Blast from the Past

I just found this site where there's an interview with me when I was 19 years old, doing my first mini-collection at Parsons School of Design. I was SUCH A DORK!

Just FYI, some of the people on that page went on to major positions in the world of fashion design and publishing. I'm not telling who :)

The next year I was mentioned in an article by Fashion Wire Daily, who totally inaccurately reported my designs were being sold by Henri Bendel (the grain of truth being that one of their gay stylists, who thought I was cool, gave my phone number to Rose McGowan because he thought she would like my designs...and then I moved and my phone number changed), but I have no idea where the hell that is. Probably printed out and sitting in a box under some embarrassing teenage journal I taped shut.

Bustiers for Brazil

On Sunday, I attended my very first organized clothing swap at Miss Ashley Info's lovely apartment in the Fenway! (And when I say lovely I mean, I have never seen a neater cuter apartment. And the couch! If Jane Magazine was still around Ash could write a small spaces decorating how-to article.)

There's the hostess kicking off the event with a Vanna White display of second-hand knittage.
You can't see it but I'm there in the lower right corner eating spinach dip and drinking my 8th glass of riesling with frozen blueberries (I don't care what Deb says. Frozen berries in the wine = classy.)
We each took our turns going through the trash and treasures we lugged over in white Glad bags. Here's Erin selling us on her bootie-sock thingies. I think Ashley was a taker? Like I said, the wine. Don't ask me to remember... I just know the highlight of my day was trying on two pairs of Erin's old jeans and actually being able to squeeze my ass into them.

Oh and by the way? Anyone who used to Kiss Ashley's Ass? Can Kiss Michelle's Ass now, bitch!

I feel like I should take her to an Ani DiFranco concert. Oh and speaking of concert, Ashley's friend Heidi with the awesome AWESOME hair who is in that sweet band The Snow Leopards came. I think she only went home with one thing but it was an awesome (belt) thing.

AND. She was so kind as to give me this amazing velour booty-suit that I'm wearing in the following unflattering photograph:

Deb found the things that were black. Or white. Or black and white striped. I think Deb might be a "fashion zebra." But she's one of the only people I know with a "signature" look, and it's always a cool one.
I love that Michelle took my slutty impulse-buy pinup girl print bustier from Filene's Basement. Of about 6 bustiers that we saw that night, I think it's the only one that won't end up on a Brazilian prostitute. Just traded from one Irish one to another. I'm kidding! Michelle's not a ho. Just me.
Michelle liked her stuff so much she wore it all at once. Rayanne Graff, anyone?

Some shoes have all the luck. Like these magical apple sandals that went home with Michelle. How cute! You know she's a teacher right?

Renee's mules weren't adopted. Off to Brazil! Sad shoe goodbyes.


It was a great time, and everyone left with heavier bags than they came with. Okay maybe just me. It'll be fun to see what re-enters the pool next time!

Special thanks go out to Nestor too, who provided the cuteness. And the peach-ness and gray-ness. And falling off the chair-ness. Thanks for having us all over you guys! A couple of spectacular hostesses.

The Big A Pigeon Whisperer

Yesterday I walked with Max and Nietzsche up to the Big A deli on Cambridge Street ("Home of the Famous Chicken Parm," according to the sign...) When we arrived, we saw that there was a pigeon in the window and one of the workers was on his cell phone (I assumed to Animal Control) trying to shoo it out.

Now, call me a baby, but in my opinion pigeons are basically rats that learned how to fly, and I wouldn't go near one without a plexiglass shield over my face and a pair of giant falconer gloves pulled up to my armpits.
This guy, not as concerned. He reached down and grabbed the pigeon in his fist, then walked outside to casually continue his long distance call to what I now realized was not Animal Control but Pakistan (or wherever.)
Flash forward 60 seconds. This guy is still absentmindedly holding the bird like a crumpled napkin, chatting on the phone.
I snapped this just as Max said:
"Dude, just let it GO!"
Dude then released the bird and, I imagine, cursed Max as he watched the contents of some Big A customer's "chicken" sub fly off into oblivion.

New Site!

Hearts Like Stars, my new style blog, is up! So if you don't wanna know what I ate for breakfast and you do wanna know what's fresh from the new Kate Moss and Target collections, whats on sale on what site, and whether the latest foundation from Maybelline sucks or rocks, bookmark it. I promise you frequent, fab content.
If you're linked to me here, I'd love it if you traded that link for one to HLS. But it's up to you, I'm grateful to be linked to at all :)
xoxox

What If My Parachute Is Tie-Dyed?

You'd think being 27 might deter one from maintaining a "what I want to be when I grow up" list, but sadly, I still keep one for lack of decision-making skills. Extreme. Lack.
So here they are-- things I might possibly be:

- Children's book writer and illustrator
- Muppet designer
- Fashion designer (for real this time...)
- Owner of a farm converted into cat shelter/ adoption center
- Screen actress
- Painter (fine artist)
- Wardrobe stylist
- Magazine editor
- Shop/salon combination owner
- Television writer

What I constantly fear being:
- Average

I'm told this is a "late 20s thing." Like that makes it any easier.

My guess is it's also an overachieving oldest child thing.

I was always in "gifted" programs and took classes with people 2 grades ahead of me and was given tests my mom procured secretly to confirm that at age 8 I did in fact read and comprehend at a high school level. One night when I was a kid I heard my parents in bed discussing what my sister and I would be when we grew up, and they debated whether I'd be a CEO or a lawyer. I won awards frequently for writing and art and running and even landed insane things like a scholarship to study in Colorado with two famous painters the summer before senior year.
So I guess I kind of have all that buildup and thus far, it hasn't amounted to all I felt it was magically going to. Not for lack of ability, I like to believe, but lack of direction.

I can say with honesty and not a trace of conceit that then you're pretty good at a lot of things, it's hard to pick one to try to be amazing at. I just wonder when time is up.

Spinoff on Horizon Despite Low Ratings

I've realized that quite often my posts are about fashion and products and shopping and magazines, and as far as being useful they really can't be (at least not to anyone not willing to sift through my "personal life posts" to get to them.)

So, I've removed the fash-un postings from this site and I'll be announcing (hopefully later today) a new web addy where from here on all things style shall be discussed, linked to, and criticized. This one won't be going away, mind you. This is still the #1 place to go if you want the scoop on my personal BIZness and thoughts. I'm just giving my area of expertise it's own forum.

Just call this part of my OCD. I like to be organized.

xoxox

The Hard Way

Every day, I take the stairs down from my 5th floor office for no other reason than to avoid the awkwardness of sharing an elevator with co-workers.
And....every day, without fail, someone enters the steep, creaky, mismatched series of stairwells at the exact same time as me about one floor up, and taints my entire descent with panic from the sense I'm being chased.

(Those aren't my office's stairs, but they are scary. Just in case you didn't get a visual.)

So I run down them, leaping down to landings and swinging like an ape holding the banister, though I know it's not a monster from Scooby-Doo behind me, and it's really just some chubby guy named Jeff from Marketing who's more likely to fart and trip over his own shoelaces than tear his face off to reveal a mutant vampire who wants to gouge my throat with bat fangs.
Not that that doesn't make me panic either, because the whole reason I'm in the stairwell in the first place is to avoid riding the elevator with him.
***
If I stop taking my anti-depressants for like a week, I start falling asleep at work. Am I really that depressed?! I don't think so? I mean, I guess some things in my life are depressing?
Such as:
*It is raining today.
*I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.
*I am not a millionaire.
That is not enough to make me need to sleep forever. Maybe I have a sleeping problem?
Things I have slept through before:
*Giant storms
*A fire alarm that stayed on for 3 hours
*Entire conversations
*The flight home from Madeira, Portugal
*Possibly sex (you'll have to ask Max, but my bet is he could get away with it)
***
Today someone locked the bathroom on my floor from the inside, and I had to go upstairs to the sixth floor. When I walked inside, it was 300x better than our bathroom! It was covered in fashion magazine pages, product samples, and a giant box of tampons.
I wish I had known about that the day I walked 5 blocks in the pouring rain to 7-11 with a wad of toilet paper stuffed in my pants after discovering that the feminine product dispenser in our bathroom is jammed and impenetrable to my reach-up-in-and-steal attempts.
Oh- did that gross you out? Then you're probably a dude. Fuck you.

(Side Note: In google-image searching for above pic, I at first just typed in the word "tampon." Don't ever do that unless you want to vomit. The second photo is of a gnarly bush with a string hanging out of it. I won't be eating dinner tonight. Or EVER AGAIN.)

Ugh, Stop It

What are they on, like Saw XIV?

I've had about e-fucking-nough of these poorly acted un-scary gross-fests. This guy and the pervert sex freak who makes the Hostel movies should be shot in the head. And if I see one more commercial with this fucking doll's face I'm going to do it myself.

It looks they painted Lady Elaine Fairchild from Mister Rogers with goth makeup.

What ever happened to movies intelligent enough to actually scare people? Fear and vomiting from traumatic mutilation imagery are two different things.
Movies that actually scared me? Seven. Frailty. Watcher In the Woods. The Ring. Signs.

Do You Remember The First Time?

In honor of tonight, the 10th Anniversary of The Pill the best thing about Boston, I'm going to share with you all the high-nights and low-dykes of my four or so years as a loyal disciple.

Like Vanya, and strangely enough at just about the same time, I was first a New York City britpop kid, 19 and slinking alone amongst the rock trannies and glittering children of Don Hill's on Saturday nights to hear Justine D. and mush-mouthed English relic Nick Marc spin the same mix of Pulp and Suede every week. Tiswas, they called it. (I never complained about the high drink prices because I knew if I stood in the right spot every week, I could catch the eye of the lead singer of whatever band they had and I'd be lavished in booze for the remainder of the night.) Oh, the scheming good old days.

Back north, I ached two years for the fashion and filth of Tiswas while living with "my greatest mistake." When I finally shed him like an oppressive khaki cocoon at age 22, I went out searching for the next best thing. What I found was even better.

My first Pill....
was in the front room at The Paradise. Liz Ficken, since moved to Ireland, and I hoofed it in pumps all the way from my apartment in the Fenway. I remember dancing with my back against a pole, and being approached by a Mexican boy who asked me to go to New York with him and drop ecstacy in the back of his band's van. Needless to say, that was a no.Opening Night at The Ecko Lounge...
I was there in a 4-inch mini with stilettos, mid-winter, below zero, in line for 30 minutes waiting to get in. When I did, I thought to myself, "that was worth it." Rebecca was with me. She's more "pop-lock-and-drop-it" than "disillusioned sway," so God bless her for standing in the cold and trying to shield my naked legs from the arctic Chinatown wind.Guilford Afterparties...
That night I was standing at the downstairs bar with Hallie. Max looks down the bar at me and then saunters over in his ragged black blazer. "What a Strokes poseur," I thought.
"Why are you called Pixie?" he asked me, smirking. "That's a stupid name."
"Fuck you." I said, and went upstairs.
Cut to end of the night.
"Come to this party," says Carl Lavin.
"Where?" I say.
"Max's," he replies.
"I hate that fucking guy," I say.
"Nonetheless..." says Carl.
That night Max tried to hit on me while Nietzsche laid on my lap. The next morning I had Friendster messages asking for my IM "handle." And so it began.

First Floor Soul
Maybe I was one of only three people who actually hung down here to dance, but Nick and Gus spun some excellent jams and it's the main thing I wish we could have back. Best compliment of my life is Hallie telling me on this dancefloor that I "don't dance like a white girl."

Riding Home
Hallie, Steve, now in Ireland, and Irish Leo.
3 a.m. stops at Shaw's
Eating baked goods in my studio apartment.
Signing along to "Motorcycle Emptiness"

Crushes
I was in love with Patrick from the Cignal. He was afraid of me.
Carl tried his best to hook us up.

The Pill's First Ever Fashion Show
Abby Ficken and Slash debuts the first day of Boston Fashion Week 2004.
Full page photo in the Sunday Herald.
Models: Mary Connelly, Susannah, Victoria, Moz from The Good North.
Victoria falls off the stage twice.
Max's gay girlfriend, watching bitterly from behind the bar with an outdated fauxhawk.
Cut to the end of the night: Max in the corner with a bloody nose (for talking to me.)
Bouncers
Mal, from The Ecko, who called me "The Girl With The Legs."
What ever happened to you? You're missed.

Bartenders
The Ecko was tended by Max's lesbian. She liked to pour them stiff for me, as if I didn't know and love that she did. I loved that she always had to serve me. I tipped extra well, to rub it in.
Great Scott has Tim, who is the best. He remembered when it was vodka cranbery, and now my Stoli orange and tonic is made before I open my mouth. No matter how long I'm away.Sarah Bell
Every week. Pre-shopping. Pre-party.
Brand new dresses. Often the same dress in two different colors.
Vodka with Red Bull, and coke.
Dancing to "Trash," by Suede. Our song.
Cab rides from Central Square.
The only reason Ken ever spun "Two of Hearts."
Halloween
I was Nico in a pleather dress when The Information was Depeche Mode
So drunk I grabbed Kerry Lavin's ass and bit Moz on the face.
Fell down on the street going home and was scooped up into Zack's car by Max.
Max was seeing the lesbian again. But not that night.
Then I was Edie Sedgewick when Protokoll killed Bauhaus.
Last year I was Marilyn Monroe.

The alley behind Great Scott
Smoking pot with Vanya and company
Photo shoot with MickBarrows Afterparties
Everybody who's anybody shows up.
Was: Driscoll, Vanya and DJ Ken.
Now: Terence, Vanya and DJ Ken.

Announcing the Bands
Vanya granted me this honor for several months. Nothing like a girl in a short dress staggering over to the mic to sling veiled insults at the musical guests.

The Pill's second fashion show: This Dress Is A Weapon
Faux jewels on the tables.
Full page photos and interview in the Metro. Teaser on the front.
The colorful cupcake dresses.
My parents on the dancefloor till 1:30 a.m.
Max, actual boyfriend, in the audience.
Modeling
Victoria, Hunter, someone and I.
Toy guns.
Penguin clothes.
Theatrics.
The Information
I loved the music long before I loved the man in front.
Seen them play here 43974 times.
"A Simple Plan," should have made them millions by now. It get's better every time I hear it.
And for the record, I'm the skirt that makes him think.
But I'll only make you ill.

Happy 10th to you boys and girls of The Pill.