First Time Failures

Hi all (2 of you……),

This blog was meant to be a year experiment and that year is up.  I now have a new blog, which is a bit more personal and less fashion related.  I just started grad school abroad so there’s a lot going on in my life and I can’t really live it the way I used to.  Feel free to check it out, but if not thank you for spending this year with me.    

New Blog:

Heart Full of Napalm

Love,

Crystal

Anonymous asked: I'm 19 years old and i have hardly any friends because i'm so socially inept. :( People easily get disinterested in me and i'm too shy to approach people because i fear that i'll make a fool out of myself. I have already in the past when i've tried socialising. :( Can you give me some advice on how i should go about with this problem?

Hey A,

Sorry if this response took a long time.  I’ve been out of the country and whoa, is this a big question.  It kind of hits really close to home too.  Let me preface any advice I give with this disclaimer: I used to be terribly shy.  Like I was the girl who never spoke to other people and read a lot.  Part of me will always be that girl and I don’t think I’ll ever be completely comfortable with the idea of meeting new people.  Ok, here goes.      

Being shy is a character trait, not a character flaw.  If you’re shy, then that’s what you are, and that’s perfectly cool.  Being shy doesn’t exclude you from being passionate about the things you’re interested in.  It sucks to be in a situation where you meet someone new and you feel so desperate for them to like you, but you have no idea how to go about making that happen.  Already having something in common goes a long way in making that first meeting a lot less stomach-churning, especially if that something in common is a mutual interest both of you are passionate about.  Try to meet some people that are into the same things you are.

I have no idea what your personal situation is like so I can’t give you much advice, but that.  Still, if you want to discuss it some more or want to discuss anything in general feel free to keep in touch!

Best,

Crystal

So…..yeah I’ve been out of town.  More on that later, but before I left a few friends and I went to New York and happened upon the All Saints store.  I went into a bit of a frenzy…….fell fast and hard for sure.  I’ve always adored All Saints, but have never seen any of their stuff up close.  Getting to do so was intensely satisfying.

The light in the fitting room.  I just thought it looked cool.  Rustic industrial.

I was intrigued by the leather harness back going on here.  You could get it as a top or as the back of a maxi dress.  

The top portion of this dress had a corset built into it that had surprisingly heavy boning, but was deliciously flattering.  I love corsets and have always had a strange obsession with them.

I am too short for this dress and probably need more boob-age in order to actually look good in it.  Yeah….that is all.

It took me forever to get this dress on and to this day I’m reasonably sure I wasn’t wearing it correctly at all.  But still I like how it looks.  Kind of quirky and sexy at the same time.  

LOOOOOOOOOOVE!!!  The parachute dress.  The volume! The draping!  The way it looks like you’r emerging from a cloud!  I put the dress on and felt like I was myself, but way more awesome.  

There’s no wrong way to wear this.  And there’s a ton of room for experimentation.  All of the ropes can be done up in different ways.  Think of the endless possibilities!  If I were not broke, I would own this dress right now and probably be typing this entry in it at this very moment.  And then I would hug myself and feel awesome.  

Here’s J, who was not broke and actually bought something instead of just trying stuff on!  The skirt she got was wonderfully voluminous and had a great dark print.  I really wish I had a better picture of it.  

Photos of stuff I’ve enjoyed in the aforementioned time frame

Really large birdhouse-type structure that took up an entire window of a Brooklyn antique store. 

New shoes

Seeing Public Image Limited live

That is Johnny fucking Rotten people!

Sky, full of rays

Pizza from Benny’s in Hoboken.  Not a record holder for the biggest slice in the world, but it’s the size of a placemat and that’s plenty big for me.

Chilling by the waterfront.  Check out that skyline!

Seeing the Psychedelic Furs in concert for the 2nd time.  Richard Butler may be the most awesome person ever.  He just seems like he’d be so much fun to hang out with

Teacup cupcakes!

And lastly, some beautiful words from a senior art major’s final thesis

Warning: rambling

I’ve kept a journal religiously since the 4th grade.  My old ones get crammed in my bookshelf and stored away in boxes.  I want them all burned when I die.  I couldn’t bear if someone actually read them and thought them to be an accurate depiction of who I am.  The truth is, they’re the worst of me.  I’m neurotic.  Aren’t we all?  Writing is what I do in order to make sure the anxiety and paranoia don’t get the best of me.  That’s why if someone else were to read my journals, they would believe me to be the most irrational, overly analytical, crazy psycho to ever walk this earth.  I stopped minding years ago though because outside of my journals I’m perfectly rational and not at all psychotic seeming.  I figured the trade-off was worth it.

It seems to me that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more and more comfortable with myself.  Though not without a fight.  Middle school was horrific and so were my early years in high school.  I was strange and had trouble connecting with people.  Then things changed.  I became less socially inept, met some people, and they’ve been my closest friends ever since.  I’m going away for most of this summer and then after that I’m going abroad for a year.  I can’t help, but feel like everything is moving so quickly.  And so am I.  

I was originally going to tack on a string of photos of stuff I’ve enjoyed in the past few weeks to the bottom here, but I’ve now decided to post them immediately following this post.  That way no one actually has to read this post.  Is it a little sad that I feel weird about rambling on my own blog?  To those of you who actually read this, well, thanks.