Waste

With finals afoot, I am majorly identifying with this series of prints by Alyson Provax. "This series is a sort of audit of how I spend my time," she writes, "but the prints could also be thought of as permission slips allowing you to spend a period of time in a wasteful way." I love that! 

If I were to add a few of my own they would probably sound a lot like '30 seconds reheating the brownie in the microwave,' '1 minute and 14 seconds sitting in the car waiting for the song to finish,' '23 minutes staring,' and 'the next two weeks in constant duress.' 

The Oscars, my friends. THE. OSCARS.

I have finals to do. I am like, really busy. Like, super busy. But why not take 6 hours on Sunday when I should be doing homework and projects due the next morning to first watch Ryan Seacrest awkwardly compliment celebrities on how jealous he is of their hair volume followed by about a half a dozen long haired men accept awards for things like sound mixing in a foreign animated short or Avatar (that's still being nominated, right?). I'll tell you why. We do it for the fashion. We do it for the moments when Jennifer Lawrence falls on her face. We do it for the rare occassion every few years where we get invited into Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck adorable marriage. WE DO IT FOR OSCAR. 

And where I didn't time budget on Sunday, I am having to time budget now. For this year's wrap up, I don't have enough time to rip apart Seth Macfarlane's sub par hosting job or how much I don't like Jennifer Hudson (I know. Sorry.) but I'm going to focus on my favorite fashion moments. Duh. 

Let's start with the big winner. J-Law. This Dior Haute Couture dress was simultaneously her best friend and worst enemy. Yes, the dress fit her like a glove and emoted sophistication and timelessness like no other, but it also ended up being to blame for her great fall (which, I might add, could not have been done more gracefully) when accepting her award. The pale pastel color was a definite trend of the night, as well as my top picks. 

Me and my clique absolutely loved Amanda Seyfried in Alexander McQueen. Not everyone can pull off the high neckline (also worn flawlessly by Salma Hayek later in the evening) but her choice to keep her hair, makeup and jewelry simple complimented the dress beautifully. She rarely ever makes a misstep when it comes to fashion choices and this is just another one in the bank. Well played, Cosette. 

Ok, this is almost completely arbitrary to write, but Charlize Theron looked beautiful. She is wearing Dior Haute Couture. Her hair is amazing. Her makeup is stunning. Her jewelry is sparkly. I loved it. Let's move on. 

Oh, Anne Hathaway. What are we going to do with you? I love you. I hate you. I love you. I hate you. You love your husband. I hate you. Let's start at the beginning, ok? Your dress. My sources at E! tell me that you were supposed to be wearing a Valentino gown, someone you've worn beautifully a number of times before, but at the last minute (an hour before leaving for the red carpet) decided to switch to this Prada dress. I want to love it. I see the great potential in it, but the problem with changing your mind at the last minute means that the weeks and weeks of tailoring said dress that would have happened with the proper planning, had to be Macgyver'ed in hour that was allowed. Thus resulting in a beautiful couture gown being worn by a beautiful woman, but that fit poorly. A shame indeed. Especially considering the flack she has taken this awards season for campaigning for her Oscar win, I'm going to assume that the Valentino dress she was previously planning on wearing just screamed "winner." Maybe she got cold feet and wanted to do something a bit more subdued, but everyone knows her Oscar was in the bag, so I wish she had just gone for it. 

Still love the dress, though. 

But before we move on, allow me to point out the lady to Miss Hathaway's left in the background. Opaque white tights. Baby pink Mary Jane's. A one shoulder black dress and a white cardigan. And that, my friends, is how you rock the Oscars! 

I absolutely loved Jessica Chastain in this Armani dress. Completely beaded could have gone wrong. Terribly wrong. But like everything Miss Chastain gets her hands on these days, she knocked it out of the park. Her Golden Globes look was a bit more editorial and I liked it, but this is a quintessential Oscars moment. 

Eddie Redmayne wins for the boys. Every time. Forever and for always. <3 

That's it for this year. I hate when awards season is over. 

Finals Starting in 3...2...1...

I can't believe I'm saying this with three whole weeks of class before Spring Break, but it seems, in spite of intense protest and denial, finals have begun.

Wanna know how I know?

I went to Taco Bell for dinner last night. At 10:00.

I've been rocking a sports bra for 4 days straight.

Spencer is turning to spaghetti squash and a jar of honey as her main food groups.

I don't really know... no... I can't quite recall... I definitely don't know when my last shower was.

This is either because it's been a quite while or because my short term memory is rapidly deteriorating due to lack of sleep and sunlight.

...It should also be noted that it's been the same sports bra for the last four days...

Whatever. Boyfriends are overrated.

Words were exchanged today with a girl at Eckburg over how long it's appropriate for one person to hog use the scanner before moving out da way for other humans.

I may or may not have pulled up a chair next to her and watched her work until she decided to be mature and do the right thing.

Again: Whatever.

I'm listening to Pussycat Dolls Pandora. And loving it.

It's obvious that I'm already in over my head. Please stay tuned to watch my tri-annual mental breakdown. For the next three weeks, you are either with me or against me.

What?

Remember when you were a kid, like a little, little kid and you were learning how to function? And you'd be in kindergarden and you'd play games like what things start with the letter B? Or name things that are purple. Or what sound does a goat make? Well, the system is broken because I don't know about you, but at my school, they told me the correct answer for that last question is "baahhhhhhh."

That is not the correct answer. Or maybe it was the correct answer, but now, there are these super fancy Goats 4S that are making new sounds and turning into humans. Very loud humans.

Galentine's

Our Galentine's extravaganza was wonderful. And we have instax to prove it!

How was your Valentine's Day?

Happy Valentine's Day

“But I like you.” He cleared his throat. “I like you first and second and third."  

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise  

Dancing

I was already planning on posting this video today of Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell dancing because it made me so happy when I watched it, but right before I did, I read this article about learning to dance and this excerpt alone made me want to close my computer, hit the yellow pages and find a beginners ballet class pronto. 

"We sat in a circle on the first day of ballet class, thirty-or-so adults on the floor. Our teacher was a lovely woman with the sort of soothing presence you’d hope for in an introductory-level dance class meant for grown-ups, and she’d asked each of us to share three things with the group: our name, our level of dance experience, and whether we had any injuries to report. ‘My name is Shoko,’ I said when it was my turn. ‘I was probably in kindergarten the last time I took a dance class. And my body feels fine.’ Next to me sat a man who must have been in his mid-sixties. He had an angular face, a friendly smile, hair that glinted silver. He introduced himself, telling us he was the proud father of two dancers, now grown. ‘Any aches and pains?’ the teacher asked. The man smiled. ‘I’ve lived a colorful life.’"

Oh to be regarded as a graceful dancer one day. What a dream it would be. 

Happy Wednesday.