Gems.

Lacy.

Today in my teenage angst, I wore to work one of my favorite pieces of clothing. It's this black skirt with a corresponding black lace overlay. It's the best. It makes me feel simultaneously fancy and stuck in the nineties.

Anyhow, a woman I know came into the library and complimented me on it. I pointed out my favorite aspect of it being the black lace. Obviously. There's no other reason to own this skirt. Anyway. This woman agreed with me and went on to say that "yeah, you should wear lace as much as you can." I laughed and said I'd see her later. As I was walking back to my desk I thought, what an odd statement. Odd but true. Lace is one of the happiest fabrics in existence. So happy in fact that it became a name. 

There was this girl, Lacey, in my high school, who my best friend and I considered to be perfect. She had great hair, great skin, the best clothes and all the friends she wanted. This was pretty much all it took to equal perfection at that age. This was smack in the middle of the Felicity age. That late nineties television show that carried the height of bad nineties/early 2000s fashion. I still don't know if she was aware of our minor idolatry. 

Aside from all that, lace will continue in my life, so much so that I'll wear it as much as I can but hopefully not so much that it warrants my child's name.

Bow.

Today in my teenage angst, I gratuitously post a picture of myself. Well more so, my hair.

Hello Giggles is my best friend. Not only do they post relevant, hilarious and brilliantly written articles, they have easy/attainable DIYs that less than handy people like myself can perform with ease.

I present to you the Bow Bun. I did this even without a mirror. How's that, you ask? I'm just that good. Just kidding. I've already noted that I'm less than handy. This instead, happens to be just that easy. So I took a picture and Warhol'd it on picmonkey (blessedly taking the place of picnik) because I'm awesome.

I like my hair to be a little messy. I don't have a lot of it and seriously, though inexplicably, feel that when it's messy, I have more hair. Either way, this worked exactly as I thought it would not. It's a winner. I think it will be my birthday hair.

Definitions.

Today in my teenage angst, I call us to take a page from Riley and define ourselves on our own terms.


This child is brilliant. Not to mention, inspiring. 

Stupid.

Laci Green.

Who knows Laci Green??? Today in my teenage angst, I feel like a part of this blog is about promoting the good things other people are doing. And I'm okay with that. Because I become privy to a lot of really great things and want other people to know about them. The more ways I can tell people, the better.

Laci Green runs an online sex education website that promotes Sex+ - Sex Positivity. It's the promotion of healthy sexual awareness as well as positive gender identity development. She's a genius. I do think that the development of sex education since the Victorian era - which if you've done any study was extremely oppressive - has left us in the state we're in. Aka, an unwillingness to approach the topic with ease, but instead with fear, euphemisms and clearing of the throats. Laci's mission is to undo that. She exposes a lot of the underpinnings of the North American view of sex, in that too much is bad, too little is bad, over-exposure is bad, hushed tones are necessary, etc, and introduces a new, positive way of understanding that beautiful thing that is sex.

Laci and I differ in a lot of areas. The greatest one I often identify, is that she's a pretty severe humanist. Her existence is owned by the human experience and she spreads that message thoroughly and effectively. So I generally take what she has to say with a grain of salt, but her encouragement to separate yourself from the patriarchal expectations of relational and sexual interactions as wells as the patriarchal definitions of beauty rings true. Beautifully so. I have a lot of passion for the positive development of sexual identity and while I don't find that to be my life's calling, I praise God for people, like Laci, who do.

The following are my most recommended Laci watches. If you want some serious, throwback to the sex-ed you probably didn't get in High School, education, there are a lot more of her videos to watch. You can also subscribe to her on Youtube, Tumblr and Facebook.

300 and the flu.

This is not about the movie three hundred watched while having the flu, but rather the fact that this is my three-hundredth post, a goal which I had hoped to achieve by the end of the year. And it's only May! So congratulations me.

This weekend in my teenage angst, I got the flu. I really never get sick. Colds, fevers, stomach aches, throwing up, it's just not a part of my life experience. Except during times of extreme excitement (travelling to Disneyland when I was five) or trauma (after both of my horrific car accidents). Other than that, the process of being sick is fairly foreign to me. I'm certain this makes me more pathetic and consequently even less functional than would be if I experienced it regularly. Janelle brought me soda crackers and ginger ale and I was hilarious delirious in talking to her. I even sang her, You're the Best Around by Joe Esposito, from the tournament montage in Karate Kid. Video below. Look at Elisabeth Shue. She's a goddess. Anyway, Janelle just replied, "okay go back to your bed" and backed away slowly. Bless her.


So I'm on the mend, now more efficiently sympathizing with others who often have the flu, instead of just empathizing, because really, I have no idea what you're going through.