It's coming.

Last night, Kaitlin and I had an awesome dinner with our grandparents. We talked about our family and Christmas and I ate a huge steak and wore a dress. I even got them to tell the story about how they met  and fell in love on a cruise ship from San Francisco to Hawaii when my grandma was on a family vacation and my grandpa, just graduated from Princeton, was moving to the islands to become a teacher. I've heard that story a million times and it never ever gets old. It was great. 

After dinner, Kaitlin and I made a quick detour to Anthropologie.  And that's where it happened. 

The second I entered the store, I knew. 

Autumn. 

I could smell it in the scent of the maple candles. I could hear it in the change from sandals flopping around the store, to a much heartier clop of boots. And I could see it in the stacks of newly folded printed corduroy pants and the color of burnt orange that my eyes picked up on like a plate of hot cookies.

I'm excited for this fall just like I am every year. And although it might be 82 degrees in Costa Mesa right now, I am wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, jeans and a blanket on my lap. I will not be ignored.

Moral of the story: I like my grandparents. And I like the fall. And I like hanging out with both my grandparents and the fall.

And thus concludes today's blog post. 

Reason #38, Reason #38B

How I Know I'm Not a Real Lady Yet

Reason #38:

I never paint my nails with lady like nail polish. 

Reason #38B:

When I do paint said nails, I don't take said nail polish off at appropriate time, but instead let said nail polish chip off slowly, and over the course of 6 months. 

Small Talk

Saturday was my dad's birthday and Saturday night was his party. We do the same thing every year to celebrate-- all of his favorite people come to our house and we eat chili cheese dogs and jamoca almond fudge ice cream. It is, quite literally, his favorite day of the year. Only downside of the whole situation is the fact that, in recent years, this is the first time that I've seen some of my parents friends in a while-- usually since last years party. And it comes with the territory of being a 21 year old with one year left in college to be asked some very repetitive questions with some very repetitive answers. 

"Yes, this is my last year!" 

"I know! I feel like I just started" 

"It was a good experience, but I'm really happy to be back home." 

"New York city is super hot." 

"I have no clue what I want to do; I'm just going to try and get some sort of job and go from there." 

"Savannah really is such a beautiful city." 

"Yes, Vera Wang is crazy."

"Just a few more weeks-- we start on September 16th."

But, I don't mind answering those questions. You know why? Because I'm the Queen of Small Talk. When I was a kid, my mom was a stickler about "playing tennis in conversation." You're talking to someone and they hit the ball to you. You hit it back. Your skill levels of tennis may vary, but you always have to at least try to swing at it. I was trained in the art of bourgeoisie salon lyfe since I could talk.  

When Kaitlin and I were kids though, sometimes we'd get bored and we'd mix up the game by throwing back answers that they didn't see coming. Usually complete lies. But sometimes, they weren't lies at all, but just brutally honest, small-talk-with-your-parents-friends-innapropriate answers. 

This weekend, Kaitlin was out of town in Seattle apartment hunting (!!!) and missed the party. But throughout the night of small talk, I wished she was there so we could have laughed secretly when one of my dad's golf buddies asked me how my day was going and I answered that I had "mad cramps." The look on his face. 

An old friend of my parents who is the kind of person who you never really feel like is listening to you when you talk asked me what my plans were after college and I had a feeling he was zoning out so I said that I was going to try my hand at making it in the WNBA to which he replied "College really is an exciting time." 

Speaking of plans for after college, let me just state right now that the plans are these: slowly deteriorate as a human and blame it on the economy. 

I'm not too happy with that plan so I'm still working on a plan B, but for now, that's what I got. I don't have a Plan C either, but I do have a Plan D: Run away and build a cabin the woods. These guys made it look real easy. I'll keep you posted though.

Everyone has a hickey but me.

Sometimes, your checkout girl at Blockbuster has a hickey and you think it's gross and stupid. 

Sometimes, your older sister's friend has a hickey and you think it's gross and stupid. 

Sometimes, you overhear the bag boys at Ralph's talking about how they gave their girlfriends hickies and you think it's gross and stupid. 

Sometimes, your friends all get hickies from boys on this one certain week and you think it's gross and stupid. 

But you're also kind of jealous. 

And then you wonder if you should blog more about the subject as to explain your thinking so you don't come off as a total weirdo. 

But then you're like, no, I don't need to explain myself. 

I want a hickey. And you're just going to have to understand that that's all I'm willing to say about it right now. 

----------------------------------

This has been posted purely as a benchmark for the historical timeline of my life, to be later catalogued and sold as a memoir. 

Working titles include but are not limited to: 

"The World Goes on Dates as Julia Plays Ping Pong"

"Dinner Plans with Grandparents: The Julia Patton Story"

"Self Pity: A Lifestyle Choice" 

Mom

Today, in the car driving up to LA, I had one of those good, long, terrifying, but 100% necessary talks with my mom again today about my future. This talk has become one of the traditions that now comes with visiting home and not being able to have in person talks with my mom as much as I would like. 

I can always see it coming a mile away and it always starts with me trying to avoid it as much as humanly possible.

I try and avoid it because I know she'll get the truth, the real, good, only things I've talked to myself about, and some things I didn't even realize truths out of me. She does it every time.

She starts easy, but I get it.  

"So, how are things going, Juj?" 

I say little at first, doing my best to bore her into giving up, but knowing in moments, as hard as I try to fight it, my hereditary need to speak and be heard will kick into high gear and I'll be giving up my highly guarded master plan. The plan of course, consisting of the realities of my highly unpredictable, half baked future, that truly consists of no plan at all will come spilling out. I don't regret a second of it.  

Along the way, she jumps in with advice and more questions that I usually don't have answers to but I almost always pretend I do, finding them as I speak in circles. She listens like I never could, saying things along the way that make me feel like a million bucks and comfort the blows of a scared 21 year old. 

"Wow, Juj, that's such a wise perspective."

"You're doing a really great job."

"I'm proud of the woman you've become."

I find it hard to accept those statements. They feel too grandiose. I feel like I should admit to her how many times a week I make pasta for dinner and that I never make my bed at school so she's less impressed or something. 

And then, in the first three second lull from talking that I allow, she reaches out her hand with no other instructions and begins to pray for me. 

The conversation then dies down and by that time, I have some sort of stress stomach ache that feels like I've just spent the last hour lying on the ground, spinning down a big, grass hill. I think about how the future has never been as close as it is right now and that it's only getting closer with every minute that we sit there in silence. 

And then she changes the subject by suggesting that we go on some sort of food adventure and I realize  that I am kind of getting hungry too. 

Valentino

I am such a huge fan of Valentino. Every season they find a way to reel me in deeper and deeper with their ridiculously beautiful and timelessly feminine collections and they've done it again.
Their ad campaign for Fall 2013 was inspired by flemish portraiture and realism and I just cannot stop looking at these images.
Can't wait to see what they do next.

Summer Video

And what kind of blogger would I be if I didn't make some sort of ridiculous video to document this summer? I'd be a really terrible one. Which I'm quite sure that I am pretty close to being anyway, so I thought why the heck not-- throw them readers a bone... Something they can really sink their teeth into! Some thing so moving, so thought provoking that they stand up and cheer.

So I made you this video composed mostly of us eating.