Suggested Reading List

Poetry:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Anne Sexton
The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood
On Loving Two Equally by Aphra Behn
A Story About the Body by Robert Hass

Fiction:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Haven't read since high school, opinion may have changed)
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
Harry Potter (the entire series) by J.K. Rowling
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Nonfiction:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Lying, a Metaphorical Memoir by Lauren Slater

Plays:
M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

Short Stories:
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Anything by:
Sherman Alexie
Edgar Allan Poe
William Shakespeare (okay, half of anything)
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson (her later works)
Kate Chopin
J.R.R. Tolkien

10 Favorite Foods

What a great challenge! I absolutely love food. More specifically, I love eating. I'm not going to include tea, or it would take all ten slots.

1. Panang Curry

2. Pho

3. Yakitori

4. Sushi

5. Wedding Tea

6. Soy Milk

7. Café Su Da

8. Liver and Onions

9. Spring Rolls

10. Scones

Winsome

10 Things I Hate in Lolita

1.That Lolita clothes aren’t bullet-proof. I was ironing one of my cutsews the other day and I dropped one of the sleeves I had been holding up and the lace on the cuff touched the iron. It melted on contact, and I mourned for a short while. Angelic Pretty never looked so hot, hurr hurr.

2. I hate that GLB stopped being released in English. Pictures are cool, but I can’t read Japanese yet!

3. I hate summer even more in Lolita. I love to layer up, and that’s fairly impossible in the summer unless I feel like walking around in soggy-from-sweat clothes. Ewww.

4. I hate the delay between paypal and the bank. It should be instant. Instant! Update: This applies only to sales now.

5. I hate not looking good in cream colored skirts or light blue. But I should actually be thankful for this since it limits some of my wish list.

6. Plastic jewelry. I don’t give a squirrel’s butt WHO makes it, it’s cheap and usually ugly! It’s going to break more easily, and it costs just as much as the higher quality things put out by the same brand. Update: I have fallen in love with certain pieces of jewelery and can no longer hate it.

7. Ironing. Not just because of the delicacy of certain pieces, but because of the obnoxious difficulty of the task itself. I just can’t bring myself to waste money on getting my clothes professionally dry cleaned when I can do it at home for a fraction of the cost and 50 times the work.

8. Lolita drama, rudeness, and over-emotional lack of common sense within the community. It happens everywhere, and I hate it everywhere.

 9. The necessity of replicas. I wish brands would release their items in more sizes and larger quantities.

 10. That there aren't more short sleeved blouses. More, I say! Thousands!

I was a surprised at how easy this was to do… Too much hate!


Rhonda

Coordinates of the Week: Derp Face FTW

Monday, Tuesday, and Friday respectively. 

Ah... I pulled my shirt a strange way in Friday's picture so it looks really small on me >.<' Also the pouf of my hair didn't show up at all. ._. So disappointing.

The room I take pictures in is a spare bedroom/storage room. Does it look shoddy? @-@' I'm working on moving the mirror doors. But the puppy blanket is cute! The dogs often sleep on it, so consequently it is frequently covered in fur. Haha.



I hadn't worn this outfit for months! It's aptly titled "The Regular." With the exception of my Engrish Bodyline bag, I wore this ensemble once weekly for the majority of last year >.<' Often times it was without an undershirt to the vest, but I've worn spandex under the skirt since John flashed my panties to an entire gawking restaurant. ./////. Never again, I say. Never again.

Lately I've been trying to let my skin recover... The sudden change in temperature (some of you are familiar with central California's seasons "freakin' hot" and "if it's gonna suck this bad there should at least be snow" cold) made me break out really bad. I haven't been using any products to aid it's recovery or treat the breakout, it seems to be recovering okay.


 Rhonda

$1Thrift Hall and Second Floral Corsage

Today there was a sale at the thrift store. All of the clothes were $1, so I grabbed a couple of things. I didn't see anything super loli, punk, or goth-able there, but I did find some classic-compatible shoes and a nice nightgown. I also got a really random pink formal dress and plaid mini skirt >_>'

Oxford style ♥ The brown shoes don't match very much in my closet yet though...

Simples, casual, and cute ♫

I just have to wash the clothes to get rid of that stale thrift store smell and disinfect the shoes (you can never be too careful with those things) and they'll be ready to wear!

In other news, I finally finished my friend's corsage...

 

I finished the ribbons off with heat this time, and I am very very pleased with the end result. No fraying or ugliness!


Rhonda

10 Things I L♥VE in Lolita

 Everything in Lolita is so danged cute! I just want to "ooh" and "awww" over everything all day. I like seeing other people in it just as much as I like wearing it. 

Diversity! Lifestyle Lolita. Charming, classy, and winsome! Non-lifestyle Lolita. Do your own thing! Part-time Lolita. Unleash the loli! Brand, non-brand, loliable, hand made, and every style and sub-style that falls into it. Of course I have my preferences, but overall I pretty much love all of it.

 The Lolitas. 98% of the ones I've met in real life are awesome people! I've made some really great friends through our shared love of the fashion.

;v; It’s such a bittersweet feeling, having so many things come out that are impossible to all obtain. It makes me treasure what I do get even more, and somehow collecting images of things I want to get puts me in a happy day-dreaming state.Wanting clothes… I think that this bit can be even more fun than owning them! The scrounging for money, bartering with yourself, sacrificing meals (just kidding…maybe) and anxiously hoping that you make it in time to get those lovely things haunting your dreams, are all part of the charm. Of course, when you’re lucky this leads to the excitement of hearing the doorbell ring and seeing someone holding a package with your name on it… Christmas, all year round… *.*

 The effort and attention to detail is necessary to present any fashion as what fashion is: art. Every outfit tells some kind of story. Even my husband starts his character designs out with an outfit that will accurately express the being of the character. Fashion is one of the easiest thing to re or mis-interpret from what the coordinator/creator intended, but that’s okay because in the end we dress ourselves for ourselves.

 Bloomers. I love bloomers so much that I occasionally plan a coordinate around my bloomers and go about my business sans skirt. I just rock my ruffled butt out around the house taking care of errands and cleaning and cooking.

 Donning a carefully planned coordinate.When I’m layered up I feel as if I’m prepared for anything, and there’s a certain sense of dignity in that.

 Meet ups! I love spending time with myself a great deal more than many other people (having been made to be alone for great lengths of time as a child I’m pretty resistant to loneliness unlike others, haha) but meet ups are great fun. There’s something really special about sharing the things you love with people who love those same things just as much.

The “old school” spirit. I’ll leave this one largely to your interpretation and imagination :D


Rhonda

10 Things about my Lolita bubble

( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ♥

1. Lolita fashion taught me that sometimes it’s okay to spoil yourself. 

2. Lolita encouraged me to be social again when I became active in the community. Before I started going to meets, I pretty much just went to work and slept.

3. My bubble’s pretty small… I’m fairly shy and unless I’m in a certain type of situation it’s difficult for me to go out and just start talking to people… I’m also very blunt and honest, so it’s even worse once I’ve spent time with someone. >_> 2014 update: 2010/11 was the beginning of awful social anxiety for me, though I didn't even know what it was; a problem with which I still sometimes struggle.

4. I gained a lot of confidence in my appearance when I finally fully immersed myself into Lolita. I maintain myself more, so I’m generally a bit healthier.

5. My love for Lolita and my sense of personal femininity came about at the same time. Somehow, I believe that although many women don’t wear or necessarily care for Lolita, it helps me to associate with a lot of them better.

6. I often end up wearing an outfit for half a day with no petticoat. 2014 update: I don't know what I was thinking. Petticoats make everything better.

7. I forget that Lolita isn’t “normal” because I don’t get out of the house much.         (-___-)‘ When I worked outside of home I always wore a uniform, and my friends are either Lolitas or used to Lolita clothing. 

8.  My parents don’t get Lolita. At all. It’s kind of amusing to hear my dad always say “Ah, she’s in her foo-foo la-la stuff again!” And then my mom, who knows better than anyone how long I’ve been into all kinds of alternative and self-proclaimed fashion (did any of you think band-aids looked cool when you were two and a half?) just sighs and says “But you look so good in jeans- JEANS!” 

9. I regained a sense of balance when I finally dived in… For a short while before then I kind of forgot about myself and was just a grumpy workaholic who spoiled the hubby. 

10. This goes hand in hand with number 2, but I spend a lot more time connecting with people online as well. I hardly ever touched my facebook account, hadn’t touched my other (now discontinued) blog in literally a couple of years, and used my email almost solely to send things to myself for safe keeping.

      Winsome