good morning midnight

MORE SPRINGIN’ INTO SUMMER STYLE VIBEZ Y’ALL

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:36:00 -0400

MORE SPRINGIN’ INTO SUMMER STYLE VIBEZ Y’ALL

another coming-out post

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:29:00 -0400

It’s been true of you since you were an infant: you’ve always been terrified to do anything in public until you know you’re good enough at it.

You learned to talk in private. You were supposed to be napping, and your mother, downstairs, heard an eerie voice through the baby monitor: Jack spat eeee no fat why eeee no lean? She ran upstairs to find you sitting upright in your crib, where you flashed her a devilish grin, dove under the blankets, and began speaking in full grown-up sentences a week later.

More than a quarter century later you still proofread every email you send six times, practice everything you need to say in the mirror five times, refuse to let anyone read a draft of anything you write until it’s ready. You didn’t openly come out as queer until you’d been involved with half a dozen girls and felt you had, like, a good handle on how the whole being-a-homo thing worked. It’s good, sometimes — people have always thought you unusually precocious, unaware that in private you are always rehearsing, rehearsing everything. And it’s screwed you over — people find you cold and aloof, because you can’t make small talk until you understand the situation and have analyzed the right things to say.

But it’s made you seem like you’re the smart one your whole life, always studying, always practicing the right things to do, the right things to say, the right way to do it. You go from average middle-class suburbs of New Jersey to a fancy liberal arts school full of kids with yachts, and you learn rapidly that rich, content, utterly vanilla people find you — tall, blonde, whiskey-swilling, temperamental, some sort of queer, foul-mouthed, awkward, sarcastic, dressed funny, from a quaint suburban middle-class background, shy-but-brash — somehow interesting. You capitalize on it. You imagine yourself the enfant terrible of the English department: you break all the rules, and your professors tell you time and again that you’re brilliant, that they’re impressed by your attitude, your dedication, your everything. At graduation, fueled by champagne, you confess to a friend: I love my internships and my jobs but someday I’m gonna write a book that’s what I wanna do and they laugh, and then you laugh too because god, what a stupid thing to say.

You graduate, and you flounder between a bunch of jobs, jobs you like, sometimes even love, mostly in music, entertainment, fashion. One you love but only pays 26 grand a year. One pays twice that but the agency rapidly loses a number of clients (The Recession) and you are among the layoffs. You feel sad: you were good at that, you liked it. You bounce between internships and assistantships before landing an admin receptionist job where you like the office but rankle at ordering toilet paper, at cleaning up other people’s spills.

You write the whole time: your stupid fashion blaaahhhhg, a few magazines, a few secret blogs, that awful novel you wrote as your college thesis. Midwinter, three sazeracs in (the absinthe has seemed romantic of late, combined with your usual bourbon), you lose it in front of your friends, babbling. Babe, they sigh, eternally patient. You’re never going to get paid for it unless you ask people about it, they say. Stop writing for free. You’re never going to have a career you’re too afraid to admit you want.

You shrug and fiddle with your cell phone. Whatever, you say. You make an excuse: I don’t want people to associate anything I wrote with me personally, I don’t even know where I should be trying to publish, I don’t even know who would care, I’ve already devalued my name by posting too many photos of myself or whatever, and I do honestly genuinely like the other work, I like having a dayjob. And you do, genuinely.

Then you lose your dayjob, for the second time in five years. Amicably, and over time - something about the role changing, something about social capital - but you will panic. What do you do? What the fuck are you going to tell people? What does it mean?

You get paranoid about your friends who wrote amazing “I quit my job and I sold a book” blog posts. You get paranoid about everyone younger and more successful already. Who the fuck are you? You have some goofy-ass fashion blog and a dozen half-finished unpitched essays and a really awful novel you wrote in college and a bunch of secret blogs of your other writing, and you have other jobs you can do and that you like, besides. Who the hell are you? What do you do? How dare you?

You start writing a blog post about it and think: oh fuck, Meg, second person, really? You sound like some third-rate internet Lorrie Moore. Give me a break.

Then you’ll be at a party, or an opening, or a reading, or whatever. A friend of a friend, an almost aggressively boring brunette, will shake your hand, introduce herself, ask what it is that you do.

Your mind will race as you think up a hundred replies. I’m an ex-beleaguered secretary, you’ll joke. Well I’ve worked in music and in fashion, I know both pretty well actually and I have a few part-time and freelance gigs lined up, I mean yeah it’s kind of all over the place, it works though ha, ha. I’m a freelance creative and marketing professional with a lot of technical and strategic skills which I am desperate to put to use for anyone who will have me and I think I have enough experience to freelance full time now but I don’t know how I’m ever going to do that. I’m a creative strategist. I’m an English major. I’m halfway through my twenties. I can waitress I can make a cappuccino I can answer phones. I’m basically just really good at getting by. I can do all kinds of things, is there anything I can do for you, please, I can do it.

You take too long to answer and the brunette raises her eyebrows. You exhale and say, “Oh,” and your voice will sound a little stronger than you expected, and you’ll think, fuck it, I don’t have to do it right. Is there a right way to do it? And you’ll push your shoulders back a little (you’ve always had bad posture) and say, surprised at your own flippant tone, “I’m a writer.”

I’ve had an ongoing thing for those, like, 90’s...

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:44:03 -0400

this doesn't even look like me?

I’ve had an ongoing thing for those, like, 90’s Gaultier-esque allover print sheer mesh shirts — wait ‘til you see the ridiculous one I just got on eBay, like, an hour ago — and when I saw this awful thing in the window at Atlantis for $5 it was basically impossible to not buy it. Even weirder: it’s Laura Ashley???!

shirt laura ashley
skirt idfk you guys i got it at a macy’s in new jersey it’s like “charter club” or something
creepers underground

What do you do for a living?

Tue, 22 May 2012 09:36:00 -0400

i’m a wizard

skirt topshoptop/dress sugarlipsbelt ASOSshoes Jeffrey Campbell...

Mon, 21 May 2012 12:48:00 -0400

skirt topshop
top/dress sugarlips
belt ASOS
shoes Jeffrey Campbell shamelessly knocking off Jeremy Scott, don’t laugh
choker St Marks place duh

I got this stretchy textured tube dress from a Sugarlips giveaway from the adorable Wendy of Panache Halloweentown, who sent it to me all the way from Australia! (Look how cute she styled it here.) I’ve been wearing it a lot as a layering piece under sheer and lacy skirts and tops but wore it here with a flarey skater skirt and my new so-bad-they’re-good J. Campbell knocking off J. Scott shoes. (I also just picked up a pair of ridiculous Steve-Madden-Knocking-Off-Those-Balenciaga-Shoes sandals at a thrift store for, like, ten bucks? I don’t know what’s gotten into me.)

^_^ seagullhair: Here are the results of the major smoky...

Mon, 21 May 2012 01:23:00 -0400

^_^

seagullhair:

Here are the results of the major smoky lavender-grey crystal-magic color spell Carly cast yesterday on writer/fashion blogger Meg Clark. Meg had a vision and Carly ran with it, delivering a gorgeous and one-of-a-kind lilac grey blonde with a slight ombré effect into darker amethyst pieces. Luminous gray amethyst ombré haircolor by Carly.

#sothathappened

Mon, 21 May 2012 01:07:00 -0400

#sothathappened

Current blog-stalk-ee/style-crush: gorgeous Masha Sedgwick. Even...

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:30:53 -0400

Current blog-stalk-ee/style-crush: gorgeous Masha Sedgwick. Even if I can’t read like 80% of her posts (they’re mostly in German) I compulsively Pinterest/Tumblr/whatevz, like, every image she posts. And, you guys, her hair. I can’t.

Y’ALL I AM SO PSYCHED ABOUT MY NEW...

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:34:48 -0400

Y’ALL I AM SO PSYCHED ABOUT MY NEW SILVER-GREY-LAVENDER-OMBRE-ISH HAIR (yay thanks Carly at Seagull) THAT I NEED TO SHOW YOU RIGHT AWAY LIKE RTFN WITH THESE CRAPPY PHOTOBOOTH PICTURES WHERE YOU CAN’T EVEN TELL HOW PURPLE IT IS OMG

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: KRISTEN STEWART IN DRAG FOR...

Thu, 17 May 2012 14:25:00 -0400

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: KRISTEN STEWART IN DRAG FOR ELLE JUNE 2K12, PRESENTED WITHOUT FURTHER COMMENT.

Oooooh, foreshadowing.

Thu, 17 May 2012 10:28:00 -0400

Oooooh, foreshadowing.

Hi, I just wanted to say that I saw your post on female anti-heroes and I want to ask if you've seen The Killing? The Danish original, I have no idea what the US one is like. Sarah Lund is AMAZING. She's great at the solving crimes part of her job but she has these awkward relationships with her son, her mother and her ex, she's totally unglamorous but still charismatic and desirable. And she's late 30s/early 40s, proof that life exists for women after our 20s. I really think you'd love it! xx

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:34:29 -0400

I haven’t seen it, no! The US one airs right before Mad Men, but maybe I can find the Danish one online or something.

Come on, you had to know this was coming. Between the lil’...

Wed, 09 May 2012 14:39:00 -0400

Come on, you had to know this was coming. Between the lil’ white dresses, the slipdresses, the ongoing obsession with girly skirts paired with clunky shoes and ripped-up shirts or lacy stuff mixed with ripped denim and leather, the predilection for ratty thigh-highs, my new Life As An Obviously Bottle Blonde, and the sheer amount of eBay alerts I have up on things like “Betsey Johnson 90s vintage floral,” it’s pretty obvious I’ve been having (recently? or for, like, the past decade?) kind of a kinderwhore phase.

Add to that my re-kindled love affair with “volumizing mousse” and “teasing combs”…

and my new shameless Jeremy Scott knockoff shoes….

….it’s pretty clear what’s going on here.

We can say plenty of things about Courtney Love (let’s just start with that Grub Street interview and her, uh, performance on the mid-aughts Comedy Central roast of Pamela Anderson, if you’ve never witnessed the glory) but look, we’re gonna take two seconds here just to talk about the clothes, and the makeup, and the hair, and the shoes, and the attitude, and did we mention the hair? (Ok, ok, we’ll give Kat Bjelland some credit too, and maybe a little Debbie Harry before her.) From the time I wore Converse with a foofy prom dress to my junior prom to above photoboothed evidence, that whole aesthetic has been undeniably informing my steeze for ages. And while obviously the resurgence of ripped tights, black eyeliner, red lipstick, and crazy platinum hair (cough, TayMo, cough) isn’t due to Courtney, it’s hard to argue that she didn’t embody it better than anyone else — today’s Dean & DeLuca chicken pot pie whatever and all. I guess it’s time to go buy some plastic hair clips and a tiara?

We need to take a brief interlude to discuss/admire this —...

Tue, 08 May 2012 14:21:13 -0400

We need to take a brief interlude to discuss/admire this — Devon Aoki by Paolo Roversi, for the first issue ever of Numero, 1999 — because IT IS BASICALLY PERFECT amirite, yes, okay, cool, glad we’re on the same page.

“Oh please don’t go- We’ll eat you up- we love you...

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:00:00 -0400

“Oh please don’t go- We’ll eat you up- we love you so!”
Maurice Sendak 6.10.1928 - 5.8.2012

”But children are tough, though we tend to think of them as fragile. They have to be tough. Childhood is not easy. We sentimentalize children, but they know what’s real and what’s not. They understand metaphor and symbol. If children are different from us, they are more spontaneous. Grown-up lives have become overlaid with dross…….We’ve educated children to think that spontaneity is inappropriate. Children are willing to expose themselves to experiences. We aren’t. Grown-ups always say they protect their children, but they’re really protecting themselves. Besides, you can’t protect children. They know everything.”

— New York Times, 1987

In the event that you have no heart and therefore doubt the enduring amazingness of this man, or in the similar event that you have cultivated some bitterness due to the over-marketing of that film based on his much-beloved book, watch him on The Colbert Report just a few months ago (and the bizarre Carole King Chicken Soup With Rice thing which I remember watching ad nauseam as a child, and the stunning costumes and sets he designed for The Nutcracker) and come back and then we can talk.

Oh man, I’ve been super lazy y’all, forgive me. But!...

Mon, 07 May 2012 16:15:00 -0400

Oh man, I’ve been super lazy y’all, forgive me. But! Look! MORE SPRING/SUMMER VIBEZ, duh. Still obsessively saving images with 60’s silhouettes, dishevelled big colourful hair, crop tops and bra tops, nose rings (thanks, Givenchy), loud colours, big earrings. Totally incidentally: can we take a second to talk about that photo of Meghan Collison with short blonde hair and the nose/ear chain? BE STILL MY HEART.

I loved your tutorial on hair-bleaching and am aaaalmost ready to take the leap to doing it myself... the one thing holding me back is the specific shade I'm going for - platinum grey-ish hint-of-purple-ish. You mentioned in a post maybe a month ago that you were getting there yourself... but how?! What toner or blend of toners are you using? Thanks so much!

Tue, 01 May 2012 16:40:00 -0400

Well for starters: It might not go well or get there right away! My hair has taken MONTHS but I’m pretty psyched on it right now though it’s not quite perfect:

I tone the top (blonde) part with Manic Panic Virgin Snow and intermittently use Clairol Shimmerlights conditioner, which works great for colour but doesn’t make my hair feel great and also smells awful. It’s pretty light but I don’t think it’s quite that ideal perfect silver-blonde, but it’s close enough for me for now. The bottom purplish bits are a weird MP concoction.

Wella White Lady and Silver Lady are great for the white/silver grey type platinum, but I find the whole mixing/ammonia toner kind of thing annoying/smelly/damaging especially right after bleaching, and I don’t quite need it. I like the Manic Panic toner since it doesn’t require any mixing. Purple-ish grey is really hard to get evenly, but the Silver Lady (Toner T14) should do the trick, and you can always keep using a semipermanent purple-ish toner or conditioner to get it sort of lavender. The MP Virgin Snow is great for super white-blonde, but it will take unevenly if your hair bleached unevenly, and it definitely gets more “white-blonde” than “purple-ish grey.”

I also put Manic Panic in my conditioner - I dump some of the Virgin Snow and a teeny bit of purple into my plain conditioner bottle so that it’s got a bit of a tint for every time I wash my hair. (You can do this, nothing will explode or go bad.) I like the Hi Pro Pac keratin masks you can get at most beauty supply stores, and when I want to get it really lavender and not just cooler blonde, I’ll mix that with a few spoons of Electric Amethyst or Lie Locks and put it just on the bottoms/ends of my hair for 5-10 minutes while I shave my legs in the shower or whatever, and then just keep sort of combing it through — that’s how I did this colour here. The results are a little uneven in a sort of streaky ombre way, but I think that looks good if you don’t wear your hair super sleek and straight, and it fades quickly anyhow.

If you aren’t super okay with the fact that things could go distastrously or might take a long time to get what you want, don’t try to do it yourself!! I’ve just done so much nutso stuff to my hair that it doesn’t really bother me if I mess it up a little bit, and my hair is also pretty resilient. Go to a salon if you have any doubts — they know what they are talking about way more than me.

There’s also plenty of awesome ladies on YouTube who have done tutorials for their hair colour and who use other combinations — just try looking up variations on lavender and silver hair, there’s so much info out there.

makeup must-haves or daily routine? you always seem to wear really bold lipsticks, what are your favorite colors?

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:29:00 -0400

I’ve gotten really low-maintenance lately, which is:

tinted moisturizer (i use Neutrogena healthy glow sheers in light)
a little bit of powder if I’m super shiny (Chanel Double Perfection compact in Vanilla)
filling in my brows very heavily (MAC “Handwritten” and an angled brush)
Diorshow Iconic mascara
MAC fluidline eyeliner, if I’m wearing any
bold lipstick, which is usually bright red, orange, hot pink, or black-purple. I wear MAC Lady Danger, MAC Film Noir, Revlon Colorstay Top Tomato, Maybelline Superstay Eternal Rose, and Rimmel Kate Moss #004 most often. (Links to examples.) I’ve been really into bright coral pinks for spring, so let me know if there’s any you love!

For night I usually wear foundation, I used Chanel Mat Lumiere in Ivoire for years but they just discontinued it so am looking for a new one. :( I use Benefit brightening powder (Dandelion) once in a while too, a few Chanel blushes but very rarely, and occasionally this Almay amethyst eyeliner. Most of my eyeshadows are MAC and the colours I use most often are Trax, Handwritten, Woodwinked, Smut, Carbon, White Frost, and Gleam, plus the pigments in the Gareth Pugh silver and Copperclast.

PS I LOVE WHEN Y’ALL ASK ME QUESTIONS, GO FOR IT.

Charlotte Free by Cédric Bouchet in 10 Magazine, and the Spring...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:56:00 -0400

Charlotte Free by Cédric Bouchet in 10 Magazine, and the Spring 2012 Prada fantasy lookbook. TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

Do you know what is happening in, like, 3 weeks or so? I turn...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:38:13 -0400

Do you know what is happening in, like, 3 weeks or so? I turn 19, or 27, or 23, or 29, or 25 or something. Two days later there is this, which is totally internet-important and will sort of be like that party last year but way cooler. Also look! Squirrelfriend is doing video projection-y things and like Avery and Jermaine and Aaron and Elle and Amy and whole lot of other people I like a whole lot are doing things too! k cool SEE U THERE Y’ALL <3