i need to minimize my life

This weekend, instead of it fully hitting me that I was moving into my dorm room on Thursday, I went to Chicago to celebrate my 21st birthday (again) with the girls. The apartment we were staying at was just a 2 minute walk to the Viagra Triangle and about a 10 minute walk to Michigan Ave. Danielle, Carrie, and Joy had made a necklace/sash of notecards listing the 21 tasks I had to complete Friday night, and on top of that, Danielle had bought a gaudy, Disney princess tiara that they demanded I wear with my red dress. You can use your imagination to fill in the rest of the night.

The downside to the trip, though, was our 8 am bus ride Sunday morning (so brutal), which meant that I basically did nothing Sunday except go see "The Time Traveler's Wife" (kind of on par with "A Walk To Remember" in my opinion). Monday, I finally got my ass semi in-gear and went on a Target run, but today, I spent the afternoon in serious denial of vacation being over and, instead of desperately organizing my life, headed to the mall with Danielle to hit up Sephora and Aveda for "back-to-school" (easily the most dangerous excuse) shopping. Who knew Aveda has complementary neck and shoulder massages?

Fast forward to now (less than 12 hours away from when I have to start my 12 hour drive south), and I'm frantically throwing everything in sight into boxes (that will probably break my back in approximately 24 hours), while simultaneously chugging this strange Vitamin C, raspberry-flavored, energy boost drink that's Mom's latest health obsession and absolutely freaking out inside that I'm forgetting something because I can't remember where the hell I put everything. Even worse, I can't even remember what the hell I have. Or what the hell I'll need.

Where did the summer go?!

cut copy

“Back in the 1960s, the only important thing was length,” said Michael McDonald, the costume (and hair) designer for the “Hair” Broadway revival. “It wasn’t until the 1970s, and the disco era, that men’s hair started to really have ‘style.’ And then every moment had its look, so that now, in the 21st century, we’ve pretty much seen everything wacky you can do to your hair. It’s all there to go back to and interpret.”

Mr. McDonald can generally spot the inspirations. “There’s a little bit of everything,” he said. “Maybe it’s a little Flock of Seagulls, maybe a little Backstreet Boys.” But there the trail goes dead. If the hair is goth, the clothes might be skater-cum-prep, and the shoes rockabilly. “It’s all mixed up so beautifully,” he said. “It’s really neat the way they can just cut and paste.”

- "Hair, Hair, Hair, Hair, Hair, Hair" (NYTimes)

Five points if you can spot the Duke reference.

undetaggables

In an era, when a stray gripe about your boss can land you on an industry blog, when waking up hung over can frantically send you to Facebook to untag your name from photos of the previous night’s frosting-wrestling contest, when shots of you in unflattering jeans become part of your permanent Google search results, there are signs that some are tired of living their lives on the Web.

- "Party On, but No Tweets" (NYTimes)

na zdraví

I'm 21!

devil with the blue dress

Harvard is starting its own fashion line with Wearwolf Group, to be called Harvard Yard, to save itself from financial ruin. The line will target "fans of the university" and draw inspiration from the "Harvard prep lifestyle," according to Fashionista.

...Seriously? It just sounds like a more pretentious J. Crew.

But it did get me thinking: if Duke were to make a fashion line, what would it look like?

Free T-shirts and sweatpants?

Lily Pulitzer and pearls?

Plaid and knock-off Ray-Bans?

Or maybe it'd just be a costume shop.

I can't wait for senior year Tailgate.

pause to appreciate the irony of pc's name

Also:

Left: Ali Lohan, Lindsay's little sister

Right: Kelli Tomashoff, from NYC Prep

Just saying. I can't be the only person that sees it.

let them eat cake

Dark Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes

Ingredients:

• 5 - 6 ounces dark chocolate
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• Optional: Whipped or ice cream

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease four 4-ounce custard cups. In double boiler, melt chocolate and butter. Stir in sugar. In a small bowl, lighly beat eggs. Add some chocolate mixture to eggs to temper eggs. Carefully, stir egg mixture into chocolate mixture. Add flour and combine completely. Add batter to custard cups. Place on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Centers should be soft but sides should be done. Invert cups on individual serving plates. Remove cups after 2 minutes. Serve warm with whipped or ice cream.

And for those of you who don't feel like cooking, in honor of Obama turning 48, DC has lots of free food to celebrate:

Domino's Pizza will be giving away its new chocolate lava crunch cake from 11-9, or while supplies last. All we had to do to get one was sign a birthday card. The cakes are intensely sweet but overall surprisingly decent. The outer cake "shell" is almost entirely powdered sugar, but the crunch provides a nice contrast to the gooey middle. It'd be perfect with ice cream or a tall glass of milk (and maybe more than a few pretzels, since the sugar gets a little overwhelming after a while).

Meanwhile, Z-burger is giving away coupons for 48 free burgers and 48 free milkshakes to their first 48 customers. Additionally, there will be free burgers and birthday cake from 11-2 and a reveiling of the new "Obama burger."

Happy birthday, Mr. President.

trigger happy

Cameras replaced sketching by the last century; convenience trumped engagement, the viewfinder afforded emotional distance and many people no longer felt the same urgency to look. It became possible to imagine that because a reproduction of an image was safely squirreled away in a camera or cell phone, or because it was eternally available on the Web, dawdling before an original was a waste of time, especially with so much ground to cover.

- "At Louvre, Many Stop to Snap but Few Stay Close to Focus" (NYTimes)

My biggest pet peeve: loud tour groups that crowd museums. That, and people who stand on the left on escalators. Don't even get me started.

The great thing about living in DC is that I don't feel the pressure to go through a (free!) Smithsonian in one visit. Realistically, based on my museum-going habits, I know that I will probably never actually make it back for a second visit or spend more than two hours in one museum at a time, but it's a nice thing to tell myself.

Whenever I bring my camera somewhere, though, I'm always torn between wanting to "capture" a moment, that I'll be able to look back on forever, or "experience" a moment, that I'll hopefully be able to remember forever. To me, art is about emotions and photos about feelings; they serve to frame both a moment and a mindset. But so often I find myself becoming guilty of simply being trigger happy, of living life behind the lens rather than in front of it, of collecting frames rather than experiencing moments, and of taking photos whose only purpose is to prove that "I was there."

Even if I wasn't really "there."