Lost and Found

I have been reading this book since I left the States. It's a series of essays with a heavy emphasis on memoir and art and cultural history, all about the concept of being lost. I have found it almost viscerally poignant to my current experience at times. I haven't picked it up in over a week now. Partially because I find it difficult to read in English when I am concentrating on learning Spanish so much. Partially because I hate the sadness of finishing books I really like.

Today I used an ATM on my way to the grocery store and thought that the cash that I withdrew fell out of my pocket somewhere on my way home. I looked in every pocket, the bathroom, my shopping bags. I was so annoyed/frustrated/upset about what amounted to carelessness on my part. But then my roommate found the cash on the kitchen floor. The relief of finding something I though was lost was such a wonderful sensation. Even something unemotional like money (an amount that will have very little long term consequence, anyway). It was like a really nice surprise. There may even be something about the feeling that's similar to falling in love. Or at least a fraction of it. Finding something that really belongs to you that you had been living without.

I constructed an inventory of things I have lost over the years that I really miss. About seventy-five percent of them are winter outerwear (that blue hat from tenth grade, a pair of my grandmother's gloves, the perfect street-pashmina, etc) and the rest are single earrings. None of them is worth nearly as much as the cash I misplaced today. Probably not even all of them collectively. But if, through some strange tidal flow of the universe, any of those things were to come back to me the elation I'd feel would be exponentially greater. I even have a box full of mate-less, former favorite earrings awaiting that unlikely turn of events.

Maybe the lesson here is that I care far too much about material things. That objects shouldn't hold such emotional worth for me. Everything should be dispensable. But it could also mean that, despite all evidence to the contrary, I might want to fall in love again.

Fashion Questions: Blue Glasses

So, inevitably, each country has its own fashion sense. In Chile I have noticed that women rarely wear skirts and that men tend to have longer hair. While I like to wear skirts and often find ponytails on men vaguely disgusting, I accept that I will have to adjust to these new terms. What I find most puzzling, however is the apparent trend of bright blue plastic eyeglass frames. On men. Both my potential new roommate and the owner of the hostel wear them. And I have seen several other pairs in passing on the street. This isn't your typical geek-chic, giant, coke-bottle type frame either. The small rectangular design implies that the guiding fashion principal is not irony, but a belief that it looks cool. I wonder if some super-hot, intellectual character in a Chilean film sported azure frames? For me it is a style most reminiscent of my sixth grade teacher Ms. Cohen who had reading glasses to match each of her brightly printed tunic tops. Glasses which she readily admitted to purchasing at Building 19. And though ultimately I'm sure I'll adapt to this fashion like any other at the moment I can't help but feel a bit disappointed that vision trends here is are not more on the cutting edge.

Fall Outerwear

So I'm really trying to be good about studying and prep for the LSAT (7 days!), but tonight I am going to a birthday party and it's rainy and I have to wear a jacket. Choosing a jacket is of course an epic decision and because Richard has already left for the evening it falls to you, dear internet, to be my second eyes.

Mostly my fall weight outerwear has been acquired through various forms of "free." In fact the only thing I bought I have had since I was 20 (at a adorable thrift store in Hungary). So there's something a little bit weird about all the options (ordering from least to most weird):



This is the one I bought. It's cute but the arms fit kind of funny, right? Also the zipper doesn't completely work anymore.



So Kendra gave me this vest when we were living together. Prior to my wearing it, we had tacked it to the wall for decoration. It's also pretty short. In like a 1993, cropped-tops-are-hot kind of way.



This jacket also has some early 90's appeal. I got it at a clothing swap (thanks Ella!). It seems like a normal-ish choice, but then you realize that the collar and cuffs are lined with faux fur instead of wooly sheerling. It's challenging.



I honestly love wearing this coat. But it's actually a little bit longer than your standard trench. And the bottom is more of a full skirt than an a-line. It can look sort of intensely dramatic. Yeah, it used to be my mom's.



Can I ever wear this in public? Is any outfit plain enough to balance the oversized shoulder pads and the mid-80's pleating details? This one comes courtesy of my aunt Sukins and was the inspiration for my first request for a leather jacket.

Hardly a Post

So I'm a jerk and I never update. Noted. Mea culpa. But here's what's news lately:

1) My new sunglasses are so fly:



Sometimes I'm wearing them and it's like, "Damn, New York. Can you stop sweating me for a little? Cause I have to walk here."


2) You should all try the 2007 Muga Rose. It's not super cheap but it's well under $20 and it's easily the best rose I've had in over a year. So delicious.

3) It seems likely that I'm looking for a new job. I want to keep working with wine and I feel pretty open to what's available. Hit me up if you know something.

Fashion Advice

So I bought boots online. You may know that I am inherently mistrustful of internet shopping. But I tried them on in a store first (in a different color) so I knew they'd fit. But now they've come and I am having my customary second thoughts. Unable to bring you, my trusted friends, to my apartment (because if I wear the boots outside I can't return them) I need your advice here on the ole blog.

Tangental Update

So I just put my sister on a plane back to Boston. Which marks the end of the last visit I will recieve in Amsterdam, barring one of you surprising me tomorrow morning (this is recommended). But I crossed some very important things off the meta-To-Do list of the semester including the Heineken Brewery (just great!) and the Expressionist exhibit at the Van Gough Museum (they really over-sold the Kandinsky. There are only two paintings of his). Additionally I spent more time under the influence of substances that aren't legal (or "tolerated") at home than perhaps the whole rest of the semester combined. Which is a good way to end things, I suppose.

Another long term goal I attained this week was finally getting a white leather bag (a quest Leila and Doug might remember from the way I eyed the ones Italian police officers wear). It was a great deal and I really love it and my old purse is on it's last legs. I do feel a little ridiculous buying things for myself with Christmas right around the corner and not a single gift bought. Who am I kidding though? It's clearly going to be stroopwaffles for all.
And so, I am becoming more and more preoccupied with moving back to New York and the pending culture shock of that experience (and the general shock of finishing college in May). I'll just repeat for any of you who are so unlucky as to not be my facebook OR myspace friend that I am looking for an apartment that is cheap, doesn't require a year lease and reasonably easy to get to NYU from. It seems like moving back will be especially depressing because I'll have just missed that magical Christmas In New York feeling that's everywhere in December. Instead it will just be the Depressed But At Least The Bars Are Open Late feeling that takes over in January. I'd like to take this opportunity to warn all of you that I have not maintained my tolerance of alcohol while abroad and if you make me take shots I might vomit. I also go to bed by one most nights.
But for now I am just trying to write my last paper so I can do fun things and have a great time with the people I have met here who I will miss veryvery much. I am trying to look at it as an incredible opportunity to visit friends in exciting places in the future, but I also feel like I am just getting to know a lot of people and it's sad to leave them. Sigh. So complicated.
Ok. If I post again really soon just yell at me and tell me to go write my paper.