To The Airport

Shopped My Closet: 

White Birkie slides: a regular purchase every two years or so. These were $20 at Marshalls.

Gap jeans, cuffed: cause I'm traveling for 6 weeks starting today and jeans are inevitably the heaviest and bulkiest thing. (Them, and my toiletry bag.)

White tank and white lacy tunic

Magnifying glass necklace and glass initialed pendant 

Turquoise pashmina for the plane/ black cardie for the June gloom fog and cold

No pics? Again? Well, yeah, cause now I found my camera charger but can't find the USB cord. I suck. I think it's comfy and cute. 

Also, my hair is an alarmingly Soviet-era brunette. I have been coloring it at home the past 6 months, to save on money, and because I loathe the 7 gray hairs that merrily pop up around my hairline. Normally, I use the same boring shade every time--despite the fact that I crave some pink streaks, or a panel of platinum, or some burgundy asymmetrical tips; being a teacher kind of makes for boring hair, I think--but this time, decided to be even cheaper, and bought L'Oreal Preference instead, in dark brown. (A color so boring they can't even give it an interesting name!) $8 versus the $12 I normally pay for Nice N'Easy! Done!

False economies, though, since it came out looking like I had a very old cat on top of my head. I tried to persuade myself that it looked deep and mysterious, but really, harsh is not the same thing as deep, in so many ways. Of course, neither the budget nor the time allowed for salon fixes--plus, I've always hated it when they shame you for doing your own color; I like my guy cause he's $20 cheaper than anyone around here and NEVER makes me feel bad about doing it myself. So, I hightailed it back to CVS, bought a medium golden brown shade to try to lift it a teeny bit, and lo and behold, it sort of worked. I have a feeling it's going to be a brassy nightmare by the time I get back from Israel, but oh well. Teach me not to be so vain. 

But yeah, it does strike me that coloring it myself may be a false economy. IF those goddamned grays didn't keep popping up like weeds every month, I'd be more willing to spend more for better color, but...well, see above re: vanity. 

Am headed to Asheville, then Baltimore, then NYC, then DC, then home, then Israel in the next two weeks. Posting will be sporadic. I am a nervous wreck about stretching my dollars while traveling, so maybe the fear will translate into discipline?

Sally Jane is Just Effing Enviable

6-21-09
Originally uploaded by Sally Jane Vintage

In my mind, I often do a fair imitation of a 1930's hits the 60's wisp of a thing: new to the city, with a throaty, smoky voice that belies both my years and my lucent eyes. my bangs dip and swirl like a mask, like a flirtation, and my reed-like legs look gamine and nimble like a fawn's as I traipse across the cityscape to my next rooftop, black market, underground, 100% thrifted bizarre bazaar nu country gig.

What? That's HER doing all those things, not me?

Shee-it.

www.sallyjanevintage.blogspot.com

100% Thrifted Lovelies

Originally uploaded by Erin Liz

God, the color combinations here are so perfect. I love how the snakeskin becomes totally neutral with the red and the turquoise tights. (I tried colored tights for a winter, once, and...well, at least I tried. She, however, looks ACE.)

I Slipped. On Purpose.

The recriminations are around the corner, so if you're thinking about sending them my way, no need to bother yourself. I went to Goodwill.

That sentence, just so you know, always ends up about $30 down. I went to Goodwill in PB, because:

a) I spent my morning reading Painfully Hip, which in turn made me crave--CRAVE--a thrifting run, because I too want to be painfully hip and because thrifting is awesome and magical and fun. (The flip side of a), however, is that I should have been cleaning because I leave for 6 weeks of travel on Tuesday, have no spare cash, and am really trying not to leave the apartment a pit. I have a dream about coming back form my curriculum workshop a perfect teacher with a perfect goal and a perfect apartment and an absolutely enviable, together life. Anyway, I'd like to start off with a clean apartment. Blogging is probably not part of the ideal a).) Point being: perhaps reading thrift fashion/ street style blogs is not helpful?

So, how did I drop $30 at Goodwill? (Netted: one ridonkulous glass pendant with an "M" engraved on it, a total find and worth it; three perfect vintage T-shirts and one weird aqua zip-up T-shirt jacket from f21. Very good finds, but that's not the point.) 

Because I thought I could and I thought I deserved it and I wanted an excuse to go and get out of the apartment and I wanted stuff for my summer "look" and I kind of suck. 

I do. I NEED my cash desperately right now. I could have gotten by forever without those t-shirts, ideal as they may be. I need to get to the airport and pay for food and pay for coffee in cute cafes with W. and get to my first wedding destination and pay rent and pay my water bill and why oh why? I am so weak-willed. It's like the resolution to shop my closet, to be okay with what I have,  never even happened. 

Why isn't enough enough for me? 

Why is my greedy little short-term magpie of desire so much stronger than any vision I have of the future?  

It's so twisted, this need I have for More and for New. It's got nothing to do with what I have or want and definitely, obviously, nothing to do with what I need. To be disgusting about it: sometimes I see it as the financial equivalent of popping a zit. You know you shouldn't--everyone tells you it will scar and experience tells you it will scar and you know it will scar and the black-feathered angel of regret is standing, waiting for you outside the door and you do it anyway because you know under all that and after all that: it will FEEL SO GOOD. 

Inspiration #3: Yoga, Always

Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training Retreat - Level 1
Originally uploaded by Yoga West Vancouver

So, it's Saturday morning, and to be honest, after my hair finishes drying form the yoga sweat, Imabout to dye the five grays that bug the shit out of me.

But yeah, yoga: always. Forever, hopefully. At this point in my life, Judaism is what guides me in my dealings with the world, and gives me a way to understand what God demands of me in my action, my being in the world I'm born into and participate in--and then yoga, my other leg, lets me live in my Self, which is also and equally a gift from God. I am equal parts Pirkei Avot and Patanjali.

At this point, my practice feels like a majority swing towards Kundalini yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, who I honor as a master teacher. Kundalini yoga has healed me on levels I didn't think I could be healed on, and given me space inside myself where the Truth of my identity continues to unfold. Vinyasa, or sometimes Anusara or sometimes Ashtanga, gives me a place where my physical Self can dance and be strong. They are both truly lovely, and sometimes I feel an ego-driven choice to choose one (and please choose the more normal, more acceptable one, I catch myself thinking...). I don't know why I try to force myself to make this artificial choice, as I love both and benefit from all, but there it is. I think sometimes the spiritual work of Kundalini feels too much, and I need to be more physical, and sometimes it feels just glorious to push myself through a sweaty vinyasa class.

Feeling spacious on the inside is a tremendous gift from the Guru; that space allows your soul, your shared and Godly soul, to bloom and breathe and search through you like a child playing. If you knew that something like that was waiting for you, a smiling and patient and receptive lover waiting for you always, always always finding you again happily, wouldn't you do something to get yourself there? That is yoga, for me. The loose hamstrings are nice, and the ability to accept myself and find myself in myself are equal measures of strength.

Inspiration #2: Is It Weird That I Have Favorite Wardrobe_Remixers? And Miss the Ones Who Left the Group?

Originally uploaded by jodache

Cause jodache was flat damn bitchin. Gawd. If I had not inherited all of my nana's Russian/ Swiss Jewish booty genes, I too could look like this. The mix of lean lines, handmade, colorblocking....le sigh. Too bad I'm a big tall barrel of curves.

Sweet! Inspiration #1

Nail Chain 002
Originally uploaded by takeoffyourclothes...

Love this...love the way the artist made something really tacky really lovely and kind of violent, just by taking it out of context....

Panic at the Apartment

This is ridiculous. Really.

I just just just published a post about not shopping for 6 months, and already--already!--am jonesing for a shopping run. A thrift store! Something small!

But I don't do small. I really don't. I went to Heaven on Earth--aka the Rose Bowl Flea Market--and took out $60, with the intention of getting Just The Things On My List of Perfect RBFM Souvenirs--and left, having spent every penny. At one booth. On costume jewelry. (Which, btw, is admittedly totally rad and I have worn it all every day since, regardless of the fact that that could possibly make me look...insane...) Or the other day, after opening up my email the day after he Hardest Year of My Life officially ended, and getting the single nastiest, meanest email from a parent I've ever gotten--and then driving straight to the mall and spending almost $200 on sale costume jewelry. 

Yes, I really did do that. It's so ridiculous, and I have no excuse. 

But I still want to go shopping today. Ideas?

"They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt.  But she was very anxious to have it done with the least possible pain to him and Elizabeth.  She drew up plans of economy, she made exact calculations..."

Persuasion, Jane Austen

In Which I Prepare to Shop My Closet

"Cancer, Friday, 19 June 2009

As we approach the solstice, we find you getting ready to leave a limitation behind you. Like someone who has been practising a difficult manoeuvre, growing slowly more adept at a challenging task, you're now ready to put your skill to the test. Might you find the theory rather different from the practise? Well of course. That's bound to be the case. But it doesn't necessarily follow that you will fail, even if you make a few preliminary errors. You're doing something brave for the right reasons. You have to get the right result. The Solstice this year is due to have extra special potency. Be ready for several months of amazing opportunity. "

http://cainer.com/

Well, GOOD.

Are there preparations one should make before one--who is, by all accounts, an inveterate shopaholic, a mistress of the material, a lovah of the newnewnew, an addict for fashion, thrifting, newness (that word again!)--before this person dives into her newest and most lifesaving project? 

That person would be me, and that project would be 6 months of no buying nothing. Grammatically incorrect but pithy sentences aside, are there any preparations I should have done? I'm itching--ITCHING--to jump back in my car and head to AmVets on the flimsiest of pretexts, just to have the high that only thrifting brings me. (Yeah, I know this necklace/ shoes/ picture/ pitcher/ dress is the bomb, and for only 2 bones? You know you're jealous...) Was last Monday really really my last day there for 6 months? I'm kind of screaming inside thinking about that...

Here's the thing: I love new. New-to-me, brand-new, Target, Anthropologie (which is the very highest of the high end for me), street vendors, flea markets--my magpie heart and needy soul make no distinctions. I can tell you, and probably will, as I use these months for an ongoing therapeutic dialogue between my inner spender and my honest revulsion at how much shit I have in my life and how little I really have to show for it--I shop to fill in all the empty places that crop up in my life. I shop to make hard days worthwhile, I shop to have something to talk about, I shop to give myself something to do. 

And, frankly and somewhat repetitively--I have SO MUCH. More than I could ever justify, more than I can reasonably use, even if I dressed like a stoner boho granny for the rest of my life. Shopping my closet is going to get me to my yoga teacher training program, it's going to get my jewelry sideshow up and running again, and maybe it can even do the impossible: help me pay down and keep down the credit card debt that keeps scaring the shit out of me and up at night. 

It needs to happen. It really, truly does. So here's my plan: shop my closet. Shop my toiletries--my never ending collection of pinky blushes and nudish lipglosses. Don't buy anything body care-esque till it's all used up and gone, regardless of the sale. Channel all the money into a $1000 emergency fund. Debt Snowball the credit card. Cut up the store cards. Journal a lot. Commit to journaling every time I want to spend on something beyond food and yoga. Go to yoga classes as often as I can. Be financially aware and get used to checking the checking account daily. 

I feel the same thrill I feel at the beginning of every project--the same thrill and determination that I felt at the beginning of my 5 months of veganism, the same I felt as I tried to commit to 40 days of Bound Lotus (before I KO-ed my right knee and had to stop), and honestly, the same I felt as I've tried to commit to this same path over and over and over again. (I've tried in different time increments: a week! a month! no, it needs to be a HUGE commitment to get me to really make it--make it a year!) I honestly can't tell you if I'll make it, just the same as I can't guarantee that tomorrow little green people won't plummet to earth singing opera arias, the world being the uncertain in-flux place it is. But I will be honest, and I will document every outfit and every purchase and every solution and every $100 saved, and look, I promise I'll try to be a little funny about it all, if  I can. 

Today's Outfit (pics to come when I find my camera charger):

Jockey wifebeater

Thrifted Charlotte Ronson sundress

Thrifted necklaces

J. Lo giant Lucite cocktail ring, from a splurge occasioned by a nasty nasty letter from a parent

Red Worishofer sandals

Today's Savings:

$128.35