This makes me exceedingly happy.

Sophisticated Simplicities 

Buh-bye hellish summer temps and scorched grass.  Hello gentle weekend nights.

Hangin Tough: Avian Style

Antlers can suck it because the new kids on the block are FEATHERS!!!  Not too 'in your face' and in every magazine spread though - they're not the gay flashy ones like Jordan or Joey of NKOTB - I think they're more like Danny.  Still pretty cool but not so obvious.  (Yet... ) People always thought he was the ugly one but I thought he was the hot one -  the loner, the outcast, the quiet "hipster" one if you will and that's much more my cup of Kool Aid.  But he was still insanely rich, mildly talented and you wouldn't kick him out of your 10 yr old birthday party if he happened to show up just like you wished for when you blew out the candles on that Dairy Queen ice cream cake.  


Maybe I'll soothe my crushed dreams with some retail therapy.  

John Derian tray and feather print from Moodboard

But probably not with the John Derian stuff at Target.  

Lizzy Janssen tank

Better.  Do you think Danny would like this?

xJavierx's flickr

Peacock forever.  (But I like that chair better...)

Graham & Brown's wallpaper

I could always wallpaper something... (spoiler alert: I won't)

Anna Betts print via Design is Mine

Or I could craft some with my stunning watercolor skills like these.  

Golly Bard print

I've painted leaves so it's like the same thing.  But with more polka dots.  Done.  This is what everyone's Christmas present is going to look like.  Except probably not so cute... but it doesn't mean I love you any less just that I'm probably too busy blogging and wasting time on the internet  looking at aging pop stars to really give it 100%.    

JodyvanB at etsy

I probably have a fondness for feathers because I used to go to a lot of drag shows Charlemagne loves to bring me dead and mutilated birds from the neighborhood to show she loves me.  Normal people might like teddy bears and roses but getting bloody feathers is like a big hug from a diva kitty.  Awww....  I know Danny feels the same way and is really gonna love my special care package I'm making him.

decor8

Or I could break out the R890444 Camera of Amazing Awesomeness and take some up close and personal pictures to start my etsy business.  I've got to pay for this kitchen remodel somehow and if feathers are trending up I'm gonna make some serious bank on shit like this.

But my fake xmas watercolors and that tank top are blown out of the water by this art by Kate MccGwire found via My Love For You Is A Stampede of Horses.   

Artist's statement:  

Kate MccGwire's work asks questions about the very nature of beauty. She's intrigued by the possibility of envisaging beauty as something more complex than merely what delights the senses: beauty can be about a problem; it can be something that repels you or makes you question the status quo. The idea that it is a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to argument through the creative process, fascinates her.

Much of Kate's work references Freud's 'Unheimliche' (the uncanny, or, literally, the 'unhomely'); the idea, to quote Freud, of 'a place where the familiar can somehow excite fear'. 

My Love For You... here

here

Maybe it's just me but in my head I can totally hear these things moving around and writhing against each other.  I'M NOT DRUNK!!!!  I could probably talk about what's wrong with that feeling and what's right about the artist's statement for hours but I'm tired and have to get started working on my Christmas presents and restalking Danny.  

 

An excerpt from the catalog describing this series:

Horrifyingly beautiful, the installation suggests a new (or perhaps ancient) and menacing presence eminating from the cast iron oven. Coiling, pluming and creeping through the kitchen, the work feels weighty, meaty. The visitor at once is taken by the gorgeousness of the piece itself - the assemblage of 'common' feathers presented as something completely exotic - and the shame involved in discarding objects of beauty for a perfunctory dinner.

 Hhhmmmm....

My Love... here 

I could probably talk a few more hours about beauty, food and female domesticity which is what this one makes me think of but shame?  Well, I think I'll probably feel more shame when I'm arrested outside of Danny's house in some acid-washed jeans, feather tank top and a walkman trying to recapture my youth and excite some fear with my use of "familiar" (yet bloody) feathers in my NKOTB collage showing Danny and the Madame in love forever and ever and ever...  

And by shame I mean victory. 

I'll gladly stick that feather in my cap.

The American Dream: ModSauce style.

The Madame hasn't even been an adult a full week and already I'm moving up the ladder of fabulosity.  Just look:

Gawddamit now I'M fancy!

It's just like I always wanted!!!!  My L-U-X-U-R-Y box squeed with excitement when I was handed this for my birfday.  But this is better than those stupid boxes you get with thousand dollar scarves inside, this was CRAFTED by some friends in fabulosity who happen to be loyal readers.  That's the first requirement for being my friend... are you literate but have low expectations?  Good.  Have an internet connection? Great.  Here's some homework reading for you.

Even Charlemagne is attracted to that color.  She knows.

Apparently, through a few degrees of separation, I know someone with an actual Hermes box.  I feel like a celebrity!   For all of your future crafting pleasure that box was matched to Benjamin Moore's Rumba Orange which was then expertly applied to the highest quality cardboard container that Hobby Lobby carries.  Nothing but the best for me.  

Even the logo is correct.  Details are important when you're faking it.  And another requirement for being my friend.

You can put anything inside that orange box and it becomes Hermes: a pit-stained wife beater and some chicken McNuggets in a Rumba Orange box = *air quotes* Hermeesss *end air quotes*.  I got lucky because this one had two "Hermes" pillow shams hand-quilted and straight from Hawaii.  Smells a lot better but doesn't taste as good.  

They're kinda like Mexican tenangos but more American.  Well, if you consider Hawaii American.  I'm pretty sure it's like a different country over there.  Do they even have rednecks over there?  There's nothing more American than rednecks.  


Except for two legally married homosexuals taking something expensive and trying to fake it with crappier materials.   And a lot of heart.  

Madame Sunday is a growed up.

So the Madame is on vacation this week.  Not a real one that involves sand and mixed drinks… well, there ARE mixed drinks on this one actually.  I’m spending a nice week at home because I’m turning 30 today!  Double squueeeee!  Normal people like to mark special occasions like this by doing exciting things like climbing a mountain or catching STDs in Mexico but Madames don’t climb mountain and if I’m going to have to take antibiotics after visiting a foreign country it better be some place a lot awesomer than a two-story Senor Frog’s in Cancun.   Also I’m buying myself a new kitchen for my birthday and that’s really the gift that keeps on giving without aching thighs, alcohol poisoning or intestinal parasites.

I'm only wearing a birfday hat because there's cake hiding underneath it.

I’m actually pretty excited about my *cringe* staycation – it’s cheap, I get to be lazy and mediocrity will no doubt ensue.  All of my favorite things!  Triple squee!!  I’m going to eat cake for breakfast, mashed potatoes for lunch and bacon for dinner.  Ahahahahaha just kidding!  I’m drinking my dinner. 

I have no plans other than sleeping late and shopping for shoes and backsplash tile.   I’ll spend my nights out enjoying the “nightlife” of Chattavegas, watching Talladega Nights for the thousandth time and waiting to see if Margaret Cho slips in a pussy joke on Dancing with the Stars.  Welcome to the rest of my life.  I like to live on the edge.  This all may seem quite lame but the good thing about growing up is that you don’t really give a shit anymore about what other people think.   Yippee!!  All the anxiety and worrying that happened at 29 22 are slowly loosening their vice grip on my life...  like my completely irrational fear of using the drive-up tellers at the bank because I can't handle the pressure of putting the correct information in that damn tube with a bunch of cars behind me while I fumble with that one red button and ancient technology that I know I will mess up thereby dropping the tube and with it my money, drivers license, high school transcripts, 5th grade class picture, passport, latest health report and 15 yogurt lids will go rolling into traffic only to be crushed by speeding cars while I have to watch in horror while people behind me honk and curse my very existence.  OR the imaginary underground pneumatic tube monster will somehow steal my deposit en route and then I’ll blame the teller for stealing my money and SAT scores and she’ll point her fake nail at me through that window, squint her Tammy Faye eyes and yell through the microphone that I messed up and to get the hell out of the lane because I’m blocking traffic and I’ll be forced to wait for her in the parking lot until the bank closes and throw down because nobody, I repeat NOBODY, makes a fool of me and steals my cereal box tops without expecting me to come at them like a spider monkey all while that damn underground tube monster giggles in delight at the mayhem he’s created and I don’t like to give him the satisfaction so I DON’T use the drive-thru tellers period.  That goes for pharmacies too.  Fuckers.

But now that I’m 30 all my fears have been wrestled to the ground like demon cobras.  That or I just don’t give a shit anymore about causing a traffic jam at the drive-thru lane (see above above not giving a shit).  I didn’t have a list of cute fun things to accomplish by this date because I would have procrastinated anyway and then I’d be forced to travel to 30 different states within a few days and I’m not fucking Santa Claus and then I’d just feel really shitty about all the things I DIDN’T accomplish rather than how many things I HAVE done.   And I’ve been lucky to have done a lot - I've traveled all over the world, met some amazing people in fabulosity, bought a home and finally figured out that I really should never EVER wear yellow.  Big things.  But, I would have preferred if I had some decent furniture by now.  And knew how to shoot a gun.  And figured out how to fix my hair.  Meh...  I've got time.  

But bigger than any bucket list of my youth, I get to say goodbye to my 20s.  Fare thee well old friend.  We had some good times.  We also had a lot of bad times.  I'll miss your playful abandon but I won't miss all the drama and crippling neuroses (see above) that came with it.   20s are for figuring out who you are so you can actually be that person in your 30s.  If somebody comments that they figured out who they were by like 24 I swear to gawd I'll scissor kick you in the back of the head.  But it's totally fine to tell me I won't know anything until I'm 40.  That kind of condescending attitude is exactly how I talk to people who are 19.  It's the circle of life.

Think I'm gonna put on my favorite Crystal Gayle tshirt, go deposit my grandmother’s $10 birfday check using the drive-thru teller and then go eat some more cake.  

I gonna make this decade my bitch.

I'm starting with the Madame in the mirror.

In an effort to stop tripping over my shoes give back to the world I had planned to do a massive closet purging soon.  How many vintage tshirts from the thrift store do I really need?  If I've kept a shirt since middle school does that count as vintage chic or just lame?  

Anyway after looking at the following pictures (via Mint) I really need to think bigger.  Much bigger...

Two artists (inspired by Peter Menzel apparently) have photographed families at home with all of their posessions out front. 

I basically own a smattering of shit and the ModSauce Ranch is one step up from a squatter's house with nicer curtains.  Or that's what it feels like...  The Madame has a few chairs, a table, a bed and a lot of shoes and purses I don't even use regularly (ok and a 2000 square foot house for one girl and a cat, a giant tool shed, a storage room of at least 10 boxes of Christmas decorations, extra dining chairs, a refridgerator box full of linens and 2 full sets of china because I'm a COLLECTOR!)  So I'm sure if I actually put all of my possessions on the front lawn in my head it would look like the above picture but in reality it would look like an episode of Clean House and Hoarders made sweet sweet love and shat out a messy baby of vintage furniture, cheap clothes and romance novels books about philosophy.  But then Niecy Nash could be its mom so that would be cool and worth it.  Somehow I don't think she would judge the excessive amounts of eyeshadow own.  They're called PRINCESSITIES!!

I own more types of shampoo than these people have corn cobs.  Time to reevaluate my scalp situation...

Ma Hongjie

FYI this really is what China looks like.

 

 

Huang Qingjun

Satellite dish + yert = automatic blog.  Fuck yeah Mongolia!!

I've gotta go have a quick chat with the Madame in the mirror and then open up that medicine cabinet and make some tough decisions about a few dozen bottles of lotion.

Vamptastic, Prosticute and full of Fabulosity.

In honor of the True Blood season finale last night and because I need to get a life I'm hilariously fun and inspired by really dumb shit I fake decorated some rooms.  I'm not really sure why this fake edecorating phenomenon hasn't caught on because the pay is rindonkulously good and there's no budget or bitchy clients telling you what to do.  Also you get to waste a lot of time at your real job doing it so it's a win on all fronts.  First up:

Bad Things by Modernsauce on Polyvore.com

Nothing says vamp chic like a decaying old antebellum house filled with fine Southern furniture. First, to hide your nocturnal activities you’ll need a comfortable settee in a dark stain-minimizing color and blackout curtains. A delicate slipcovered chair and feminine pillow say to your lady friend that you care deeply about her sensibilities right before you feed on her and deflower her on the rug in front of the fireplace underneath the picture of your dead wife from the 19th century. It’s sweet really. First though you should put her at ease by playing a friendly game of Wii Gold and drinking some Tru Blood which is the vamp equivalent of poppin one off before a date. Try to hide the stack of files from where you are researching her family history though. Nothing kills the mood faster than learning your fairy ‘gina is the object of an investigation. That or cracking your head on that fabulous reclaimed wood coffee table.

 

ring ring hooker by Modernsauce on Polyvore.com

However gentlemanly the previous room is, I much prefer a more relaxed environment like this one that positively screams 'sex on a stick.'  Straight up trampy, tacky and prosticute this hooker knows how to throw together a room like any true drug-dealing, gay whore son-of-a-psycho-witch that can cook up a mean hamburger with AIDS. Mmmhhh tangy. The room is an eclectic mix of voodoo dolls, found vintage furniture, religious shrines, shirtless werewolves and your laptap/webcam for another kind of nocturnal activity.  And nothing says Modern Whorish Revival like the always classy Fiorentino floor lamp.   You may have found that couch on the side of the road on the way back from your trick's house but you know where to spend the real money.  Including the Room & Board dresser because that's just a good quality piece of furniture.  You didn't get that fancy car you drive by being a dummy when it comes to purchases. 


I was going to design a wicked sex dungeon too but it pretty much just consisted of a dark basement, lots of chains, a stripper pole and a throne fit for a Viking warrior.  Also, I bet all you freaks have already "decorated" one in anyway.

For K!  And special thanks to @Paul_Anater and @SaxonHenry for their overwhelming knowledge of Whorish Revival.

Madame Sunday calls a construction dude.

*ringing*

MS: Hi John, my name is [a madame full of fabulosity] and I’m beginning a kitchen remodel soon.  [Friend of fabulosity] gave me your name and I wanted to set up a time for you to see the space and for us to talk about the project.  Please give me a call back at 1-900-FABULOSITY so we can discuss details.  Thank you.

*day later*

MS: Well… maybe he’s busy.  [Friend of fabulosity] did say he has multiple projects… 

Self: It’s barely been 24 hours.  He’s a professional not a booty call.

*another day passes*

MS:  Ok…  It’s not like I wanted him to start work immediately!  I just want to talk…  it takes me weeks to decide what I want to eat for dinner so I’m flexible with his schedule. 

Self: chillax bitch

*three days later*

MS: Ok it’s been 5 days.  In construction time that’s like a day and a half so I need to readjust my normal person calendar to reflect this alternate dimension.

Self: Right. Their axial rotation is slower so longer days genius.

*2 more days*

MS: do you think he got my message?  Was I using AT&T and didn’t know it?   I mean technology these days is so primitive and who can really be sure of anything…

Self: Maybe you spend too much time on twitter to remember that it’s a FUCKING TELEPHONE and messages don’t disappear like some mischievous fail whale out to sabotage your communications and embarrass you in front of gawd and everybody.  #omigodthatDMwasprivate

MS: You don’t know!!  Shit happens!

*another day*

MS: Do you think it was something I said?  Maybe my tone...??  I used my professional voice – the one without the redneck twang and giggles – to seem as serious as possible…

Self:  Are you sure?

MS: No.  Is this like the time I tried to buy a car and no one would help because they thought I was just joyriding all their most boring and dependable reasonably priced automobiles and loved having my credit checked for the hell of it?  Because it’s NOT!  I have money – dozens and dozens of money - and I want to give it to someone in exchange for some goddamn cabinets!!

Self: It’s exactly like that.

MS: Fucking sexist bullshit.

 

*5 minutes later*

MS: alright maybe he’s not a sexist asshole.  That was wrong of me.  I’m sure he’s a wonderful person.  Just a total fucking idiot.  How much clearer could I make it?   I – Want – You – To – Call – Me.  I can’t make it much more obvious!  I even did that eyebrow thing because even though he couldn’t see me on the phone he knows.  OH, he knows!  *nods knowingly*

Self:  I’m not so sure he does…

MS: Shit – how do I let him know that I’m really serious but not one of those crazy needy whiny clients?  I’m totally cool and casual  – I’ll buy beer and make cookies and stuff when needed…

Self: Well, how do you normally make your intentions known?

MS: So I need to call when I’m drunk?

Self: Put the gawddamn bottle down!

*3 days later*

 

MS: Ok maybe I without the giggles and twang my professional voice just came off like bitch voice.  No one wants to work with a bitch so I could totally understand why he wouldn’t call back.  Ya know,  I’m always like that – so demanding and bossy and it’s really a wonder I have any friends at all!  They’re just around to hang out with Charlemagne and use me for my vodka-soaked gummi bears and omigod I’m going to die alone and kitchenless in my hoarder house filled with old Elle Décor magazines and Starbucks cups and I’ll have to tie myself to a chair when I sleep at night to keep from falling into the mound of filth that surrounds me which is the metaphor for my wasted life and crushed dreams insulating me from the a world of fulfilled promises and nice cabinets!!!  *sob, sob, sob*

Self: Probably.

*5 days, 3 bottles of wine and 2 (ok 3) Caramellos later*

MS:  You know what?  Professional voice sometimes sounds a lot like phone sex voice because of the lower octave so maybe he’s not calling for another reason...  He WANTS to call TOO much!!!  Eh?!  Eh?!  *nods knowingly*  He was so stunned by the fabulosity that was positively dripping from my 20 second voicemail that he’s paralyzed with fear!  It happens a lot around the madame obviously…

Self: you’re drunk again right?

MS: …because of the pure shining awesomeness of my radiant feminine energy!  Mee-oowwwww.  Hell people can’t help it – it’s just biological.  You can’t fight nature.  And I’m 100% grass fed no-GMO all organic natural hotness that puts the fear of Hades into weaker men. 

Self: Do you mean moo?

MS: Shut your face hole. I’ll just wait for his nervous jitters to subside and then he’ll call…

*random time in the future*


MS: he’s not going to call is he?


Self: nope.


MS: FUUUCCKKK!!

This makes me exceedingly happy: the Slice of Heaven edition.

As part of the Let's Blog Off campaign that's sweeping the blogosphere, today the Madame is indulging in some fantasy which just so happens to be one of my favorite hobbies.  Squeeee!  We're supposed to name the place that is our own slice of heaven but I don't play by the rules because I'm a rebel.  A rebel in pajamas.  A rebel in pajamas and a few too many glasses of wine.   


I have yet to plant a flag in my own piece of heaven on earth because I'm sooo young and if I'd already found it then that would be no fun.  Also if it was only one place then that would really
suck because with my luck it would be some place that requires a 27 hour plane ride, a 2 hour bus ride, a donkey trek up the side of a mountain followed by an impossible test of skill (bicep curls?) and wit (math?) by a shaman all on the day of a special astrological even that only happens once every 68.5 years.  My diary would read like a J. Peterman catalog.  It'd be pretty hard to recreate that a few times a year when I want to get away so I dial it back to places that are within the means of a Sunday kind of madame.  My slice of heaven is simple - it just has to be any place that serves something that tastes like this:

blah blah creamy risotto with BACON but ANY pasta will do

Or smells like this:

we heart it

Or feels like this:

here

Breathes with possibility like this:

honeytree's etsy

Let's me learn (ahem... nap) like this:

we heart it

Has a soul (or ghost?!) like this:

Divine Decadence

Any place while turtle-dovin to this:  

Hell - riding bitch in an old pickup, listening to a fiddle, anyplace where I can hear this song, anywhere described in the song or anywhere from the video.  Fuck yeah three day weekend. 




On a blanket under this: (Dixieland Delight optional but doesn't hurt)

we heart it

Tells a story like this:

Courtesy of the madame floating by on the Ganges...

FUCK!!!  This whole thing reads like a redneck Eat, Pray, Love but you get the idea.  Ok now go check out all the other people and their heavens.  Bet they are a lot nicer than mine... heavenly fuckers.