I like the word 'innocuous'

Sorry I sounded so emo the last post. I really hate feeling sorry for myself especially since I think I have so much to be happy about, but it happens, I guess.

At any rate, I realized Nicholas was right, I totally do have a hobby. So I channeled my anxiety into organizing my fabric. I went through each piece, cut a 2" by 2" square, wrote the yardage amount on the swatch in permanent marker, and clipped each piece to a book ring. Now I know exactly how much of what fabric I own. It turns out that even though I own a lot of fabric (a lot) I have less than a yard of most of them, which would be fine if I didn't like making clothes.

But a couple of weeks ago I bought this pattern so I could start making my wardrobe look more like Emma Pillsbury's (if you're not watching Glee, you should be.)



I wanted to make view C, which is the pink one in the upper left hand corner.

Em-spiration (aargh, Anthony's rubbing off on me!)

At first glance, it seems innocuous enough. Cute pink skirt, right? It has pockets and the hem is relatively straight. It maybe a little short though.

And from the back, it's still okay. My very first lapped zipper doesn't look completely horrible. I actually ironed the whole thing. But then I put it on.

Yeah, kinda short.
And note the pulling around the hips (Also, first and last time I post a full length picture of myself. I wonder if I look this disproportionate in real life?)

And that's my ass (also the first and last time I show my underwear.) It won't zip!

See, I'm a ready-to-wear size 14, which means I can walk into most department stores, pick up a 14, and just wear it as is. So I figured in pattern land, I'd just go up to a 16 since I thought it looked fitted on the model and I'd be fine. Too bad pattern land is graded differently. Always go by the finished measurements provided on the pattern envelope. According to the finished measurements, I'd actually be a size 20.

The good news is, this skirt only took up a yard of fabric, it was on sale for $2.00 a yard, and I got 2 yards, so maybe I can squeeze a bigger one out of the leftovers.

But I was still bored and restless, so instead of packing so I can move this weekend, I decided to make a present for my best friend, Bailey!

And before you ask, no, she's not 5. She's 17, and she likes dinosaurs.

I got the pattern for three dinosaurs (T-Rex, triceratops, and stegosaurus) from a thrift store for 2 bucks.
I had both fabrics in my stash, one was leftover from some hoodie I made, and the blue actually has dinosaurs printed on it in red, green, and yellow. The ribbon was from some gift wrap.

Dino love! And this is what my hair looks like when I try to look like Thandie Newton and skip washing it for a week. But the good news is, I haven't gotten a relaxer yet! Still debating going natural; I'm definitely leaning more and more towards it every day, but I'm not sure how I feel about cutting it all off. I don't care if it's just dead protein, it's warm and mine.

At least I now feel accomplished in addition to anxious. I'm off to pack now!

Burn Baby Burn

It's times like these I wish I drank. Although, drinking to forget problems and pass the time seem like the quick road to alcholism, so I think I'm okay with not drinking.

At any rate, I'm anxious. I'm anxious a lot, actually, but usually I just get angry, rant, and feel better. But today is different because I've realized that I am officially the most pathetic person on the face of planet Earth. I'm anxious, and I realized that I can't talk to anyone about this. Or rather that the only person that I should be talking to about this doesn't want to talk to me.

But the real cherry on this pathetic sundae is the tears. I don't cry a lot, but the past three days I have hit deplorable levels of Bella Swan-esque blubbering. Seriously? I need a life. Or at the very least a time consuming hobby. Being a girl sucks. What's with this need to talk to someone?

On a lighter note, I was burning a piece of paper for an art project, and I think I have a hidden pyromaniac streak.

It's Been Another Week

Already. And there's nothing new or exciting on the home front. I'm not alone though, many of my favorite bloggers have lapsed into voids. I guess August isn't a very exciting month. But good news, there's only two more weeks until I move back to Denton!

Anyway, I decided to talk about things that are currently annoying me.

1. Victoria Justice, of Nickelodeon fame and recently dubbed the next "Teen Queen" by Perez Hilton, was on the cover of September's issue of Teen Vogue. In her interview she was quoted as saying she liked Robert Pattinson because he's "understated hot."

Vicky, I can call you Vicky, right? Right, if every teenage girl and her mom (literally) thinks that some guy who plays a vampire is hot, then it's not understated. In fact, it's the exact opposite. I think your TV show is calling you away from a much needed English class. At the very least, please buy a dictionary. Personally, every time I see R. Patz I want to schedule an appointment with a barber for him so he can get a good shave and a haircut, but whatever floats your boat.
The thing is, I kinda liked her before I read the interview. Now not so much. I don't really think she's stupid, but the interview made her seem vapid and not that bright. Maybe it was just that interview though?

2. Emma Roberts. I'm annoyed by the fact that everyone was all, "Oh, she's Julia Roberts' niece!" like that somehow made her pretty and a great actress. First of all, that's not even her mom. Julia Roberts has actual children that probably look a lot more like her, but we wouldn't know since she moved to the country someplace and Emma's all up in our faces. I don't think Emma looks anything like Julia Roberts, and she definitely did not get her acting chops. I've been annoyed by Emma Roberts' character in every movie she's ever been in, except Blow. And she was like 5 in that movie. She just always sounds whiny and tired and she always plays some annoying teenager who sighs and shuffles around. But if you take the whiny part out, I do like the sound of her voice, it has a nice tone.

On the one hand, if people stopped comparing her to Julia so much, I wouldn't be as annoyed, but on the other, Emma probably wouldn't be as famous if people didn't push that fact. Lose - lose?

3. My mother. I know, I'm really hard-pressed to find times that she annoys me, but I'm really glad that I only have two more weeks of her fascist dictatorship.

Anyway, my best friend and soul sister, Erica, cut her hair and went natural last year. I've been debating going natural since she did it because a) I don't like spending $50 to get my hair relaxed, b) I don't really like the texture of my hair when it's relaxed (It's too straight. I know that's the point, but it's annoyingly so. I like my hair like a month afterwards, when it still looks nice when I flat iron it, but it also holds curls. I digress,) and c) I'm tired of trying to live up to European beauty standards, ie: straight hair, no hips, basically the opposite of Black. I can try as hard as I want to, as long as I want to, and I'm never going to have Jennifer Aniston's hair (unless I get a sick weave.) I especially want to go natural before I have kids (but that's not happening anywhere in the near future.) I just don't want to have a daughter and tell her to love herself the way God made her, and then blow $100 trying to make my hair be straight. It's hypocritical, and the one thing I hate more than just about everything else (I hate a lot of things,) is hypocrisy.

So I was talking to my mom about it. In retrospect, I guess I did say, "Erica said," a lot, but she overreacted in my opinion. She was just super angry, and she yelled a little, but what really gets me is that she told me "to think for myself."

What the what?

First of all, I have never been a blind follower of anything. Usually, I'm so against being with the masses that I actually hate things that are too popular (*coughcoughTwilightcoughcough*) Second of all, just because I respect someone else's opinion and happen to reiterate it to make a point, doesn't mean that I'm not thinking and forming my own opinion. Yes, I like to talk to others, but no, they aren't doing my thinking for me.

She says basically the same thing when I talk about Heritage too. She asks if I'm in a cult and tells me to read my Bible. I do read my Bible. And I've found entire chapters devoted to what's kosher and what isn't, even if it is in the Old Testament which apparently, we're not supposed to follow, just keep for history which makes no fucking sense, and I've never seen anything in the New Testament that even suggests that Jesus says we can eat pork. That is you, making up rules based on one verse that says nothing about meat, and then trying to make me do what you want.

I'm off topic again. It just really makes me mad that any time I do anything that isn't something she approves of, I'm a sheep, but it doesn't apply to the 18 years I did everything she said.

At any rate, in a perfect world, my hair would be like Thandie Newton's.

But she is half White. It's still cute though. I actually have no idea what my natural hair looks like since I get a relaxer every 4 months. Maybe it does curl.

Hair Care

Lately, I've been obsessed with watching hair and makeup tutorials on youtube. I'm not really a beauty type girl, I usually just stick to clothes, but Gertie made me want to try victory rolls.

My mom thinks they're hideous, but I like it. Maybe not on me, but I haven't tried it. YET.

Anyway, I found this video about Black men's opinions on natural vs. relaxed hair. And basically, it comes down to preference, which I totally get. I don't think most men care what a girl's hair looks like as long as she keeps it clean and healthy, (but there is a biological/psychological basis for guys liking long hair. See, in prehistoric times, a woman with long, shiny hair was considered a better mate since her hair was a good indicator of health. Technology may have advanced, but people haven't.) I prefer blue eyed men. It doesn't mean I won't talk to a guy with another colored eyes, I'm just initially slightly more attracted to that particular color. Now apply it to hair! Anthony likes long hair on girls, but my hair's not long. Yay personal preference! At any rate, I made the mistake of reading the comments.

Sidenote: This is why I hate sites like youtube, facebook, and the like. People feel like they can say anything they want because they're sitting at home at their computer and not face to face. I'm willing to bet money if any Black women were around or even just the woman whoever this is insulted was present, he/she (I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman, but I think it's a boy) would have NEVER said any of these things. Cyberbullying sucks.

Just to check that someone hadn't attacked this person first, I went back a couple of pages and no one really said anything insulting to whoever this is. Some girl made a comment that she likes her relaxers, he or she called that girl a bitch and said that men don't like fake relaxed hair and that Black people are the only people who gets weaves and relaxers, then someone else said that Black people are most definitely not the only people who get weaves/relaxers and that her hair was healthy, and he/she posted this.

Aside from the fact that I hate cyberbullying and bad grammar and this post had both, this person is obviously racist. "Your hair wasn't made straight for a reason." Do you even know what that reason is? Exactly. Black people don't even know why their hair has kinky curls. I heard or read somewhere that it's to protect our heads from the sun in the desert, and when I googled it, something about the distribution of lipids popped up. "A black women's hair was never ment to be straight." Obviously not, but since we do have the technology/equipment to do it, who are you to declare it disgraceful? People's skin wasn't made permanently marked or full of decorative holes, doesn't mean people aren't going to get tatoos or piercings.

The part that mega pisses me off is the whole white girls were raised to love their hair schtick because it's complete bullshit. I know a white blonde girl who straightens her hair before she goes to bed and then again in the morning before she goes to school. Another white girl I know has beautiful, dark, curly hair, it's the perfect spiral curly, and she straightens her hair every morning despite her mom telling her not to and people like me fawning all over the curly version when she wears it that way. Women, white, black, around and in-between dye their hair. There's a technique called "Japanese hair straightening" that uses heat and chemicals to make hair straight (and Japanese people have straight hair for the most part. This makes it damn straight.) And black women are not the only people getting weaves. White girls just call them "extensions."

Women of all races are taught to manage and manipulate their hair to achieve the most attractive style possible. While attractive isn't universally level, we learn to shampoo, condition, and style whatever we've got whatever type it is. While the relaxer is a super super bad way to "manage" hair, it's still a method of straightening the really kinky roots that a flat iron just can't reach. And while I firmly hold the belief that relaxers started as a method to try and cure Black self-loathing, (another, longer blog post entirely) most Black women get them now because their mothers took them to get one. Like me. I don't necessarily hate my nappy hair. I just get relaxers because my mom made me and now it's the only way I know how to do my hair. It's just passed down now.

The point is, if men didn't find relaxers somewhat attractive and actively tried not to procreate with women who got relaxers like this same youtube user said in another comment, women wouldn't get them. Or maybe they would because they want to feel attractive and they don't give a damn if a man likes it or not.

Either way, dear WizardPrinceBreon, stop being a jerk about something you obviously know nothing about. If you want to comment that you personally don't like the relaxed look, fine. I'll even accept your racist ideology for the purpose of blog posts, but don't speak for everyone, your race or otherwise, and try to keep the name calling/cursing to a minimum. It's unattractive.

Food Porn!

I promised, didn't I?


This is my first attempt at a baseball cake for Cassandra's birthday. I hate it! For some reason, it split and cracked. :(

This is why I hate cake! It's so hard!

My second attempt looked much better, but the actual cake was gross. After I ruined the first cake, I immediately made the second one, then Gabe wanted to change the date of the party. So I froze this cake, and as a result, it was gross when I pulled it out and frosted it a week later. I still hate cake.

Parmesan chicken! It's delicious. I'm most definitely making this my "signature dish."

French bread. I love bread. Bread and toast. Bread and toast with butter. Carbs be damned, bread is delicious, and I'm officially obsessed with baking bread. That's also lasagna in the upper left hand corner.

I've also made breaded chicken with mozzarella, which is kind of a variation of the Parmesan chicken, but everyone in my family loved the breaded chicken more. They're weird though.

I've also decided that anything "Italian" aka with pasta of some sort is the best food that I can make. Also, I like farfalle (bow tie) pasta better than regular spaghetti. And angel hair pasta is a bitch.

Anyway, I want to bake cupcakes for profit rather than get an actual part time job, but my friend Erica said that I probably wouldn't make enough to make a living, and I'm very easily discouraged. I don't necessarily need enough money to "make a living" like pay rent and buy groceries, but I definitely could use extra. Would it be worth it to try the cupcake biz or should I just suck it up and apply at McDonald's?

Waiting

I was checking my blog roll, and I realized that I haven't posted a new blog in over a week. What is the world coming too? In case you were wondering what's more important that updating complete strangers (and some friends) on the obscure details of my life, they are as follows:

Sleeping.

I've been sleeping a lot lately. A lot. I get up at 7 AM, go for a run, come home and eat breakfast, feel like I can conquer the world, and then go back to be at 11. It's annoying. I think there might be something wrong with me. I literally feel exhausted, but I'm not really doing anything. Anthony says that boredom just might be making me sleepy, but I really think that I have a problem. My mom suggested that I start taking vitamins, so I'll try that.


Reading blogs.

Mostly this one. I'm in love with this woman, I swear. For the people who aren't going to click on the link, she's Gertie. She bought a vintage Vogue sewing book, and she's sewing her way through all 14 patterns. If you didn't know, sewing and clothes are like crack for me, so I've gone all the way back to the beginning of her blog to obsess over her work. Her Blog for Better Sewing (see what I did, I linked it twice. Click it.) is amazing, and after tediously pouring over her posts, I've learned three valuable things.

1. I love vintage fashion. Lovelovelove, which is me-speak for obsessed with. I would say that I was born in the wrong decade, but black people weren't treated very nicely in the '50s/'60s, and it wouldn't be socially acceptable for me to be with Anthony, so I think I was born in the right period. I can still dress like them right?
2. Gorgeous Fabrics is my new online mecca. When I don't have any money, you'll know why.
3. As much as I like vintage clothing, I can't use vintage patterns to re-create them for me because vintage patterns do not like fat people. Gertie suggests searching by your bust size; mine is 45, and all the patterns I found that would fit me were for the '70s. Lame sauce. I'm not very fond of the '70s/'80s.

I would totally pull a Julie/Julia style thing for Gertie and I and sewing except for the aforementioned not being able to find patterns in my size and the Vogue book that she's using is from 1952 so the cheapest copy I could find was $49.99. I'll follow her in spirit though. I'm definitely inspired.

Cooking.

I'm still cooking. I mentioned before how excited I was that my parents were buying me cookware. I guess that's what I'll do next blog, post pictures of the food I've made. Food porn!

Anyway, less than 3 weeks and I'll be back in Denton!!! I can't wait! Oh, I'm also adding a class or two since I just have to graduate in May 2012, so that'll be fun. I don't think the exhaustion thing will be getting any better though.

I received the Versatile Blogger Award!

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award
2. Share seven things about you
3. Nominate 6 newly discovered blogs
4. Let your nominees know about the award!

1. A big thanks to Nikolett from Better Than Coffee! I love winning things!

2. Seven Things About Me:

• I know if you read my blog it seems like I complain a lot, but I'm actually a very happy person. I think I just tend to show the less happy on the Internet.
• I like redheaded people.
• I want to travel, but I'm going to be in so much debt after I finish school that I'll have to wait practically forever.
• I lovelovelove appliances and cookware! Every visit to Target ends up with me wandering down the home isles. My parents started buying things for my apartment, and so far I have: a skillet, a new muffin pan, 2 casserole dishes, a set of 3 mixing bowls, this neat carosel thing with spatulas and spoons, and a George Foreman grill. Now I just need some saucepans, a cookie sheet, a meat tenderizer, and a set of knives and I'll be set.
• I can totally use all of those things too. And I've figured out that I'm best at making Italian food.
• Number of photos on my iPod of Emma Pillsbury from Glee that I keep for "Em-spiration" = 55. Number of photos of Anthony = 9.

But she's so cute!

• I've learned that not only do I have a thing for nerdy white boys, I also like random old men. Case in point:

Harrison Ford (68) just married Calista Flockhart. I'm jealous. But really, who doesn't love Indiana Jones? Or Han Solo? 'Nuff said.

John Cusack (44.) Tall, dark, and sarcastic. I like.

Dick Van Dyke (85, but he's less cute old) has blue eyes and he tap dances. If only I had a time machine.

Not only in the "nerdy white boy" category, but Matthew Gray Gubler is also 30.

This list just reminds me that Anthony said he'd never have to worry about me cheating on him with a black guy. I wouldn't cheat on him anyway, but so he knows, I just don't know a lot of black actors or singers that I find attractive, not necessarily that I don't like black guys. Case in point: Idris Elba (38.)

3. Six blogs:

Dutch - She's getting two doctorate degrees. Two. 2. T-W-O.
Tia - We're alike in personality, so if you can handle double doses of self-centered crazy, you should read her blog too.
Ana - She's one of Anthony's friends that I mooched because she said I was cute; therefore, I like her.
Jacque - She likes pink! A lot. If you don't like pink, don't click it because it will sear your eyes.
Teddi - She's cute and looks young, although I think she's older than I, but she's very deep.
Anthony - Because I love him, and maybe if people start reading he'll post things.

Bonus: I'm not nominating her for an award because she already has some, but I love her. So read Una's blog if you need to randomly laugh at mundane things.

Now I'm off to celebrate more because I'm a winner!