Wearin' Clothes: Alas! Fall is fast approaching, and with it: School. It's a pretty normal thing to go school shopping, right? The first week of school is like a fashion show to see what everyone's wearing these days and who's changed their style and who is pretending not to care this year and whatnot. The point is, I love new clothes for school. This year, my mother has so generously given me a whole bunch of her clothes that I love and wear all the time in an incredibly sentimental gesture on account of the fact that I am moving across the entire whole country and I like to wear a lot of her clothes. The point of that is this -- Life Tip: Be the same size as your mother. Share clothes with your mother. Be nice to your mother. Then, when you move across the country, your mother will give you a lot of her clothes and that will be joyful. It's also important to love your mother and be nice to her because she gave birth to you and she does everything for you.
But the real point of this is to tell you guys I'm now going to write about what I told you all I was going to write about several weeks ago: Hudson jeans. Now, that's sort of a lie, because I'm not actually going to talk just about Hudson jeans, but denim in general, because I, perhaps foolishly, consider myself a bit of a denim connoisseur. This must be attributed in part to the fact that when I go shopping I try on at least a thousand pairs of jeans, and, over the years, I have had different favorites. Back when large-stitched denim was a thing I was a religious wearer of True Religion brand denim and Rock and Republic. I moved on later, as trends moved forward, to Vigoss denim, which, to this day, I would unwaveringly recommend to each of you. Here's why: These pants are gorgeous, and I have such good news: THEY ALL SELL FOR UNDER $100. I know, I usually tell you guys how you have to spend money for good quality, but, as we know, there is an exception to every rule, and today, that exception is Vigoss. Looking through their website this afternoon, here are a few of my favorites:
See? Pretty, yeah? And there was not a single thing on that page selling for more than $100. You're in luck, my beautiful readers. I have just opened the floodgates of beautiful, quality, tried-and-true, inexpensive denim to you. You're welcome.
So the reason I told you about my mom giving me a bunch of clothes is because the truth is, I haven't done much school shopping. This is for several reasons, including the fact that I have a birthday soon, as well as a tuition bill to pay. I have, however, purchased two new pairs of pants. And let me tell you, folks: They. Are. Beautiful.
The fact of the matter is that, as much as I wish I were a versatile, perfect-outfit-creating fashionista, I am, at the end of the day, kind of just a jeans and t-shirt type of girl. Or, maybe more appropriately, a jeans and blouse type of girl. The point is, I am taking with me to the big city several pairs of jeans, four of which are notable enough to write about, as I am about to do.
One of the pairs is Hudson brand. I would venture to say that every member of my immediate family, as well as several members of my extended family, would swear by Hudsons. They are comfortable enough to be pajama pants but also manage not to look like they're totally soft and stretchy and basically feel like you could sleep in them. (Side note: I am wearing my Hudsons right this second as I type this at the kitchen table.) I call these pants my "traveling pants" because I wear them anytime I fly anywhere because they're, like, classy enough to go anywhere in but comfortable enough to sit on an airplane in for a thousand hours. Look --
Listen, you guys. If of nothing else, of this I am convinced: You need a pair of Hudson jeans. They will change your life. You will know true, true love for the first time.
The other three glory pairs I am taking with me are Paige. To be honest, when I went jeans shopping the other day (at Nordstrom, by the way, which is the actually the best place ever), I was set on getting new Hudsons, one pair of blue denim and one pair of black. I tried on about a thousand pairs of pants, J Brand, Hudson, Seven, Citizens, Paige... And I kept asking the sales people about their favorite pairs and everyone kept directing me to a couple different pairs of Paiges. So although I have loved my pair of Paiges, I, for some odd reason, didn't think I needed another pair, despite the fact that I have literally worn out my Paiges so much that the knees and bum are getting sort of sparse. Despite the fact that I love the way they fit and they way they look and everything about them.
Paige denim was made (listen up, this will matter to you) with intensive research surrounding the way that certain stitching and styles fit women the best and make them look the slimmest. And believe you me, this is real. I left with two gorgeous new pairs of to-die-for pretty, incredibly comfortable, can't-wait-to wear Paige jeans. Neither of which are these pairs I found on their website, but this is sort of the style and perfection you can expect in a pair of Paige jeans:
So. I will leave you with just a few tips as you set out in the world of denim shopping before we all head back to school again.
1.) Quality is worth the price.
2.) Go somewhere (e.g. Nordstrom) where the sales people are helpful and knowledgable and ask them their favorite pairs or styles, because that will usually help you sort through and find the best of the best.
3.) Have the patience to try on infinity pairs and be open to new styles or brands because you might surprised by what you fall in love with.
And 4.), and most importantly, wear stuff you love. That's what this is all about anyway.
Readin' Books: So as I'm sure many of you are aware, I'm going out to NYU to study journalism, French, and creative writing. As you might imagine this basically means I just read and write about a thousand pages a week (that's really not much of an exaggeration) in various languages.
My schedule for the fall looks like this: Contemporary written French, a texts and ideas class called Antiquity and the Renaissance where we read basically just inhale literature from and up to the renaissance and then talk about it, creative writing, and a class called Philosophizing with Shakespeare where we read Shakespeare, obviously, and talk about the philosophies found there. (Side note: Each of those four classes is a 4-credit course, giving me a total of 16 credits this coming semester, so yeah, I'm nuts, but freaking excited about it.) The point is, I'm already reading for those classes. Last week I wrote about Robin Shulman's Eat the City, which I had just barely started, and, as an update, is completely brilliant and lovely and you all need to read it because it's incredibly interesting and just really good.
The other book I have so far been assigned is a fat, lovely book I have yet to even open that came in the mail yesterday called Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt. This is, unsurprisingly, my summer reading (as well as all the Shakespearean sonnets) for that Shakespeare philosophy class.
So. I have yet to even begin this book (on account of needing to finish Eat the City first) but I can't wait. Here's why: I really love Shakespeare. I know. You're all having flashbacks to, like, 9th grade English and rolling your eyes, and yes, I know, he's difficult to understand at first, and he's very, very old in our minds, and whatever, but he's also completely brilliant. I won't turn this into a post where I convince you all, very forcefully, to be as in love with William as I am (I'll save that for its own individual post another day), but mostly I want to say to those of you already do love the Bard, go pick up this book. Let's read to together. It's going to be good. I can already feel it.
Listenin' to Music: Yes, yes, Lollapolooza is this weekend in Chicago and yes, yes, I wish very desperately that I were there, but I am not. Instead, I am home with this song on repeat:
"Do I Wanna Know" by Arctic Monkeys
I tweeted about this song a few weeks ago just saying, "Yes hello where can I apply to marry a song" and that pretty much sums up my feelings about it. I love you, this song. I love you, Arctic Monkeys. You are so good.
Something New: So here's a thing that's new: I'm going to be a legal adult in nine days. Yeah, I'm still 17. I'm a baby. So this is big for me. The governor sent me thing in the mail the other day that was like, "Happy birthday, citizen, go register to vote now, but only if you're registering to vote for my party." Or that's basically what it said. The point is, I love my birthday. I love presents, because, let's be real, who doesn't, and I love the fact that for one day in the entire year, everyone has to do my bidding, and I love that you can do ridiculous things like get massages and go shopping and go out to dinner and get two desserts all in one single day, but I also really love looking back over the year. I love reading my baby books. I love thinking about the stuff that has happened since my last birthday. I wrote this birthday post last year back on old blog, complete with some of the best birthday-related tumblr photo finds ever that I would show you but I'm probably going to use a lot of them again on the soon-to-be birthday post because I've started to write a poem (that you guys can read next week on this blog) about turning 18. Reading back over my last birthday post, I feel a lot of the same things. Here's a piece from it that I still love:
"A weird part of birthdays is the question "How does it feel to be such-and-such age?" It's taken me seventeen years to answer that honestly.
The answer is that I felt the same Monday morning as I felt on Sunday night, but I feel differently than I did the morning I woke up on my sixteenth birthday.
It's this: Life cannot be quantified in birthdays. "It's the little moments that make life big." Life cannot be quantified in Leap Years or pages read or hours spent or words spoken, because life, like intelligence, can't really be accurately quantified at all. Watching life happen isn't like watching a thunder storm. It's much slower. It just happens and there are so many things you cannot control. You are the master of your fate, you are the captain of your soul, but you are not the master of anyone else's fate or the captain of anyone else's soul, and your fate and your soul is intertwined with so many other fates and souls and you aren't going to become something else the moment your birthday comes around again. Your birthday came last year, too."
My birthday came last year, too. And here is comes again. And I feel... I feel like turning 18 is shotgunning me into the real world, and that seems appropriate. It's a very new thing that I will be an adult. But also exciting. Growing up is exciting.
And here. Have this picture of a birthday pug from last year's birthday post that I will probably use again in this year's birthday post that I love a lot. It's my present to you.
Something inspiring: Hannah Madsen sent me a link to this poem this morning and I have watched it so many times and I cry every single time. I could write an entire post about performance poetry and why it is so special and how you should all love it, but today I will leave you with this gorgeous new poem that I can't stop crying over and loving so so so so so much because I know you will be inspired or touched by it or something.
So. Another weekend has come and gone and I have loved things in it and shared them with you and I have loved talking to you guys this week. I hope to hear from you and talk to each of you again this week. What are you wearing and reading and listening to and just generally loving this weekend? You are very beautiful people. I just want to hug all of you a lot. I hope you're having a happy day and if you aren't, change that. Because you can, you know? You can.
"When they cut me open they'll find whole novels I swallowed too fast." -Ryler Dustin
Sincerely yours,
Addy Sue
