putain pour les parfums

I might be slightly obsessed with perfume. (Not to the degree of Miss Skinny Bone Jones, with her detailed scent notes and ability to pick out top notes and such, but obsessed to the point that I won't leave the house without some sort of scent on.)

I also like the "weird" perfumes- the things that smell like concrete and glitter (Demeter's "Hedwig" being my all-time favorite), or heavy doses of smoke and greenery (Cannabis Santal) or exactly like Froot Loops (la Feu d'Issey). It follows that I'm quite taken with the Etat Libre d'Orange line, then, without ever having smelled a single scent. (The unabashedly in-your-face illustrations had something to do with that too- mostly nsfw. This Jasmin et Cigarette was the only really tame logo.)

Currently lusting over:
Vraie Blonde
Je Suis Un Homme
Putain des Palaces
Jasmin et Cigarette
Antihéros
Rien
Divin' Enfant
Delicious Closet Queen

Thank god The Perfumed Court has a 1ml sampler pack of the Etat Libre d'Orange scents for $15; I just have to not buy the Sunday Times for three weeks running and I'll be able to justify the purchase. And I should probably stick to dvds borrowed from the library, rather than rented. That'll save up enough for the twelve-scent sampler over the six-scent, right?

get him, sheba!

Two years of grad school classes focused on financial and strategic management, and still, every time I hear the words "financial planning", I chortle and mentally yell FINANCIAL PANTHER! (at 3:26)

"Homer vs. Dignity"
(I am suddenly unable to remember how to embed video that's not from YouTube. Or suddenly lazier than usual. Or both.)

road trip

Fueled by 48 ounces of sugar-free energy drinks (because when pouring a bunch of neon and potentially toxic chemicals into my body, I can't add sugar to that mix!) and the birthday tribute to Biggie Smalls I found on an Indiana radio station, I made it to Chicago by 1:40 a.m. on Friday morning, immediately following my Thursday night class.

Spending Memorial Day weekend with friends in Chicago was a great idea, but was made considerably less fun by the constant parade of potential apartments I needed to see, make notes on, and judge in fifteen minutes or less. In three days, I saw eighteen apartments, and fell in love with only one.
That one, naturally, was rented to the next person who saw it, because I was too afraid to commit to an application and a month's rent without seeing every single other apartment on my list. Dammit. Those people who enjoy going to open houses for apartments on Sunday mornings and comparing real estate listings are clearly the people who do not plan on moving any time soon, because it's a massive pain to look at places with the looming threat of having to move one's worldly possessions into a new space (will the bookcase fit onto this wall? can the bed fit in this room if I open the closet? why are there no outlets in the kitchen? does that unsupervised toddler come with the apartment?), and also to have to delicately explain to potential landlords that no, I don't exactly have employment yet, and no, I might not have a paying job, but please ignore that for the moment and accept my application for this apartment.

However, Ruth made amazing strawberry scones, so there's that. Perhaps I'll just live out of the Honda Civic with the cat and my cellphone plugged into the dashboard charger and my shoes in the trunk, and show up at Ruth and Tim's house each morning for brunch until they change the locks and ignore the buzzer.

heartthrob heartbreak

This is what it looks like when a dream dies, people.

(image via Go Fug Yourself)

That is Rivers Cuomo, the amazingly talented geek I was in love with from 1994 until Weezer released that terrible Make Believe album. He used to look like this:
...and for god's sake, he made Pinkerton, one of the best albums ever.

And now he's wearing a leopard-print fleece slanket and douchebag sunglasses, and my hopes and dreams of someday hanging out with Rivers to have brunch and talk about how we both love cardigans are shattered into tiny leopard-print pieces.

libation

Geekout: Isaac Mizrahi on The Splendid Table. (Listening to this show while on the elliptical trainer at the gym is beyond torture- please talk to me of mac and cheese while I work out.)

At about 18:27, Lynne asks Isaac, "What do you think makes a gathering work?". His answer- be still my heart- "Booze."

likeness

I find it rather odd that I am told that I look like these people. Some of it I can see, depending on how self-flattering I choose to be, but some of it makes me wonder at people's vision.

Mariska Hargitay:
Hilary Swank:
Halle Berry:


I'm permanently befuddled at this one. Seriously, Halle Berry? I wish.

surreal life

I stopped by the Cincinnati Art Museum this afternoon to see the "Surrealism and Beyond" exhibition before it closes this weekend- surrealism (and Dada) are such a love-it-or-hate-it sort of thing, and I generally fall into the "love" camp. (I wasn't 100% thrilled by this particular exhibition, but that's neither here nor there, and besides, I don't really have the art history knowledge to share any really informed opinion about the structure and support for this particular show.)

I overheard a bunch of high school girls getting really angry about Duchamp's "Fountain", which pleased me completely. I did fear that they were going to come to blows in the gallery, though.


Sadly, no Schiaparelli/Dalí hats were included in the exhibition. Perhaps the CAM knew that I'd be tempted to try it on if it were on display.

good day sunshine

Bless you, Endless.com, for your ability to search sunglasses by price and material and color and such. New procrastination tool, and with overnight shipping, too!

I've been making noises for a while now about wanting some new sunglasses that aren't Nicole-Richie-bug-eyes, and before reaching for my wallet, I'm going to deliberate on the following like a responsible consumer. In approximate order from least-oversized to potentially-oversized, I give you:

The A.J. Mogan "Concord", a thrilling $28



The A.J. Morgan "Feline", also cheap-o


The Rampage (yes, Rampage. Shut it.) "Jackie", twenty freaking dollars


More A.J. Morgan- the "Saxon". $28!


And the last of the Wayfarer-esques, the "Maze". $28, as is the theme here.

No, I did not type "Wayfarer" or "Ray-Ban" into the search bar. I just saved the links to everything that made me oooooooh, and damned if they aren't all (well, almost all) so very hipstery, circa 2007 or so. Hmph.

Then again, for the combined price of the five above, I could buckle down and buy the Cole Haan sunglasses I've been eyeing for some time now. I fear they will turn out to be on the unnecessarily large side, as they've got similar measurements to the "Maze" above, but I'm quite taken with them.

My priority should really be to acquire gainful employment before thinking about spending money on sunglasses when I have a perfectly good pair at home, shouldn't it? Damn you, voice of reason.

if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride

Holy shit, I graduate with my master's degrees in a month. (Assuming I don't screw up too badly in the coming weeks.)
Step one: decide on appropriate graduation-ceremony attire that can be worn from 10 a.m. commencement to 5:30 p.m. cocktail party to 8:00 p.m. fancy dinner to 10:30 p.m. decidedly un-fancy graduation boozy bash.
Step two: remember to show up at commencement.
Step three: my dad called last week and asked what I'd like for graduation. "Think big", he urged, which is a dangerous thing to encourage me in. (My father will very likely rescind this encouragement when he realizes that "thinking big" for me extends into four-figure price tags. "Think big but oh my god jesus scale it back a little lest you give me a heart condition" may be his new exhortation.)
For my parents' graduations, and my little brother's undergrad, they all received very nice watches. For my undergrad, I receive a digital camera (back when they were relatively new, and also the size of my outstretched palm, and a 5 megapixel camera was v. fancy). The parents' plan seems to be to get me a present that's somewhat more lasting: something I'll keep around forever as a tangible reminder of my grad-school graduation.
So what the hell do I want? Immediately, my reaction was "a job", but since that's not something that can be purchased for me and gift-wrapped, I've got to think of other things. I have a few ideas, but nothing spectacular yet.

Idea one: a good suit. I own no suits, as I'm going to (hopefully, assuming I'm hired) work in the performing arts, and for the most part, nothing about "presenting modern dance performances" requires a corporate dress code. But a nice grey suit could be a very useful and long-lived item to have in my closet, yes? Something like these, from JCrew:

or these, from Theory:

Please ignore the suggestion of a flared pantleg here. I would not stand for such a thing.


The suit jacket only, obvs. None of this "shorts suit" stuff for me.
Seriously, who wears a shorts-suit?

Suit requirements: must be wool or wool-blend. None of this polyester suit crap. Must also not have flare-leg pants or novelty pockets or anything that I could not see myself wearing at age 70. Preferably a one-button suit jacket, but definitely no more than two buttons.

Idea two: an artwork. This is much more in line with what my dad had in mind, I think, but I'd have to both pick out a piece of art that I felt was the Ultimate Piece (no pressure there!) and coordinate the logistics of shipping and delivery and possibly framing/mounting.

There's also the temptation to suggest that everything on the Apple website would be much appreciated, but I think that would be tempting fate after all the horrible drama (logic board! hard drive! optical drive! more repairs!) that my laptop and I have been through this month.

Going through the wishlist I've saved to my calendar is not a great help, either: things like aviator sunglasses, the complete "A Bit of Fry & Laurie" dvds, and Hunter wellies are not exactly the type of meaningful grad gifts the family has in mind, I'm afraid.

Who knew that answering the question "what do you want for a gift?" would be so hard, eh?