née theodosia burr goodman

Arab Death, with snakes. (Formerly with much more eye makeup, but this was taken at the very end of the evening.)

Costume success, finally. The inspiration photos:

A loose inspiration, obviously, but one cannot really create an eight-foot train of peacock feathers on a nonprofit salary.

Costume components:
-black velvet dress, purchased at thrift store and altered from long-sleeved down to sleeveless/backless
-three rubber snakes from the dollar store, spray-painted gold
-long fake pearl necklace
-lots of gold ribbon to tie things to my head
-$3 fan from Chinatown
-loads of gold braid
-58 peacock feathers
...put together with Matty's sewing machine, a surprising amount of dental floss, and more hot glue than is healthy.

festive

(via My Vintage Vogue)

buzzed

This is twee as all hell:
Therefore, I really really want it.

work in progress

In my excitement about making a fantastic Theda Bara costume for Halloween, I seem to have overlooked a few key facts.

1) I can't really sew.
2) Especially when I have no pattern.
3) Stubbornness cannot, in fact, conquer all.

This is what the costume looks like, to date. It is not pleasant.

Yeah, that face sums up exactly how I feel.

But! I do have a can of gold spray paint, and fifty-eight peacock feathers (much to the delight of my cat), and three plastic snakes. Should this, realistically, give me any hope at all? No, but I am ignoring the futility of the endeavor and counting on hot glue to save the day.

Oh god, this is going to end badly, isn't it?

severed

Do I even need to tag this "predictable" any longer, or do you just expect it?

Hello, new artwork for my bedroom:

Momento Vitae, Alexander Beeching

And via Helen, the most wondrously morbid bird-feeder ever to exist:

Seed skulls, Helen Altman

liquid diet

I am trying to be responsible and keep track of what I actually ingest so as not to become morbidly obese (we're going to ignore those post-bar grilled cheese sandwiches from Sunday night, Tom), and so am keeping a list of Things I Ate. This is done with the hope that it will make me think twice before eating cheese grits for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
(Yes, that happened. What? It was, um, Columbus Day. It's a holiday. Sort of.)

I noticed that the "snack" column on this Things I Ate for the past two weeks contains the following:

• red wine
• scotch
• gin
• bourbon
  
• champagne
• bourbon
• scotch
• High Life
  

...and nothing else.
Oh. Oops.

it puts the lotion on its skin

A scene in the life of whatever:

Last Tuesday night, I was at a fancy dinner party, enjoying wine and a string quartet (!!!) and food and hospitality and trying rather hard to impress those in attendance. I'd been mentally repeating "be a grown-up, be charming, don't make an ass of yourself", and it seemed to be working.

I excused myself after dinner to use the bathroom, and as I approached the sink, went for what I thought was a hand-pump of soap on the sink. No, it was a hand-pump canister of lotion, and that lotion shot out and splotched across the lap of my black cocktail dress.

Of course it did.

I stood there looking at myself in the mirror for a few moments, sizing up the gigantic white glob of lotion, and thinking about how utterly unsurprised I was that this particular thing happened to me. Typical, really.

I managed to scrape off the lotion, mostly, and wet the dress to rinse off the remainder. So then I walked back into the dinner party with a large wet spot on the front of my dress, but that was much preferable to an awkward goopy white stain.

Next time I leave the house, I'm just going to pour something on myself as I head out, to save the universe the trouble of finding new things to maim my appearance with.

bronze medal

This is why I love vintage shops.

My stress-inducing quest for a black-tie-worthy gala dress was solved rather handily by walking into a consignment store and seeing something bronzy and bias-cut and 100% silk and, most importantly, floor-length hanging on the rack next to the door.
It fit wondrously. And was 50% off, on top of being massively cheap in the first place.

My workplace dignity, it seems, can be maintained for about $70.

Dress: vintage Carmen Marc Valvo; jewelry, vintage; terribly unflattering
and glazed look, 20-hour workdays and a bottle of champagne.