in the evening sun

willi of california dress, vintage belt, vintage shoes

My five year blog anniversary was yesterday! Whaaat?! To celebrate, I agonized over how to edit my pictures with Picnik now defunct. Listen, I'm aware that it has a bad rap (if you care to venture into my archives from the past five years [but please don't], you can probably see some instances why) but I honestly don't really know how to edit now, so....there's that...

One thing I'm looking forward to is my seventeenth birthday in one week's time. The number seventeen has always carried some wonderful kind of air to it. First of all, I get an age with the most magically powerful number in it, something I haven't had for ten years. I'll finally able to do magic outside of Hogwarts; it's been a long time coming. And then there's just some other thing about the number seventeen: it sounds very old. Quite mature. And of course, the miles of song lyrics featuring the wonders of being seventeen.

Could never tell you what happened the day I turned seventeen: the rise of a king and the fall of a queen.

-Marina & the Diamonds, "Seventeen"

When I was seventeen, my mother said to me, "Don't stop imagining. The day you do is the day you die."

-Youth Lagoon, "17"

and my favorite of all time:

You're the prettiest, smartest captain of the team; I love you more than being seventeen. 

-The Strokes, "Evening Sun"

Perhaps they aren't all so wondrous. But I'm still excited.

the last sunshine fell with romantic affection

The photo you see above is strictly for sentimental value. I am a firm believer in "flowers-should-never-be-photographed-for-human-enjoyment", but I always get really happy whenever these flowers pop up in our backyard because they made me so, so happy when I was a kid. So there's me breaking my rule.

Anyway, I like this dress. It was bought in Brooklyn at a marvelous vintage store that I don't think I ever learned the name of. I always love buying clothes when I travel, because I don't think you can ever really forget about that place when you wear whatever you bought there.

vintage dress, who knows where I bought my tights, vintage belt, vintage shoes

(title: phrases from The Great Gatsby that make me want to curl up into a ball of wonderful words and have F. Scott Fitzgerald like, read me to sleep or something.)

here in the streets of american nights

-The Great Gatsby

Unlike Mr. Nick Carraway, I think I came out of the womb liking New York. I don't remember what it was that first enchanted me, but I remember being desperate for it before I had even set foot on an airplane. Perhaps it was snippets of Friends or Seinfeld that I caught while my parents watched. Perhaps it was Eloise and Weenie and Skipperdee living on the tippy-top floor of the Plaza. I just remember being wild for it. I wasn't quite sure what was there or why I needed so badly to be there, but it filled me up.

And it still does. 

 I love waking up in New York. I love falling asleep in New York, to the white noise of honking horns and to lights through the window. I love the thick and gray smell of cab exhaust and Manhattan cigarettes that would be revolting in every other city. I love the city's lack of facial expressions and I love subway-sign Helvetica.

I often wonder how it is that there continues to be space for more people in that city. That's probably one of the (many) things that's most remarkable about it--it just seems to keep growing with anyone who steps the city limits. It's both the most intimidating and the most welcoming city in the world in that way.

(New York City Cops: The Strokes)