Fashion for Writers

I’m in New York, now. If it seemed like I wrote a raging, rant-y article and then disappeared, it’s because I did–sorry and not sorry–I’ve been madly packing up my apartment and then madly driving across the country to come home to my parents and my brother and this morning, my auntie and my cousin arrived, and my heart couldn’t be any fuller or any more strained. Yesterday, Julia and I wandered around Soho and Chinatown, Julia in booty shorts and me in a denim booty romper that I needed no convincing before buying. We breathed in the stink of rotten fish on Mott street and walked into little boutiques with imported Asian clothing that made me long for Shanghai because these Asian clothing boutiques were sort of a sweetly strange shadow figure to Shanghai boutiques my mom and I wander into all the time. Today, my cousin and I went to the beach and talked about responsibility and being a ‘good person’ and how sometimes being a good person is the cruelest thing you can do to someone who also wants to be a good person. We stared at young, teenage booty with the clinical fascination that eye doctors often have for my weird wandering floaters that sometimes glow at night.

I swear to fucking god I read every single comment left on my Dior post, both here and on Jezebel, and I probably could have responded to them instead of updating my resume tonight, but I was too embarassed and had performance anxiety because I want to respond with the same intelligence and challenge that each comment possesses, but also I need a job.

I realize I don’t sound particularly attractive as a job candidate in this post, which contains both fuck and ass and foo-o-o-o which is filthier than any cuss word, but I’m desperately looking for a temporary job, one that starts immediately.

I live in New York now. I graduated from Stanford with a BA in Ethnic Studies & Creative Writing. I got my MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop last year, and have been teaching creative writing at the University of Iowa for the past 3 years. I have a long list of jobs I’ve done, which includes everything from incredibly humiliating, objectifying menial labor to labor organizing to youth organizing to non-profit administration to village English teacher in Romania to occasional nude model to research assistant to editorial assistant. Does that qualify me for anything or for nothing at all?

Also, now that I’m in New York instead of corn country, I’m excited for some potential blogger meet-ups. (There’s one in particular that I can’t WAIT for!) I had pretty much decided against going the Chictopia conference, but the ever sweet and ever amazing Jasmine of Transient Withdrawal is making me rethink my position. Is anyone else going to the conference? Does anyone who live in New York want to make plans for sordid times? I can’t guarantee all that much, but consumption and childish debauchery are always high on my list of things to do.

Oh, and PS that blurry Iphone photo of me in a little sailor romper and vintage belt and Kodak camera was taken by an incredibly sweet employee at Revivals in Iowa City (I wish I could remember your name!), and she wrote a really cool blog post about it over at College Fashionista. This happened several weeks ago, which gives you an idea of how slow I am at responding to anything, and thusly how slow I probably will be in processing all of the love and support and comments and criticism and low and high blows I’ve received this past week.

Oh yeah, and it’s Hella Unflattering Ass Shot time.

Love,
Jenny