I5 South

I'm back! I missed all of you.

Leather jacket: Laundry by Shelli Segal (gift from Mom)

Grey v-neck: Express (thrifted)

Pinstripe skirt: Club Monaco (thrifted)

Lark ankle boots: Naya (eBay)

Pewter enamel necklace: unknown (thrifted)

Moving has imposed an interesting set of constraints: I'm in Southern CA now, but there's very little room in my mother's house for any of my things, much less a one bedroom apartment of stuff, even after selling my furniture.

... also, the closet of the room I'm staying in is filled with my brother's clothes, and he refuses to move them. -_-

So here's a go-to outfit I threw together out of what was available while I was driving up and down the state. 

I thrifted the Express shirt ages ago, because I really liked the side ties and the subtle silver and grey floral print. I think it's going in the donation box because the elastic cap sleeves were not designed with someone of my shoulder girth in mind, and the rounded ruched waistline in front doesn't do my build --wide-waisted in front and narrower in profile-- any favors.

Still, I liked it because it showed off the cool buckles on this Club Monaco pinstripe skirt. Most of my other shirts are too long and would leave the pseudo belt (it runs through a loop in the back and buckles above the front pockets) as a funny-looking series of lumps.

I am glad I went out on a limb (for me, anyway) and purchased this pewter, rhinestone, and enamel floral necklace at the thrift shop before I left. I needed more short necklaces, and though I was worried the colors were too bold/garish, I decided I needed more obvious colors in my world of dark neutrals.

PERSONAL STUFF after the break:

I know I'm very fortunate to have family that can put me up while I'm working part time and frittering away anxiety about my graduate school applications, but as a friend's friend pointed out while I was visiting Oakland last week, I'm without a home right now.

I'm a 'stuff person'. My home to me is a place where I'm surrounded by familiar objects and smells. It's where I unwind from the outside world and shut out some of the stressors of every day.

Three and a half years ago, I quit my full time job, shut the door on my first career, and went back to school, while undergoing a breakup. I ended up building up my apartment because I refused in some ways to acknowledge my lack of income and live like a penniless undergraduate. I was too old, however lacking in maturity, I thought, to rewind my lifestyle by a decade. It was too depressing.

I undertook the self-delusion willingly, because it gave me something to distract myself from ongoing existential crises and financial stress. I got furniture for a song off craigslist, picked some cheery art, tea sets, and decorations from thrift shops, and made myself a little calm world in my vermin-infested, run down apartment.

The hardest part about moving was tearing down that illusion, piece by piece, and really looking at each bit in my hand as I put it into a box for what it was- inexpensive trinkets, scratched and dented, that filled both a distressing number of boxes and an equally distressingly small physical space when it was done.

Intellectually I know I am not the sum of my material possessions, but when you look at a series of boxes when you move, you can't help but evaluate how much or how little you have accomplished in your adult life and how it does not measure up to an idea of yourself that you carry with you, that against which you, however much you sprint and run, will never, ever catch up.

I'm doing better now! And my diploma arrived, finally ending the nightmares that my Uni would screw me over one last time and tell me I had failed some final project or exam or missed some mandatory mystery class and had to stay another semester. But that all up there was what I was thinking about a lot over the last few months.

ALSO I'm helping teach at my friend's new martial arts school. Should any of you find yourselves in the Orange County, CA area looking for Chinese wushu, you should come on by! I'm there more nights than not, waving a straightsword around. There's no cure for an existential crisis like practicing wushu until you dry heave. Anxieties are prone to drowning if you provide enough sweat. (eww!)