Webseries to rock your world

Okay, so you're already in the know. You watch The Guild, My Drunk Kitchen, The Flog and all the other major web series. Here are some shows that I've recently become a HUGE fan of:

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries: Pride and Prejudice in a vlog format. I'm late to this one, because I'm an ultra P&P fan who's touchy about what people do with the book. But this is fantastic. Plus, they made Kitty Bennett into an actual cat and Anne de Bourgh into a lap dog!

My Gimpy Life: A LA actress in a wheelchair who shows us her life, dating issues and casting call disasters included. BONUS: Felicia Day shows up as an agoraphobic friend.

Husbands: Gay marriage is finally made legal (everywhere), and a couple gets drunk married in Vegas. The problem is they're famous and everyone is pressuring them to stay married for the cause. One guy is an actor, one's a baseball player. It starts ridiculous and ends up sweet.

SoulPancake is Rainn Wilson's channel, and it has a great unconnected series called The Flipside. It's little narrative episodes about big questions like "Who are you really?" and "Why pray?"

our love would live a half-life on the surface

Do you have certain favorite writers that are not crowd favorites? My mom loves sci-fi and romance, and she'll gladly talk about those with me. My sister loves non-fiction, fantasy, and sci-fi. My father loves mysteries. One of my favorite authors is Warren Ellis. Tons of other people love him, of course. Just not anyone I talk to on a regular basis. He's a graphic novelist/mystery novelist who fills that weird, bitter, cynical, and sarcastic place in my heart. He's also a fantastic writer, who really thinks about what he writes.

"I sit down every day to tell myself a story. Usually full of either stimulants or depressants, playing some kind of soundtrack to the experience of writing, aware of my environment, sitting in my own little writer’s movie and telling myself a story. Anyone who tells you they write to an audience is either an idiot or a fake. You write for yourself. If the story doesn’t affect you in some way, it won’t affect anybody else. I don’t write for the trunk. I’m well aware that someone else is going to read this. But if I don’t respond in some honest, gut way to whatever I’m writing, you’ll never get to see it." From his talk "Stories, Drinking And The World".

Yesterday and Today (aka, I was lazy)

Top - Simply Be, pants - Denim 24/7, shoes - Crocs.

This tunic is called the Volcanic Print Tunic, and Gracey, I KNOW you totally love it. Warning for anyone who buys it; it's narrow through the hips and doesn't have a defined waist. I belted it here and bloused it out, since I wasn't wearing it over leggings. Since my sister has gotten her sewing machine set up, I might get her to shorten mine a few inches, since my hips are wider than my chest.

Cardi and boots - Simply Be,  pants - Denim 24/7, shirt - Avenue.

This is my waterfall cardigan, just worn unbuttoned for once. This week it's cold again (Boo for crazy bipolar weather), so layering is definitely in order. I was looking at my cardigans with my new BOLD color craving and they're all fairly neutral. The closest I get to non-neutral is a pale pink and a faded army green. This might need to be fixed...

Paisley and little buns

Deep attempt to look serious. Top - Simply Be here, Pants - Denim 24/7, Shoes - Payless.

I got this shirt in the mail yesterday and immediately decided to wear it today. Obviously, wild paisley prints just can't wait. They also required an equally ridiculous hairstyle, so I did two little buns, each secured by an itsy bitsy hair fork. I might be a little more adept on one side than the other...

Adorable hair provided by my inner 5 year old.

So I'm becoming more and more musically in love with Josh Ritter. He's like Bob Dylan and Gillian Welch had a musical baby! (Obviously much more verbally coherent than Dylan and his songs are generally more uptempo than Gillian's, but you know what I mean.) His music is quirky and funny, but not biting or cruel. This is a surprising happy post-apocalyptic song.

Sherlock does not love you, only John

Because I love you all so very much, here's a Sherlock valentine for you:

And just for fun, Puritan guilt valentines:

Pretend ballet teacher (also, #650!)

Top - Simply Be, Pants - Denim 24/7, Crocs.

Not only does wearing my hair up in a high bun keep it out of my way at work, it also lets me pretend that I'm a haughty Russian ballet teacher. I think it's important to have a rich fantasy life about your clothing, and I think most bloggers would agree with me! Otherwise, you might as well just wear beige (aka the most boring color ever). The only thing better than lots of red is little accessory POPS of red. I'm getting bolder and bolder in my color choices, I think. When I look at my wardrobe, and my blog, the stuff I like the most now is either super-saturated or black. It's all part of my master plan to become the crazy boho cat lady without getting any of those pesky cats. But I do this a lot, veer between classic and boho. So tell me to buck and stop being scared of rocking out with my colors out!

You will plié now!

Teenagers are lame

Top and boots - Simply Be, Leggings - Walmart.

I had an all day class yesterday on effective communication, so I didn't have a chance to put up a post with pictures. (I keep my camera cable in my desk at work.) Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a lovely Catholic feast. I'm Baptist, so I don't celebrate it. (Imagine someone in the past snootily looking down their nose and saying "I don't think we'll do that!" about all Catholic holidays and you have Protestant religions.) But, my favorite T. S. Eliot poem is "Ash Wednesday"! Now you need to imagine an overly bookish, nerdy high school junior who decides that she'll recite this poem for forensics. If I wasn't so self-conscious, it might have been great, but I just ended up sounding stuffy and never winning anything. Still, I love the poem. For a taste of how very Anglo-uptight the poem is, here's the opening verse:

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

It's very recursive and full of odd imagery. It's not exactly cheery either. Of course, not much of Eliot's work is, except for "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", which is the basis of the musical "Cats".

Bone of Song

Cardigan and jeans - Simply Be, Shoes - Earth Spirit.

So I looked up my favorite Punch Brothers song today to see who wrote it, and found a whole new artist that I've fallen in music love with! Josh Ritter, who wrote the song "Another New World", is a fantastic songwriter. He also has a number of awesome videos, like this satirical animated one for his song "Galahad". He's also got a papercraft one, and a puppeteer one. Check him out and listen closely, because his songs have actually deep meanings and metaphors.

Life is weird, ya'll

So, for this blog, I have 29 followers. And I love you all! You read my ramblings (or at least pretend to) and comment on my outfits. But I'm freaking huge on Pinterest. I have 494 followers. But they don't follow all my boards. I have around 100 people that appear to follow almost all my boards. But most of that 494 seems to come from two areas: my geek interests (Doctor Who, Sherlock, Joss Whedon boards, etc) and my Plus Size Pretty board, which has 277 followers. I started it as a clothing inspiration board for myself, and somehow it just kept getting followers. I have fashion lines following me! So evidently I'm good at curating images of beautiful plus size clothing and ladies. But never fear, my blog will stay the same. Mainly because I'm lazy and I'm not a fan of "blogs" that are really just images pulled from elsewhere.

Sweater - Simply Be, Leggings - Walmart, Socks - Sock Dreams, Boots - Target

Sock Dreams is running a Valentines Day Sale! If you use the coupon code SockSweeties, you can get 10% off $40+ until February 15th. And I know that I rave about them, but seriously; best place to get plus-size knee high socks ever. AND super-fast free shipping! Treat yourself or give someone a little list of what you want. Since it's Friday, it's snowing here. It seems like 12 out of the last 9 Fridays have had snow. Hence the big snow boots. Is anyone else in the path of this storm? Carrie, I know you're not, so boo to you.