What’sssssss upppppp everyone. Thought I’d check in, with a post about new shoes. I’ve had so many emo thoughts running through my head lately about life, work, distraction, meaning, purpose, fulfillment, children, goals, happiness, journeys, decisions, parenthood, memories, youth, aging…. but I can’t begin to put it into words so I’ll just talk about shoes, since that’s easy. Shoes can’t stress me out. Shoes are great. Especially the most perfect shoe in the world at the most perfect price in the world.

So, I have this thing, that is either human and happens to other people, or is just unique to my personality. Not sure. But I forget things. I will see something amazing, or read something amazing, and then forget about it, and discover it on my own by accident like 2 months later, and only realize by further accident that the thing I ‘discovered’ was in fact that same thing I’d already known about from 2 months prior, and smack my forehead like OMFG OF COURSE!

What happened is this;

I was scrolling through instagram, and Betty, from Le Blog de Betty, a.k.a. one of my top 5 style icons in the world, had instagrammed a picture of a pair of shoes she was hawking for Dior in Paris. I think she ‘designed’ them or something. Whatever.

They were the most perfect shoe I’d ever seen. For my style, and my taste, and my preferences. I see a lot of fucking shoes in my instagram feed, and in real life. They don’t all stop me in my tracks because they don’t all appeal to MY sensibility. But this shoe, was my dream shoe. I didn’t know it until I saw it, and I couldn’t have conceived of it if blindly prompted, but upon SEEING this shoe, I was floored at how it was everything I’d ever wanted. This is exactly, word for word what I thought to myself upon seeing it: “I would pay 3,000 dollars for those shoes. Those shoes are a pair of shoes that I WOULD actually open a credit card for. Like if I were in Paris, and saw those, I would make a bad decision in order to own them.” I thought that, to myself. And then I moved on with my life.

Approximately 2 months later, I am in Nordstrom, shopping mindlessly to distract myself from my inner thoughts. And, the reason the previous quote about opening a credit card and making a bad decision for those Dior shoes is a joke, is because if there is one thing I am proud of myself for over the last 6 months, it’s for the way I have grown in terms of shopping, finances, and just general consumerism. I almost never shop anymore, first of all. But I have also gotten my credit card down from $6,000 to $2,000, in 4 months. I set my mind to it in January, and here we are in May, and I have literally knocked out $4,000 of it. It’s not a surprise that I’ve done it, because I made a plan in January, said I was going to do it, wrote it down, and fucking did it. It felt like it would take forever even when I planned it out, and I had to say no to a lot of things, sacrifice a lot of things, and live very smartly in terms of what I eat and do; and I officially have two months left until a balance that I have carried since the year 2008 is gone. That is not even counting the previous $2,000 on other various cards I knocked out between November and January. By this July I will have no credit card debt left.

I will still have an ANNOYING amount of student loans, a car payment, no savings (because any/all money that I had saved and that would normally have been ‘saved’ has instead been solely directed at eliminating debt, because ‘saving’ when you’re in debt is kind of a joke, since the ‘saved’ money is just sitting there whereas the debt owed is actually growing due to interest), and infuriating medical bills due to this leg injury of mine, because life is a circle of unexpected expenses that never end; but nobody has ever made more of a 180 in terms of shopping than this person writing this post. I don’t quite know what it was, but I just changed. I almost magically acquired the ability to ask myself if something is worth it, and honestly answer myself.

For instance, these Zara sandals —–

I desperately want them. I have almost pulled the trigger on them on no less than 7 occasions over the last 2 months. I have seen every blogger whose style I like wear them in gorgeous ways. I want them. And yet each time I have been tempted to spend the $129.00 on them, I’ve mentally ran the scenarios through my head and been like “see the thing is Alina……..they are gorgeous, and sexy, but you just. won’t. get. the cost. per. wear. .on them. You just won’t.  They’re not versatile enough, for how YOU dress, to warrant the price tag. When you go to get dressed on a Friday night, you’ll grab your boots, or Pencey platforms, or a shoe that’s chiller. You love a sexy shoe, but these just aren’t chill enough. All the lace and straps…they’re sexy and visual, but you’ll wear them to one date night and then they’ll sit there. You won’t feel comfortable in them. You won’t feel fully YOURSELF in them.” And then I just don’t buy them. They are absolutely not worth the $129.00 to me. I refuse to spend that on them, even though I would like to own them.

Because I finnnnnnnnnnnnally just KNOW what I’m going to wear, and what’s worth the price tag. And I didn’t used to. I would make bad decisions. Not ALL bad decisions. I’ve made some genius purchases over the course of my life, prior to acquiring this newfound ability, such as my Isabel Marant rugby shirt and jersey from Hu’s Wear on sale for $140 down from like $500; my black leather Iro shorts; my jeans-with-the-hole-in-the-knee that I wear six times a week and would DIE if anything happened to. It’s more about a ratio. Previously, I probably made 65% amazing purchases, and 35% stupid ones that weren’t worth losing the money for. NOW, I make literally 100% smart purchases and 0 % dumb purchases. So this ability kind of evaded me for about 12 years, and now it feels like it was handed to me overnight. Like I didn’t read any articles or do anything….. I just woke up one day and knew exactly what I needed to do to only buy things I’ll wear one billion times one billion ways and never make a bad purchase again. I feel like Veronica Mars. Like I went to sleep and woke up with the ability to shop ruthlessly. Nothing warrants my dollar bills unless it meets like 42 criteria specific-to-me that I don’t even consciously think of. I couldn’t articulate or intellectualize the criteria, I just KNOW when I know.

And so, I have spent very little money on clothes/shoes and exclusively made completely genius purchases since about October of this past year, and managed to get $6,000 out of debt simultaneously. Nothing is tempting unless it is. And I almost never shop ‘for fun’ any more. I usually go out if I have a short list of 3 to 4 things I know I need, and am in the mood. And those things coincide almost never. But this past week I was feeling particularly bored/sad (my leg) and decided to go to Nordstrom to see if anything was worth my money. I went straight to the shoe section, and almost immediately spotted these beauties, and thought for sure they’d be exactly like the $129.00 Zara ones.

But I picked up the shoe and was SHOCKED to see a $59.00 price tag. I couldn’t believe it. They spoke to me instantly and I wanted them desperately. But I was still skeptical, thinking, they probably fit weird. I tried them on in my size, and nope. Nothing about the shoe was wrong. Everything was right. I was losing it over how perfect they were.They are a genius color combination- a soft blush pink, shiny copper d’orsay strap, and off-white heel. The combination is visually orgasmic. The design…..I can’t even.

It wasn’t until I instagrammed them when I got home, and one of the commentors–as stunned as I was that they were a $59.00 shoe–noted how much they looked like Dior, THAT  I REMEMBERED. THE DIOR SHOE! I had already fallen in love with this shoe! Months earlier! THIS WAS THE LE BLOG DE BETTY DIOR SHOW! EXCEPT FOR $60.00, not thousands!!! Of course. I had saved a screenshot of the shoe when it came into my instagram feed, and had entirely forgotten it existed. But yet had picked this same shoe out at Nordstrom as the one shoe worth buying that day. It just goes to show you how the things we like are just in us.

I find that that happens a lot in life. Certain designs, or shapes, or colors, or looks, just inexplicably speak to you. And you might not even realize it for awhile. Like how when I save certain images from the internet, I don’t realize that they all have something in common, until I do. Like I’ll accidentally, unknowingly, save 17 pictures of living rooms I like, and realize down the road that each one has a white Eames shell chair in it. And I didn’t realize as I was doing it that it was the same chair. It t just spoke to me over and over again. And that’s how I realize what I like. That’s what happened with Kelly Towles (a story I still have to tell) — I saved images of like 7 pieces of his art that I was obsessed with, both from the internet and stuff I’d seen around town, without realizing it was the same artist. So clearly, I really fucking like Kelly Towles’ aesthetic. (From our house–)

And Clearly, a pointy-toed, stiletto heeled,  METALLIC pump (don’t matter if it’s copper, or silver, I LOVE ME SOME METALLIC), involving the color pink (any shade) and involving a d’orsay cut, is MY SHOE. I mean, I already knew I loved metallic heels (about 60 % of pairs of shoes in my closet have at least one metallic strap), and d’orsay is my go-to shoe design (as I wrote in this Refinery 29 piece when they asked me what my go-to outfit was to feel sexy– D’ORSAY heel), but these are like next-level d’orsay. These are like modernist d’orsay. D’orsay reimagined. I’m obsessed.

They aren’t Dior, no. But they’re $60.00, YES. And whatever, I LIKE THE BLUSH PINK BETTER THAN THE DARKER DIOR PINK ANYWAYS! Can you even believe how similar they are?

Crazy. So, you can have what you want without going into debt or making bad decisions. Thanks to brands like Tildon and a little shopper’s luck.

That’s all I got.

Thank you again again again to everyone who keeps checking in on my leg and being so thoughtful about it. I love everyone. My issue is still basically the same. I can live my life, I just can’t exercise/do anything remotely physical, and though I am used to it and able to proceed with my life, I am still hyper-aware that it is there. At every second of every day, I can feel that it has not healed and is still limiting my natural mobility. The only time I didn’t think about it was when I was drunk for 72 hours straight in Ithaca last weekend, which isn’t sustainable.

I am about to leave town for the most needed change of scenery EVER, but I first wanted to say thank you to the kind people- loved ones and completely strangers- who commented on my last post, or sent me emails, or messages on instagram or on twitter. I have never felt so touched and grateful. I was stunned to have gotten such a large response. I wrote into the abyss of the internet and was not expecting anything but personal release, and yet commenters who’ve never met me and owe me nothing took time out of their day to say truly lovely things, notes of inspiration, share their own similar struggles etc. I am so so so grateful and appreciative of you, and am going to respond to each and every individual human being who made my week a little brighter but had to say a general thank you first because I literally couldn’t not acknowledge it before I took off on my trip. Thank you SO much.

I can’t say I’m doing better, I really can’t; because I cried at least 3 more times this week and the leg has made no progress, haha, but…………I’m just pushing forward, going to physical therapy, and resting the mother-FUCK out of my leg. I’ve been taking lots of meals in the bath this week. Hot baths always feel so good, and Alex is amazing.

My physical therapist asked me today if I felt A-N-Y better, and I honestly and calmly and objectively assessed the situation and said no. Not even 3 percent. And he asked if the massage therapist was a Russian woman. I said, yes, A Russian wrestler who beat the shit out of me. Not really, but we laughed together.

But who cares about all that because, this weekend will be pure distraction. Friends, food, and KENDRICK LAMAR!

Packing pictures are my heroin-

Music has also been saving my mood lately. On my playlist on repeat, bringing a smile to my face these days is:

-Daft Punk & Pharrell- Get Lucky

-Robin Thicke & Pharell- Blurred Lines

-Ed Sheeran- Lego House

-Lady Antebellum Downtown

-and Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris Need Your Love.

TRY LISTENING TO THOSE AND NOT BEING HAPPY

Even Lego House. It’s just so beautiful, even if it’s not upbeat.

I’m off, LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THINKING OF ME AND WISHING ME WELL!

Hi ya’ll,

Just writing a quick post to check in and say hi since it’s been awhile. I’ve been in a bit of a hole since my leg injury got really bad. I haven’t written about it at all because I guess I just was trying to focus on the positive things. It happened literally ON my birthday, March 11th, 24 hours after my first time trying Soul Cycle when Alex and I went up to NYC for my birthday. All of a sudden, it hurt to bend over or move my right hamstring. I continued working out for 2 weeks after– running, and doing bar classes. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t do anything, and I honestly just thought it was a part of working out– soreness. I thought, “you just tweaked something, and like anything, it will figure itself out.” It didn’t feel so acute that I needed to stop physical activity all together. But 2 weeks after continuing to exercise, I was in a bar class, doing butt lifts — (haha classic)– and I had a moment where I realized “this is really bad, I cannot ignore this any longer.” I went to the doctor and he said that based on where I was feeling the pain, it was tendinitis of the glutes/hamstring–not a hamstring tear. He said, “our human bodies heal tendinitis on their own– there is nothing you can do but just rest and let your body heal it.” He said it would take 10 days. For 10 days I didn’t do a thing. Within that 10 day period was the second time Alex and I went to New York after my birthday. We went to meet up with his parents. We took cabs everywhere because I literally couldn’t walk further than 1 block. I was limping and favoring my left leg to an extreme degree. It hurt every time I moved positions in my sleep, to drive, sit, and do anything really.

On the 10th day I called my doctor and he said it really should have felt better after 10 days of no rest, so next it was time to see an orthopedist. I went in to the orthopedist appointment with SUCH hope that he would understand what was going on. Like with anything you’re trying for the first time– a new hair dresser, a restaurant– the business/person is either super awesome, or not really. The doctor barely listened to me, instilled zero confidence in me, and just referred me to a physical therapist. Which was fine, because that was the next step anyways, but he didn’t really give me any answers. He referred me to the same physical therapist Alex saw for 6 months when his back was really fucked up. So I obviously trust the guy. But though I trust him, he hasn’t really told me anything..how long I can expect it to take, the nature of my injury, etc. Even though I’ve asked. All I really get is “just rest and be patient.”

I was also put on Meloxicam- an anti-inflammatory drug for arthritis. I’ve been in physical therapy 3 weeks now and I was feeling better day-to-day up until this past Friday. I’d heard from a colleague that myofascial release would really help me. I’ve been really frustrated with how long the injury has been taking to heal and how limited my mobility has been, so I decided to give it a shot. Of course, everything went downhill after the massage. My leg felt as bad as it was the day the injury happened, and it felt like it wiped all of my physical therapy work (and money) out the window. I had a complete breakdown on Friday-Saturday. I seriously don’t think I have ever cried harder or longer. It was probably hormones, but literally I was sobbing uncontrollably for hours on end. I took a xanax Friday night after like 7 hours of non-stop crying, and woke up Saturday morning thinking sleep would have made me feel more in control and happier, only to start crying again.

I’m a really really really really really really really impatient person. I don’t think I could ever write into words how impatient I am. It’s just my personality. I want and expect immediate results. I like things to be instant. I hate waiting. I am dramatic internally. I catastrophize as a personality trait. I am not someone who sees hope, I only see failure. I hear the doctor telling me it would heal itself in 10 days, I hear the orthopedist saying all I needed was 3 weeks of physical therapy, and the fact that my body has not met those statements feels catastrophic and signifies that something is wrong, and may never be ‘right’ again. I start to think, “what if I feel like this forever. What if my leg just…..doesn’t get better.”  By nature, and also by environmental conditioning (no offense mom), I don’t have that internal voice that says “RELAX, IT WILL GET BETTER, YOU’LL BE OKAY.” I have the internal alarm that says “you’re fucked. it’s over. there is no hope. you will never move normally again. You have a lifetime of pain, medical costs, and frustration head of you.”

I also don’t like uncertainty. I don’t like questions. I don’t like not exactly knowing what happened; what went wrong; what I did to cause this havoc on my body; and when it will get better. I hate it. The uncertainty makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. It makes me feel clausterphobic. I feel trapped by my physicality. I want to escape. I hate feeling immobile, limited, and cautious. I am afraid of moving wrong; sitting wrong; standing wrong; because the rushes of pain are unpredictable. I am also constantly terrified that I am making it worse. That when I bent over to pick up my phone and felt the pull of pain, that I’ve made it worse. That just doing that made my healing time 5 days longer. Or 5 hours longer. Or something I can’t know. I hate not being able to see the injury. Like when you have a cut or bruise or bump and you can see the colors, and see its shape and size and see when it’s getting smaller, and the yellow is coming through ,and the darkness is fading, and the swelling is going down. I want to see and know everything. I hate having this internal, complex issue where if I scoot closer to Alex in bed when we’re sleeping int he middle of the night, the pain is searing.

I really never knew, until this experience, the toll that a truly physical injury can take on your life. You lose sleep, it affects every single aspect of your life, from driving, to working, to enjoying things like a dinner out, and you feel incapacitated by what might engage it and wake the pain up.  I had never, to this very date, done anything physically wrong to my body. I’ve never once experienced a sprain, fracture, break, or tear. Alllllllllllllllllllllllll the time in middle and high school, and college, I had friends who broke their wrist, or collar bone, or fractured their shin, or whatever. I am one of those people who can say they have never broken a single thing. I’ve never worn a cast or a sling or anything. I used to be jealous of the girls who would, and got their casts signed. I seriously wanted to come into school one day with a sling or cast and have people sign it. Sometimes, when I’ve had minor soreness, I’ve worn an ACE bandage around my wrist because I thought it made you look cool. Badass, athletic, hard. That was when I was like 18, but I’ve literally done that.

I’ve had fibromyalgia and IBS for years and I feel in control and familiar with them. They’re my trials, and they’re like my old friend. I know them well, and I trust in my body and its relationship with them. I trust in my body’s ability to manage to them. But I’ve never experienced a muscle or tendon or athletic related injury and I have absolutely no trust or faith in my body’s ability to heal. Because it’s taking a really fucking long time and each day the stress wells up in my chest when I wake up and realize it’s still there. Something about the health cards I’ve been previously dealt have always made a bit of sense to me. I never once had a breakdown of this magnitude in all of the tough times I dealt with when my stomach first got bad and I was having endoscopies and colonoscopies and trying every medication and GI doctor under the sun. Something about it always felt weirdly and inexplicably right, like I was given this because I could handle it and I know how to communicate with my body and though of course it’s made me sad and stressed before, something deeply internally always felt like I had control over the stomach problems. For some reason, this has felt wildly the opposite. It’s required a lot of surrendering that I don’t have the ability to do. I’m not equipped with the life skills to surrender to this type of physical injury. It’s been extraordinarily hard for me to handle and deal with what’s been going on…feeling like I can’t move freely. I am not used to my physicality being constrained and limited. I don’t like feeling hindered in my ability to use my legs to literally walk. I violently hate it.

I feel the pain where your butt meets your leg. The crease of leg and butt. You use it for everything. I’ve been calling it my “scoot” muscle– I feel it most acutely when I’m scooting forward in a chair, or in bed, or on the couch; but also when I sit down in a chair, drive, bend over to pick something up, or even remotely extend my leg. Already, in 6 weeks, I’ve gotten used to taking teeny-tiny strides, walking very very slowly, and favoring my left leg to an absurd degree. I do every. single. thing. with my left leg. It’s like the entire weight of my body and existence is dependent on that leg because my right one is essentially a bum leg. I can’t describe how much stronger my left is than my right at this point.

I also tend to get extremely stressed out and overwhelmed by the conflicting information and advice you get from everyone in your life, and the internet. As I was sobbing to Alex during my emotional meltdown, I was explaining that it’s so confusing to navigate a world where you just don’t know what you’re supposed to do. Everyone you know, and love, and trust, including people who have had injuries before, and including people who have gone to medical school….say different things. And who are you supposed to listen to? How do you know. One doctor says that foam rollers and massage help. Your friends and colleagues say to you outright: “MASSAGE IT. USE A TENNIS BALL, WORK THROUGH IT. Stretch it.”  That’s what EVERYONE says to do. But then… my physical therapist says not to. And I decide I’m going to listen to the people in my real-world who have experienced sports injuries, and so I get a massage and feel worse and more set back than I have in weeks. And so I’m trying to listen to my body, and I think my body is saying “don’t. fucking. touch. the injury. Don’t mess with it. Don’t use a tennis ball. Fuck the tennis ball. Fuck what everyone is saying. Just leave it alone. You know that’s what you need to do.” So I try to listen to it, but then 3 days into my decision, I’m reading something new on the internet that says massaging it out is the single most important thing, and I’m doubting myself again and my heart rate is picking up with stress, thinking “Am I making this take longer than it needs to by not massaging it?” But then my other voice is like “but you DID massage it Alina, and it made it worse, so fuck what everyone else says, it’s not good for it.”

Anyways it’s funny because the whole idea of massaging an area that is injured feels utterly and completely counter-intuitive to me. Just thinking about it, psychologically, the idea of like, moving something around on the spot of the injury, even if you are bringing blood flow to the area, the whole idea of it kind of makes my body tense up. It’s kind of like I just intuitively reject the idea of it. It just doesn’t seem right to manipulate and mess around with a part of your body that is injured in some way, especially related to muscles/tendons. So after what happened on Friday I’m 100% not massaging it ever again, I am certain of that, but I still just feel stressed out by the idea of not really knowing what’s going on in there, underneath the skin. I wish I could see it. I wish I could know if it’s tendinitis for certain, or a  tear, or some other injury….a pull, or just random inflammation.

When it first happened, I went through the phase where I was super depressed about not being able to work out; to move my body; stretch; sweat; feel good; get those endorphins. When the injury happened, I had been working out consistently for about 2 months (after having not worked out for 8 years). I was finally back into a groove and a ryhtym; FINALLY at that place where I felt physically sick if I I hadn’t exercised in 24 hours, after a near-decade hiatus from that kind of flow. It felt good to make my muscles useful and get that mood-boost. Then this happened and I literally was depressed. I felt slow, lazy, and gross. Then, I got to a place where I just wanted my leg to feel better– whether I could ever exercise again or not I didn’t care, I just wanted to be able to drive the car without feeling pain in my butt/leg. I feel like I had gotten 40 percent of the way there before the massage. Even though I still couldn’t bend down, stretch, exercise, or use my injured leg the way I can my non-injured leg, I had at least gotten it to a point where it didn’t always pinch/hurt when I walked. And then getting this massage on Friday set me back every ounce of progress I’d made.

I felt so demoralized that evening. I was just trying to do something that had been heavily recommended to me by well-meaning people. I trusted the massage therapist and think she was knowledgeable, kind, and genuine. I just think massage doesn’t work for my body, for this particular injury. But this kind of thing sucks, especially from a financial perspective. I am not someone who has a habit of feeling sorry for themselves, but even a week ago before the massage, I broke down to Alex about how I feel like I can’t catch a break. Every time I think I’m starting to get ahead in life, some random thing like this happens that sets me back emotionally, time-wise, money-wise, everything-wise. Just when I feel like I’m starting to get out of debt, save money, etc., I fuck up my leg, and every penny that I had saved in 5 months of extremely hard work, is spent on physical therapy. It’s completely spirit-crushing. Like I’ll stay up until 2 am or wake up at 6 am to work on a Refinery 29 story, then get my check, and the entire thing goes to my physical therapist…for what? Because I wanted to improve my health and work out? Literally because on my own birthday, I took a spinning class to pay my body forward? Like instead of going out and drinking or being stupid, I walked myself into Soul Cycle class, and that’s the fucking birthday present I get? A totally fucked-up leg that puts me out a thousand dollars in medical bills? Is that a joke? It’s so easy to go into total pity-party mode because I look back on it and am like “how did I do this to myself?” How did I hurt myself, physically, and set myself back financially, just for trying to be good to myself? And it’s like…oh….this happened because you sweetly made a new year’s resolution to yourself to focus on fitness. You committed to spend this 27th year of your life focusing on an area of your life that you’ve sorely neglected for years. You committed to something and were working really hard. For your birthday, what you asked for from Alex was workout gear from Lulu Lemon and a month of bar classes. And this is what happens. A broken leg, pain, frustration, and money that you do not have. And it’s like…it HAD to be your hamstring too. It had to be the one mother-fucking injury that every fucking doctor says “oh hamstrings take forevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver to heal.” Not like any other part of your body, not your ankle or foot or thigh or knee. It had to be the one fucking muscle that when you tell people it’s hurt, people are like “OHHHHH GODDDDD THE HAMSTRING? BE PATIENT BECAUSE THAT TAKES MONTHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHS.”

So when I start thinking about how I just earnestly was trying to make my life and my future better by exercising, and this happens, and it’s taking so long, and I haven’t found a doctor who’s even really made me feel better or answered my questions or given me any useful information besides “it’s tendinitis”, and the progress is so slow, and then in the drop of a hat you can be set back WEEKS, and you feel like you’re no better than you were the day it happened 2 months ago, it’s horribly depressing. Obviously I find perspective and strength in what happened to the people in Boston. I can’t imagine the degree to which they feel what I’ve been feeling x 100. Every time I walk and feel pain I think, “you still have a leg. You still have one, even if it hurts and you can never exercise again, you still have both of your legs.” I honestly think that to myself, but honestly, when you’re super sad, frustrated, stressed, and looking at medical bills your fucking insurance won’t cover, perspective doesn’t do much to keep the welling of emotions at bay. I am mad at the world that this happened just from trying to be good to myself. It really upsets me. I hear, “you’re so young, ” you’re so young” and I’m like..”.then why have been a near-invalid for 2 months WITH NO SIGN OF IMPROVEMENT.” I measure improvement as being….progress towards being able to use my leg in the way I could use it PRE-INJURY. Even if it gets better day to day, like…walking from my bed to the refrigerator,  if I still can’t sit down on the toilet to pee without my right leg searing, THEN IT’S NOT BETTER.  And I just can’t keep the fear of “what if this is…chronic” out of my head. What if this just doesn’t go away.

So anyways, that’s where I’ve been at lately, though I’m obviously just living my life in the mean time. It’s not like I’m in a wheelchair, I’m just experiencing….well…..chronic pain and limited mobility…. and trying to keep my head up and actually believe Alex when he says I will feel better. I don’t believe anyone when they say that and I don’t believe my body. I always just think worst-case worst-case worst-case. When I read that message forum and someone says “I have hamstring tendinitis- has been 9 months with no improvement,” my soul just shuts down and I think, “that’s me. I’m going to be ringing in the new year in 2014 and still having this.” It also doesn’t help that there is practically zero information on hamstring tendinitis and I haven’t met or heard of a single person having it, except for the people on the message forum and even then there are like 3 of them on the whole internet.

If you know anyone who has experienced this let me know…………….

There have been a few bright spots in a shitty few weeks though.

Like spending last Sunday evening on this dreamiest-of-all-dreams porch, at the home of the owners of GoodWood who have magically and fatefully become some of the most dearest friends in the whole existence of my life here on earth. I love miss Anna like we are sisters and I have known her one thousand universes and lives and beyond. Whenever I’m around people like the Kahoes, with Alex my love at my side, I forget I have a bum leg like an invalid pirate.

When I saw the porch, I immediately remarked that it felt 1920/30′s meets 1970′s. Great Gatsby meets Stevie Nicks. I forget if it was me or Anna who said that, but I think it was me so I’m going to run with it.

A few other bright spots–

• Laying in bed with Alex catching up on Bates Motel and Hannibal.
• Trying out Beau Thai (an amaaaaaaaazing Thai food restaurant) in Mount Pleasant with friends on Saturday night.
• Seeing the movie “Mud” with that same couple the very next night. What, a, movie. You MUST MUST MUST MUST MUST go see it. You must! It made me want to raise polite, handsome, masculine, dreamy young men who believe in love; say yes ma’am to their mothers; would go to the ends of the earth for the girl they love; know how to tie knots, avoid snakes, and rig motors; and recognize goodness in other people.
• Alex’s scrambled eggs with cream cheese and chives that are the most delicious thing you’ll ever consume
• And the fact I leave on Thursday for a very, very, very, very, very much-needed road trip to Ithaca, New York with my best friend Ellie, to visit one of my oldest dearest friends in the world who lives there. It will be a short-ish, 3 day trip, that will involve relaxation, a lake, amazing conversation and companionship, cooking, Farmer’s Market coffee and food, reading, and just hanging out with really great people. Also, Cornell has their “Slope Day” concert where none other than…Kendrick Lamar.  So..I’ll be seeing Kendrick Lamar live with good friends, and that’s pretty cool.

Pictures are a funny thing, eh. Who in the world would know I was suffering if they saw these happy pictures. You never can tell.

Hi ya’ll! I’m so sorry it’s been so long, sometimes I just give up at blogging. March was legit the busiest month of my human existence. Ever.

We’ve been up to NYC for the weekend 2 x over the last 4 weeks. The first time was for my birthday, which I haven’t even blogged about yet. It was super quick but super fun. It was the first time I’ve ever spent any time on the Upper West Side, and though there are surely one billion people who figured this out earlier than me and would roll their eyes, it is MAGICAL up there! SERIOUSLY — every time that I’ve ever visited New York has been dictated by where my free accommodations are. Because that’s how you live life until you’re a certain age. I’m not at a place where I can pick where I want to stay and then pay to stay there. If I’m going to go to New York, it’s because I have a friend or family member with a place for me to stay. Living in DC, which is door-to-door 4 hours from New York City, it’s super easy to visit for the weekend but I only started doing so after college. In middle and high school, I went up maybe 5 or so times either for like a school trip to see Times Square, or with a family friend to see a Broadway play like the Lion King. One year after graduating from college though, I ended up with two of my best friends in the world living there— one in Brooklyn, and one in basically Soho. So basically, the last 3-5 years of my life, I’ve always either spent time in Brooklyn or like…the lower half of Manhattan. Soho, Nolita, West Village, East Village. I never really ventured up to any of the high numbers because it wasn’t where my lodging was and there was nothing to take me there. But, Alex’s grandmother has an apartment on the Upper West Side (that we’ve stupidly never taken advantage of until now), and so we had a place to stay.

Which is all to say, spending time up there with no agenda, I discovered that it’s an absolute DELIGHT. I felt like I had discovered something. Even though obviously I haven’t, but that’s what it felt like to me. It felt so……comforting. I don’t know quite how to describe it. Mothers, and babies, and families. Mostly…children. Like in middle school. Like 13 year olds. Living their lives. They probably all go to Spence or Dalton or potentially a public school, and they were walking around with backpacks and getting into cabs and stopping into Intermix to buy, $1400 Balenciaga bags, but even with the perverted wealth, it was still, oddly peaceful and enjoyable to kind of…live there for 2 days. I was just like…wow…this is a whole world of New York I have never seen. Because you can’t really distinguish the residents from the tourists when you’re downtown. When you’re walking on Broadway, shopping in the popular areas and walking through Soho, it’s either a giant mass of people– tourists from Australia and Europe and China and South America mixed in with lifelong residents and post-college transplants and just everyone– or it’s just 20-30 somethings. Hipsters. Girls in their Rag & Bone jeans and lace-up boots and chunky sweaters. It’s not like, the 12 year olds who go to Dalton. It’s 27 year old girls. The 22-40 crowd. Being on The Upper West Side it was just like……it felt like a little Pandora’s box of New York City. Seeing the 13 year olds, you’re like, wow, you are one of the ones. Who lives here. You are probably getting into a cab to go to your tutor. You live in one of these apartment buildings, and these sidewalks are your home, and your parents gave you a $20 bill to take a cab to your geometry tutor’s home for the afternoon and then you’ll cab back home and watch a movie on your flatscreen TV two blocks from Central Park and you know everything that’s authentic…the best pizza and bagels and delis and museums and you know every cross street and subway route you have lunch with your mom at Bergdorfs or Bloomies on the weekends and you’ve gone to birthday parties at the Met and MOMA and you roll your eyes at Magnolia, and come Monday morning, you’ll wake up and go to school here. And this is just….your life. New York City.

I absolutely loved the Upper West Side. And the Upper East Side, but UWS like legitimately stole my heart. It was a lot of hot 30-40 year old women in work out clothes too. Which for some reason was oddly comforting. Maybe because I’m used to that from all the moms in Bethesda and at my all-girls Catholic school I went to or because that’s who I want to be. I’m confusingly content around hot moms in spandex. It makes me feel good to be around them. Maybe I think I’m absorbing their post-exercise endorphins and  projected ‘togetherness’ by just being near them. Because they’re toned and in $500 worth of expensive Lulu/Nike/designer workout gear, and on a mission. They obviously have willpower and probably own a Vitamix and eat Paleo, and are at least focused/determined on one thing in their life: earning/maintaining amazing bodies. Maybe I’ve just changed/gotten older. But if I’m walking down the sidewalk, I’d  rather be in that environment than around sad, insecure, hunched 25 year olds in skinny jeans talking about their hangovers and sexscapades. Like I’d so much rather be around moms than the girls who are on Girls. The show. Although the hot moms in spandex are probably insecure and talking about sexcapades too, but at least they give off the vibe of family and routine. Like they have a home that they go to and they have kids and a kitchen and they make green juice and cook at home and spend gillions of dollars on Soul Cycle. I’d rather be around them. Maybe because I feel like they’ve committed to something. A lifestyle. A rich husband. Kids. A workout routine. Not working. Whatever it is. And 24 year olds are so just like…..un-anchored. Uncommitted. Floating, confused. I think I’m gravitating towards the former because I’m getting older. So I loveloveloveloved spending time on the Upper West Side. And Upper East too. Just like…..gyms and moms and strollers and kids and nannies…adolescents, cute stores, cute restaurants, a slower pace, and a family feel. It was just a PLEASANT area.

It was still pretty cold. We had brunch at Sarabeth’s and took a walk through the Park. We tried the like…quadruple chocolate chunk cookie at Levain. I tried Soul Cycle with all the hot moms and then got an iced coffee at the UNFATHOMABLY well-situated Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (across the street). The Soul Cycle people brought me a slice of red velvet cake IN to the spinning class. It was the best cake I have ever had. EVER. I need to ask them where they got it. I ate every crumb.

The night of my birthday, we went downtown to explore ABC Kitchen and the store too. I couldn’t have been less impressed with the store. Wanted nothing to do with it, and instead, had a much better time across the street- like a kid in a candy store- at Fish’s Eddy!! I saw the storefront by complete accident, I have always stalked the website and loved everything they have, and didn’t even know there was a physical store!

The dinner at ABC Kitchen didn’t blow my mind, but the atmosphere was incredible. Just like, best atmosphere, well-designed, great lighting, moody, sexy, awesome wall art, great layout, so perfect for a little date.

The second night, we stopped into Celeste but had to leave when we realized it was cash-only and went across the street to a new-ish place called Jacob’s Pickles. (thanks Nicole for the UWS recs!)  It was like Southern Comfort food and really good.

Probably the highlight of the trip was discovering that Alex’s grandmother has two authentic Knoll chairs from 1972. I need to write a separate post on this because I cannot even.

And that was our first trip. I came home with this palm tree emblazoned sweat shirt, a Wildfox item, as my birthday present to myself. I can’t say no to a graphic image, a palm tree, a minty color, a sweatshirt, and some mild distressing. Shit, put all of that TOGETHER IN ONE ITEM? I don’t stand a chance. (You can’t see, but it’s totally raggedy with holes and loose threading).

3 weeks after my birthday we went back up to hang out with his parents for a night. They were there to see a play, as middle-aged parents who live within 10 hours of New York City are wont to do.

Friday, his aunt, who lives in the city, took us to a Mexican place that was the best mexican food e-v-e-r. Saturday morning we had brunch with his parents at Waverly Inn. It was pleasantly deserted at 11 a.m. on a Saturday and we sat out on the back patio and had a lovely meal. They had the best strawberry scones in the world! His mom wanted Warby Parker glasses so we stopped by their showroom..it was crazy. It’s just like….in their offices. Amongst the staff’s mac desktops and post-it notes about things they have to do for work and their staff kitchen, they just sell glasses. It was a really weird experience.

We then just walked around Soho and met up with my bff from Dartmouth, Kristin, who lives in the best location imaginable– literally next door to Cafe Gitane, 2 feet from Little Cupcake Bakeshop and the Angelika theater and Whole Foods and all of the best shopping in Soho and Nolita. Insane. Alex and I sat in her sunny little apartment for about 4 hours, catching up and cracking up. All we do is laugh when we’re together. It was soul food to be with her. She is a magical human being and ruthlessly funny. When we left her place, I HAD to get a piece of cake-not cupcake, CAKE–from Little Cupcake Bakeshop. We sat on the front stoop with iced lattes and people watched.

I wore my Margiela cardi all weekend both weekends. It’s literally the most perfect wardrobe piece ever. Chill, adds dimension since it’s a layer you’re probably going to be wearing over something else and it’s short-sleeved, and just like….perfectly homeless vibe. So Olsen.

No one could ever fault me for not wearing the things I buy, which, taken a step backwards, means buying the right things for myself. I wear shit into the g-r-o-u-n-d. Those jeans with the hole in the knee? Those boots? that Margiela cardigan? my Mickey sweatshirt? How many times have you seen those on this blog? I just remix the shit out of things that are awesome to begin with. The jeans and boots are literally five years old. Talk to me in 2022 and I’ll still be wearing them. Which, like, yeah, is usually the case when a person buys something like a Birkin bag or brand-name major labels that are expected withstand the wear & tear of 5, 10, 20, years. But these aren’t expensive staples or $400 Frye boots. The jeans were $60 bucks at South Moon Under, the boots were $100 from Brass Plum, the Mickey sweatshirt was a $20 clearance find at Urban Outfitters on Black Friday. The Margiela cardigan was second-hand. SECOND HAND MARGIELA for $80. Which yes, every time, brings me to the issue of: WHO THE FUCK CONSIGNS MARGIELA. But whatever. And if you recall, the sweater I’m wearing under the Margiela, which is Balenciaga—-BALENCIAGA CASHMERE—-was $80 because it had a microscopic hole in the arm. Holes are my best friend. Take advantage of holes. Holes are so legit.

Anyways after my cake break, we went to meet his parents and their friends for dinner at Times Square before their show, and then headed back to our dwelling on the Upper West Side. We stopped into the big Magnolia that’s up there (I didn’t even know there was one!), right near Lincoln Center, and tried the banana pudding which truly is orgasmic. And I don’t even like banana themed desserts.

Sunday morning was utterly ridiculous. Not only did we have brunch at Good Enough to Eat (we just googled ‘good brunch upper west side’ and that and Sara Beth’s came up and we’d already eaten at SB), we then walked to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, then to Momofuku (finnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnally) and then to City Bakery before the bus back. I mostly got things to go, for the bus home. At Momofuku I got the famous compost cookie and chocolate marshmallow- hated both. The only thing I liked from there was the cake truffles. They tasted like cake batter/cookie dough and were amazing. At City Bakery I got the chocolate chunk cookie. It was like my favorite place ever. LOVED the vibe, the layout, the food, everything about it. It was 2 feet from a Barnes & Noble, which was amazing because Kristin had recommended that I read Joan Didion’s Play it as it Lays and I needed something to read for the 4-hour bus ride home so the placement of a Barnes & Noble catty corner to City Bakery was awkwardly perfect, 10 minutes before my bus took off. (Alex, on the other hand, was taking a flight out of Newark to LA for 36 hours for work). I want to delve deep into the book and how it made me feel and how much I loved it and my thoughts and feelings about it, but will have to do so later as if I start now I will really never get to bed. Ever. The book is haunting me. I read it in 2 hours on the bus.

Between the two trips to New York, we’ve really just been eating a lot of food and living our lives. Work, leisure, work, leisure.

During the week, we pretty much exclusively eat at home unless I’m getting a latte or at a cafe working.

Here are some of the things we’ve been eating:

Broccolini!!!! Yummmmm.

Kale salad with edamame and pomegranate seeds and lots of other things

Grilled cheese + tomato soup which I then had the next day again with leftover kale and asparagus from dinner

The most DELICIOUS greens + goat cheese + pesto + chive omelet

Kale, fake chicken nugs, and tomato soup

And this magnificent egg sandwich that became our morning staple for a solid 2 weeks straight– whole wheat english muffin, light mayo or cream cheese, hard boiled egg, scallion, tomato, fresh cracked pepper. BOOM seeeeya

And breakfast in bed with pretty spring flowers

On the weekends and occasional week days/nights, I pretty much just treat myself to iced/hot drinks, baked goods, and general sugar.

The home made POP TART at Ted’s Bulletin in DC — incredible

The most delicious biscotti e-v-e-r at Cafe Dupont– the restaurant in the Dupont hotel right at Dupont Circle. I’ve been meeting my dad there a few times during happy hour, where everything is cheap and I can get an ice cold coke and 4 biscotti to settle my stomach (#IBS)

The world’s best chai latte in the world lives at the Le Pain Quotidien Capitol Hill. Not LPQ in general. I’ve tested it out at the Georgetown and Dupont and Spring Valley locations and it sucks. It’s only good when they make it at Capitol Hill. Have you ever noticed the way something can taste different amongst a single chain? I hate that. It’s consumer terrorism. Like as a capitalist, what can we rely on if it’s not consistency…the knowledge that the SAME DRINK using the SAME INGREDIENTS will be made the same way at all locations of a chain restaurant and TASTE the same way. The notion that one thing–what is purportedly the SAME thing–can taste differently at a different location is just terrifying. How are we ever supposed to trust anything with our money.

On the bright side, I have tested that the iced latte tastes the same at all LPQ locations (in DC) and is possibly the #1 iced latte I’ve ever had.

My dad sweetly surprised me one random weekday with two red velvet cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes. And he didn’t even know red velvet is my favorite. (Slash vanilla).

Along the way I’ve crossed off a few things on our never-ending always-growing “DC List.”

We finally ate at Mintwood Place and tried the famous burrata kale . It was pointless. I hated it. I realized that eating at restaurants is pointless and the only thing I enjoy is the atmosphere. It was like, let me take this $17.00 and burn it. Light it on fire. Because the kale that Alex makes for our weeknight dinners, using Harris Teeter kale, is literally 40 x better-tasting than this. Like I can take Kale and fry it in oil and place a vat of burrata cheese on top of it. And I don’t need to spend $20.00 to do it. I guess it only applies to certain things. Because we had super-cheap BBQ food from American Ice Co the next day, and it was worth every $7.00-per-sandwich cent, and we can’t make pulled pork and half-smoke sandwiches. But we can make kale. I’m not paying for designer kale at resataurants anymore.

That was another first– trying American Ice Co. It’s my #1 favorite place in DC. I am obsessed. Me, my brother, Alex, and Alex’s friend Ben spent about 5 hours on the patio, at a big ole’ picnic table, hanging out, listening to my brother’s ridiculous stories of the tat world, Dr. Z and Bobby, bit coins, the baby dinosaur that he almost traded his x-box for via Craigslist (Savannah Monitor), and various other things that make up the world of my crazy brother. I seriously can only wish for you that you spend even 2 minutes of your life with him.

He tattooed “NOLA” to the inside of his lip. Approximately 7 hours before meeting up with us. Sorry, I should say Dr. Z, the tat artist with whom my brother has struck up a unique friendship, tattooed NOLA to the inside of my brother’s lip 7 hours before he met up with us.

Just another Sunday in the Gonzalez family. And we look so normal.

Also at American Ice Co I met the sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetest person who recognized me from reading my blog!!! It was the coolest. It’s only happened 3 times total in my blogging life, and she was the third. The second time was in a bar class in Georgetown, and the first was on the streets of Georgetown. It always renews my motivation to write. She said so many sweet things, but what I appreciated most was she said she liked my writing. Because I hope that people come here to read. That’s what I THINK happens. I don’t think people come here for pictures or short posts. I like to think that people are bummed out when a post is short. I say that people come here to read, but it’s just something I think is the case, not know is the case, so to have a stranger say, “I just really love the way you write and I go to your blog to read your writing,” was amazing. I introduced her to my brother and she was like, “yeahhh I already knew that he was your brother” haha because I have written posts called “MY BROTHER” about my crazy brother and his tats and insanity. Blogging is hilarious. Then of course she’s apologizing for feeling like a stalker and it’s like, YOU’RE NOT STALKING, I’M JUST TELLING YOU EVERYTHING ON MY BLOG.  It was the highlight of my life. I want to be her friend.

In other news, I updated our bedroom to be fresh and springy and white and bright and clean and crisp.

This was it before, all Winter/Fall, with moody dark greens and turquoises and blues and blacks and greys–

And before that, when it was just an un-themed mix of color

It’s so VERY bright. Bleach is my friend. We bleached the shit outta the comforter and then all it took really was playing around with pillows we already had and theming the clothing rack just right. I love the neon scarf in the middle.

This sick bulldog bottle opener from GoodWood has been making me happy. $10 bucks and you screw it into the wall and he just adds a little bit of badass to any kitchen.

And that’s about all around these parts!?

Oh, tonight, as I wrote this post, after spending hours and making new friends at American Ice Co, we came back to our place and within 1 minute of doing something with some pocket device he has, my brother had downloaded Louis CK’s latest HBO Special (it literally aired 24 hours ago for the first time) and so we all sat back and laughed our asses off. I love my brother. Anything we could ever want, he knew about it 7 months ago and already has it on some hard drive in some pocket of his or knows how to get it in 60 seconds. The conversation, after watching the Louis CK special went something like, my brother: “What do you wanna watch? Bates Motel?”

me: “YOU HAVE IT? yes I want to watch it, it already got picked up for a second season and I heard it’s amazing, IT’S ALL THAT I WANT TO WATCH RIGHT NOW”

my brother: “What do you mean ‘DO I HAVE IT? Of course I fucking have it.”

my brother: “what else? The Americans?”

me: “KERI RUSSEL’S LATEST SPY SHOW, YES I WANT TO WATCH IT, YOU HAVE IT?”

my brother: “alina, just stop.”

season finale of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? All episodes ever of Workaholics? The movie 21 Jumpstreet? ANY MOVIE EVER? Currently in or at his fingertips. Fuck cable, fuck on-demand, fuck HBO and SHOWTIME, fuck monthly premiums, fuck COMMERCIALS. Just know my brother.

I picked up this utility vest (military vest, cargo vest, whatever you want to call it) in New York when we were there 2 weeks ago for my bday. Every time I’m there I stop into this store called Necessary Clothing that’s like, theoretically supposed to be a trashy store for broke cholas. Which…….actually is pretty much exactly what I am so I guess that makes sense. Legit it’s like a poor man’s Forever 21, and I L-O-V-E it. Like Kate Moss and beautiful sophisticated actresses and celebs and blogger-elites shop at H&M and Top Shop, and girls who have big booties and take payday cash loans from those places called “WE-FIX-MONEY.COM”  and “WE BUY YOUR AUTO-LOAN” AND “YOUR JOB’S YOUR CREDIT” shop at Necessary Clothing. And it’s probably my favorite store. I always find cute cropped turtlenecks, and legitimately awesome pieces that look like awesome quality and were $17.00. It’s the best.

No words to describe how much of a staple this piece already has become in my wardrobe. Over tight mini-dresses, jeans-with-holes-in-the-knees and casual tee shirts, skirt-and-cropped-tee combos…it’s the chillest, sexiest, pseudo-masculine cherry-on-top. You just feel cooler when you’re wearing a long, olive-green cargo vest.

I painted my nails this almost-matching army-green color that I got for free in a goodie bag from a blogger party I attended at South Moon Under in the fall. I’d never worn it until this outfit but something about donning the vest sparked me to do it. The color looked so great with my new skull ring.

Alex got me the most amazing present I’ve ever gotten for my 27th birthday this year. He had this ring made for me. This ALIEN SKULL ring. By a jewelry designer he found at Chelsea Market when we were in NY for 36 hours for my birthday (hi-jacking a business trip he was on). He popped over to the market on his lunch break from his work conference  (while I was at Soul Cycle) and the skull charm caught his eye. But he knew I wouldn’t like it the way it was. It was originally on a bracelet. And so he asked her if she could make a ring instead. She said yes and so he had her design in to sit in this funky little gold-wire nest. It looks so primitive.

It’s so me that it hurts. Nothing has ever been more me. It’s actually quite delicate on the finger– it’s perfectly sized… like it’s not too big that it could only be for special occasions (it is the PERFECT daily-wear ring. I wear it every single day. To work at my federal job). It’s just dainty and sophisticated and elegant enough that I can literally wear it to work, but it’s weird/funky/unique enough that people constantly notice it. It is SO. BEAUTIFUL. AND INSANE! IT’S NOT JUST A NORMAL-LOOKING SKULL! With those eyes that just SLIGHTLY turn up like an alien, and the weird toothy grin?! I am obsessed with it! I have never loved something so much. I cradle it to sleep at night like a baby.

He also got me that super ornate vintage gold cuff. It’s beautiful. But we both agree the skull ring is the winner!

I love it so much. It’s such a show stopper! But the perfect size. I wish you could see it in person.

And speaking of BIRTHDAY PRESENTS, It’s now time to announce the winner of the Rusko giveaway I did with 930 club, in honor of my birthday! The winner is….

JAMIE! MINNESOTA PRINCESS! Yayyyy my dear you get TWO FREE TIX to see Rusko Live at 9:30!!! I am so happy it’s you! (From the sheer enthusiasm of your tweet and comment). Double entry that’s what’s up. Woo hoo! I am going to give your email to the 9:30 Club coordinating it and she’ll tell you how to get the tickets.

Happy birthday to me, and happy giveaway to you.

xo

Can’t tell you why but the sinewy legs of the gold crab against the NYT Magazine with Emma Watson on the cover is my all time favorite shot of the bunch. I’m simply in love with it. (The 5 different versions of it. I love them all, I am like addicted to the image).

I am so glad we have these photos of our first apartment together! Thank you to the lovely Nicole Crowder.

To see the full tour on the Apartment Therapy website, click here: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/alex-alinas-well-traveled-eclectic-home-183862

It’s one of the most “pinned” stories ever! It has over 6K+ pins, and if you looked through months and months of past stories (which we’ve done, obvi), the typical amount is between like 30 and 67 pins, with some being around 300 or 400 pins; one or two at about 900; and only one we’ve ever seen at 5k+. When the photographer came over, she told us the one with 5k+ was one of the top most pinned ever, so with 6k+ we think we hit it outta the park woop woop!

If you have any questions about sourcing or anything, hit me up in the comments!

I interrupt this regularly scheduled programming to offer you my first, ever, giveaway. In honor of my 27th birthday, I decided to give YOU a present.

If you’ve been following my blog since all along, you know that music is an obsession of mine. There was a 3-year period after college where I spent all of my disposable income on concert tickets to the 9:30 club, because it is the single best venue I have *ever* been to and music is my life/makes the world go ’round.

Me with head phones on jamming out at age 2:

And a legitimately NON -posed, CANDID photo my bff took of me at a bar a few years ago because while other humans talk to each other and have conversations (see left) I am in my own world dancing to the music. As Nate Dogg put it, “Music and Me.”

I’ve seen concerts at a lot of the places where you see concerts in other cities- Roseland Ballroom in NYC, House of Blues in Boston, various places in Miami- and every time I’m kind of just embarrassed at how much LESS awesome the concert is because it’s not at the 9:30 club.

I was born and raised in DC and one of the first times I ever went to the 9:30 Club for a concert, I was like 17 and going to see– get this– YELLOW CARD!!!!!!!!! Haha I still love them and that nostalgic first album  of theirs so f*cking much. OCEAN AVENUE? SO GOOD. SO GOOD. The harmony when they sing “we would walk on the beach in OUR. BARE. FEET”– so classic. Reminds me of the scene in Step Brothers where the family is harmonizing to Sweet Child of Mine in the car.

I was going there to meet up with my crush, this dude that I had met in Shakespeare class. HAHAHAH I literally sound like the biggest loser EVER, but it was actually the opposite, obviously. Literally we were the only 2 cool humans in our Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship and he was super emo and introduced me to Brand New and Yellowcard and Taking Back Sunday and Dashboard Confessional. Holy facccccccccccck I listened to the Brand New Album on repeat non stop- IT’S SO CREEPY AND AMAZING AND WEIRD AND HAUNTING AND PSYCHO. Sic Transit Gloria was like my favorite song ever. “SO DIE YOUNG AND SAVE YOURSELF!!!” Classic anti-life angry youth screaming in a girly voice. So hot.

So anyways, he was going to the Yellowcard concert, and me, Ellie, Kate, and Cait were at Cait’s house in Kensington Maryland. I couldn’t drive yet because I didn’t get my license till I was like 18 years old out of sheer laziness; and at this point in time, AKA TEN YEARS AGO, the area where the 9:30 club is was still an area where our parents were like, ‘you’ll get murdered if you go there!’ hahaha I mean not really but as parents they would gasp and be like, “THE 9:30 CLUB?! YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY NOT GOING THERE WITHOUT AN ESCORT.”Oooobbbbviously we had no fear, and lied to all parents involved, and packed into Ellie’s explorer and like….probably printed out Map Quest directions since at the time no body had smart phones or Google Maps so we definitely were still in the era of legitimately PRINTING MAP QUEST hahahhaha I’m laughing just thinking about that. HOW ANCIENT.

What’s so funny is like, I have butterflies just typing this because I remember how CONFUSED we all were getting down there. We had no. idea. where we were. None. It felt like we were driving 2 hours into nowhere’s-ville because everyone lived in the suburbs (even though it’s actually about a 15 minute drive). And thinking about, it’s almost unfathomable to me how far that car ride felt and how little we knew about where we were; because now, I live about 3 blocks from the 9:30 Club and it’s my regular jaunt and of course now the area where it is is like the most desirable area in DC and homes are like 5 million dollars to buy and the Hiltons (as in Hilton hotels) have 2 of the coolest venues sitting right there (in fact one is IN the 9:30 Club– Satellite Room).

Needless to say the Yellow Card concert was epic. I stayed out ’till like 2 am; got a ride home from one of my crush’s friends; snuck INTO my house undetected; and took a math final exam the next day and got an A. Don’t worry about it, I WAS A #LEGEND in high school. It was the night before a final exam (it was December, the semester was ending) and I just straight went to a ragey Yellowcard concert on a Tuesday night. And that is why I’m never having children.

All of that is part of my sheer memory, but I just looked it up for fun confirmation and the concert indeed took place in December– on the  10th of the month in the year 2 thousand and 3, to be exact. The Fall of my senior year of high school. Exactly 21 days later, I would stay up at a Kinkos finishing and sending college applications via The Standard Application on the very last day they were allowed. And 3 weeks earlier, December 10th, 2003, age 17,  I attended a mosh-pitting concert with my crush and then crushed a mathematical final exam the next day in the year when I needed to get into college. I take back what I said– I am having kids because I want them to be exactly like that. Sorry I party.

I will never forget that night, and the way it epitomized friendship– all my girls piling into the car for this thrilling adventure down to the club in the ‘bad part of town’ to support me in my romantic endeavor to win my crush over. (We only ended up making out once– not that night either, and he blatantly ended up being in love with Cait because she is gorgeous and has piercing blue eyes and every guy would always fall in love with her so I’d tell her to look ugly around my crushes and she would because that’s what friends do except it never worked. I’d literally be like “you’re not allowed to shower, don’t put on any make-up, and wear a fugly outfit” and she’d be like “obbbbbbviously.”)

Throughout the rest of high school, I would go back to the 9:30 Club constantly– especially for O.A.R. concerts. That’s cause homeboys were…literally our homeboys, because they were from the area. This was back when their shit wasn’t over-produced and toolish and Game of Poker was the greatest song EVERRRRRR. God damn I had good times at those O.A.R. concerts.

Post college, from age 22-25 my social life was basically going to concerts at 9:30. See this post for an example http://thehyperbalist.com/2011/02/03/ohdeargod/

In that time span, I saw…..

• Florence and The Machine when nobody knew who she was
• Wiz Khalifa- pretty much still when no one knew who he was
• Ratatat (one of Alex and I’s first dates together!)
• Miike Snow
• ADELE (I die)
• Cold War Kids
• Santigold
• Lykke Li
• Little Dragon
• The XX
• SBTRKT
• Girl Talk
• CSS
• Beach House
• Crystal Castles
• And one million others

Crystal Castles brings me to where this story is coming full circle.

One of the single best shows I’ve ever seen was that concert– where their opening act was someone or something (I didn’t know yet) that I’d never heard of.

It was THREE years ago.

And his name was Rusko.

And when he began performing,

MY WORLD WAS SHATTERED. My mind was blown.

It was the most fun I have ever had. It was this DIRTY-ASS, HEADY,  HYPNOTIC, POUNDING, SICK, GARAGE DUBSTEP.

And he was completely, pathologically insane.

He actually takes the energy that someone like Macklemore has and quadRUPLES it. He is natural crack. The way he jumps on stage, and moves, and dances, and gets the crowd going…he has this aura and energy about him like he’s an excited 16 year old boy except the beats he is creating and jamming to are nastttttty. And he always performs in socks. Hahhaa white athletic ankle socks, with his muscular shapely calves (because all he does is jump up and down), and jean shorts that go down to mid calf. It’s hilarious.

I can honestly say that going to a Rusko show is an experience I wish upon every human being before their death. I really mean that. I am not being hyperbolic. I think a bucket list of life, regardless of musical taste, is being AT a Rusko show–at 9:30 club specifically–and experiencing his energy and music. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had. His stage set is SO FUCKING COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s these giaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant Hollywood Starlet-type letter-lights that spell Rusko and BOUNCE up and down on hydraulics doing different amazing things depending on the beat.

As he was performing, I was looking around, and there were all these club-chicks totally zoned out and ROCKING out to him, and I asked one of them about him and realized he had legit GROUPIES. Like I was discovering him for the first time in 2010 but this chick said she’d been following him around London and THE WORLD and had been to every single one of his shows. And then we danced together for the rest of the night even though she was definitely on like 9 Mollys and I had to google what a Molly was after hearing every rapper ever mention it in every song ever. For a while I legit thought Rick Ross was saying “Pop a Miley”, referencing Miley Cyrus because she did Salvia and other drugs.

From that point onward, I was a Rusko addict. I went to 2 more of his shows at 9:30 Club, and then last May, Alex and I went to Miami to visit my family. Upon walking in the door to my aunt’s house at 2 am on a Friday, my 13 year old cousin goes “Alina, I’m going to Rusko tomorrow, want to go?” And I was like “IS THE POPE CATHOLIC YEAH I WANT TO FUCKING GO TO A RUSKO SHOW IT WILL BE MY 5TH” (I looked so cool to my 13 year old cousin, JK he didn’t give a fuckkkkkk and probably thought I was less cool for saying that, it was so Amy Poehler as the mom in Mean Girls of me); and at 2 in the morning Alex and I signed on to live nation and bought tickets to a Rusko show occurring less than 24 hours later in a city we were visiting for 3 days total.

But guess what, IT PALED IN COMPARISON TO WHAT RUSKO IS LIKE AT 9:30 CLUB BECAUSE 9:30 CLUB IS THE BEST VENUE IN THE COUNTRY, SORRY EVERYONE ELSE.

My love for 9:30 and for Rusko has been welllll-documented on this blog, and now, I am giving away TWO TICKETS to the Rusko Show at 9:30 Club this coming April. It’s Thursday, April 18th at 10:00 p.m, and the tickets are $40 eachhhh which is expensive for 9:30 Club aka indicative of how legit he is. You really just need to take my enthusiastic word for it that a Rusko concert is LEGENDARY. IT’S THE MOST UNIQUE SHOW YOU’LL EVER GO TO. YOU HAVE TO GO.

So if you live in DC, and want TWO FREE TICKETS to see Rusko at this epic venue in our nation’s capital, you need to:

Follow me on twitter: @TheHyperbalist;

and simply leave a comment on this here post with your name! (and email, so I can email you if you win!)

You get an extra entry into the pot if you tweet about the giveaway with hashtag #Rusko930. I’m not going to give you any toolish parameters about what you need to say in the tweet, like “I JUST ENTERED THIS GIVEAWAY with The Hyperbalist!” (I would never make you do that). Just be a human and say anything you feel like saying about it.

I have never once done a giveaway. I would only ever do one about something I feel this passionately about.

RUSKO

IS

THE

SHIT

And honestly you’ll look really cool. Rusko is like…cool, and still, unfathomably so, relatively ‘off the radar’. It’s not like going to see like….Will.I.Am. HAHAHAH who has ever bought a ticket to see Will.I.Am? I hope no one that’s reading this blog. Or even a band that’s legitimately good but known by all. Like Mumford & Sons- amazing, but everyone knows them so it’s not news if you go to their concert. RUSKO? NO BODY EVEN KNOWS WHAT THE WORD IS. PEOPLE DON’T EVEN REALIZE HE’S A HUMAN. THEY DON’T SAY ‘WHO IS RUSKO,’THEY SAY “WHAT’S RUSKO?” So you’re cool if you know who he is.

GOOD LUCK WITH THE GIVEAWAY I SINCERELY HOPE YOU WIN.

And if you don’t win and/or want to buy tickets, here the link! http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/eventV2/220063?utm_source=hyperbalist&wrKey=61FD2C11DB68F1080A129DC216B25CE9

HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY TO ME AND YOU!!!

I’d probably wear this:

*PS. You guys….I just listened to Ocean Avenue again, and like….what the fuck YELLOW CARD IS SO GOOD! IT’S SO HIGH SCHOOL. “There’s a place off Ocean Avennue, where I used to sit and TAWK with you, we were both 16 and it FELTSORIGHT, sleepin’ all day and stayin up all………..NIII-HIGHHHHHT.” And the violin at the end?! I remember at the show, the violinist was SO SICK, he stood on a cube and just like……played his violin but would get all acrobatic and gymnastic and do back flips and shit with the violin. He was the hot one of the group. WHERE ARE YOU THESE DAYS YELLOWCARD?!?!?!

(**CLICK ON EACH IMAGE TO ENLARGE (that way you can actually read the adorable accompanying text))

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So for my birthday this year, my friends Ellie and Kate put together the most adorable surprise, complete with an in-color, printed-out, step-by-step itinerary that they nearly laminated. It is my favorite thing ever. I will keep it until the day I die and then I will pass it on to my children’s children as examples of how to be a hilarious/creative friend, except that the technology and photo quality will probably look SO vintage and ancient by then and they’ll probably be embarrassed for me. I mean I don’t know how much more hi-tech document-creation can possibly get, but in 70 years it’s possible that this memento of friendship on my 27th birthday will look as dated as our grandparents’ World War II love notes to each other. Is that possible? I don’t know whatever moving on.

Obviously you can’t see the printed-out version, so these are just the images of what it looked like, but it was a full-on 4 page PACKET, stapled together, that I got to carry around with me all day. It was so cute.

Their plan started (unbeknownst to me) because I was feeling very, very, very, very, very, very, OVER-IT/ANTI-birthday this year. I go through seasons of my life, and this season of my life has me feeling very introspective, goal-oriented, and not interested in attention or fanfare. Like on my 25th, I wanted to put on a sequined sparkly dress, wear a light-up birthday crown that said “I’M 18!”, and prance around town and get all of the attention. Last year, I planned a whole summer-themed birthday party replete with e-vites and serious decorations and prep. This year, I wanted N-O-T-H-I-N-G. As evidenced by the last 2 birthday examples, that’s truly not always how I am. Sometimes I genuinely do want to do-it-up. I.e. I am truly not someone who by NATURE wants low-key birthdays and is consistent about being “not that into it.” For me it’s just a total toss-up from one year to the next how I’ll be feeling about it. Next year I may want to do a yoga retreat or dance in a box at a club, I WON’T KNOW ’till it comes.

And so it was that in this particular year, it came to pass that I didn’t even want to go out to dinner (except with Alex). I didn’t want to ‘celebrate.’ The very idea of getting any ‘attention’ for my birthday made me instantly feel anxious and queasy. I just wanted it to pass. I would have paid someone (or the universe) to just let it pass. All I wanted was to get pizza (my favorite thing in the world) and walk into Lulu Lemon and get a new workout outfit. And then go to bed and wake up and do a fun exercise class in my new workout gear and carry on with my life. Period. My resolutions for this year were fitness and organization– which, although wasn’t explicitly financial, pertains to ALL types of organization: file organization, health organization, finance organization–just “having things in order” in all respects– MORE ON THIS TO COME. So like…the idea of getting all caught up in a birthday soiree was the last thing on my mind. I’m in serious routine mode. Work, get money, pay bills, exercise, clean, sleep. #C.R.E.A.M.

Soooooooooooooooo all this to say that when my friends asked me last weekend what I wanted to do (they were very surprised I hadn’t mentioned my birthday, talked about it, or planned anything, because I’m a planner so if I’d been intending to do something they would have known about it since December); I explained HOW I was feeling.

Later in the week, they asked me if they could reserve one of my weekend days. They said they would need to “steal me” for the day but they promised it would be totally in line with my non-interest in fanfare/celebration this year. They said they were planning a few fun, low-key activities, or as Ellie coined it, “FUN-TIVITIES” and said, “don’t think of it as a birthday celebration, just think of it as any other weekend where we do fun things that you enjoy doing. It’s just us hanging out with each other, NO PRESSURE OR STRESS.” haha so I said obviously they could have me for a day and totally trusted them. I imagined us working out, getting brunch, ‘shopping’ (walking around), and just hanging out– none of the pressure of birthday ceremony. Just friends doing what friends do on weekends. So I thought it was perfect. (Although they didn’t actually tell me WHAT any of the fun-tivities would be, they said everything was at a ‘secret’ location and was a secret funtivity).

It was really cute because Saturday morning I woke up to shower and blow dry my hair (since I can’t be presentable to humanity until that’s done) and Alex got really awkward and squirmy and said “ehhhhhhh……….I don’t, uh…I don’t think that’s necessary.” I tried to pry more out of him, since they’d obviously looped him in on the plans, and he hid under a pillow (he is terrified of ruining of surprises) and told me he just wouldn’t blow dry his hair if he were me. Which……………could obviously have only been for a few reasons: 1.) because we were going swimming (not an option), 2.) working out and/or  3.) getting a blow out. (it was the the last two). Thank god he saved me because there is one thing I hate in life the most (even with short hair), and it’s the hassle of blow drying my hair. So if I’d spent an hour doing it only to find out I had an appointment to get it professionally done by someone ELSE 2 hours later that day, it would have been the biggest waste of time (and product) ever.

Sooooooooooooo At 9:30 a.m., my friend picked me up with the adorable itinerary in hand, and I literally lost it. I could not stop flipping through how adorable it was; the pictures they’d chosen, the things they’d planned, the hilarious captions. We all talked for maybe 5 hours about that one black-and-white pic of Jennifer Aniston. It’s like the hottest picture that’s ever been taken of anyone.

OBVIOUSLY that’s our motivation for working out. I carried the itinerary packet around with me all day and ever 2 hours we’d re-look at the photo and flip-out again at its beauty. To Jen’s left, you’ll notice the red “Just this” drawing on the picture of Jessica Biel– indicating we want ‘just’ her body, not her face. Or fine, like even 1/8th of her toned-ness would be agreeable; not her manly Serena Williams muscles. The picture on the bottom left is of the 3 of us getting ready to go out, but like, literally 5 years ago. That was 2008. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

After a bar workout, the next stop on the itinerary was a secret brunch destination. To pictorially represent this on the itinerary, Kate found a picture of Rachel Bilson having brunch (my female idol). The most perfect picture ever.

Because first of all, any picture of Rachel Bilson is perfect, and any picture of Rachel Bilson brunching is perfect; but it’s of 3 girlfriends having brunch, one blonde and 2 brunettes (Kate’s the blonde, Ellie and I are fake blondes- brunette by nature), and the blonde one (James King) is taking a picture of the other 2 (Rachel and her superstylist Nicole Chavez), and the idea of picture-taking was part of the promise of brunch from Ellie and Kate.  They always make fun of me for taking so many pictures of food, myself, destinations, everything– so it was adorable that they mentioned hiring 2 photographers (themselves) to document our day with unlimited instagramming and just general phone-snapping.

Turned out that the secret desti was THE HAMILTON- one of my fave spots in DC and the best part was, I had never eaten there for brunch! Only ever dinner. And it was phenomenal. True to the itinerary, we each had 2 mimosas– LYCHEE mimosas to be exact (most delicious thing E.V.E.R.), split french toast for the table, and Kate and I split a Mexican egg dish that was incredible. Ellie got a side of shaved caesar brussels sprout salad with pine nuts that blew our minds. I’m really into shaved brussels sprouts these days. So Portlandia of me to say. I don’t want to talk or joke about kale, or quinoa, I want to talk about shaved brussels sprouts- they’re what I think are the next big trend. I had the caesar shaved brussels as a small plate at Baco Mercat in LA; and then Trader Joes actually sells a bag of shaved brussels sprouts, ready for you to toss into your own delicious caesar mix; and now they’re on the menu at The Hamilton and they’re SO GOOD. If you’ve been eating shaved brussel sprout caesar salad for a while, I salute you. Otherwise, just wait a year and SEE how much that’s everywhere. That’s whats up. I’ve seen whole brussels sprouts at a lot of places recently too, but unless you’re shaving that shit, spare us, you’re not in 2013. Actually shaving in GENERAL is what’s up these days. Shaved broccoli, shaved everything. The way Portlandia coined “Put a Bird On it”? (because everything hipster ever is bird-related). I am coining, Shave That Shit. Have a new trendy vegetable? Shave that shit.

After the Hami brought me complimentary birthday ice cream with an ADORABLE birthday dinosaur-cookie and then charged us for it, my escorts for the day took me to my next secret location: PR @ Partners for a BLOW OUT! I MEANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN.

The stylist ended up cutting my hair because she COULD NOT deal with how uneven it was after I’d cut it myself (it was hilarious), and Ellie and Kate just sat in the twirly chair next to me and insta-ed the hour away while I got pampered. Exhibit A:

It was seriously so sweet. There is no surer way to my heart than through a blow dry!

Then, they drove me over to The Coffee Bar where we got a pick-me-up, (per the itinerary of COURSE), and then walked around my favorite part of town (how cute is the map flanked by front-and-back pictures of me walking around town?)

And then it was time for the final surprise of the day back at my own home  with Alex:

They’d looped him in to end the day at our place, with Ben and Farley (my two favorite MALE people other than Alex– Alex’s two best friends. Though we missed Bernardo! If he were there I’d be saying my 3 favorite male people other than Alex but Bernardo wasn’t there because he is a musical genius and was off playing a show). This is my favorite picture of me Ben and Farley. Over the course of dating Alex for 2.5 years, they’ve become like my brothers. When Alex goes out of town, I text them (they live together! so cute– Alex used to live with Ben but then we moved in together) and go over to their house and we watch Workaholics and eat frozen peanut butter m&ms and Farley serves me chardonnay. They’re the best.

It was a total surprise that they were going to be there. I walked in and my FIRST vision was: of Ben sitting on our couch, legs crossed, (lolz), candles lit, and a beautiful-looking hors d’oeuvres plate.

Alex and Farley were in the kitchen working on grilled cheeses (gourmet, like Havarti apple) and homemade caeaser salad with homemade croutons. Alex and Farley are like an old married couple. They’re both REALLY good cooks and always faux -bicker about technique– about how many apple slices to include in each grilled cheese, how big the croutons should be. Farley takes the more quiet, subdued, “you’re going to regret that” approach and Alex takes the yelling-at-Farley telling him to get his flannel-clad self out of our kitchen approach.

For the next few hours, the 6 of us sat around eating, laughing, and watching Macklemore videos since he’s the greatest human being ever. We watched all of his music videos (which Alex and I do almost every night anyways- I sob on the reg to the same love vid)

His live performances are the best. Kate and I watched his SNL performance last week and I’ve never seen anybody crush anything harder. He is so magnetic, I have never seen someone with such intense stage presence. He is such a LARGE personality and so talented even IF some of his songs and raps are kind of cheesy/silly, because the other half of them aren’t and I like both halves equally.  I’m legitimately in love with him. No human being has ever looked like they’re having more fun and made people who are watching him have equally as much fun just watching him have the fun. And then we watched the goat-screaming videos. And then we watched Justin Timberlake on SNL, which was sooo great. I don’t why but for some reason his song-skit about being a vegan was hilarious to me. I never wanted it to end. Here’s the link:

He’s just so talented and sings so well that even when it’s about Tofu it’s catchy and easy on the ears. I love hearing him sing. My favorite part was the “BRING IT ON DOWN TO VEGANVILLLLLLLLLLLLLLE” after every ditty. And the we found love and trinidad james versions. NOT to mention watching him DANCE, holy shit the Suit and Tie performance was AMAAAAAAAAAZING! Obsessed with the choreography and vibe.

When our lovely guests left we went to bed at 3 am (daylight savings) only to wake up in 4 hours to head to New York City for 2 days! Alex had to go for his job so we were able to just make a day/night out of his business trip on the company dime. Such such such such lucky timing. We would never otherwise have been in New York City for my birthday. I love you Alex’s company!

It was SUCH. A. GREAT. DAY. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The best birthday I can remember, ever. 26 was such a flop and 25 was amazing but totally different. By the time I went to bed this was the best birthday ever and it hadn’t even begun!

I scheduled this post to go live the evening of our Sunday in New York. So by the time you read this I’ll hopefully have hit up….

Momofuku Milk Bar, ABC Kitchen, Sara Beth’s, Gitane, Levain, hotel room service, and brunch food at every meal.

And tried Soul Cycle for the first time!

And be sound asleep in a comfy hotel bed after a bubble bath and one million desserts.

Yayyyy NYC birthdays, there is nothing better.

My hair has pretty much always been long. My whole life. Like weird hippie long. Like I was known for it when I was little. It was legit down to my waist and my mom would braid it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY, as though I was a mini-Mormon. SUPER SUPER SUPER long hair.

But for some reason starting my senior of college, about every two years I get really sick of it— all the maintenance and how much of a slave to it I have to be. And so I just chop it off myself with kitchen scissors.

I did it first when I was 22 (senior year), then when I was 25, and now again at 27. It’s OFFICIALLY a tradition that I don’t even attempt to honor. Something in me just snaps when I get to about the 2 year mark,  and I can’t deal with the length and the blow-dry time and everything it represents, and I just say ‘fuck it’ and without any hesitation, chop it off. Because I’m too impatient to book an appointment and have someone else do it. In that moment, I just need it gone.

I don’t think there is really a comparison because each look is super different……and I think I like them equally. Longer is more feminine…and glamorous, but shorter is just…..chicer and sexier, I think. Not sure if that’s the word. There’s just something about the short. Even though people gasp when I cut it because I have so much and it’s so thick that it’s very dramatic when it’s long.

LONG:

SHORT:

I have a potentially shocking confession.

I THINK I LIKE IT BETTER SHORTER!

Jk I have no idea.

Jk I think I prefer shorter.

What do you think?

#somanyselfies #alloftheselfies