Soft Fall. Like summer but more beige.

I know our almanac Starbucks has already declared it Fall as well as my grocery store with its cinnamon brooms and mums but I'm not there yet.  For ONCE in my adult life I'm clinging on to Summer with all its boob sweat and thigh chafing glory.  

It's certainly not because I enjoy the heat - I've crafted a plastic bubble suit to get to and from my car so I don't have to actually feel the humidity or outside air.  Maybe it's because I've actually had a really enjoyable summer thanks in part to having a seasonal bucket list.  I traveled, I soaked up the sun underneath my hat and SPF 70, I saw Beyonce, I drank a LOT, I wore a lot of white and pretended I was warm, chubby fairy.  

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I wasn't able to fly into the sun and become immortal but I guess that's rollover bucket stuffs for next summer.

Whatever the reason, I ain't feelin' your punkins right now. My summer flowers are still blooming, there's still ice in my coffee and my thighs say nay there is chafe left to be had here.  You'll have to drag this season out of my limp, sweaty hands.

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I'm all about a pre-Fall right now.  It's like a soft opening to a new restaurant - slower pace and quiet.  Possibly with bad service?

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Wait, even pre-Fall feels too much for me.  Maybe we'll say the sun is setting on summer.  I don't know if you got that from the incredibly blatant images above...  

It's not because your'e obtuse - I have the bestest and smartiest readers on the innernets.  I just have a great need to over-explain myself and ruin a perfectly good thing with more me.  It's a curse.  I'll add it to my autumnal bucket list.  #1 is less me in all things I do.

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I love traveling this time of year because your legs don't stick to car seats as much and it's the last bit of freedom before holiday season demands all of your money and weekends.  

This bag is really speaking to me and I'm sure I can't afford it but maybe Santa should bring me some new luggage.  My current weekend bag I got from Chinatown about seven years ago and is literally falling apart.  A nice man helped carry it for me last month and a piece of the pleather came off in his hands.  He tried to act nonchalant about it but I could tell he was like "gross, never doing that again sorry all future ladies of travel."

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"Scarf season" is something I'm actively rejecting as well.  I actually had a scarf picture in this image dump and took it off.  Fucked up my flow.  Know what IS my flow?  More white with some beige.  Gotta have a beige outer layer this season.  

What are we calling this season now?  Summertime slumbertime?  Soft Fall?  Um... September?

Mexican feather grass here

One thing I'm pretty stoked about is grass.  Late Summer and Soft Fall means all the grasses are at their prime and grasses are to me what flowers are to other people.  Some people like gardens of color but I'd like gardens of beige muppet hair.  

Don't you just want to snuggle with that grass up there?  I bet it tickles.  That's the kind of feeling I want from September.  Sunsets and tickling.

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Also, this feeling.

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But mostly this.  All about that beige, 'bout that beige, no color.

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And this.  Fall seems like something that would require you to wear a bra and I'm DEFINITELY not ready for that kind of structure in my life.

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Some old linens though...?  Soft Fall is also about wrinkles.  Wrinkles and sagging boobs.

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I think this is also Mexican feather grass.  An appropriate name for tickling.  Oddly, grass makes me more excited for this season than pumpkin spice dick.

This is what being a homeowner does to you... 

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I could talk about grass all season so I'll spare you the additional grass I bought at a plant sale this weekend.  UNTIL MY SOFT FALL GARDENING POST MWAHAHAHA!

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Me, working in the yard and gettin' tickled by grass probly.

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Something about this room is speaking to me right now - maybe it's the nice neutrals and contrasting styles but also a hint of cozy fire.  It's certainly not the abundance of weirdo chairs wandering around the room...

It also doesn't have a rug but this kind of space needs a cold floor.  

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I may not be ready for scarves but I'm very pro-socks right now.  Could be that my feet are looking for moisture again or that my tap shoes look best with funky socks.  Possibly both.  Prepare for lots of Instagrams of me in legwarmers and tap shoes next month.

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Regardless of toe situation, I can manage this.  Well, I mean I can't manage to look as effortlessly Soft Fall Casual but I have a beige leather-ish jacket and tshirts.  And some weird socks and tap shoes so...  somebody call Bill Cunningham!

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Nothing says Soft Fall like ankles.  Yeah, I'm wearing two shirts but keeping my ankles nice and breezy.  Fuck your sweet potatoes and cinnamon, me and my ankles are living the beige dream right now.

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Soon, my punkin-headed friends.  Soon.

Summer Bucket List: Moderately qualified to represent the LBC.

Now that we've officially moved into June I figured I would jump on the blogger bandwagon and write down some things that I'm interested in doing this summer.  

I'm all about trying to capture the exquisite details of the season...  soaking up the sun...  appreciating the contrast of salty language and sweet tea... learning to relish the oppressive mantle of Southern heat that readies us for the harshness of life's cruelty...  *raises fist towards the sweltering sky*

If you read that in Nicole Kidman's Cold Mountain voice it sounds perfectly affected and overdone.

Basically I'm trying to find joyful things about this hell season to avoid thinking about crotch sweat and my driveway being infested with those red mites again, gawddammit.

A summer bucket list.  

YOLO.

Let's start out with the easy stuff...

- Keep my car washed and shiny. Like on the INSIDE.  Where I can't just rely on driving fast through the rain.  

- Make a mix cd (hey, my car is old as well as dirty) but it'll only include Doin' Time (Summertime) by Sublime.  It's the only music I needed in 1996 and the only music I need now.

- Dance to the rhythm.  It gets harder.

- Try to use cut flowers in my house sometimes even though I'm not a big flower person.  I mean, I'm not a giant humonoid/flower hybrid sentient being but I also don't really respond to cut flowers.  They die.  And frankly, I can kill a non-flowering plant rull easy and it's cheaper.  But maybe I'll pretend to be girly and elegant and grab a bouquet at the neighborhood market (Costco) for something different. This seems summery and fun.

- See lots of terrible movies just so I can sit in a deliciously cold movie theater on the hottest days in a sweater.  A summer sweater.  One of my most favorite things in the world for no reason I can come up with.  Like ice cream in winter or arson in Spring.

- Learn how to wear a headwrap with charm.  Frankly, I'm a dirty person on the weekends right now.  I'm in the yard a lot therefore I'm sweaty and have gross hair and when someone calls me to have a margarita or I need to run to the store for emergency bags of dirt I don't have time to "dress up" or "bathe." I'm thirsty NOW.  

Something vintage like this:

via Seamless

This girl is the cutest and she's gonna learn me real good.

- Get soaked in the summer rain. You smell mineral-y and when you dry your hair and skin feel amazing.  Not a substitute for actual bathing (me or my car) but can work pre-headwrap if I'm in a rush, of course.

- Lay on diving board with nothing on but pink fur.  Get 80-yr-old neighbor to Instagram me.

June Wilkinson, Hi-Life, November 1959

- Or at least recreate this.

The Birth of Suburbia by Rosaleen Ryan

- Hell, I want to GET IN SOME WATER!  I love love LOVE to swim - well, it's more like water twirling than stroking for a purpose [MS sidebar: *arches brow*] - but I never get to do it anymore.  I am not above splashing around in a kiddie pool. 

-  As a child/college student I would always follow swimming adventures with a box of mac and cheese so I'm turning this kiddie pool into a white trash extravaganza.  Throw in a Dr. Thunder and we 'bout to get turnt up at the Ranch, y'all.

- I think I want to get beautified this summer and do some pampering.  I love what sweating, heat and vitamin D does for my skin so I'm gonna focus on making my skin beautiful.  I already take prescription amounts of the big D so now all I have to do is use tons of clay masks and rub a sliced lemon all over my body every morning at dawn while I chant to the morning sun.

- Chant at the morning sun until my mind is quiet and the cops are called.

- Make time for reading books in the middle of the day and not 20 minutes before bedtime when I can't comprehend anything.  Hey Self, might I recommend reading in the kiddie pool you're going to acquire?  Self, you are so smart.

- Drink dirty chai lattes so much I'm embarrassed to even face my barista and bank account.  (SPOILER ALERT: I'm halfway there!)

- I love a day trip and I KNOW you love my Instagrams of abandoned sheds all over the Tennessee valley so I'll try to document the other sheds I haven't seen yet.  Also, I hear there's a really weird rock about two hours away... can't wait!  

- Make all those cocktails that I have pinned.  Drink them myself.  None for you.

Yes. It's called the Tennessee Honey Hole... I'll drink it just for the name alone even if it's bad.

- Call Neil deGrasse Tyson and figure out the magic behind avocado toast. Bitches love avocado toast.

- I'm all about smells lately so I've been laying awake at night thinking about crafting my own essential oil blends.  I would like to smell like a forest full of magic and centaur musk but fresh and girly with notes of citrus and girl power.

- Dress like a white witch. Scare everyone with how nice I am and how good I smell.

- Start selling some things on Etsy.  It's getting a little ridiculous around here and I'll need to come up with the money for the kiddie pool and boxes of mac and cheese.

- From the ashes of the plants I lost over the summer, I'll turn into a phoenix and fly into the sun where my spirit will live forever and haunt you next summer.

If there's anything good on your summer bucket list let me know so I can steal it!