Fall 2019 Mood Board

I’m finally feeling really creative again. I stopped writing creatively about 4 or 5 years ago. Before that, I was writing on my Tumblr blog just to write. About things I liked. Like movies, music, and style. Going back and reading those posts now, I feel a great deal of love and admiration for that girl. And it’s exactly that writing that led me to contributing personal essays to sites like Femsplain and HelloGiggles. Teen Vogue even picked up one of those essays. But as my career took me into copywriting, I focused my efforts into advancing in that field, and creative writing fell by the wayside.

And I was starting to feel weird writing and publishing personal essays because I was starting to feel like “I’m twenty-three, what do I know about anything and what do I even have to say?” But as I became more established professionally as a copywriter, and even though I love that I’ve found a way to make a living writing, I missed writing for myself and having full creative freedom over my own work. So I started writing again back in February and I haven’t stopped writing since. I’m really proud of the progress I’ve made on my current writing project.

But then a few weeks ago I started missing blogging. Not the kind of fluffy blogging I was trying to do with Oatmeal Cardigan for a bit there, but the blogging I was doing in college. I miss old school blogging. Blogs like Tavi Gevinson’s Style Rookie and Lauren Rose’s Curbside Fashion back in the day. Which is why I redesigned and renamed this blog to look and feel like those old school Blogspot pages.

I feel really close to finishing the first draft of my writing project, so I’ve decided to give myself a little writer’s retreat in November, using up all the PTO I had saved up to take about three weeks off to recharge and just write. I’m looking forward to being home with my cat, in cute sweats, sitting in my little desk nook and putting all my focus into writing.

So my mood for Fall 2019 is basically a cute writing vampire.

xoxo

Gigs and Girlhood

I started going to to shows and seeing live music when I was twelve. Back then I was really into emo, so a typical outfit was a T-shirt, hoodie, bootcut jeans, and chucks. And it pretty much stayed that way through high school.

Toward the end of college I discovered the Riot Grrrl movement of the ‘90s and the second wave of it happening in Seattle. So I started going to a lot of shows again. I tapped into my inner Andrea Marr from Girl and wore lots of mini skirts and dresses with thigh high socks and chunky black oxfords.

There was a few years after college where I didn’t really go to shows at all. I’d just kind of fallen out of the Seattle music scene. But for the past couple years my boyfriend has been playing in this incredible band that’s a little Bikini Kill a little Le Tigre. And they play shows at least once a week, so I’ve been reinitiated into the Seattle DIY music scene. But so much has changed since those college and post-grad year when I was going to a lot of shows. I felt more authentic in the scene then. I’d just come off of working on a book about the history of the legendary K records, I was writing about music at Seattle Weekly, I was listening to a ton of underground music, I was being creatively courageous. And maybe most importantly, I wasn’t make a lot of money.

It’s weird re-entering the scene because in a way the scene feels exactly the same. Like the scene hasn’t changed but I have. I’m a lot less awkward, I dress a lot better, I haven’t stayed on top of discovering new music, I work a relatively conventional job now and make decent money. And up until recently, I wasn’t doing anything creative in my own time. It made me feel like a huge square or a narc being around all these cool starving artist types.

And I struggled with figuring out what to wear since I’ve gone through a few phases since graduating from college of wanting to look more “grown up” and like a “young professional” and purging my closet of all my fun and “immature” clothes. Once, toward the end of college while I was working an internship at Seattle Weekly, I was walking in my neighborhood on my way home, wearing a orange floral polo shirt, a navy blue mini tennis skirt, black tights and flats and this homeless lady yelled at me and told me to “grow up” and “stop dressing like a fucking child.” Sometimes I think about that and it still stings. But then I remember this quote Kathleen Hanna gave in a profile The New York Times Style Magazine:

The release of “Revolution Girl Style Now” has provided occasion for Hanna and her bandmates to revisit their movement-defining early-’90s performance wardrobes, as well. “I love fashion, and I don’t see anything unfeminist about that,” she says…In the early days of riot grrrl, the “grrrl” was of the utmost importance, she explains; second-wave feminism had successfully reclaimed the word “woman” but had left girls out, and many of her onstage style choices sprang from a desire to salvage a specific kind of girlhood. “I had a very dysfunctional family, and I felt very numbed-out for much of my childhood, and I felt like I missed a lot,” she says. “I always wanted to be a girl scout, and I didn’t get to be a girl scout! So I went to the thrift store, and luckily, I’m 5-foot-4, so I could still fit into a large Girl Scout outfit. And I wanted to be a cheerleader, so I got a cheerleader skirt, and I mixed it with a punk rock shirt.”

I, like Kathleen Hanna had missed out on a lot of my childhood. And I’ve been having fun incorporating a bit of girlhood style into my outfits for shows, parties, and going out. So this past year, I’ve been accumulating a lot of fun ‘90s/’00s pieces from Depop, Poshmark, ThredUp and eBay. Like a BCBG pink faux snakeskin mini skirt, a Victoria’s Secret bright purple and teal mini chemise slip, and a Free People periwinkle glittery mesh top.

And I’ve been mining 90s Riot Grrrl style, Tavi Gevinson’s style during the height of Rookie, and Hayley Williams for inspiration.

Kathleen Hanna

Courtney Love

Babes in Toyland

Liv Tyler

Hayley Williams

Alicia Silverstone

Tavi Gevinson

Thora Birch as Enid in Ghost World

My boyfriend’s band is playing a show tomorrow night and it’s loosely Halloween themed, so here’s what I’m planning to wear:

Auditioning for the role of Prota Zoa’s girlfriend in Zenon

I’ve always found dressing for shows and concerts so hard. To balance cute, girly, fun, and at least a little bit practical. Sometimes I do feel overdressed and worry that other people, but mostly other girls will judge me, but I love when I see other girls having just as much fun with their style at shows, so I just try to channel my inner riot grrl and just do my thang. Hopefully this helps gives you some inspo for your upcoming shows.

Go reclaim your girlhood.

xoxo

Girl by Blake Nelson

As a part of this whole crisis I’m having where I’m going backward to go forward, I’m revisiting my favorite media, the ones that had the most impact on me. So I’ve been re-reading some of my favorite books of all time. I love re-reading books anyway, but Leena from Justkissmyfrog also said that re-reading a book and a writing style you’re intimately familiar with can be a good and unintimidating way to get back on the reading horse.

So the first book I re-read was Girl by Blake Nelson. It’s been my favorite book since I read it for the first time in the 8th grade. And I’ve probably re-read it about 10 times since.

It was honestly so nice to get back into Andrea’s voice and Blake Nelson’s unique style he used for this book. It’s very plain and stream of consciousness, and actually something I’ve tried to impart in my writing ever since I read it the first time.

It’s just crazy how well he captures these little relatable moments of insecurities. And it’s weird because I’d forgotten how sad and pathetic I felt in high school and even up until a few years ago until I re-read this and related with Andrea’s moments of infinite sadness.

Here are some passages from the book that I think are so simple and sweet, and maybe you can get a feel for how special this writing is:

“We drove. when we got downtown we cruised by Outer Limits and there were so many people outside on the street Rebecca had to slow down and wait for them to move. And these boys were guzzling a quart of beer and everyone was smoking cigarettes and acting really cool and tough. But then on the next block we saw Greg’s station wagon which made me feel better. We parked beside it. And I didn’t have any makeup on and Rebecca had a little mascara and she looked at herself in the rear-view mirror and asked me if we should put on lipstick and I said, “I guess we better.” So she put some on and I put some on and then some eye pencil. And she asked me if I ever smoked and I said I knew how and she said good and got some cigarettes from under the seat. And we got out and ran across the street and then we smoothed our dressed and turned the corner and walked into the crowd.”

“Then I turned seventeen. It was so depressing. I couldn’t even look at anyone. At school nobody cared because most of them had already turned. At home my mom made a cake and my dad was acting weird and trying to make eye contact. And all day I kept studying my face in the mirror and wondering if I would have jowls someday like Mrs. Schroeder. And everything old was bugging me like Lizzy Rosen’s grandpa who went on these pathetic walks to the corner that took him half the day, That Night I took my Coma tape and sat outside on the steps with Brad’s Walkman and listened to it all the way through twice. And I knew my parents were wondering what my problem was and then my dad came out and stood over me and asked me what I was doing. I said nothing. He asked me if I was sad about my birthday or if it was something else and I couldn’t answer and I couldn’t look at him. So he sat down and said it was hard being my age and no matter what happened he still still loved me. And my mom too. And after a while he gave me a hug but even then he was holding back because I was seventeen and my breasts were touching him.”

“Back to school, what a nightmare. And I was having the worst crisis of my life because I loved piling my hair up and nobody cared at Monte Carlo or Color Green shows, but at Hillside High School? It was a terrible decision because if I put it up there wouldn’t even be anyone to appreciate it and I would get teased and what was the point? And for the last week before school I had worn it up every day because it was so hot and now it felt weird to let it down. And also, as Carla had pointed out, my whole taste in clothes was heading toward a big hair look anyway and it was like the missing link and I looked like an idiot if I wore my fish dress and saddle shoes and then left my hair hanging off me like a dog. It got so bad that I even contemplated getting a bob just to end the agony but no one was getting bobs now and even Carla was growing hers out, And I was having a total panic so I called Cybil and she said I should shave my head and I was like, very funny, Cybil. Then I almost called Carla but she wasn’t in high school and I thought it would be too embarrassing to bother her with such suburban stupidness.”