Ways to fake a summer

7 AM

Blend up strawberries you put in the freezer the night before, 2 peaches, 

cup of Mango Lemonade and a handful of blueberries.

15 minutes to look like you didn't wake up 15 minutes ago

Use

1. Fekkai Summer Hair beach waves spray, smells like mermaids and works like heaven. $25 

Not the ."Not Your Mother's" brand. It literally smells and feels like you've been at the beach. But it is $8..

AND

3. Pssssst! dry shampoo. Fools em every time. $5

The Commute

 Listen to Spotify radio stations based on tracks your crushes send you.

The [one of several] Water Fountain Breaks at Job #1

Send tropically-themed Emojis.

The [15 minute] Lunch Break before classes

Trick yourself into thinking you're eating on the patio at a trendy cafe 

while sitting in the shade of Chick-fil-a umbrellas eating chicken n' waffle fries.

The Commute to Job #2

Listen to this: 

while you drive with the windows down and sing loudly enough to keep yourself from falling asleep at the wheel (not kidding).  

Optional pause when you get to stoplights. 

Disclaimer: You might not look as attractive doing this as I do.

Other disclaimer: This photo is a still from a music video I made and sent 

to a group message of several friends. 

file under: my friends are cooler than yours, other ways to keep yourself awake driving at 4 pm

7 PM

Have a cold beer and paint your nails a new summery color.  

You can't have this exact color because my little brother brought it back for me from Italy. 

But Carolina blue is always a good choice. 

By the time (10 pm) you fall into bed, you'll feel like you've actually just spent the day on Oahu. 

Just remember: Summer is not a season, it's a state of mind. 

Damn. 

I think I just made that up.

yo skrill drop it hard

This is me being depressed that all my friends are leaving for our annual OIB week vacation this morning and I can't go.  With 2 classes and 2 jobs, it's just not going to happen. Now if you're equally stranded this summer in your commitments to paychecks and educational requirements, maybe you can whine with me. You have two options. you could either accept the fact that you just don't have a summer this time around and put on your working girl pants and revel in the chaos of your endless 7-7 days. Or, you could sit on the floor with your dalmatian and put on your dolci follie mask  and wallow in the sad and mentally challenging schedule that has become your life. Whichever you think is the more responsible thing to do. 

If you choose the second option-

Friday, you really are the happiest day of the week

I wrote this in Panera earlier and had a [welcome] distraction, so I never posted it. So.. posting it now.

Sorry for the post delete last night. I hate doing that. But I also hate seeing the next morning how many thousands  couple of you read all my heart spillage last night.  I'm in Panera getting breakfast  coffee before this map quiz. (So nervous I can barely eat!) Jk, I had a free coffee from those Panera rewards so had to maximize the resources.  On my second cup.  Really think I might be drunk.  Coffee buzzes are so much different than tea caffeine -not used to it. Anyway, this is like the weirdest Panera experience in all my life. Read:


1. I'm listening to a guy at the register tell the register lady how he's going to propose tonight.  She's asking where they met. He says at a gym in Canada; they were both boxing. He said she had a cute sweaty face so he went up to talk to her. I'm not making this up. He's kind of heavy-set. But man, what a dreamboat.

2. The register lady and I keep making eye contact. It's getting really uncomfortable because it's getting very apparent that I'm listening to every conversation she's having with her customers.

3. This doesn't have to do with Panera, but I'm typing in the African capitals to the countries in a Word document to study, and it keeps recognizing that I'm spelling them wrong and correcting the spelling for me. I'm not talking about like Kenya or Bamako. I'm talking about like Ouagadougou and Yamoussoukro. Touche, Word, touche.

4. A Panera worker ran out from behind the counter sobbing hysterically into to her boyfriend/friend/husband's arms. But it's a few minutes later now and I just casually glanced back and she doesn't look like she was crying at all. Maybe she was laughing really hard or something. Mysterious..

5. A group of elderly ladies and gentlemen are sitting near me and it's appearing as though they are a breakfast club that meets here every week/day? I like them a lot, right now they're talking about a crossword puzzle word they can't figure out. I'm secretly playing along, but they must be playing a really advanced puzzle because I don't know any of the answers. Also, one of the men is wearing a golf shirt embroidered with his fraternity letters and it's the letters of the fraternity of one of my crushes. 


6. Another old man, about 75, sitting by himself over to my right is talking on his phone that's something like a Jitterbug and he just said, "Yea, her ex husband is a real douchebag.." 
.....I've got nothing to say. 


OK, here goes the final study practice:
Algeria- Algiers (so easy)
Tunisia- Tunis (also easy
Morocco- Rabbat
Libya-Tripoli
Mauritania- Nouakchott
Mali- Bamako
Nigeria- Abuji
Niger- Niamey
Chad- Ndjamena
Senegal- Dakar
Gambia- Banjul
Guinea Bissau- Bissau (easy)
Guinea- Conakry
Liberia- Monrovia
Sierra Leone- Freetown (favorite one)
Ghana- Accra
Togo- Lome
Benin- Porta Nova
Burkina Faso- Ouagadougou
Equatorial Guinea- Malabo
Congo Republic- Brazzaville
CAR- Bangui
DRCongo- Kinshasa
Ethiopia- Addis Ababa
Sudan- Khartoum


Ok so this is where I stopped because right then, one of my crushes walked in. All I could think about was how I had coffee breath and that I was wearing my brother's cologne because I didn't feel like showering after my lessons this morning.  I hope he smelled the man cologne over the coffee breath.  We sat and talked and afterwards we both admitted we felt kind of high off all the caffeine.  Questionable state in which to go into my map quiz.

I am seriously so buzzed, it's like we got beers after work.
But it wasn't even 10 a.m. and all we had was coffee.

/rebel

Between work and class, I pause to share these thoughts

I have an Africa map quiz tomorrow I should be studying for. A map quiz! I thought I passed 5th grade the first time around. 

Also I made my first print in this photo class yesterday- It was like the most awesome thing ever. I have to say that at first, I was really uncomfortable with the class- even convinced myself to be miserable about it because it's completely new ground to cover and I'm really bad at being excited about change. I've never learned about photography before.  So to go into this beginning photo class without even a camera was confusing enough (what's wrong with my camera phone?), and then make me develop my own black and white prints? I might as well be on Mars. Processing that first roll of film was so frustrating. It was the same frustration you get when you look at a still-life with fake flowers in glass bottles and bowling pins leaning on teddy bears and realize you have to draw that s#!+ for a grade.

I hated the camera store for charging me 150 bucks on film and the syllabus for being serious and intimidating and the dark room for being dark.  6 weeks of this madness while I could just as easily snap a pic on my way to work and put that s#!4 on Instagram.  What did I get myself into?   

Then yesterday happened and we got to the hands-on part of it all- the part of these classes that made me fall for the studio in the first place.  So I get in there with my film and do everything I think right, and take my print outside to check it out. And there it was. My first print! It was exhilarating, like seeing a painting come together. And rewarding, like getting everything right on a map quiz.  I wanted to parade it around town and show everyone what I'd done and isn't it great? Just look at that fine grain detail! 

Showing it to my professor (the Australian) brought on it's own list of mmm-no's and try-that-again's, but that wasn't the point.  The point was that I got this motivation to want to do more, learn more, mess up more, try it again and again and really attempt to master the foundations of black and white photography.  So while I expect more emotional troughs of frustration and contempt for this incredibly complicated skill, I'm also prepared to fully appreciate the darkness of the dark room and marvel at all the good photographers of the world.  Hats off to you, Ansel Adams!  

There she is, in all her resin-coated paper glory! 

Baby you're a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down

One of my professors is African and the other is Australian. Such a world-class education.


My mom recently said she liked Imagine Dragons. She didn't actually say that specifically, but everytime an Imagine Dragons song comes on my speakers, she yells from the other room, "Who's this singing!" So that's why I think that. 


My African professor says "great" the way one of my brothers always says it... like "gret" ha I can't explain it but makes me miss him sooo bad. He gets back Wednesday and I can't waaaait. 




My chipped polish was annoying me in my first class so in the fifteen minutes before the next one I bought this. Splash of grenadine. Personally I like the color better in the bottle than on my nails. But it's that good brand everyone likes, so.. not mad. 



Using my family's old 35 mm for class. And I bought this magazine on impulse at the register- $5 for all but 3 measly (yet glowing) pages of Blake. The register lady looked at my lithium batteries and the camera hung around my neck like I was from 1991 or something.  But shouldn't you be allowed to look like that if you are actually from 1991?


This picture of my mom and her friends came up on my news feed.  No filter. (haha). But really.

This song to wake you up:



This song for the afternoon:

[insert song lyric about it being 2 am and I'm still awake/must be lonely?]

How can you be lonely with an iPhone chalk full of social media and a stuffed dolphin tucked in to the sheets next to you?

Not every day you think to blog from your phone, now is it? Hope you enjoyed the live blogging action I was doing today from the beer capital of North Carolina itself.

I'm so tired from this weeknd (you like that?) that I actually fell asleep on a tangled mound of sheets and comforters on my bed mid-text earlier tonight. You know how tired that is? Tired as sheet! (haha) So now I finally gathered up the layers of blankets and sandwiched myself in here ready for a crazy night of unconscious ecstasy (music festival? Naaah, sleep) and decided I'd get back on the ole mobile blogger to say:

1) hello
2) ask if youre ready (not ready) for one hell (literally) of a Monday, too?
3) goodnight
4) Hope you're sleeping more than I am right now.

Also that C and I stopped for Zaxbys on the way home today and that place is one forgotten gem. Drove a whole four miles off the highway just for some of that chicken tender love.

Also that brownie milkshakes are so much better when you split them and that rain on your windshield is the best soundtrack to good conversation and that I don't think I could make a three hour drive home take a whole six with anyone else. (Charlotte- Cary for us means Charlotte- to the next couple snacks/don't feel like driving anymore stops -to Cary. So that's like 6 hours right?) Google maps doesn't even know what he's talking about.

Precious love birds ring C just bought

Got a secret, got a secret!

You've probably seen Nasty Gal clothing on here before 

and probably dreamed about one day being as bad ass as the girls wearing it. 

Well now's your chance. 

Secret sale item today only. 

This top. 

Down to 9 bucks. 

Originally $30
Can't just whisper about a sale like this.

And the back..
Say you don't want it.

Here's your sick nasty link, nasty gal

Mondays that really aren't that bad, but you decide you're going to complain about anyway

How come I got the man-version of Siri? 

I don't know what my problem is today.  Mondays and I never really butt heads. But this one's like the worst ever.  And it's not even over! Worse, it's 4:46, which is like too early to throw your hands up in the air saying Lord you just don't care, but too late to put on some badass aviators and turn it around.  It's been the kind of day you wake up kind of sick and kind of in a bad mood but no one asked so you have to go around making the best of it.  And you really think you're gonna kick this sore throat thing, but the raspberry Emergen-C you try makes your ice water taste like stale fizz.  Then the movie on Apple TV you decided you would sit down and watch in celebration of taking your final today wasn't even that good and the blanket on the couch was one of those throw afghans that's flimsy and doesn't even cover your feet.  You're pretty sure the Pacific Ocean draft found its way to your air conditioning vent blasting at your feet because it forced you into a sweatshirt with arms that are too short and smells like last winter.  You decide you're giving up on this nasty Emergen-C mixture that's not even working, so you press your glass in on the fridge dispenser to get new ice but forget to pay attention until you have an avalanche of crushed ice tumbling down your arm.  If you didn't know, when crushed ice hits the floor, it shoots off in every direction and the dog comes running and everyone is sliding all over the hardwoods and licking all over the glass you set down on the floor so that you could pick up the ice.  So you get a new glass and think you're really showing the fridge dispenser a thing or two when you just get water with no ice this time.  After your fight with the fridge dispenser, you pick up your phone, maybe try starting up a conversation, but even the man-computer in your phone is annoying you.  You wonder what has been making you so sore this whole time and look down and remember you have deep wounds scrapes on every limb of your body from face-planting in the middle of the sidewalk the other night.  And it was the kind of face-plant that makes you so angry at the ground and puts a huge cry lump in your throat right there in front of everyone and makes you want to scream at it because you're so angry at it for making you trip but also angry that it makes you want to cry. Ugh! So you can't even go out on a walk because the scrapes on top of your toes make sandals little bitches to put on, and you can't wear sneakers either because that's too much shoe-to-scrape contact.  So you spend the rest of the day barefoot in the backyard with a minimal-skin contact sundress and this dog you're watching.  Who sometimes you mistake for a real person when you say out loud baby can you bring me the chips from in there? Then there's no response besides a collar jingle and you side-eye the empty dining room to your right pretending that didn't just happen.  Man no wonder you're single.  

Well hopefully you can sit down on the hardwoods, avoiding the ice puddles, of course, with the dog in your lap and laugh together about it all.  And hopefully tomorrow you'll wake up enjoying the soft rub of the couch on your scraped knees and be so happy that the day will be yours again and you can get yourself a glass of crushed ice water in peace.  For now, I'm going to Christmas-present wrap my feet in bandaids and take the dog up to the Kangroo for a slushie. Take that, fridge dispenser!

Here's a song:

	Sheryl Crow - My Favorite Mistake .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Dog and I like lighting the ice cream flavor candle in the kitchen and dancing to this one. 

  

Something intriguing. Something unusual. Something you should read

My mom is like the most creative teacher in the world.  She really masters balancing the effectiveness of traditional education with the excitement of new learning.  When I first found this book in her car, based on the girly teen romance cover, I was all heyyyyy who's other daughter are you hanging out with! Then she said it was for her kids at school and I wasn't jealous anymore I thought, man, I wish my teacher gave me this to read for homework. And then I opened it up and saw that there was nothing to read.

It was art, everywhere. Mixed media and scrapbook-like pages and drawings and photographs and paintings and all of it was gorgeous. And on the softest paper! I really couldn't take my eyes- or hands for that matter- off the pages.  It was also very overwhelming because on the first page you read something about a missing girl and a boxing gown and you immediately want to know what happened to her and what the hell the boxing gown has to do with it.

But the collections of images and text on each page become parts of a greater story, clues to a mystery you're left to solve. I was flipping back to earlier pages for things I missed and searching photographs for information I didn't have and I pretty much felt like a high-profile detective trying to figure the story out- at one point even put on my fake glasses and navy blazer.

It's a lovely read, and a quick one  if you're as smart and savvy a detective as I am  and it's the kind of book you'll find yourself picking up to flip through again and again, if not just to look at, while you wait for your English muffin to be done toasting.

Definitely worth the 12 or whatever dollars.
Definitely makes a cool coffee table addition.  
Definitely makes you want Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral to make more.

My favorite review:
"Reading Chopsticks is like watching people kiss in the street: it's private, it's beautiful, it's lonely, it's wild, it's secret, it's everywhere and you can't look away." 

-Daniel Handler, author of Why We Broke Up


My suggestion order- Buy the actual book. Save your Nook/Kindle Fire space for something more Times New Roman. 

The kind of tanks you forgot about this summer

Being a summer school student of 3 summers now, I know the drag and inconvenience of getting dressed for class every day.  Especially if you're like me and somehow thought any kind of pre-11 am's were ok to take in the summer.  

Even on the overcast mornings in Chapel Hill, I  you get to class hot, sweaty and probably hungover.  So it makes sense to throw on a loose cotton frat tank when you wake up.  They're better than t shirts because they don't suffocate your man- shoulders, but they're cotton like t-shirts so they're cool in a breatheable kind of way. And also cool in a wow-you-look-seasonally-appropriate-tan-with-that-neon-sports-bra kind of way. *Shout out to Target!* 

See, I get it. It's a perfect top. But even if you really do go to the gym after class every day, like I do, the frat tank only goes so far as far as your Greek letters for your individuality.  And, like Nietzshe says, the ideal human strives for creative individuality. *Shout out to PHIL 230!*  So here are some other versions of the ever-wonderful frat tank. Equally cool (in both ways), loose, and neon-bra strap expose-able.

Strive on, summer smarties! Anyone else want a shout out? 

1. Crop like you're InDesign-ing

The crop top needs high-waisted bottoms.  And high-waisted bottoms are like the smartest trend right now because they can be 1. Preppy and clean-cut. 2. Rugged and resurrected from old dad jeans. 3. Colorful with either style.  They also make your legs look longer. And according to Cosmo, all women want their legs to look longer.  I'm just kidding I don't actually know if that's true.  Back to the crop top, this one from FP is $98.  But don't freak out yet- you haven't seen the back. 

2. My mom's Brooks Brothers from 1987. 

Collared tanks are acceptable again for some reason.  I'm pretty sure my cousins and I used to make fun of our moms for wearing them with skorts back in the day, but I guess I like 'em all right now.  Maybe it's not that they're all trendy all of a sudden, but that my style's getting older and more mom-like. Ok no, they're trendy all of a sudden. And anything with buttons is cute, and clever and put together at that.  This one with lemons from Nasty Gal is not cotton but there's no arguing how perfect it looks with denim.  

Tip- if you're pissed and wanted cotton, go here. This one decided buttons go in the back and has a different collar, but still looks just as perfect with denim. 

3. "Said I got I got I got I got I got your back boy  girl"

Ah, I see you've figured out that that is not the link to the tank.  And I really hope you weren't in a quiet public space without headphones plugged in.  If you were, sorry. Thanks Shan! No prob. Always here for that awkward episode of the day you need.

Now for something less awkward, how about the scoop of that back line in this tank.  Don't ask me what bra you're supposed to wear with this, because I don't know. But I would say not the normal kind.  Seeing that clasp in the back is too suggestive. And you're not in class to give anyone any ideas.  You might say, how is exposing your entire back not suggestive?!?? To which I would say, it kind of is, but in a less tacky, more trendy kind of way than letting your bra clasp show. Go for a bandeau, or maybe some sticky boobs. Sticky boobs! There's another thing you could tell your dad you need and he wouldn't ask questions. But wear this to class and the person sitting behind you probably will ask questions.  To which you will shrug and say nothing. This shirt is flirty enough without words, and you are not in class to flirt.

OH- get it at Urban Outfitters for 30 bucks

4. J. Crew: Where tying your sweater around your waist looks chic and hip 

My mom taught me to love J. Crew because she also taught me to dress like I'm loved.  I figured out she was smart about the time she introduced me to designer jeans, so I listened to her. Here's a tank that takes all the indie of pretty tops and all the tailor of adult-wear to make a summer tank perfect.  How easy does this top make it look to throw it on before class with a messy ponytail and still look like a million bucks? Easy. And plus, according to my mom, people will think you're loved.  Even if that's just by your mom.

Congrats on making it to your last week of summer classes without dropping- it's not too late to pull out your style card! As for my fellow summer-lovin' study girls, I'll see you round campus for round 2! *Shout out to that saying that's like Nothin' finer than Carolina in the summer!* 

Take me to your best friend's house, I loved you then, I love you now

Not that I'm about to say anything novel right here, but I don't know where else I'm supposed to say how much I love friends.  They're seriously the best.  I also love when you're by yourself, doing something mundane, but you're in some other world thinking about your friends and you just bust out laughing about it.  And you're not sure if you're laughing about something they did, or something that happened, or just because they're so damn funny.  But I do know that trimming the shrubbery out front has been highly entertaining as of late thanks to my friends filling my brain up with reasons to laugh out loud to myself in my mom's front lawn.

Other goings on around town that happened while my little blogger waited patiently for me to come back:

-a double date, that actually was more like a date that I got to come on, naturally, because me and C don't do a whole lot without the other, and plus we went and saw the Buena Vista Social Club play at the outdoor amphitheater at the NC Museum of Art, which was awesome in itself, and also plus, I had to do my best friend duties of analyzing and evaluating the boy for best friend approval. He smiled at everything she said, bought both our tickets and had an incredibly sexy mouth. So, C... Approved.

-forgetting my rash guard for swimming lessons so having to teach bikini-clad, exposed cleavage and all, and in return, all areas below my neck bone experiencing lots of grabbing by little sunscreen chub hands.  It was by the grace of King Triton himself that any of the strings holding me in didn't get pulled undone by those fat little finger rolls.

-Little slimy swimmers that I complain about so much but can't ever get enough of because of their raspy little giggles and roly poly baby sisters that keep me weak at the knees for anything under 3 feet.  Also, having zero front teeth makes everything you say adorable. You should try it sometime.

-Taking care of neighbors' puppies, who rival in cuteness to Nala when she gets a lick bath by her mom in Lion King, and whose over-sized paws defy gravity when you walk in the door and say "Have no fear, Neighbor Shan is here!"  Do I actually say that? No. Sometimes.

-The one-week countdown until summer class ends. And the 2 papers due between now and then that haven't happened yet.

-Getting new white ribbed tanks and wearing them as shirts everywhere you go.  Isn't that the best?

I'm off to give the neighbor pups breakfast and do everything in my power not to scoop them into my car and take them to class with me. Will I tweet about it? Probably.

Happy first day of the week! (and of the rest of your life!)

I found new bathing suits you need to buy

Reality being that I went on Pinterest for the first time in a while and got all yippee kai yay buy everything you see about all the bathing suits on there. Summer's the best.

When I posted this I didn't even tell you where any of these are from! Probably because their price tags are all rivaling the cost of my plane ticket to Europe. Not really, I'm just trying to be bitter and pretend like I don't like to shop anymore.  It's a good psychological method to self-induce when you're trying to save. It's not a good psychological method it doesn't work at all.

But thank you for telling me to tell you where these are from. I could only track down two.  This is why you shouldn't look at Pinterest. Sources are shot to hell. But ones with links have homes. 

STUDS

I actually don't know if this is a bathing suit or a bra but either way you could probably get away with wearing it anywhere and still be the baddest girl there.  And I thought studs were only for jackets.  

(Been eyeing that bad girl for a while)

BRAIDS

Ultra indie and goes with that flower crown you made yesterday afternoon. And how cool are those tan lines going to be? Really cool. I talk to myself on my blog.

WEAR A PONY TAIL WITH THIS ONE

I'm digging the smoky blue color almost as much as the friendship bracelet-like twists and turns of the fabric back there. 

STRAPS 

Straps good grey glory I haven't seen anyone wear this. So now's your chance to be the first. Unless I am. Pretty adorable pattern and look! It's possible to be flat as a pancake and wear a bandeau at the same time! #smallboobslife

HEY ONE MORE THING: Whichever bathing suit you buy, don't get this tan. 

It looks bad and like you try too hard.