久し振り (Long time, no see!)

There's really nothing I do better than hisashiburi posts. Or shall I say, there's nothing a I write as often as hisashiburi posts? It doesn't matter whether it's an lj entry, an email, or an assignment for my writing class really. I guess I'm just unreliable like that.

Last time I posted, though, I was still living at home. I moved into my new apartment (with a roommate I never talk to) on August 13th, and set up my Gazette-covered bedroom.

posters from the 2010 calendar

It's changed a bit since. More pillows down there. Some post cards and pictures beneath the posters. Another lamp...

Sometime in mid-September my friend Clare came back briefly to the US to secure her visa and whatnot, and there was some drinking.

some drinking

And shortly after, there was some Dir en grey.

Sorry, I know you wanted to see the gawths. :(

And shortly after, there was a new hair colour/but and more drinking.

We're friendly drunks, with our fake lashes and yuzunails. The fake tattoos didn't make it into this one.

Lately my social life, however, has become somewhat quiet, and I've been studying a lot in hopes of graduating as early as I can to return to Japan.

trying to remain positive

At any rate, that's all for now. Next time, I shall embark on something more magical, hopefully.

These glasses (Studio ALTA) are too big for my Irish nose.

This is my general appearance lately. I won't name any names...

this is top secret.

Tote Bag ♥

One of the small creative projects I've been wanting to do for a while is making tote bags with designs on them. And this weekend I actually got to do it. I went to visit a friend I haven't seen since leaving for Japan, and we spent the evening sewing and watching old episodes of The IT Crowd.

My simple bag:

It's actually a pale lime green color, but that's hard to see here.

Sketching something to put on the bag.



The final product.



I backtracked and took a close up. It's a little easier to see this way. I also used a gold paint marker for details. :/

When I showed it to my mum for some sort of feedback, she just said, "She's angry." HAHA

Oh well, I like her. She's a little angrier than I intended, but I like attitude. ♥

Back in the US + Shopping Day!

Hello! Long time, no update. I guess I might have been a little ambitious to think of making a blog while I was in the end of my stay in Japan, but whatever the reason (busy-ness, laziness...) this kind of became one of my lesser priorities. But now I am back in the States and rather unpressured, and my time and ambition seems to have resurfaced.

I got back on the longest journey ever from Narita to Seattle to Denver to Atlanta on Wednesday (28th), in a rather cute outfit with over 60kg of luggage and have been resuscitating since. Until today, which was.... shopping day! :D

Just a mall about an hour from my home, nothing big, but better than nothing.

Sorry it's so far. I don't have a floor-length mirror. :(

Outfit
☆ Shirt: Lucky Brand
☆ Skirt: Rue21
☆ Tights: Doll Kiss
☆ Shoes: Daichuu (can see here)
☆ Bag: A street vendor in NYC :D

Being a loser.

Shopping was very successful for me, and ok for the mum. We went primarily so that she could find a shirt to fit under this strange salmon colored shirt she has. Going through the actual women's department in MACY's and Belk's was enough to make me want to cry. Why do people think old people need to look so boring?

However, we started with Forever21, then moved on to Sephora, lunch at Ruby Tuesdays (I had forgotten the wonder that is American restaurant chains), and then Macy's, LUSH, Belk's and Charlotte Russe.

Some purchases...

From Sephora, another tube of NARS concealer in Vanilla, and the GIVENCHY

"ange ou demon" perfume I've been wanting for months. ☆

At LUSH, I got my hands exfoliated and moisturized with a really nice soap called "Buffy", that I need to remember for next time, and played around with some of the other things they had. I ended up getting a really nice almond cream face wash, and the shop girl gave me some nice samples of the toner and make up remover.

My Forever21 purchases, few but good. I love this shirt/dress. It's really very doll-like without being too elegant or delicate looking. The shorts were also a must. I've been wanting black shorts since May. And these had such a cute fasten! D:

From Charlotte Russe: The grey tank top, this really nice vest (the design on it is <3), and this floral skirt I could almost marry.

A rather good trip. I had some fitting pictures from my phone, but I am technologically retarded and/or it hates me and won't upload them to my google account. まあ、いいっか。

Anyways, yes. That's all for now, since I am still very tired and jetlagged. But, here's to making it through the rest of this hot week. And fearing the worst for the future... Global warming and all...

week of nanpa

Good morning. It's 3:09AM here, and as per usual I am not sleeping.

It's been a very eventful week, and even though Golden Week ended last week, I feel like it's been continuing for me until today. I guess I've just had a lot of my mind, since, as hinted by the title...

It has been a week of nanpa (getting hit on).

Surprising, as I usually am nanpa'd only by drunkies and the elderly. It had been a most interesting week, and somehow I wound up with several missed homework deadlines, a gyaro guy who calls me "honey" and a massive neck-cramping issue from the Sadie live on Saturday.

The point of all this is: My friend Hannah bought me this weird pencil in Nara and I am so in love with it's weirdness that I don't know what to do with myself. Look at it. It's ridiculous.

Good view of my crack nail, there, too. Ha.


One thing I really, really love about gal style here lately is fake lashes. At first, the trend for them seemed spawned purely by necessity, but after watching girl after girl walking around with the most obvious, plastered fake lashes, something started to rub off on me. I've been trying to work with what I have, since a) I'm poor, and b)I have pretty long lashes anyway.




It's tough, though. My lashes appear both resistant to curling and simply to consume the mascara I coat them with. If I were to be burned alive in a dramatic fire bombing incident, I'm sure my lashes would remain unaffected amidst the puddle of my melted face (don't think on that too hard). Max Factor, however, is really givin' it it's best, I can tell. :(

So I'm gonna' give the fake lashes a go.



I'm hesitant to make a serious investment yet, but lucky for me, the Shibuya Taito Game Center is stocked with purikura machines that give you free eye-lash omake each time you use (the two different Rich Eyelash above). Haha! 8D

I'm off to research some rec's. And maybe I'll sleep before 8AM today.

lame, lame, lame

Since Thursday afternoon of last week I've been battling with the plague. It's sucked immensely, since as opposed to the US (where I seem to overcome and avoid colds and illness easily), in Japan I always seem highly susceptible. And there is nothing interesting about my being ill minus from the immense amount of Gossip Girl and Project Runway I've been watching. And strange nanpa (getting hit on) while waiting out after a D'espairsRay live in Shibuya on Saturday.

I swear it's the extensions.

Lately it's also been getting warmer and I've been wanting to shop for new spring/summer clothing, but I ended up spending the rest of my savings on the GazettE tickets.

Ha. So until I get my work permit, perhaps I should describe my style as...

Tour shirt. D:

we are beautiful fighters

Hur hur, I'm kind of obsessing over Beautiful Fighters by Ayumi Hamasaki at the moment, but nevermind that.

I figured there's no better way to start a style blog than posting your outfit for the day. And since today's outfit is somewhat characteristic of what I usually wear (T-shirt, skirt, tights), I thought it would be uncharacteristically appropriate. I'm not sure what I really meant by saying "uncharacteristically" right there.

First off, I'm sorry for the myspace angles, but a) my roommate's asleep and you wouldn't see anything if I took these pictures in the dark with my real camera (or maybe they would just be even more emo), b) there are too many parentheses in this sentence, c) there was nowhere I could prop my camera in the hallway, d) my arm isn't long enough to get my whole body in the shot without some form of scene-tastic maneuvering, and e) :D

My face was crazy. Drinking!face (not drunken!face) is not my best JELLY pose (not that drunken!face is better).

At any rate, here you can kind of get an image: T-shirt, skirt, boots, hair with the side-swoop bangs and tied to the side with a purple, sparkly bow. And I really wish I could have captured the full glory of my bitchin' cupcake and lollipop earrings, but I guess that's for another day. This is a typical outfit. Not particularly stylish and somewhat lacking in originality/accessories.

A girl on the way to the train station did look me over and say to her friend "oshare ne" (stylish), though, which made me grin like an idiot. Maybe she was talking about the 100Yen Lawson behind me, though; I can't be certain.

What I was wearing: (minus my two jackets on top of one another dripping in uncool because of the cold)
☆　Shirt - Forever 21 (US ver.)
☆　Skirt - Sirens (US)
☆　Tights - Doll Kiss
☆　Boots - Harajuku Shoes
☆　Ice chai tea latte - Starbucks :D

I'm not quite sure what this would be called, but with my jacket(s) with the Sex Pot and Mad Hellcat Punks pins, and the Sex Pot hand bag, I could possibly call this a bit Harajuku-kei. Popular with middle-schoolers Japan wide. :(

It's a limited, basic style, and this is what I would like to improve.

In other news, I saw a friends' friends' L'Arc~en~Ciel cover band play in Shin Okubou today. They played Caress of Venus, and even though the vocalist was dressed like a fourteen year old boy at a Gazette concert and his eye-make was just melting down his face as he sang, he sounded just like a slightly higher pitched Hyde. It was awesome. So was his one random fan boy dancing in the front and holding the umbrella for him later outside, haha...

once upon a time

Hello, there. I'm really not good with introductions, so thank you for reading this anyway. At least what you have read of it. This, too.

You can stop anytime you like. I won't hold it against you.

I will, however, mention two things.

1. My name is dish. And...

2. This is a blog about developing a sense of style. Not in the general sense, as a guide or a how-to. Heavens, no. I know nothing about such things, myself. This is a blog in which I will attempt to develop my own sense of style and write my process. Over the past few years I have been all over the board, and lately I'm really trying to distinguish what I, myself, like (and what works for me), from what I simply admire.

That's all. ☆