I like the way you walk

After a string of unsuccessful dates and an empty bank account, I'm finally burnt out and looking for excuses to stay in. Add onto that, the heat index is about 100°F and I have no qualms about not going out. I'm actually looking forward to staying in tonight. I plan to sew and watch Andy Griffith. I think that the news of his passing was some of the saddest to reach my ears all summer. I grew up with tremendous respect for Andy Griffith and I've always taken great comfort in knowing that he was still alive. It's tough news to hear that one of your childhood idols has passed on.  I had planned to wear this outfit to the zoo, but after taking these photos I had sweated so madly that I decided it wasn't worth the pit stains and changed into something sleeveless. I'll save this for cooler weather. I was most just excited to share one of my Crafty Projects...these sunglasses!  I've been in love with the floral sunnies at Dolce & Gabbana as well as with some of the other designer spin offs that have followed. Almost immediately after seeing them in one of my fashion magazines, I vowed to make my own by the end of the summer. I used polymer clay to make little flowers and then glued them to some cheap-y sunglasses using E-6000 glue. I'll post a tutorial soon and am already buying more inexpensive sunglasses to decorate with odds & ends. I'm kind of addicted...  I spent today running errands around town, being successful in 2 out of 3. I leave for Guatemala in 5 days and seem to have so much to get done before then! I'm absolutely excited to be down there for 8 days, building roads and helping in reforestation efforts. I won't be bringing any fancy sunglasses down there, but I'm looking forward to the experience and hoping that it will change me for the better. My 5 weeks backpacking Europe had such a huge effect on my outlook on life and especially on materialism...I'm hoping that going to Guatemala will influence that even more. I think that when most people stumble upon the blog, their only impression of me is that I'm some dumb teenage girl who only cares about clothes and make up and how she looks...which is so untrue. Yeah, I like to look decent and I think clothing and make up are really fun creative outlets, but there's so much more to me than that. I was recently having a discussion with a co-worker about why I only have a couple of girl friends. The reason is this: the number one question I get from girls is, "Where do you shop for clothes?" That is usually followed with, "Can we go shopping together?" To be quite frank, I hate talking about clothes and shopping (to an extent). It's so mundane (also, to an extent). Most boys couldn't care less about what I wear, where I bought it, etc. and thus I have real, actual stimulating discussions with them. Girls start and end with clothes and shopping, which really isn't me at all. I was reading the new Teen Vogue and in the article with Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield there was a very poignant ending note. It kind of went something like this: Emma Stone: But people do always ask that. They ask who is my style icon, what's the one thing that I can't leave my house without. I'm always like, "My clothes!" I can pretty much leave without anything. It's fine as long as I'm not naked.
Andrew Garfield: I don't get asked that—
Emma Stone: You get asked interesting, poignant questions because you are a boy.
Teen Vogue: It's sexism.
Emma Stone: It is sexism.

And so, I'm really looking forward to going to Guatemala as an escape from all that. From sexism. It's just gonna be a group of girls who don't know me and don't know that I have a fashion blog. And we can build roads and wander around San Lucas and not care what we look like or where we shop, and not care that sexism even exists, because we're there for a reason even larger than sexism.  Okay, that's over with. I've found myself lost deep in thought lately because there's been so much going on in my life. It's been very bumpy, which is largely why I cannot wait to hang out with a bunch of girls or why I cannot wait to spend the night by myself watching The Andy Griffith Show and sewing. In addition to the DIY sunnies, I am wearing floral shorts that I bought at Target last year. They're super lightweight and swing-y, making them ideal for the heatwave that's passing through Minnesota. I don't know if I've ever featured them on the blog before, but I brought them to Europe with me last year, only to find out that much of Europe is chilly during the summer and thus the shorts were not really weather appropriate. Thank goodness they're cute with stockings!  Anyways, that is all for now! I have so much to get done this weekend (agh!), but I'll be sure to update and have some posts scheduled for over my trip! Keep cool in the heat, kids xx

Book Review: This Side of Paradise

"I hope something happens. I'm restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic."

- This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

I originally became aquainted with F. Scott Fitzgerald through living in Minnesota and consistently hearing him referred to as some sort of great St. Paul literary author. In the fall of 2011, I picked up an anthology of his short stories which were contextually related to Fitzgerald's upbringing in St. Paul, which is also where I am from. Having a connection to the same city and also fancying the historic side of it, I was hoping that Fitzgerald would be a good fit for my library. His short stories charmed me. His poetic language, the Jazz Age excitement, and his elaborate characters thrown in with a city and Midwestern culture which I greatly identified with had me hooked. I soon picked up The Great Gatsby and plowed through that. It was only time before I started from the beginning, with Fitzgerald's first full length novel, This Side of Paradise.

Published in 1920, This Side of Paradise remains the only novel written by the author in his native Minnesota. I particularly enjoyed the book because of the slightly insufferable, horribly disillusioned main character, Amory Blaine. You briefly meet him as a young boy living in St. Paul. In the start, Amory kisses a girl and then immediately tosses her off as used and much too loose for his liking - a perfect entry into the complicated mind of our young egoist, or our "romantic egoist" as Fitzgerald prefer call him.

Boasting a lavish and somewhat eccentric upbringing, the young character heads off to Princeton University where he romps with literature and sparks lively debates with his housemates. Over the course of his college experience, he falls in and out of success and love, drinking copiously along the way and finding himself both confused and enlightened about everything happening around him.

"Let the days move over - sadness and memory and pain recurred outside, and here, once more, before he went on to meet them he wanted to drift and be young."

- This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald

This Side of Paradise isn't dissimilar to reading poetry at times. Fitzgerald had a way of romantically wording things that isn't as apparent in some of his other work. Every sentence can be read several times over before realising the sheer importance of every single word which Fitzgerald chose to include. His debut novel is most certainly a character study more than anything else. Fitzgerald had a unique talent in creating characters, in which he could describe every innermost desire and feeling in a matter of sentences. This meant that, as a reader, you could become extremely familiar with a character within the first page of meeting them. This Side of Paradise follows Amory from childhood and well into early adulthood, but it would seem wrong to refer to it as a "coming of age" story. Rather, it is a study of how his character changes and developes, but stays much the same all along, ending with the perfunctory statement - "I know myself, but that is all."

If you are the type that demands action, this book is probably not for you. Skip to Gatsby. But if you are fascinated with the workings of a fictional character, then Paradise is an insightful read. Amory slips and slides around growing up, the loss of youth, the difference between sentimentality and romance, and why financial success and success of the name is so important. His thoughts and debates are stimulating and provoke much reflection in the reader. I still often think over many of Fitzgerald's words as well as his character Amory, who still really isn't sure which side paradise lands on. I would argue that the book ends without much conclusion to it at all. It's just a jumble of things to reflect over - a book which succeeds in its attempt to change the working of how the reader thinks and how they see the world around them. And thus, I would rate This Side of Paradise as an entirely successful piece of literature.

“I'm not sentimental - I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last - the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't.”

- This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald



Fantastic Mr. Fox

There're 3 things that I could be looking at in this photo: a) my tattoo, b) a bug or leaf on the ground or c) my new fox shoes. I'll give you a hint: it's probably not a or b. I recieved these shoes in the mail a couple of weeks ago from Em&Sprout and I am absolutely in love with them! I ran across them on Pinterest and immediately had to buy them. I'm already wanting another pair - maybe the Frankensteins or the robots or the hedgehogs? Decisions will have to be made!     I am not usually the type of person who is into too "cutesy" of stuff. But these were perfectly equal parts cute and Minnesotan. I'm not worried about them being unwearable...I'm mostly just worried about keeping his little white face clean! Oh, and keeping the boys at bay. I'm sure they'll go crazy over them and I'll be getting marriage proposals left & right.   I'm doing all types of weird things with my arms in this photo batch. I'm always so unsure of what to do with them. I have amazingly out of proportion arms. They're more like monkey arms. I've grown into them slightly, but I remember in middle school my fingertips could touch my knees! It was a very embarassing situation, especially since our uniform skirts and shorts had to be of the "fingertip rule" which meant all of mine had to be past my knees.   My father took these photos for me. You can always tell when someone else (namely someone tall) took my photos because I always look much shorter and am also usually doing awkward things with my face and/or body. They're also usually out of focus or my head is cut off. (My father needs more practice with the camera.) It's much easier to have someone else take blog photos than it is to set up a tripod and take them myself. Also, it looks a bit less suspicious in the case of someone coming along in the alleyway.   Anyways, since there's only so much to say about Photo Taking Procedures and Out of Proportion Limbs... I wore this outfit yesterday. I started off the day by going on an "Art Adventure" with my friend Mitchell. I think that "Craft Adventure" would be better. Such adventure was composed of going to Michael's and buying loads of overpriced craft supplies. We also bought sidewalk chalk and spent the afternoon innocently drawing murals of mythical creatures. Add onto that, we spent the evening skipping stones along the Mississippi, and you have yourself a perfect summer day in Minnesota. Even in 88°F weather.   I'm super duper excited to share some of my new Crafty Projects that I'm working on. I have so much stuff to get done and so many people to see before I head off to Guatemala for a week of service work. I like keeping busy though, so I'm not really complaining. Also, cause I've only mentioned it about 200 times, you can now become a fan of Urban Tease on Facebook by clicking here! I strongly urge you to do so, seeing as it will greatly improve your street cred and overall coolness factor.