New Year Tarot Spread

Well last year's Hermit card was oddly prophetic, wasn't it? I left blogging early in the year and later still, I was laid off from work. Still am.

I usually do a 1-card reading each year, but his year I'm doing a 1-card tarot reading plus an oracle card to supplement. The tarot card is from the Tattoo Tarot: Ink and Intuition deck and the oracle card is from the Pythia Botanica Oracle deck.

Personal blogging

Happy New Year!

Bye, 2016! Hello, 2017!

From Soho to Midtown

Sorry I haven't been posting Thursday mornings as per usual, but I just finished getting settled in to a new job. I'd enjoyed my old job, but this company reached out and made a better offer, so I took it. I'd mentioned how unbelievably stuffy and corporate my old job was, and like many large multinational corporations, there wasn't a whole lot of room for growth. The new company is leaner and there is a lot more opportunity, even if it was a lateral move. I'm getting into the stage in my career where the only place higher is being a department head, and most of the time they promote from within. If I'd stayed, I'd have probably had to wait for another 10 years before I got a promotion. I do have to say I miss working in a big corporation. I had my own office and an assistant, while here I'm in a department of three and we all sit in cubes.

Superficial stuff though. I believe in this new company much more and their mission and values align much better.

Weirdly, the move affects this blog! My old company used to be in SoHo, which is the trendiest shopping place in NYC. All the "it" stores are there, and all the celebrities shop there. Goths there (and there were a number) were chic and stylish, and that affected some of my "trend reporting." Also, the stuff that goes in the SoHo stores tends to be a little weirder, even for fast-fashion stores.

fabulous in soho

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! 

Another year! Life flies by. I've been enjoying reading your "looking back" on 2014 posts. Seems like an exciting year for all of you. Like last year, I randomly drew a tarot card for this year. The year 2015 is the year of "The Lovers"

the tarot card is from the Running Press deck, drawn by Julie Paschkis....one of my favorite decks. I've surrounded the card with my wedding ring, my engagement ring, and a pearl/diamond necklace that's been worn in weddings for 4 generations. The magnifying glass necklace was a wedding anniversary gift from my husband.

The Lovers card is pretty obvious. It signifies love, relationships, desire. It's a positive card. So this year, remember that there's someone who loves you. It may or may not be a family member or a significant other. Your friends also love you in their own way. Even the people you work with--after all, nothing could get done unless there's some kind of mutual respect between you and your coworkers. In business texts they call these "working relationships" since, after all, they are relationships. Your friends online also care about you--at most, they care deeply about you personally and stay up worrying. At the very least, your posts lighten up that person's day and provide some escape. They inspire.

No one exists in a vacuum, people can't unsee you or unhear what you've said. You matter and your actions tie you to other humans. So let's love one another, yes?

SORRY ABOUT THE SAPPY STUFF. I got a sappy card this year! It's gonna be a sappy year.

Does the lovers card relate to you?

Ootd, work

Posting from my new Nexus 5 phone! The camera is much better than my last phone, so maybe there will be more mobile posts, as I'm rarely at my computer these days. (My fencing classes have ended and I'm now trying out yoga... Plus my weekly gaming... plus alumni committee ... plus regular industry networking stuff... Plus I want to get back into writing for nanowrimo...not to unload or nothing... Lots on my plate!)

Here's my work outfit from Friday, hat and crop top are recent buys from f21 and I'm wearing my go-to pleated skirt from AA. Frye Oxford shoes.

Anyone else wearing crop tops to work?

Red+Black Week: Throwback Thursday post

Wearing red and black is easy when you've got red hair. I managed to maintain red hair for a while in 2005. I didn't take as many pictures then, but I did take a few pictures during a trip to NYC to visit my sister, who was living there at the time. My style at the time was transitioning from cyber/industrial to the very uniquely Chicago "cyclist punk" (punks who rode bicycles, not an official thing...an alternative person who rolls up their pant leg and carries a helmet, pretty much). My haircut was an undercut with two braided rattails (that everyone hated!).

Coney Island

Spring Blooms

Brooklyn Night Bazaar

Brooklyn Night Bazaar: it's a music venue, arcade, and craft fair in an old warehouse. Free to enter, but get there early to avoid the lines.

I'm still super sick but I had to brave the cold to go see one of my favorite BK band, Crystal Stilts (I wrote about em in this nu-goth music post) before they headed back on their world tour. here's the full lineup:

By the way, if you are ever in NYC, this is a great venue for seeing local bands. There wasn't a single weak set and the atmosphere is fantastic. I normally hate live music shows (I hate standing, hate all the tall people, hate all the downtime between sets) but this place was really awesome. 

Ways I fit the Cliche, Ways I don't

Read about the challenge here.

Fit the cliche:
1. I love being shocking/weird
2. Tons of black clothes
3. I love fantasy and sci-fi and other geekery
4. English major / writer
5. I have written stories about vampires, gardens, poets, dandies... and they were experimental
6. I smoked cloves
7. Prefer absinthe
8. tried to be in a band, cared more about the photo shoots
9. post pictures of myself online
10. socially awkward
11. I'm a nihilist
12. I'm uppity about posers (maybe less now)
13. I'm moody
14. I sound and look pissed off all the time (That's what my face looks like!)
15. crazy liberal
16. did witchcraft at one point and once in a while the ol' coven gets together for some magicking.
17. I managed a gallery and worked in the art industry
18. was a "troubled" teen
19. I use dark humor in very inappropriate times
20: cliche outfits:

My Rivethead past, as explained through my deviantart

It wasn't until a few years ago that I just started calling myself "goth" because I got tired of explaining to people what a rivethead was. Goths and rivetheads are in the same category now, I guess.  I'm actually whatever about most goth things. I'd take an abandoned factory over a graveyard, Wumpscut over Sisters of Mercy, army pants over a corset, cybernetics over vampirism, a future dystopia over a romanticized past. I'm actually a pretty cliche rivethead. You can see it in my deviant art page (no, I won't link to it...too embarrassing...should I post my Xanga too?), where I fancied myself a photographer of abandoned construction sites. By the way, I was one of the first DevArt users. Much lower standards back then.

I still like this picture.

yeesh terrible

merry christmas!

Hope you've all been good.

Friday night!

Eh some personal blogging--I prefer to keep this blog fashion-focused, but I don't know. I guess some personal blogging doesn't hurt here and there.

So, I wanted to see this band, the Crystal Stilts, but both shows were sold out in NYC. They were opening for Deerhunter, which I guess is a popular band. I wouldn't know. The Crystal Stilts are a local Brooklyn band, so I'm like NBD, they'll play again.  Well, apparently, they're going on a world tour. Who knows when they'll be back. Friday night, they were playing in Philadelphia, which is about 2 hours away by bus from NYC.

Of course, after the show, there'd be no place to stay, so we'd eventually just have to sleep outside somewhere until the bus left in the morning. We've done this gutterpunk BS before (this is how I know I married the right guy... only he'd say "yeah sure! sounds like a great idea!"). It wasn't about the band--they're good, but this isn't like NIN Woodstock '94--but an adventure! But the show was in a dodgy part of town and we'd be spending the night outside in one of the worst 'hoods in Philli, unless we wanted to take like a $50 cab ride to somewhere nicer. So much for that.

Well, if I couldn't see that generic brooklyn indie hipster band, I want to see SOME brooklyn indie hipster band. So I headed out to underground Bushwick music venue Shea Stadium. I haven't been there for years--Is the place still cool? Are all the kids going somewhere else these days?

Anyway, pictures of my friday night:

What's in my bag?

Read more about the challenge here.

Well, the original post was to write about what's in your MAKEUP bag, but I don't carry around a cosmetic bag. Everything's just floating around my bag. I also don't carry much makeup around... just a tube of lipstick and an eye pencil. I've got some foundation and a "foundation brush" aka a paintbrush waiting for me at work/home. Here's what's in my bag:

7 deadly sins

Well, the hangover's finally gone away after 8 hours of drinking on Sunday. Good decisions there, considering the first day of my new job was this Monday--and I actually had to be there at 9. 

I'm back!

Sorry for the lack of posts. I'm back from Florida! Here's a few instagram pictures of my trip (I'm axp259 if anyone wants to follow). Normal on-topic blogging will resume after this post!! We went to some of the everglade and wetland parks and also took a trip down to Key West. The drive to Key West, as you may know, has one of the longest bridges in the world, the Seven Mile Bridge. The bridge, incredibly, is also almost sea level. Really an amazing drive.

yep a gator!

MORE AFTER JUMP!
MORE AFTER JUMP!!

Fashion Night Out 2011: Soho, NYC

 (live models @ guess)

 (no one survived)

 (crowd waiting for the kardasians... or opening of the Dash store.. who knows)

 (ceiling thing at the Frye store)

 (I don't think this is Bansky)

 (The Marc Jacobs accessory truck)

(lights from the World Trade Center site)