Fashion for Writers

It’s pouring outside.

This silk dress-top made for my own personal fashion conundrum of the day: to wear as a dress or not? Does this make leggings look like pants, or do the leggings just look like leggings with a dress? I think that I’ll end up wearing the silk dress-top as a top most of the time, but today I was daring and went out as seen. The tunic barely looks like a minidress, but it does cover my butt. 

Such are the deep, deep thoughts I have in between reading about Japanese-American incarceration and Pol Pot and polio.

The last week has been a little crazy — at times hundreds of pages of reading a night plus hours of writing, the occasional social get-together, preparing for class discussions, and so on. But that was to be expected after a weekend of gamboling on the west coast! Upon returning, I had my first MFA workshop (Thom: I’m an MFA fiction writer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor); I finished a draft of a personal essay about mental illness and how it impacts the decision to have children. 

So, dear readers, please forgive me for being lax with this blog. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day for all the things I’d like to do sometimes. 

The above bag is one of my newer acquisitions. It had been languishing in my mother’s closet for years, and upon hearing that I needed a larger bag to haul around my coursepacks and laptop, my mom decided to pass it down to me. I’m a little afraid that I pack it too full of things for the handles to hold, but it’s quite well made and the leather is buttery soft.

I flew home for the weekend, back to California for the first time since I went to Michigan for grad school. Nothing’s really changed, really, except for the fact that Chris is living with my parents; this morning Chris and I had brunch, I ate some disgustingly unhealthy corned beef hash (delicious), and we shopped at one of my favorite local haunts (Black and Brown in San Jose, which is a godsend if, like me, you grew up in a vintage/secondhand-deprived area). While at Black and Brown I tried on at least five pairs of shoes that I loved, including a pair of fire engine red Marc Jacobs heels — I’m really into looking for the perfect pair of red shoes right now — but unfortunately my feet are trapped in this netherworld between 7.5 and 8, and therefore don’t quite work with most footwear. I also tried on a fisherman’s cardigan (uncomfortable and bulky in a very unflattering way, although I’m sure it would be warm in -20 degree weather), a wool skirt, a button-up Western shirt, a dress that was the vintage version of Built by Wendy’s pricey ballerina dress from their Fall collection (baggy sleeves, unfortunately), and a soft t-shirt. What I ended up buying was a bitty American Rag leather jacket, which I never thought I’d buy, but this one had a slim cut and nice details like zippers at the cuffs. In these pictures I’m wearing it over a floaty chiffon dress. The shoes are too-small sandals borrowed from my dear mum.

It’s nice being back in California, I have to say.

Today is the day of the Moon Festival, David Foster Wallace hanged himself, and it’s overcast and pouring outside. I’m wearing a bodysuit and pink pajamas with pandas printed all over them. Unfortunately, I don’t have too much else to say today, but I hope that you are all doing all right, especially if you happen to be in Texas or thereabouts.

It’s getting to be fall around here, and everyone keeps telling me that in four days it’s going to get really painfully cold. In the meantime I keep overdressing in sweaterdresses and regretting it when I’m all sweaty and gross with the sun beating down. Snow at any minute, everyone keeps telling me. Snow! Snow! Snow! Today I tried on a 30s dress with shoulder pads and beading, which wasn’t the most flattering, but I still love to try on 30s dresses even if they don’t necessarily work with my body type (short, straight, short torso). I really should have been looking at more smart jackets. I’ve been wearing my boy’s blazer to death.