The purge before the coming glitter storm.

So I don't know about y'all but I spent the last four days watching Misfits and balls deep in, well, Christmas glitter balls.  I put the entire autumnal smorgasbord - pumpkin, potatoes, turducken - in my body within the span of 24 hours.  I need to do some purging of body and brain.

But first, I made the previously mentioned butternut squash mac and cheese for my orphan Thanksgiving offering and didn't make anyone cry so I say it's a win!  If you're like me and think butternut squash ravioli is transcendent but wish there was more of the good shit but on the OUTSIDE then this is for you. Good for breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, dinner, fourth meal and all manner of Misfits-induced binge eating in between.

I used a combination of this recipe and this one but threw in some sage and probably some other things that I can't remember... Topped it with some homemade fried onions and bacon and I think some cheese... I'm not good with following recipes because I DO WHAT I WANT but I strongly encourage you to try it.  I could talk about butternut squash all day long but I'll spare you.

Showering was optional during my 4 day hermit-age and my thirty-something skin is pretty pissed about it.  My hair was starting to take on a sociopath hipster look which wasn't that bad because this is the look I'm aiming for this winter:

Uma Wang

Like a gothic ice princess.  In a really badass poncho.

In keeping with the gothic ice princess of doom theme, I'm getting rid of a lot of color in my house.  It's just too overwhelming, she says as she's stares at a blank white wall in a white room with a white cat.  

BUT I had a special moment with this tobacco brown headboard and pale blush pillows recently:

Emily Henderson for Cup of Jo

The rest really is overwhelming to me but since I'm embracing my pinkitude this year I thought it was noteworthy.

And I'm assuming when y'all weren't staring at the business end of a dangerously overflowing plate of food you had your eyes focused on this:

here

I thoroughly loved Catching Fire despite all lack of vaginal feels regarding Peeta but does anyone else get as excited about the cornucopia as I do?  

Catching Fire here

It's like the set designer wanted to make something that appeared deadly and modern and just threw some shit together but, I don't know, it works for me.

OG Hunger Games cornucopia here

I think I gasp every time it's on screen.  But we all know that I love some weirdly modern dystopian shit in the middle of a field...

Yugoslavian monuments from a loooong time ago...

*cough*

Perhaps buoyed by concrete and bleakness, wanting to pare down at home goes hand in hand with getting rid of color.  The occupational hazard of being a design blogger is buying shit.  Lots of shit.  The Ranch is like a circus of objets d'art.  Objets d'art from the junk store.

here

So I've been salivating at some minimal interiors a lot lately.  It's like the softer side of gothic ice princess.

I could do some color like this but I'm mostly loving the lack of frivolity.

OOOH LOOK AT THIS FRIVOLOUS THING I WANT THIS SO DAMN BAD!!!

via Jaga Design

Do you see my problem?  The problem with THINGS not the problem with snakes.  They're adorable.  Know what else is adorable?  Salvador Dali's flatware:

here

You need to enlarge it then feast your eyeballs on it.  It's so fucking good you'll beg for someone to carve your heart out with one of those delightful spoons.

But when I can't buy surrealist utensils I just go straight to a store and buy some replacement things to fill the hole in my heart that is NOT from it being carved out by a sweet spoon.  Just the hole caused by life and blogging.  Sigh...

I can't resist some wooden tchotchkes... things to keep you fidgeters happy... hand nom noms... whatever you want to call them.  In this case these are wooden puzzles I found on the cheap and they're really turning my crank.  I want to awkwardly hug them.

Look - POOR DRAMATIC LIGHTING.  We'll see if I keep them all or exchange them for Christmas gifts that I should have been buying.  Sorry, family and my constant burning desire for a minimal house.

In related news, remember that table that I bought that sat empty for a long time because of my back and fear of commitment regarding styling?  Well I got about halfway through playing around and realized that it's in the spot where my Christmas tree is going so I decided to watch more Misfits instead.

I'll probably add some wooden hand nom noms after the holiday but for now it's a string of pearls succulent (that's still alive!) and some rocks and shit.

There's also a bowl of more thingies to fidget with including some worry wood (is this a Southern thing or just a Lacy thing?) and a vajra.  In general, I hate appropriating items from other religions but it's shiny and I like to fidget so it seemed fitting.

Doesn't matter.  There's currently a Christmas tree standing where all this stuff is and I'm sure it'll look completely different come January.

Thanksgiving is dead to me now (except for the butternut squash mac and cheese I'm probably gonna make again next week) and I'm all about glitter and the baby jeezus now.

Know what I want under my tree this year?  The ability to stop buying shit and this:

My fake boyfriend Joseph Gilgun

Misfits has the prettiest people that really know how to style a jumpsuit.  I'm probably the only one who likes this one (especially after seeing Lockout) but I can't help it.  

I'm drawn to weirdo sociopaths (maybe they'll like my new hair) and trinkets.

And butternut squash.

Harder, Faster, Stronger, Pointier: The Story of a Girl and Her Stiletto Nails.

If you've been following me on Instagram and Twitter or are a really bored stalker you know that my summer revolved around three things: iced chai lattes, Wendy Davis, and growing my talons of terror.  

Those first two things need no explanation but behold, Inspiration A:

here

Pretty much what I want to feel like and look like about 90% of the time.  The other 10% is pajama zombie.  Pajombie.  [MS sidebar: I have access to a similar wig so this gif isn't that far from actual real life Vine movies for your consumption]

But I had to have those nails.   I needed to have those nails.   In the face of an increasingly shitty summer I needed one thing that felt fabulous and that one things was stiletto nails.  It's good to have goals in your life and I have very low standards.  

Lana Del Rey for Vogue UK here

The best part about this whole undertaking is that these bad girls are free.  These are going to be 100% homegrown, organic, cornfed nails.  My body is amazing and does all kinds of miraculous things like digest pound after pound of Sour Patch Kids, breathe all day every day and can grow nails even when I'm sleeping.  I'm like the Jesus of keratin - instead of water to wine, I turn Sour Patch Kids into finger weapons.  

A lot of people pay for their nails but I knew I could grow mine because the women in my family are blessed with a special kind of alloy in their extremities.  This is my mom:

Please call me Lady Deathstrike from now on.

If she tries to pick at something on my face (which she still does at 33 THANKS MOM I'M AN ADULT PLEASE BACK AWAY) I'm in danger of permanent scarring.  "Would you like me to get that eyelash and also give you Glasgow grin?"  I'll use a Kleenex, thanks.

So I started small:

And after about two months we got to something like this:

Unicorn bangle, y'all.

Ok obviously I'm having a jewelry party on my arms too BUT the nails were starting to make my wishes comes true.  It also took a large amount of time and experimentation to get the correct shape and it was constantly in flux.  You think you have a point - a true stiletto tip - but you are wrong, my friend.  You are wrong.

Go pointier.

The fangbanger mani.

This is the only professional manicure I had done.  Nothing crazy for me.  Remember, freeeee.

But we can get pointier.

Until finally, we were so pointy that I heard my lady ancestors weeping with pride.

When you grow stiletto nails it's required you make the claw grip for intimidation.  Also, you can't hold your hand any other way.

It's best to have them wrapped around some Prada sunglasses or a Starbucks cup (iced chai latte?!) but even I won't stoop that low.  Besides, the only sunglasses I have are from TJ Maxx and at the time I couldn't remember which purse I left them in. Instead you get Empty Claw Grip.  Coincidentally the name of my Kung Fu crying pose.

If you're thinking of growing out your nails or getting the fake ones there ARE some things I think you should know and I've graciously outlined them below. You're welcome.


The Bad

Great things do not come without great sacrifice. So here are some problematic things or things you will have to completely abandon unless you have very, very good friends.

1. Typing with any sense of speed or accuracy. I started typing this posst i n Augu3st...

2. Your G spot.

3. Casually scratching your ear or your eyes or... you should really just abandon all hope of contact with your bodily orifices. See #2.

4. Putting on tights.

5. Making meatballs.

6. Many cooking activities can be dangerous. Not paying attention while dicing some peppers one day almost resulted in slicing off a tip which would have made me very upset as well as my guests who were going to have to eat my food. But mostly me.

7. Devoting a large amount of your free time thinking of new ways of doing things that won't break a nail. You're surprisingly creative when necessity calls.

8. It's hard to resist the siren song of Instagraming your own manicure and talking about your nails. You'll probably lose some followers and friends. You won't care, you've got ten new friends at your fingertips and they always make time for you.


The So-Good-It-Sometimes-Hurts-But-You-Don't-Care

But it ain't all sadness about meatballs and masturbation! Here are some things that are fuckawesome about your new, fancy fingertips:

1. YOUR HANDS ARE SO FUCKING FEROCIOUS PEOPLE WILL LITERALLY WEEP WHEN YOU HAND THEM A PEN.

Person: "Can you hand me tha..."

Me: "YAAAASSSSSSS......!!!!!!!"

Person: "Oh dear gawd it's so beautiful I can hardly look directly at it..." *weeping*

2. Eating a Doritos Locos taco is almost like amateur porn because it's so gawddamned sessy.

3. You will become a Beastmaster because no one - I repeat, NO ONE - can scratch an animal in that special leg-thumping place like you can. This also works on men. Or probably your girlfriend but I haven't tested this out but I'm pretty sure it's the same principle.

4. You know that great, dainty feeling in your hands you get right after you get a manicure where you can't really touch anything and your pinkies are out even when you're zipping your pants? That's how you feel all the damn time.

Me.  In a business meeting.

5.  No one will ask you to pick up heavy things or move furniture.  If they ask you to ever do anything you don't want to just make do what Rihanna does above and you'll get out of it.

6. Your fingers will look incredibly long and sexy. I saw an old picture of my short nails and vomited on sight at my corndog fingers. I wasn't sure if I could ever go back. Sorry, G spot. (Now accepting applications for generous and dexterous friends...)

7. Your jazz hands and spirit fingers are at a whole new level of intergalactic awesomeness. 

8. If you're an animated talker like me, all of your stories and conversations will increase their magic by 100 fold. This is science. You will gain at least 20 new friends because watching you talk is a pure joy to witness.

9. Even if you lost Instagram followers it won't matter. You will make tons of new friends anyway because everywhere you go people will be so amazed by your fingernails that they'll stop and ask you about them and bask in your glow. It's great for introverts. True story.

10. It's a quick way to judge a person. All cashiers - from Taco Bell to Macy's - have great taste in nails and are your new best friends. The people that are grossed out need to be dumped from your life because they obviously don't appreciate the finer, pointier things in life. Most gay men will fawn over you but straight men will probably be scared. If a straight man actually does compliment your nails, methink he's secretly asking you to put on latex or something. Your manicure is a whole new insight into a person. Use this power wisely, ladies.

11. Consider your nails a permanent accessory - it makes even the trashiest pajombie outfits fancy.  

12. If you're a jewelry lover like me, it's basically required that you accessorize your wrists and fingers at the same level of fabulosity as your nails so stack that shit on. Getting to wear more jewelry was probably my other subconscious reason for wanting to grow my nails.

13. Your new hobby is admiring your own nails. It never gets old.

It's kinda like cleavage.  You want to look away but can't.  My preference was always black polish because they became like actual goth claws that grew that way from my body.  This must be what a cat feels like all the time.  

But one day my worst nightmare came to be:

NOOOOOOOO!  I soon broke another nail on the same hand.  I actually lived with this trashy look for quite a while because now I could put on eye cream without fear of blinding myself.  I just flashed people the good hand when they wanted to see my nails up close.

But then I broke another... and another...  Apparently I didn't inherit the full Adamantium nail gene.  Soon it looked like I got into a fight and my hands lost.  I had to cut them all off.

I was despondent as I looked down at my newly squarish nails of shame.  However, my typing improved exponentially within a matter of minutes.  Charlemagne was rather sad but my ear canal was quite happy.  It was over four months of sweet stiletto bliss and it was all worth it.  

I feel castrated now!  I think I snipped away much of power with them.  I might never get back to the super longest length above but I'm definitely doing a shorter version.  A "kitten" version of the stiletto, if you will. 

And I also must play with manicures more.  I WILL have a gradient nail if it kills me!  Or blinds me.

here

So dream big, ladies.  Big and sharp and pointy and oh so pretty.  Your pets and mens will thank me.

The absurd architecture of reality.

This weekend the humidity dropped below 200% so it was a great time to get outside and celebrate my beautiful state:

Tennessee, y'all.  

We have whiskey and rocks.

I spent Saturday all up in Nature and shit.  It's like I temporarily forgot my #1 hobby is sitting in front of a computer.

If this doesn't earn me my white trash hippie merit badge then I don't know what else I can do other than grow my pubic hair into dreadlocks while shotgunning a Miller High Life.  

It was beautiful even when it started pouring down rain for our 45 minute walk back to the car which I'm totally fine with because every lady person knows that rainwater is excellent for your skin.  

I don't know why - probably sky poison? - but my skin always feels delicious after I spend some time in the rain.  That makes me sound like a fucking crazy homeless person that is in the rain a lot but I assure you my life is not like a Jimmy Buffet song.  I don't even like Pina Coladas.

I further celebrated my geographic area by sitting on a couch inside watching the entire 1st season of Small Town Security.  

AMC. Stuff that's scarier than Walking Dead.

If you are unfamiliar with this experience it is a reality show on AMC - yes, a real network - and is the most riveting - pardon my language - turd I've ever seen float down the river of television.  

It follows a family of characters so eccentric it would give any Southern Gothic-lover moist panties.  This group of foul-mouthed misfits provide security and private investigation for the North Georgia area as well as more mouth-dropping moments of absurdity for the audience than I thought possible.  But I haven't seen an episode of Honey Boo Boo yet so...

Even Funny or Die is in on the action.

Not only is it worth you buying it from Amazon or iTunes immediately, it is filmed literally ten minutes from my house.  And that's not a figurative "literally" it's a literal "literally" because Ringgold, GA, the setting for this masterpiece, is less than ten minutes away from where I live in the grand metropolis of Chattanooga, TN.  

I may or may not have family and friends in Ringgold...  *uncomfortable shifting*  

I can recognize almost every single building in the background.  It's not a proud moment for my area.  I urge you to watch it post haste.

But since I can't actually build a blog around crazy shit in my area (CAN I???) and because I'm all into nature and shit as well as private investigation now (segue alert!) I thought I'd get to the bottom of this image that has haunted my Pinterest dreams the last week. 

I'm not sure what's going on here but there is a lot of purty wood, a wall of green things similar to what I saw in 'teh nature' this weekend and a shiny floor that looks more like a fog machine was turned on.  I don't know but it makes me want to put on my glitter eyeshadow and just DANCE in the forest. *jazz hands*

In addition to reality show train wrecks, those are some of my favorite things - modern ambiguity and an unquenchable desire for glitter and Fosse-inspired movement.  Upon further investigation I learned it is a vignette in the 'Origami House' in Singapore designed by Formwerkz Architects.  

I'm so good at the investigation thing I think I could work for Small Town Security.  

Money, sex and power, OBVIOUSLY.

Say the architects: Adapting the concept of Origami – the geometric folding of a piece of paper to different shapes and forms- we attempt to depict the parent-child relationship in the way their dwelling spaces are intricately juxtaposed within the sculpted volumes created by the folding of bronze metal planes. While the child...  

Fuck, I just passed out from boredom.

You know what's more interesting than everything they just said about this house?  SMALL TOWN SECURITY.  If I didn't already hook you, did I mention they talk about sex all the time?  They have someone that actually delivers dirty magazines to them.  Welcome to the fuckery of the South, y'all.

I don't even know what I'm looking at but I think I like it.  

THESE ARE ALSO MY EXACT THOUGHTS ABOUT MY NEW FAVORITE TV SHOW.

Did I mention there is an openly transexual person on the show?  That's a big deal down here... I may have choked up a bit at that part of the story.

There's also something on the show called a "shit stick" which also made me cry but more from shock, confusion and revulsion.

all images from HomeDSGN

Lemme just say that someone pees their pants on camera and that's the least shocking thing I watched in that episode.

That pool runs the entire length of the house... Just wanted you to know.

This show is the best thing to happen to me since Sister Wives, obviously.  It's kinda sweet but creepy as fuck.  

Similar to my conflicted feelings about this house because even though I enjoy it immensely I can't figure out where the living room is where I would curl up on the couch, shotgun a Miller High Life and watch the beautiful love story of a transexual and his reincarnated non-wife while they protect and serve on tv. 

Gawd bless the architect that would ever have to work with me should I ever have enough money to build a house.  

They would probably rather die from a shit stick through the heart.

I'm going to paint this shack red.

Unbeknownst to me, over the past few years I have slowly begun my slide into old cranky hermit goat lady like that woman in Cold Mountain.  I spend a lot of time alone (watching OWN on my couch), I spent a good 2 minutes last week deciding if I could really use the wild onions growing in my yard on my food and I've been neglecting my chin beard eyebrow maintenance.  If I wear this headscarf for one more lazy Sunday a goat will magically appear in my backyard.

But the old cranky hermit goat lady did get to spend some quality time with Jude Law so maybe this headscarf thing isn't such a bad idea...

However, no goat lady is complete without her own shack so it's a good thing the Cabin Porn tumblr crossed my dash recently.  Cabin Porn isn't lumberjacks doing the nasty (although there probably is a tumblr for that) but the kind of porn I like: buildings.  

Possibly lumberjack porn now that I think about it... *runs to tumblr*

here

What a great place to nurse Jude Law back to health.  Or write in my journal.  Either one.  Probably won't have any actual goats because they stink and I don't want to butcher them.  I'm not ready to really live off the grid because I'm not good with killing animals and how would I watch OWN then?

here

here

This hermit-in-training loves A-frames.  And hyphenation.

Well hello, slightly-bigger-than-a-shack for a slightly-more-glamorous-than-your-average-goat-lady-hermit.

Josephine Ashmun House by Alden B. Dow here

Here's the inside.  It's a cabin that's nicer than my house.  Maybe I'm ALREADY a poor hermit lady?!??!?!?!?!

Charlemagne is my metaphorical goat.

here

Just a dining room shack.  You could have your goats bring the food up from the kitchen.

Norman Jaffe here

I've been kicking around the idea of taking a solo vacation for one of my weeks off this year.  That sounds really lame but us future-goat-ladies don't care about your close-minded judgment!  I don't want one of those singles cruises because that shit kinda creeps me out but I AM hoping to find a shack in the mountains.  Or the beach, I'm not picky.   

So if you happen to know of any available shacks that are cheap/free - maybe that holds your family's forgotten four-wheeler or where you practice your pagan rituals during the solstices - please let this Madame know.  I promise you won't even know I'm there.  (Except for the snail trail of glitternaise I leave everywhere I go, of course)

here

If it happened to look like this shack instead of that onyx piece of heaven above then that would be just as awesome.  Actually, here in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains that is considered a McMansion.  Where they probably stock it with McMoonshine.  

I may never come back...

here

I am so NOT thinking about putting a bush on it, I'll tell you that much!

Little Big House by Room 11

Up North by Peter Baker

If your family's four-wheeler storage unit just happens to be near Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge, TN that would be the most glorious and sequined thing ever.  I haven't been to Dollywood, Dolly Parton's theme park - yes that's right - since I was a little girl and it's like my Mecca.  

here

BUT if you only had a shack like this one in Californ-I-A I would totally deal. It's really far from the healing powers of Dolly Parton's roller coasters (that's not a boob joke) but I think I could still let my hermit dreams loose out west.

here

Or in Maine by a lake...

Casa Garoza by Herreros Arquitectos here

Or wherever the hell this place is.  Dreams just loosin' all the place.

Cadyville Sauna by Dan Hisel. See more awesome pics here.

This is a mirrored sauna.  A totally acceptable shack if you happen to have access to one otherwise I'll just DREAM ABOUT IT FOREVER.

here

I wish I had a time machine to go back to this cabin.  Maybe I'll just locate some white cropped pants, an egg chair and a few goat friends to recreate this scene.

here

Aside from manipulating the spacetime continuum, I'm really I'm totally fine with this cliche 'girl and some tea surrounded by nature and shit' (within a 50 mile radius of Dollywood or the California shore).  According to Cabin Porn, this loverly red paint is called Falu red.  It's made from the tailings of copper mines in Sweden and used to help preserve their wooden buildings.  Look at all this learning you're getting today on the Sauce!!

Just imagine all that and more that I'll be able to provide if you would so generously share your meth shed with me for a week while I recharge my glitter batteries.  So if you have any destination recommendations holler at me.

But please, no goats.  There's only one thing allowed to have a chin beard around here.