Spring has sprung and it's very flashy.

Hello, Spring!

here

You fucking fuck.

The pollen count is about 2000 whatever-units-they-measure-pollen-in when it's supposed to be 15 so I've been laying on my couch in a pile of Kleenex.  It's almost like an angelic cloud of fluff until you realize the Kleenex are covered in snot but whatever.

I've been watching Sopranos all day and wishing Carmella Soprano would bring me some homemade soup.  Or this on a platter:

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It's the nose - you know I have a nose fetish.  But mostly I'm straight up loving some old-skool, Versace-looking, over-the-top Baroque shit from the '90s.  

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Particularly if you're wearing it with nothing but a leotard or panties.  Cassie (remember her?) is down with it.

Speaking of leotards:

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I used to drink the hatorade for her but now I'm Team Nicki forever.  Particularly when she's shooting some machine guns but maybe that's just me.

Linda in Chanel here

I'm not going to step out of the Ranch like this but any reason no matter how fantastical to put on more jewelry is ok by me.  Frankly, even if there isn't a reason I'm down for it.

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Linda's outfit above made me think of Pour It Up.  Lady hip hop stars probably work it best.  Sorry, Carmela Soprano.

A whole board of Carmela hair here!

So many great Carmela mom jeans with gold belts but I couldn't find any on the internet.  Guess we'll have to rely on models.

Chanel 1991 here

Chanel 1991 here

And, of course, the Queen:

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I don't think I have the restraint to not pile on hundred fifty-leven necklaces with this but I'm feeling it.  Or at least I am today with my snot-addled brain.

I would like to put on some silk shirts, lots of gold chains and get off this couch to go here:

Garden photography by Guy Hervais via The Style Saloniste

And also breath through my nose.  

Update:  After reading that Philip Johnson was a Nazi supporter last night I then learned (or did I know and had forgotten?) that Coco Chanel was also a Nazi sympathizer and just general terrible human being.  This really taints my gold chain addiction right now but the more you know. *shooting star*

Heart of Darkness seems like a fitting theme for my bedroom.

Right about now your New Year's resolutions are looking like a stinking pile of failure on your floor but not me!  I'm coasting on a high of energy and the thoughts of fresh digs.  Thanks, Vitamin D and low expectations!  

After this past year of, well, doing nothing, I finally opened my eyes and I do not like what I see.  It's time for a change.  I'm cleaning out closets, purging things to Goodwill, moving furniture but mostly making a mess by starting a million projects at once and not finishing anything yet.  However, my main order of business is my bedroom and have been thinking about color first and foremost.  

*cue collective groan*

I am - admittedly - TERRIBLE at choosing paint color for myself.  Friends, long-time readers and the unfortunate staff at every Ace Hardware in the tri-state area can attest to this.  I usually spend more money on swatches than actual paint and it will take months of agony and waffling before I make up my mind and then I usually am only partially happy with it. 

I'll pick your paint color in five seconds.  My walls paralyze and confound me.  But I'm going bold with my decision making speed AND color choice this time.

I've moving to the jungle! 

via Heptagram

Just kidding.  Kinda.

I can't get enough of this deep, lush green color, ya feel me?

Oliver Osborne

It's similar to Hunter Green but less preppy, more sinister.  If there was a shade of green that could get its own episode of Criminal Minds, THAT'S the color I'm obsessing over right now.  

via Cargo Collective

Carnivorous green.  

I've totally lost the source... working on it...

The plants might swallow you up kind of green.  

But on my bedroom wall so I can go to sleep next to it!  I feel like this may give me good, intense - possibly murderous - dreams all set on the island of Dr. Moreau. 

Plant Leaves in Blue by Eye Poetry Photography on Etsy.  Want so bad.

I've been referring to this look (because you might notice it elsewhere and need a handy name) as 'Heart of Darkness' because I keep remembering this dense, looming jungle in the book that makes me think of these colors.  But then I did a quick google search (blogger/journalist that I am) and realized that it's not the Amazonian jungle that I thought it was but instead the African wilderness and even though I'm 99% sure I wrote a paper on this book in high school I have a sneaking suspicion that I in no way actually read this book.

Hermes Summer 2014

In fact, 'Heart of Darkness' the trend (TM) and the imaginary jungle I just created to fit my color story may be a kind of metaphor for something terribly racist but I can't remember because I couldn't be bothered to read the actual book when I was 15...??  Maybe it's like saying you want your living room to have a Manifest Destiny theme OMG I'M A TERRIBLE PERSON AND HORRIBLE DECORATOR.  

Let's move out of the racist jungle that I made for myself and into the mountains. 

David Zhao

I don't actually want a tropical theme just the color, right?  Right.  

Yoshihiko Ueda

Maybe I could lean a bit more jewel tones but still lush and velvety and slightly creepy and a little magical.

This is sounding a lot like Forks, Washington...  

Say it.  Out loud.

OK YES I REFERENCED TWILIGHT EVEN AFTER ALL THIS TIME.

Nino Oxilia's "Satan's Rhapsody," 1920, from Kittenmeats

Whatever, this lady knows what I'm talking about.  

Jamie Isaia for Tank Magazine

And this Ophelia-looking lady too.

Vertical Line, Kameoka, Japan by U3K-Y on Flickr

Apparently I will not be satisfied if my bedroom doesn't have a hint of death or vamp moss or jungle floor decay in it.  Of course, no one will even care because they'll just walk in a be like, 'yeah, ok' and then walk out very quickly and my back story won't even matter.  All this carrying on is just a peek inside my head.  FOR YOU.

A mystery...

But I've got plenty of time for back story and mood boards because I've also decided that February is a 'No Spend' month for me.  This means I can only spend money on absolute essentials like gas and cheese.  I gave paint a pass though.  I'm not an unreasonable monster!  Great time to start some redecorating projects, huh?  I'm great with timing.

Bloom In Winter by Susannah B on Flickr

Something about this push for redecorating and organizing and purging also makes me want to take a financial pause.  I need to take stock and clean out before I can commit my bank account to something.

via My Blue and White Kitchen

I want to give my entire retirement savings for the image above so obviously I need to lock up my monies from time to time.

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See what I did there with the gates and the locking?  Yeah, I'm real subtle.

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Somewhere here I think...

This is only about half of the images I had pulled that I liked, by the way.  I had about a hundred fifty-leven more but I thought y'all might be bored with a collage of menacing, dewy jungle leaves.  *I* wouldn't be bored but I just don't how far down the rabbit hole y'all are ready to go sometimes.

"Dance, Dance, Otherwise We Are Lost" by Will Davidson for Harper's Bazaar Australia via here

So instead I throw in some ghost green.  

Font Luna by Sylvan on Flickr

*cough* andsomemoreleaves...

Fading Falling, 2007, Ryan McGinley

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Ok can't get away from the jungle quite yet...

But let's get real.  I can't actually redo a room out of $200 and magical Twilight jungle madness rambling.  I'll have to make it out of $200 and an actual paint color where $150 of that going towards paint swatches.  So rather than more feeeeling pictures, I found some actual walls.  Gawd, I'm tearing through this redo already.  Yay me.

This confirms my green wall lust:  

Susanna Vento via DesignLoveFest

Dark green, non-racist Heart of Darkness wall but maybe some lighter things to brighten up the whole... murdery, carnivorous vibe.  I'm surprised I actually like the copper here.

I also found that Little Green Notebook did a very similar color to the part of the fandeck I'm looking at.

Little Green Notebook

This is Benjamin Moore's Bavarian Forest and it looks dreamy.  Anyone remember the final results?  I can't find it.  The swatch in person is a little more blue than what I wanted but we'll definitely end up somewhere in this area.  Or maybe this color... who knows where sample #948982938743927 will end up??

Although that coral is bangin, it would drive me insane to have that bright of a color near my head.  I can deal with all the colors on the infinite rainbow of sadness, but not the rainbow of cheer.  Ew.

Abigail Ahern's London home in Rue Magazine

Maybe I'll end up with some, gulp, purple accents for even more of that magical Twilight sparkle moss feel.

Begonia leaves by Moonfruitmjuse

If I can't do purple, how bout a touch of velvety burgundy instead?  

Martha Stewart

Or maybe just I'll just keep it simple with a wall of not-quite-Bavarian Forest and some eggy neutrals.  It'll sure help to keep the darkness away.  IF I should want to do that.

Also, what the fuck kind of animal lays a hunter green egg?  A Matt Fox and Shari Hiller animal? 

But look, y'all!  IT HAS BEGUN:

I ain't fuckin' around.

This is BM's Essex Green which was the first sample.  I'll try to keep it under three for everyone's sanity.  I love the direction but it's a little too loafers, pearl necklace and Ralph Lauren plaid circa 1992.  Which is probably coming back in style right about now but it's not where my bedroom needs to be.  Remember, I want jungle shadows of encroaching evil but also light n' airy bedroom funtimes!

By the way, that's a dropcloth sheet NOT my bedroom sheets.  I may be color crazy but I have some dignity.

This... post... is on FIYAAAHHH!

One should probably return from a blogging hiatus with something really deep and existential about the nature of table lamps as they relate to heteronormativity in the New Aesthetics but I don't want to talk about that.

Yet.

I want to talk about this:

Mark Hartman

Not the cat.  I'm lusting more after that perfect tomato red sleeve which makes total sense if you're me.  I'm not into sleeve porn (that I know of...?) but I do have a serious color boner that reached a geyser-like orgasmisplosion with this:

Forgot where I pulled this and now can't find it...

I'll die a tortuous Zero Dark Thirty death (too soon?) for talking about my boner and Mobama in the same sentence but y'all.  Full stop.  All dem beautiful bitches in red at the Golden Globes had nothing on this red.  I confess to sitting on my couch while crying real, sriracha-flavored tears while the POTUS and FLOTUS danced because my life is meaningless of how pretty she looked.  

And how insane I might be.

Insane like I want Michelle Obama to be my mom and I want to smell her face but in a really normal and healthy way.  

But also, red. 

It's my muse for 2013.

Chic Wish

I'd wear the hell out of this coat.  And I know everyone's probably tired of drapey folds on clothes - the labial accent, I call it - but I'm not.  In fact, I think in 2013 we're going to reclaim vaginas back from ignorant white men so let's say YES to more drapey butterfly wings this year.

Or whatever you're rockin' ladies - we don't judge.

Valentino Couture Spring 2013

Also, capes this year.  Like Little Red Riding Hood!  And then somebody gets to be your big, bad wolf and it'll be the hot new sex craze to hit the nation kinda like 50 Shades of Grey but weirder because of the whole beastiality/Lolita thing but maybe it could work because people be crazy...?

Breaking news: vaginas and Furries are going to be in for 2013.  Maybe furry vaginas?!  Your call.

Let's all reread The Red Tent just in case.

Richard Avedon via Harper's Bazaar

You know what's not in for 2013?  Actual vagina cape things.  Sorry, Audrey.

Can't find original source - probably an old pic but I still dig it...

But I guess if vaginas aren't your thang (weirdo) you can lust over some sanguine velvet lounging furniture.

Christian Kettiger

To be honest, red is one of my least favorite colors and is only eclipsed in its garishness by purple and whatever color fake honey mustard dressing is.  It's just so blatant and crass and I think we can all agree that I'm much more about things that are subtle and classy.  

Cuz I'm elegant.

My preference is the austere intensity of black like my cold, barely-beating, basement of a heart.  Or black's lazy stoner friend - blue.  

Sapphire is my birthstone so it's astrologically determined what hues I'm supposed to wear and you can't argue with the scienze of space.  

I'm a black and blue girl and not just because I bump into things a lot - I wear them all the time, I only buy art and decorative pillows in those shades and I only write in blue and black ink.  

Except in the cases of making deals with the devil where you sign in blood, I think it might be illegal in the South to sign a check in red.  At the very least, it's an act only reserved for those who eat sketti and have pet pigs and I ain't talkin' about Suzanne Sugarbaker.

here

Who also looks really good in red, coincidentally.

Julia Randall

But something happened last year - I had an out-of-body shopping experience and bought a tomato red sweater (with only slight labial draping in front) courtesy of the Banana Republic outlet and it was marvelous.  Swear to gawd, I channeled the spirit of Marilyn Monroe (okay Suzanne Sugarbaker) and there was much sashaying and Southern anecdotes of an off-color origin just like Marilyn. *coughSuzannecough*

I even wore my secret red lipstick with it because I was an animal.

drawing by Geninne on Flickr

My red sweater was so magical another human being told me I was pretty in it so I immediately cried captured that moment, made it my Instagram avatar and now I show it to every person I meet in case I'm wearing blue and black just so they'll know and SEE and yes it is very awkward for everyone.

Harper's Bazaar

But I can't help it because just like Katniss Everdeen and Alicia Keys, I'm a girl on fire now.  Just like my new mom - Mobama.  Mombama.

Wood Wood

Or this girl with her cute sneaks.

Style Bubble

Or this girl in this cute dress standing in front of one of my least favorite couches of all time...  You get no free pass in 2013!

Nina Katchadourian

This spiderweb is totally pickin' up what I'm puttin' down.  Charlotte is on Team Firecrotch.

Norman Mooney

Wait, we need a new team name...  Y'all work that out in the comments.

RED OBJECT office space in China by 3GATTI (2006)

Or in this creative fun pod in China.  We could brainstorm some good shit in there.

So this year I'm going to embrace one of my color nemeses and drink up all the passionfruit juice it brings or whatever other bullshit attributes you're supposed to associate with certain colors.  

I should probably say something about red being full of "passion" or "lust" which is what Pantone would say but I've already mentioned vaginas too much in this post already.

Jenny Saville

So this year - thanks to the passionately wanton power of red, obviously - I'm going to give myself permission to be on a blog hiatus if I want, permission to come back and post creepy Bloodyface portraits that I can't stop staring at, permission to wear red vaginal drapey sweaters all over my person, permission to be on fire in said drapey sweaters or just be on fire in general and even permission to sign my name in red.

via Fuck Yeah Hard Femme

And permission to wear lots of red lipstick.

Maybe I gave myself permission to be existential after all.