased myself are my shoes, my watch, and my bra. I didn't even buy my underwear, because for years and years I always got underwear in my Christmas stocking. TMI? I feel like these little confessions are bringing us closer together, but maybe that's just me...

 So, what have I learned today? First, I need to make Melina my secondhand shopping sensei. Second, I have very generous friends and relatives. Third, it's probably time to start buying my own underwear. Especially since the last stocking that my mom Santa Claus brought was two Christmases ago... when I was 25. Don't judge. My mom Santa Claus is just that awesome.

Camel Rider

Necklaces (Katogo Long doubled and Katogo Short), Bracelet

Academia: Thanks for all of y'all's feedback yesterday! I'm going to keep this section of the posts, but try to focus it a little more on individual events rather than a rundown of everything I did in a day, and possibly talk about how fashion influences my job and vice versa. So, that said...

I ate lunch at Gyros Plus today, a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean restaurant near campus that is extremely popular with my Middle Eastern students. It's so yummy, but so messy. I spilled my Camel Rider sandwich on my shirt (ground beef, Middle Eastern spices, and hummus on a pita, mmmmm), so now I have a lovely grease stain to complement the rest of my ensemble. But on the plus side, I got to eat with about 12 of my students eyeing me from across the restaurant, which is never always fun. Were they waiting for me to pass judgment on their culture's food? Were they wondering why a teacher had shown up in the middle of their free time? Were they wondering if all Americans try to simultaneously wear and eat their food? Who knows. But the answers are delicious, because Cary ate my last frozen lunch, and I can't speak for all Americans, but in my case, yes.

Sartorial: I wore the warmer-weather equivalent of this outfit pretty recent, so I didn't really break any new ground here. I just like the combination of black and white with aqua and bright jewelry. Nothing really more to say about that. Now, where's my Tide-to-Go pen?

Primary Colors

Jeans, Shoes, Earrings

Academia: Got woken up by Atticus continuously from 5:00 to 6:00 this morning. Overslept. Ate breakfast in the car. Helped a student find daycare for her baby, helped another student find a sublease. Took a five-minute nap in my pink armchair. Jumped a few inches out of my pink armchair when I woke up and realized I had fallen asleep at work (thanks, Atticus). Came home, ate dinner with Cary and Brian, and went to a meeting at church. Should I discontinue this section of my posts? I feel like I write the same thing every day. My job isn't boring to me at all, but it sounds kind of boring written down.

Sartorial: This outfit is the end result of 15 minutes of trying things on and pulling them off and throwing them in a pile on the bed. It's a little chillier than normal here (and by chillier, I mean not 90 degrees), so I wanted jeans this morning. Maybe someday I'll get tired of these jeans, but that day is not today. It probably won't be tomorrow either.

I tried this scarf on as a belt on another outfit a few weeks ago. It wasn't right for that outfit, but I knew it would be a good belt with something else, so I was excited when it worked today. I liked the combination of primary colors in today's ensemble, which is echoed in the belt and earrings (which, you can't really see, are Scrabble tiles with yellow and red beads). After yesterday's all-neutral get-up, this was a nice change of pace.

The Fountainheadband

Cardigan, Brian's Etsy shop 

Academia: Same old, same old. Told students I couldn't make their teachers move them up to a higher level class, sent students who are still living in hotels to apartment complexes, celebrated that one of my closest friends at work also got hired full-time. Hooray!

Thanks, awesome husband!

Sartorial: I had two sources of inspiration today. One was this adorable headband that Cary bought me in Washington DC. Yay for gifts, especially ones that don't say, "My husband went to our nation's capital and all I got was this t-shirt." The other was Academichic's Book Cover Challenge. E. posted an outfit on Friday that was inspired by the cover of Making Face, Making Soul by Gloria Anzaldúa, and invited readers to do the same with other book covers. I thought and thought about it last night and couldn't come up with anything.

Objectivism, anyone?

Then I got dressed today and realized I matched the cover of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which, I have to be honest, I didn't finish because I read it right after Atlas Shrugged and was suffering from Ayn Rand Overexposure. But the neutrals with coralish red were there in my outfit, as well as the geometric patterns in both the book cover and the headband. And I felt a little 1940s, which is when The Fountainhead was written. I'm bummed that I didn't think to take a picture with the book, but mine and The Fountainhead's matchiness hadn't dawned on me yet when I was taking pictures this morning. Oh well, win some, lose some. Unless you're a character in one of Ayn Rand's books, in which case you win everything or are outed as the giant loser that you are.

Fashion Beauty Friend Sunday

I forgot to answer the Friend Friday questions on Friday, and didn't want to post them without including a picture of some kind. So here I give you a spinning picture. It's not even from Friday, and I look like a goober. I'm not sure how other bloggers manage to pull spinning pictures off gracefully.

1. What magazines do you subscribe to? I subscribe to Southern Living, which has nothing to do with fashion, and everything to do with my not-so-secret desire to be a combination of Scarlett O'Hara, Paula Deen, Scout Finch, both of my grandmothers, and Queen Elizabeth (who isn't Southern, but is gracious enough to qualify). Cary subscribes to Mental Floss, which I love to borrow from him. I honestly don't like fashion magazines very much - they're all ads and everything feels so inaccessible.

2. Do you watch any fashion TV shows? I love Project Runway. Cary and I get together with my sister and brother-in-law and another couple on Thursday nights to eat dinner and watch it together (we DVR). I really need Tim Gunn to follow me around giving advice like, "Emily, this worries me," or "Make it work!" I also love What Not to Wear. I think I could be BFFs with Clinton and Stacy. Clinton and Stacy, if you're reading this, I promise I'm not crazy, just a big fan. And I love/cringe at Fashion Police. I laugh while praying that I never meet Joan Rivers, and if I do, that it's on the best-dressed day of my entire life. Girlfriend is a little scary.

3. Beyond blogs, what websites do you frequent for fashion inspiration? Hmm. Like I said in Question 1, I'm a little turned off by the big fashion magazines, so I avoid their websites. There's just so much high-concept stuff that looks ridiculous and is basically unwearable by most women, and I don't like feeling like I'm supposed to applaud and rush out to buy whatever is put forth. Maybe I'm unsophisticated. I don't know. I do like looking at online shops like ModCloth for inspiration, but that's about it.

4. Advertisements play a huge role in forming public opinion about a product or brand... what ads do you like and why? Since I don't buy fashion magazines and I now have a TiVo so I can skip commercials (hooray!), I'm not exposed to as many ads anymore, but I really liked Dove's campaign a few years ago about embracing real beauty. They had women of all colors, shapes, and sizes in their ads. I bought a lot of Dove products for a while there, until I had to scale back my budget and start buying store brand stuff.

5. Do you own any fashion books? No, but I sort of did for a minute. I bought my friend Adrienne Clinton Kelly's book Oh No She Didn't for her birthday and read the whole thing before giving it to her. It was hilarious and I would recommend it to anyone. I almost kept it and just gave Adrienne a card, but then I remembered that I'm an awesome friend and handed it over. Actually, I remembered that Adrienne is an awesome friend, felt bad for being selfish, and handed it over.

So, what have I learned from answering these questions? That I really don't like fashion magazines, for one. Is that okay for a style blogger to say? I'm kind of waiting for lightning to strike me. Or for Tim Gunn to turn up saying, "Emily, this worries me." Which would honestly be fantastic, so maybe I should say it again: I don't like fashion magazines!

Nothing, Tim Gunn? I'm still waiting. Feel free to intervene any time.

Frock of All Trades

Dress, Shoes, Earrings

EDIT: This was Wednesday's post, but then Blogger ate it and returned it with mistakes. When I tried to fix them today, it reposted as today's post. Grrr...

Academia: What didn't I do in this dress today? I watered Cary's garden, gave seminars to new students, walked all over campus in the 90-degree heat, helped more people find apartments, dealt with several students' "I didn't plan, now you have to help me RIGHT NOW" situations, went to a meeting at church, ate dinner at Moe's with my sister Suzanne, wrote an epic poem, learned to knit, was chosen as the first-string kicker on my university's football team, gave an interview to Vogue, and submitted a plan to the White House to resolve the conflict in Libya. It was quite a busy day for me.

Okay, maybe I didn't do some of those things. I certainly can't knit, and my plan for Libyan peace is a work in progress. But the other stuff, that definitely happened.

Sartorial: With such a full schedule today, I wanted an outfit that was comfortable and a no-brainer. Enter the most flexible dress of all time. (See other ways I wore it here, here, and here.) The problem I had was finding a way to cover my shoulders while staying cool in the heat. This shirt is lightweight, but still long-sleeved, and tying it at my waist created a sticky band of sweat there - gross. I think the time has come to invest in a short-sleeved cardigan. You know, if I can wedge shopping time in between football practice and poetry readings. I'm a very busy lady.