you are bewitched

so i recently got an iphone and with it instagram--here are some of the pictures i've taken! i'd love to follow you guys, if you have instagram let me know your username in the comments and i'll follow you.

i've been pretty busy lately, i'm starting my last (hopefully, if i don't fuck anything up) year of college and i've been making more things. i'm trying to revitalize my etsy once again but there don't really seem to be enough hours in the day. 

i hope you guys are doing well! every so often i get the urge to make a reappearance here. i'd love to blog as regularly as i used to but i just don't seem to have the time!

xoxo

mouse

today was a good day

so i was in pennsylvania for the past few weeks and it seems like every time i'm there there's some weird drama with friends or whatever that i get stuck in the middle of, which sucks. so that happened. but then i came home.

and my friend who was babysitting my fish had cleaned my apartment (she is amazing). 

and i got a card from ally which made me incredibly happy, because she, too, is amazing.

and i posted a picture of my new tattoo on tumblr:

it's the seven sigils of the endless from neil gaiman's sandman comic books, which were the first comic books i read at the ripe old age of 12 and they sent me headlong into a lifetime of nerdery.

and neil gaiman liked the post. 

i know this is pretty minor for probably all of you but i'm SO INCREDIBLY EXCITED. i saw the notification and burst into tears. i know he runs his own blog which means he saw it and appreciated it and i'm so incredibly happy. 

and i love the tattoo, it's my favourite (right now, but of course i got it yesterday, so that could change but i'm not sure it's going to). it was designed by a really good friend and the work is amazing (some parts in the picture look a bit lumpy, but it's still swollen and healing, so that will get better). 

and... yeah. today was a good day.

xoxo

mouse

you'll minimize some stranger's sadness with a piece of wood and plastic--holy fuck, it's so fantastic!

 i got this amazing betsey johnson dress at beacon's closet (the girl there said that someone who used to work for betsey comes in all the time to donate clothes, so they often have a good stock). it fits like a glove and reminds me of a cross between a ballerina dress and a costume from deadwood.

 it's really short though! i know i have some tall girls following me who know the pains of a perfect dress that shows just a little too much leg. and normally, in my book, there's really no such thing as too much leg, but i'm in danger of flashing my butt in this thing if the wind picks up even a little!

of course, i got it anyway. guess i'll just wear it with tights ;)

xoxo

don't break my heart, and i won't break your heart shaped glasses

 i took a break from making stencil stuff for other people to make myself a shirt. i just... really like bats

i have to go to the salvation army to pick up some more stencil design shirts, but i'm hopefully going to be able to start putting them up for sale on etsy or something soon. they're really fun to make and it's a good way to let off some steam from finals (which aren't over for another week... ugh).

xoxo

friendly faces everywhere, humble folks without temptation

 if you know me, you know i love south park. i'll argue south park is better than any animated show (besides maybe venture bros) until i'm blue in the face. 

so i decided to make this shirt decoration thing (i call him boob stan). stan is one of my favourite characters (i also like kyle, we have more in common because he's jewish) and i was inspired by this amazing shirt that paloma faith wore on never mind the buzzcocks:

...which i've been coveting since i saw the episode, so i decided to make my own version. he's not as cross eyed as he looks! he's just a little folded over.

i'm not entirely sold on how well it turned out, and i think next time i'd sew his face on a little bit higher to get the "sleeve" effect like on paloma's blouse. i couldn't do that to this one, though, because the straps are so thin--and it's no biggie, really, since it's only a 99 cent salvation army tank top+some scrap fabric. i might try to repeat this project now that i know a bit more what i want to be doing. 

anyway this is what i'm doing because my iron has broken in the middle of making a big batch of stencil shirts, which fucking sucks, so instead of working on my finals (which would, of course, be a more productive use of my time) this is what i've been doing instead. 

xoxo

wouldn't you like to see something strange?

 so i got these ridiculous cat ear sunglasses (and i'm wearing them with my best valley girl face)

 and i made this pair with amazing tiny tiny bat and jack o lantern and moon vintage rhinestones that are just so cute i can't even stand it

are you guys doing anything to customize your summer necessities?

xoxo

where are you hiding, dolores haze?

here are a few of the things i've been doing/making/wearing in the past few months.

i got a sewing machine and with some inspiration/advice from the lovely meg have been sewing some of my own clothes--more recently, i have gotten into stenciling, in order to personalize things further. 

i've been debating for a while whether or not to come back here. i've always sort of felt unable to take my blog as seriously as i'd like, mostly because i can't take great pictures like so many of you guys do! but as the school year is ending, i'm missing more and more some of the lovely people that i've been fortunate enough to meet on here. so i've come back, and i'll stay back, at least sometimes. i might not post as often as i used to, but i'll try to do so more regularly, and figure out some way to take better pictures!

i'm likely to post more frequently on my tumblr (link) but not always about personal/fashion stuff.

i hope you all are doing well. let me know how you're doing!

xoxo

the paper bag princess

 i found this badass tim-burton-at-the-ren-faire dress at beacon's closet a few months ago and ho lee shit does it fit me like a glove. 

being a bigger girl (i'm not calling myself fat! but i'm 6' and have a big ribcage and huge hips) means that it's really difficult to find vintage clothing in my size. it seems like before the 1990s, most women were really petite. even now it's a little difficult to find clothing, but as the american public grows outwards it's easier to find things in a range of sizes and styles.

anyway, i love this dress. 

 happy purim! i posted some pictures of my purim costume on my tumblr which is where i'm posting much more frequently now that i'm not on here as much.

xoxo

mouse

the sky is falling in on me

 i know it's been forever since i posted.

one of my best friends had his first solo photography exhibition today and i decided to dress up a little bit!

hope you are all doing well!

xoxo

mouse

over the misty mountains cold

hey guys! i still exist :) 

i start classes today and i wanted to show off my new favourite dress. it's by teenage runaway and i'm really excited about it because it's business in the front, skeleton party in the back!

hope you're all doing well!

xoxo

mouse

if you miss me

i know i haven't been updating here nearly as much as i should be, and i'm sorry. 

if you'd still like to know what's going on in my life, i post (pretty sporadically, but more frequently) on tumblr here:

http://robertmapplethorpes.tumblr.com/

i'll hopefully be back sometime soon but i'm taking a minor break from this blog. i'm in california visiting my dad right now (which is really fun!) and posting here just isn't at the top of my list of priorities. i do miss it though and i'm still keeping up on everyone's post through my reader, so don't worry!

i hope you guys are doing well!

xoxo

mouse

nerd girls are easy

i was inspired to write this post both because i haven't written anything on here in too long and because of this post on buzzfeed shift about the 'fake geek girl' meme. 

first of all, let me just get this out of the way: being a woman is a disadvantage in this world. but it's not the greatest disadvantage. there are a million factors that could make someone worse off even just in this city. i am upper-middle-class, i am white, i am relatively thin, i am relatively healthy. i have it really good. i know that. 

but being a girl, or someone who is perceived as a girl, and trying to join the 'boys club' that is geekery--it's difficult. men have had this whole disenfranchised thing down for years. if you're a guy and you'd rather play dungeons and dragons than go to a party, you might get made fun of, but that's an acceptable choice. if you're a girl and would rather play dungeons and dragons than go to a party, what the fuck is wrong with you?

it's bad in the gaming world--this blog , entitled fat, ugly, or slutty, illustrates that well. if you're a girl that plays games, it's because you're fat or ugly--meaning men want nothing to do with you, so you have nothing better to do with your time--or you're slutty, meaning you're only playing these games to get attention from men. why?

john green, who i don't know a ton about but who seems like a really great guy, has said “…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.”

this is one of my favourite quotes about anything, because it's correct. it's so true. i get so excited about things like supernatural and lord of the rings and the general awesomeness of stuff and that's what makes me happy. i love watchmen, i love sherlock holmes, i love neil gaiman. and yet when i post my watchmen tattoo on reddit, i get accused of being an attention whore. men who post similar tattoos? none of that. when i talk about how really really cute kili is in the hobbit 

(and he is really really cute)

it's assumed that that's why i liked the movie, because wow there's a hot guy in it stop the presses 

when i know things about things, people are shocked. maybe it's my hair, maybe it's my voice (being raised by a californian has left me with a bit of a valley girl accent sometimes), but for the most part i'm fairly sure it's because i'm a girl. i can't enjoy these things, i can't understand them to the fullest extent, because of my genitalia. 

I'M SORRY BATMAN I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU OVER THE SOUND OF MY BOOBS

anyway, it's like seven in the morning and i've been up for two hours because i'm anxious so i thought i'd just spit this out and it probably doesn't make sense and i might edit it heavily later but yeah i hope you guys are all doing well and had a great new year!!

xoxo

mouse