Let me ask you, the assembled, a burning question (what a weird expression. Do questions burn? A question is not a sexually transmitted disease or a scalding cup of coffee; ergo, how can it burn?).
Do you ever feel like you've been rambling on about something for decades and nobody's been paying the remotest bit of attention?
Sure, at times this happens to all of us- you launch into a "super-funny" and "brilliant" anecdote and realize ten minutes in that everybody around you is not listening, and is in fact wrapped up in their own thoughts while mindlessly nodding at everything you're saying as if you're a mildly interesting episode of E! True Hollywood Story that's really too much of a pain to turn off, so you just leave it on and vaguely absorb a word or two here and there.
But I'm talking about a more specific rant, one you launch into constantly and regularly.
My own personal Perma-Rant is the dicey topic of leggings.
I have stood atop my soapbox and preached endless sermons about the evil that is leggings. I have drawn diagrams, I have given mini-speeches, I have hyperventilated hysterically at the mere sight of a friend's legs shrouded in the evil things...to no avail whatsoever.
Look, I get it, okay? Sometimes you want to wear your cute little H&M dress, but it's a length that would look weird and disproportionate if you wore jeans under it, or you're a little insecure about parading your half-naked legs around town, or you don't want to risk an embarrassing Marilyn-Monroe-gone-wrong subway-grate fandango and show the world your undies when you're getting off the A train. Sometimes, you will need to wear a pair of leggings under a skirt or dress.
The operative word there being "under".
UNDER. Leggings, if you're going to wear them, go UNDER things.
Leggings.
Pants.
Two SEPARATE entities.
Pants are worn solo. They are loners. They are Lone Rangers. They traverse the desert alone, with only a didgeridoo, a hip flask and a trusty steed for company. They are single and proud.
Do you see where I am going?

Leggings need a COMPANION. They need something over them; some type of skirt, dress, shirtdress, really long sweater (but that last one applies only if you happen to like the whole Brenda-Walsh-goes-to-cardio-funk-class look). Otherwise, you are trotting around town in an extremely unflattering pair of thin pants facsimiles that announce to the world, "HEY WORLD! COME HERE AND LOOK AT THIS CELLULITE! AND PLEASE NOTICE EVERY SINGLE POCKET OF FLESH AND FAT THAT I AM DOING A REALLY BAD JOB OF MASKING!" I don't care how proud you are of your butt. Even the most Thumbelina-esque little Minnie McSkinny can't get away with Leggings On Their Own.
Anyway.
My point is that sometimes you can just rant on and on and on about something and all you get is a slightly sore throat and perhaps a headache from listening to your own voice blathering on for an hour and think, God, has my voice always been that high? I sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks going through pubescence.
But I digress.
In order to help the world at large grasp hold of a few simple fashion concepts that I believe everyone should be aware of, I have created some nifty little rhymes. And, yes, I just used the word "nifty" for the first time since the Crimean War.
DR. SEUSS'S GUIDE TO FUGOSITY, or TEN SIMPLE RHYMES TO HELP YOU NOT COMMIT CRIMES AGAINST FASHION.

1. Girls who wear leggings are cruising for eggings.


2. Formal shorts are like gross fabric warts.
=
3. I take a firm stance
Against harem pants.

4. When I see Uggs with a skirt
My eyes start to hurt.

5. If you think cankles are neat,
get some ankle boots, tout suite!


6. If it's rompers you crave
You might just be depraved.

7. Bra not providing the boob warmth you need?
By all means, wear a tiny vest; classy, indeed.

8. Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
Jaunty caps died with Marissa Cooper
So unless you're a newsboy from 1913
Kindly flush them down the pooper.

9. By the beard of Zeus, Nabokov, do you see what you've started?
These tiresome shades should be dearly departed.

10. High-waisted overalls are always hits
If you want to punish your lady bits.

Next time you open your Hideous Crap drawer (and, honestly, don't we all have one? Mine includes such couture garments as the "SAVE A ROMAN CAT TODAY" t-shirt with the decal of the big fuzzy kitty on it, the drab green pilly turtleneck that would make Gisele look like Danny Devito, and the mysteriously stained navy yoga pants that will never look either remotely flattering nor completely clean, no matter how many times they are washed) and think "Wow, these shiny leggings definitely need to be worn RIGHT NOW with my newsboy cap and tiny argyle vest", I hope you'll remember one of these mantras, resist the temptation and go put on something wholeheartedly fabulous.

This cat=adorable.
This cat on a T-shirt=creepy and unattractive and smacking slightly of Old-Woman-Who-Lives-Alone-And-Leaves-The-Apartment-Once-
A-Week-To-Buy-Cat-
Food-and-Bunion-Cream.
Nobody really wants that, do they?

THE MUSIC, MOVIE, BOOK AND (TODAY) OTHER RANDOMOSITY CORNER- I like the song "I Wanna Take You Out In Your Holiday Sweater" by Pas-Cal. It's just cool. And it makes me think of holiday sweaters, which makes me think of the fact that the holiday season is rapidly approaching, which makes me think of the fact that I have negative money and have to come up with gifts, which makes me perspire, which makes me need to purchase my favorite Secret Asian Pear deodorant (FYI, Asian Pear deodorant is amazing. I have not as such smelled an Asian pear and don't know if it smells different from a regular pear, or, for that matter, if a regular pear even has a smell, but it's still yummy. Much better than Jasmine Orient. Who wants to smell like Jasmine Orient?), which poses a problem, because like I said, I have no money. So that's an annoying little train of thought. But still, the song's good.

I, like so many others before me, refuse to get over The Princess Bride. In fact, I have now seen it...let me just tally up here...yes, officially too many times. Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya! You killed my father! Prepare to die!
Look, I realize that's not funny anymore. But let me have my moments, okay?

You know what's super annoying and insulting to my intelligence?
I was watching Gossip Girl (and, okay, some could argue that my love of this show is slowly draining me of said intelligence, but it is AD.DIC.TIVE) on the CW website and every time a song played, the site quickly told me exactly what it was and who sang it. Not so bad, you say? Maybe even convenient? Yeah, that's what I thought. Until the site also started telling me just what each character was wearing and how much it would cost me to obtain it. If the show had its way, I would have spent $540-plus after watching the first episode.
Nice try, SHOW. I've seen Josie and the Pussycats way too many times to call myself a fully normal human being. I know what you're trying to do.

A good book to read if you're sick of all the pink-jacketed, trite, loser-is-actually-beautiful-but-just-doesn't-see-it-until-the-hottest-guy-in-school-
points-it-out books is Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now. It's got relatable aspects mixed in with an absurd, yet not-at-all-cheesy storyline. I mean, I'm as much of a sucker for chick lit as anyone,
but eventually it just gets ridiculous. It's really refreshing to read a well-written book
about a teenage girl that isn't written entirely in italics and hyperbole and peppered with
self-deprecating comments and anecdotes about super-hotties.
Not that this here blog reads like Tolstoy, but, you know, I'm a teenage girl and there is only a very finite amount of years in which it is societally permissible for me to be a twit. I wouldn't want to waste them on intelligent thought, or anything. How gauche!

The cover's actually very nicely representative of the book- girlie elements mixed in with a much deeper, darker, magical thing.
I recently got in touch with my craftsy, hippie-girl, street-fair-beaded-smock-selling arty chick and endeavored to create earrings from these mini cassettes.
Result- or, as they say in warmer countries, Resultio! (I, taking French, do not know if that is correct Spanish. I hope it is, but I doubt it). Ta-daaa! I think Flower Desert Moon would be really proud (that's what I've named my crafts-fair alter ego). The other one is being fixed, so it's just the one on its owney for now. Still, I'm quite happy with myself, since everything else I've tried to make ends up looking like the aftershock of a glue tsunami. What do you all think?
I also need some bloggerly advice on this pair of shoes. My fabulous godmother snagged them for me at Annie Creamcheese, and they're vintage Marc Jacobs (phwoarrr) with the prettiest pale lilac soles you ever saw. However, shoes cannot be cute by soles alone, as the saying goes. They are much prettier in person, all sparkly-jeweled and fabulous. Still, is the pointed-toe cool or too Wicked Witch of the West? I don't want to start frightening tiny children away from me or cackling "I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too." It's one thing to take fashion inspiration from Dorothy (The Narcist, your comment about your "Naughty Dorothy" shoes was awesome. That's how I've started to think of my sparkly shoes as well! And, FYI, your World Erotic Arts Museum post made me pee with laughter). Do I really want to embrace the witch's style as well? One thing's for sure, I'll take Wicked Witch over Glinda any day. That cheery pink puffball always gave me a cavity.

What'chu smiling at, Glin? YOUR CROWN IS RIDICULOUS.

SIGHTINGS- A girl on the subway in a brown plaid mini-coat, dark brown leggings, Uggs and a pink-and-brown O'Neill backpack inspired my little ditties. JESUS. I am about three seconds away from having an apeshit, cuckoo-bananas rage blackout.
"NO...SPANDEX...LEGGINGS! EVER!"
I was also passionately jealous of a girl I saw in the halls wearing a gray dress similar to my beloved Suzabelle one. She wore it with a black turtleneck, tights and shiny black boots, which actually looked pretty great.
A boy I saw outside the Apple store was wearing one of those handmade tote bags you get on some specific website. It said "Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica." I fell a little in love.
And here I thought only girls made those bags!

CURRENT ATTIRE- Actually wearing clothes that aren't made of sweatshirt material for once. Purple tights, black boots, black vintage BCBG dress, darker-purple long-sleeve shirt under dress, indigo waist-cinching belt, black doctor bag. I feel a bit like a particularly moody purple Crayola, but I'm embracing it.

Ciao, bellas.