OY!!!
Yes, it's me! Pick your shattered spectacles up from the kitchen floor and wipe off your computer monitors (no, I don't know), for it is I! I am so excited to be rambling off on one of my sunny midmorning rambles (actually, it's two-thirty in the afternoon and pouring rain. But, as usual, go with it). As Brick Tamland would say, LOUD NOISES! Personally, I don't think I needed to add that link, because any person of true soul and strength of character would implicitly understand that Anchorman reference without the help of Wikipedia. Still, I do what I can for the soulless among us.
It has been a crazy month full of long, steaming, fry-a-sausage-on-the-street summer days and carefree, halcyon summer nights. In fact, I wish this amazing month of belly-dancing classes and bad haircuts and freshly cut grass and faraway sojourns wasn't behind me, but it is, which means it far past time to get cracking on Blogger and churn out some fresh insanity for you loyal readers.
I have just bid adieu to the beautiful Seattle, WA and resignedly returned to the tri-state area. So, as an homage to my completely amazing week here I want to do a little photo post. Be warned, ye townspeople and villagers- don't prepare yourself for traditional holiday photos. There will be nary a frightening beaming blond child in sight- obligatory Hawaiian shirts and bunny ears are replaced by enormous stuffed hot dogs and scads of vintage clothing. Enjoy!
My first stop on the Emma Tour de Seattle was the Sculpture Garden.

For something that was vaguely educational (or at least, not detrimental to my education) it was a lot of fun. Yes, that's an Alexander Calder...er...odd pointy orange sculpture thing, and yes, I think that tree is wrapped in cellophane. I also got to try out my rebellious new personality at the Sculpture Garden.

Yup. Despite the "Thank You For Staying On The Path" sign, I declined to stay on the path. I touched the grass with my toe. I veered off the path. I am nothing short of a fierce, troublemaking hellion. Perhaps I am even a scoundrel. Who can say for sure?
Next up...the Pike Place Market! Lots of noise, and tourists, and angry T-shirt vendors and such.
Yes, that is an enormous stuffed hot dog hanging from the ceiling. Even in New York, street dog capital, we have not such miraculous inventions. I expressed some interest in buying it to adorn my room, but according to the oddly smiley clerk (EVERYONE is oddly smiley in Seattle. After three days, I was positively longing to see the familiar scowls of the sullen, inattentive waitresses working at my favorite NYC haunts) at the hot-dog store, it is Not For Sale. Shame.

Now, the below picture may just look like an innocent furry-boots-and-mukluks stall. However, if you look closely you will start to see the shape of a scary, glowering old man amongst the boots. That is mostly because there IS a scary, glowering old man amongst the boots. He seriously looks like he is about to jump out of the computer and do me bodily harm, and when I took the picture (not realizing he was there) he grumbled and groaned loud enough to wake the dead. Well, as Andy Warhol says, Mr. Mukluk Man, we all have our fifteen minutes of fame...

I like this below T-shirt picture. It says that It is All Good. I choose to believe the gospel of the T-shirt.

After Pike Place Market, there was...

Now, this is the kind of bookstore I wish I could live out the rest of my life and afterlife in. I, being the biggest reading nerd this side of Hermione Granger (HP reference #1. Seriously, if you have an ounce of coolness within you, do yourself a favor now and exit my blog. I may slowly but surely suck it out of you. God knows I could use it), expressed a distinct desire to be buried in the fiction section (always my favorite section of any bookstore).

Shelves. But you probably got that. Yeah, no, I totally knew it was a book before it was a movie. Knew it the whole time (awkward laughter and knee-slappage to convey familiarity with important global warming tome). You can never have too many copies... New Yorker cartoons are a Manhattanite's A-B-Cs. Surprisingly excellent short stories when you get past the...ahem...assertive cover. Finally answering the age-old question, "What to get your stoner friend for his or her birthday/the holidays". Perhaps Emily Post should make note of this in her next book. Or maybe Miss Manners. I once read an entire Miss Manners book when I was eight and bored. It was actually quite fascinating in a car-crashy way, and now I know how to politely turn down a panhandler on the subway. A cute retrosexual boy and I reached for the same copy of this at the bookstore, but unfortunately since my life is not a chick flick we did not partake in exchanging witty pleasantries and exchanging contact information in order to meet up at a dimly lit bar and flirt over Cosmopolitans. He just gallantly let me take the book and then took the copy underneath it. Ehh. What're you gonna do.
And now for the stuff everybody seems to find the most interesting...the CLOTHES. Seattle has a fantastic shopping area. I got to go around to vintage stores introducing myself to the owners as a fashion blogger (so pretentious! So snotty! So much fun! I felt like the Queen of England, if she deigned to leave the palace and make a pilgrimage to the Emerald City vintage scene) and taking pictures. Therefore, consider me your guide to thrift/vintage/cheap shopping in Seattle!
1. Synapse Clothing
The supercool owner, shown here holding up an amazing pink vintage raincoat, let me wander around and take photos of the shop.

She also told me that she salvaged these funky tiger-print stools from an old Seattle nightclub. The store was kind of pricey and maybe a little too offbeat for me, but it was great and she was really sweet.

2. Le Frock



This was the most amazing store, practically a shoe haven which was fine by me seeing as I completely adore vintage shoes (a little skeevy, you say? Nah, not so bad once you've Lysolled the crap out of 'em). There was a whole staircase dotted with sporadic shoes on each step. There was also a Local Designers rack featuring mainly the fantastic Suzabelle. I bought two things, which I will show off at the end of this post with my other purchases. Basically, if you only have time for one vintage shop in Seattle...go to this one.
And finally...
3. Red Light Vintage

So, quite obviously, I want to live here, if not for the awesome clothes and shoes and storefront mannequins, then at least for the Elvis bust.
Check those stores out if you're ever in the Seattle area.
And now, for the feature presentation...all five bajillion of the clothes, etc. I bought in Seattle (before you get the impression that I'm loaded and rolling in the dough and such, you should know that I am, not to brag, a supreme bargain shopper so this was all fairly cheap)!!!
My gray, black and white eye-pattern minidress, which is so much cuter than it looks in the picture. My funky striped rugby shirt which looks great belted at the waist with my purple cinch belt and blue skirt. It only cost $3! My standby new electric blue T-shirt-dress which I will pretty much be living breathing eating sleeping walking reading blathering foaming raving and generally existing in for as long as the weather permits me to. My belts! My prides! My joys! Two dollars each at a thrift shop near my hotel! My pretty gray skirt, fairly nondescript but I needed some new skirts. Little vintage canvas bolero such as an army dude might wear, only perhaps not so cropped (it'll be cute with a sloppy tank and jeans, I think). I love this skirt, especially since it cost $6 and it goes with everything and it isn't a Predictable Denim Mini (although I have a few of those in my closet as well, including one mysterious size-00 one from Abercrombie which has been there forever and I know isn't mine as I haven't been a size 00 since the doctors cut the umbilical cord and probably not even then). This is the skirt I want to wear with the rugby shirt. This shirt is like a normal shirt on acid. It makes me want to wear neon and run about splattering canvases with lead paint and having affairs with artists and so on. This is the Suzabelle tunic top I bought, but since the website's picture of it is better than my own, there you go. I plan to wear a tank under it, for modesty's sake. New favorite shoes. 'Nuff said.
I also got a purple shirtdress which isn't photogenic and an Emma Brite charm bracelet and a purple tote bag which inspired the dippy salesgirl at the store I bought it from to expound for twenty minutes upon the unadulterated cuteness of bunnies (the bag has a cartoon bunny decal on it, you see), but I am on picture overload so you'll just have to trust that they exist and are currently making me very happy with this embarrassment of riches. Seattle was seriously one of the coolest places I've ever visited and I can't wait to go back.
Oh, by the way, TOUCHE19 YOU LUCKY THING I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE MOVING TO SEATTLE HAVE A CUP OF COFFEE FOR ME AND PERHAPS A BLUEBERRY SCONE BECAUSE DAMN THOSE PASTRIES ARE GOOD IN SEATTLE AND WHAT WAS I DOING? OH, RIGHT...

The Music, Movie & Book Corner- HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER. Good lord. The one thing I pride myself on is that I wasn't camped out at the store when it opened on the night it came out. I just. Er. Sped down to the Barnes & Noble as early as possible the next morning to get that 398439483-page book in my hands and Complete The Journey. Being a confessed Potter nerd, I spent the next 12 hours in a wizards' reverie- 6 reading, 6 contemplating. It wasn't my favorite in the series, and don't even get me STARTED on that crappy epilogue what the hell was THAT J.K. Rowling but it was really good and oh God it's over now and I may need to go boil my head. I used to wear a Harry Potter backpack. Sad, but true. And now it's the end of an eraaaaaaaaa...At least Ron and Hermione ended up together. Also cheering me up is the Hairspray movie, which I disturbingly enough kind of enjoyed. What can I say, I like John Travolta as a woman, I like dancing, I like integration. So all the core parts are there. Right now I have the Rolling Stones on heavy rotation (I bought a Stones tee at the Experience Music Project, which was perhaps the most incredible experience of my life in Seattle. It's a music museum which was featuring a Jimi Hendrix exhibit when I went there, and I would have taken pictures except you aren't allowed and the guards get all pissy and take away your camera phone), as well as, oddly enough, Rihanna's "Shut Up and Drive". Rihanna's not my favorite (so help me God, if I hear about her damn umbrella-ella-ella-e-e-e one more time I am going to STAB SOMEONE WITH IT), but this song is so helplessly catchy.

SIGHTINGS- Instead of doing a traditional Sightings log, can I scan in some cool pictures that didn't fit in anywhere else? Great. Thanks.



CURRENT ATTIRE- Stones tee, black terrycloth shorts, knee-length stripy socks, flip-flops (ONLY AT HOME, mind you. Only at home are socks and sandals permissible, and not even then, really. I'm just feeling jetlagged and lazy) I'm BACK, baby!

Insane, inappropriate amounts of love (and apologies for jumping ship for a month),
Emma!!!