How I wore it: simple gifts

People, my life has been so BORING the last few days. I mean, yeah, poor me, I take my days at my leisure, but it's taking its toll on me. A neighbor today asked me how my job search is going and when she saw the look on my face, she quickly changed the subject. LALALANOTTHINKINGABOUTITLALALALA. Plus, the dissertating is going slowly - I made the first few corrections that my advisor suggested, but now I'm just playing the waiting game. Will I really finish in July/August? We shall see. 

So, as you can imagine, when my husband asked me to get some salad stuff today at some point, I jumped at the chance to put on clothes that are neither for the gym nor for sleepytime (yes, I wear PJs all the time when I have nothing better to do at home). However, because my two stops were merely TJ Maxx (yes, again; more on that in a second) and Trader Joe's, I didn't exactly bring it:

... See what I mean? I actually think that if I hadn't worn boots, this look would've been much cuter, much more "New York Herald Tribune!" [if you get that reference, let's be friends]. But the weather continues to warm up in tiny increments and the wind was fierce, so boots it was. Just alternating blocks of grey and black on me. I have to admit, for all its simplicity, that grey t-shirt I'm wearing is one of my favorites. It's got the perfect proportions of loose/not baggy that one always wants in a good, soft t-shirt. I bought it at American Apparel when I first moved to Boston in, gulp, June of 2008. 

... At the same time, folks, spring is slowly but surely moving into the Boston area. Yesterday I woke up to about 60 degrees (grey and rainy and then rapidly going down twenty degrees in the course of the afternoon) and today there was a hint of spring in the air when I took my run. I even changed things around and played my special spring album: I usually never deviate from running to Lady Gaga (you tell me: is there anything better by which to get motivated than the first few moments of 'Bad Romance'?), but today I had to play George Harrison's penultimate solo album, 'Cloud Nine,' from 1987. As you all know, I'm a devoted Beatlemaniac and an even more manic George Harrison fan. My big brother had this album, probably bought when it first came out in the 80s, on cassette. I heard it every once in a while through him - we shared a room until about 1987/1988. When I rediscovered my love for the Beatles with a vengeance, in high school, I inherited many of his tapes, as he had graduated to CDs by then and was finishing up college. Anyway, I inherited his cassette of 'Cloud Nine' in ninth grade and first started listening to it in the spring of that school year, the rare beautiful New York spring, when it's just warm enough to wear a light jacket or no outer layer at all and the trees are all fuzzy with buds, but no leaves, and Central Park is the only place you want to be on a Saturday morning in April or May, even though it's a long walk away. This album, with its wonderful songs - 'Fish on the Sand', 'When We Was Fab', 'Breath Away From Heaven'... all of them, really - was the soundtrack to that spring. And ever since then, I've associated it with that season (just like I associate 'All Things Must Pass' with winter because I got it for Christmas later that year), even when I grew older and got the CD and whatnot. Wow. That was a lot of information I just wrote up there. Well, today I listened to 'Cloud Nine' in most of its entirety during my run. And thought of spring. Is there any particular song/album/artist that you associate with different times of the season? 

Woo, now you know a little more about me. Probably more than you ever wanted to know, eh?

Anyway, on my way to Trader Joe's today, I stopped by the neighborhood TJ Maxx to check on something that I'd kept on my mind since my excursion on Sunday. And I went ahead and bought it:

White jeggings, people! Are we ready for this? I'm not a big fan of white - actually a huge hater of white, to tell the truth. After eight years of having to wear a white shirt to school almost every day (we had casual Friday at my school), I kind of swore off white when I hit college. I have precisely two white t-shirts, which I almost only use as layering tops, except for the hottest days of summer. I'm convinced that white is one of the least flattering colors (shades?) out there for me. But in the last few years, I've been gently intrigued by white jeans, for all seasons. And when I saw HUE jeggings in white (for $7.99!), I figured it was a good gamble to try. Since so many of my boots are colorful, they'll show up well with these pants and they'll be nice and cool to wear during the summer on the plane ride to and from Athens, for example. ... Assuming they don't look awful, which is always a distinct possibility with me and white. We'll see!

I also went ahead and bought The Hunger Games at TJ Maxx as well, by Suzanne Collins. Has anyone ever read it? I know I'm older than the target audience, but I've been intrigued by the series for months and was planning to take it out of the library. But finding it on the way to the cashier at the store, I thought it was a sign and snatched it up. Anything I should know, Style Nation?

So there you have it, folks: boring outfit; rambling about my favorite musician; white jeggings; and a young adult book. GLAMOROUS!

Grey t-shirt: American Apparel, remixed

Black jeans: Bulldog by Urban Outfitters, remixed

Grey boots: Frye Paige Huaraches, by way of endless.com, remixed