It's been a while, hasn't it? I blinked a little too much into the sun and now it is September, New York Fashion Week came and went and I still refuse to transfer into fall. Mainly because that would mean that I would have to get working on my various deadlines (for those who haven't been counting along with me for the last three years, I am graduating fashion school this fall - man, I can still remember those exhausted, ice-cream-craving Gilmore-Girls-binging winter nights in freshman year when I literally had no work to do except showing up and feeling sorry for myself), but also because I love summer and feel like I haven't spent enough time outside showing off all the pairs of sandals I keep buying (four pairs of shoes in a month, a personal record I think).

I have a thing for dots at the moment, is what I'm trying to say

But alas, in a series of coincidences I have already aquired tons of fall-appropriate clothes, so that's something to look forward to! And my Gosh have I been living sustainability or what: I dug up smart jacket-and-pencil-skirt-sets and oversized cardigans from my mom (she has a magical closet, seeing how I seem to have only just discovered a whole decade of power-dressing in there that I never laid eyes on before), got gifted a series of leather skirts and Parisian silk as a hand-me-down from a whirlwind socialite who went a bit overboard with her shopping recently and I got beautiful, dark bordeaux-colored pumps a size too big for me so they don't kill my heels (each summer I forget to tape my feet before walking around the city for hours in tight strappy sandals and each summer I am astonished how many blisters you can get on top of each other). And if that wasn't enough to make all my fellow materialists go mmh with label-lust, please sit down for the approaching:

Prom-dress-shopping! 'tis a little early for me to fully indulge in that, considering that I should whip up some sort of creative wisdom to be graded on before I think about getting a certificate. But my oldest friend is shipping off to nine months in Cambridge in a week, and we had to get her equipped with some fancy European cocktail gowns. The one we found the other day has an absolute charming 20s vibe to it, and it is such a specific color that we had to lounge it around with us to hunt down some shoes, and it just so happened that we found a match so perfect that the employees cheered for us with tears in their eyes. One of them threw in an anectode about a well-known TV presenter whom he had "literally just sold a pair to", as if we needed any more convincing. Ah, the high of handing out your credit card in exchange for something so pretty. I've never felt this good after working out, certainly. Well, at least not due to the physical activity.

By the way, I dared to try something out of some random online mag article recently. The tip went a little like "to get close to him, just pretend to brush something of his face and lean in, then let your fingers linger a bit". Those writers surely never tried this while being excited about that person. Because if they had, they would know that you'd be too scared to actually touch his face - like, who does that, it's so unsanitary - and instead opt for his neck, and hesitate to get out the sentence, and then you don't linger smoothly with your hand on his shoulder but kinda draw circles with the tip of your finger, and when you say "you've got something there" he steps aside and says "no I don't", 'causing you to fall over (because you were leaning in like the stupid article told you to do) and very non-seductively grabbing onto his arm to keep from collapsing onto his feet. And then you realize that he is probably self-conscious about the little fuzz that he has on his neck and which he thinks is what you meant, not getting that you straight-up lied in order to awkwardly touch him. So you drop the plan and proceed to drum onto his (very hard, I should mention) stomach, and honestly I wouldn't vow on that being a turn-on, but then again what do I know, I tried brushing away fuzz. The moral of the story is, if you're in gym clothes, don't try to pull any moves, because it is very hard to get your message across if it is not a hundred percent obvious to the guy already.

Now go out and get some sun before we're snowed in again!

Love,

Rosy Smith

....One of my bestest friends turns 19 today (a week ago, cause I was organized once and pre-wrote this)! So yesterday (you get it), she had her big birthday bash and it was absolutely everything a good party has to be:

There weren't enough glasses. This morning, the living room resembled a "don't step into the water" prank scene. People kept losing track of their glasses and getting new ones for every new drink and when I wanted some water by the end of the night my choice of cup consisted of some beer mug and something that looked like a tiny vase.

There was some emotional roller coaster trips. "It's my party and I cry if I want to" would have been a great gift for the lovely Birthday Girl who started to fear mortality about half an hour before her actual birthday (aren't we all a pack of drama queens. But I love her for that). 30 seconds before midnight, she went into the kitchen to get herself a drink and wouldn't listen when we told her to get herself back into our reach so we ended up trailing after her and congratulating her at the sink. Thankfully after that, she wasn't so sad anymore, because....

There was some unexpected kissing. I'm not entirely sure, but as far as I can reconstruct this night-changing event, it took place in the kitchen as well (everything important happens in the kitchen). Birthday gal was taken by surprise, but my (unqualified as usual) advice to deal with it would be: If it's fun, and he's nice (I think he is - I had my five minutes of unsolicited crushing already over with), is there really a problem? I don't think so. After we all reassured her that there was absolutely nothing to reconsider, we all sat outside, him bringing her a cup of coffee (aww) and holding her hand while she thoughtfully gazed into distance; it was very much like a scene from a music video, especially me trying to catch his attention to telepathically ask him about his intentions by meaningfully staring at him whenever she wasn't looking. Suddenly she stood up, let her hand linger in his while she did that and went on inside, facing him through the glass door. He got up immediately to follow her, which is when I realized that her getting up was meant as a sign for him to do that. I honestly thought he was just being clingy. Oh, well. I got all the insight after most people left, and us girls had locked ourselves in, yes, the kitchen: She had asked him what exactly he wanted from her and he cleverly responded "I only want you"(awww) and they'd kissed some more and he wants to see her again on Wednesday (tomorrow, as I'm writing this). That sounds good, doesn't it? I'm truly excited. He better continue doing so well or I'll be very cross with him and you know that I can be a lot more unflattering with my descriptions than I just was. But don't be disheartened, for that I'm quite fond of him as of now for making my friend smile so much that night....

Things broke. Some girl had made a special candy flavored Schnapps which the Birthday Girl accidentally dropped (on the kitchen floor, obviously). She felt so bad about it, but I took a tiny sip of it before it happened and in all kindness I have to say that it was absolutely disgusting. And the floor got unbelievably sticky. But at the same time, it was slick - so one time, when I leaned on the counter, I wanted to relieve my feet by leaning back onto my heels (to make use of the stickiness), and I slipped so badly I almost broke my back/neck/arms. Someone caught me, thankfully. Jeez.

There was dancing on tables. I didn't join in, but at some point two guys took the honors and did some weird choreography to a song that went a bit like "tadamm ta daaa tadamm dum dum tadaa", with a lot of snipping. Two grown men in dress shirts. Hitting the ceiling with their heads and snipping. I just....I don't know what to make of that, really.

There was climbing on roofs. No one actually got up there, but it sure was fun to watch them try. Oh, one of the guys who made an attempt is an IT student who fits the type, with glasses and a red tee (I once mentioned him as nice guy. He really is, just to clarify). "Look", I said to my loveliest friend, "that one's got some good abs". "Really?", she said, her eyes wide with astonishment. She clearly didn't believe me, but I know that for a fact as I've been to the beach with him a couple of weeks ago. "He does! Do you think I could ask him to lift his shirt for a second?" She shook her head. "I don't think so", she said reluctantly. I wish I'd have done it anyways, because it would've been fun to set the two of them up. Just kidding, N! I'm proud of the fact that I haven't become one of those absolutely unnerving people who need to see everyone around them in a relationship just because....

....I got to go home with the one I really wanted to see at this very occasion a year ago.   

Stay sparkly.

Love,

Rosy Smith

....in a conversation with my mom about applying for internships, my mind took an interesting turn to face this important question: When planning a wedding, does one determine the seating arrangments before or after getting everyone's RSVPs (I always forget what that means. It's French, 'cause apparently it was decided that invitation confirmations weren't cool enough and therefore needed some je ne sais quoi to them, and says répondez s'il vous plaît)?
If one does it before knowing who will actually attend (though I heard recently it's bad luck to cancel on a wedding. Or was it just bad manners? I'll have to check on that), the danger of either having to rearrange at the last minute or, even worse, having half-empty tables (in that case, I feel like that's the appropriate answer to the half-full/half-empty discussion). However, if one does it afterwards, you'll definitely have to have time left in the last quarter of your probably already busy planning process to make up some kind of decent seating arrangement and curse everyone who decides to show up anyways/forbid them to stay for dinner, because no way are you touching that seating chart on your freaking wedding day. You probably burned it already, anyways.

So, yeah, I'd really like to know what's the way to go here.
And no, I'm nowhere near getting married, as I already ensured my mom when I blurted this out at dinner.

Love,

Rosy Smith 

I think it's not vain of me to say that I have pretty nice lashes. See, I do have dark hair and brown/green eyes (is that hazel or not? I deem that expression to be very confusing), so dark lashes just suit my type. That being sad, I remember how all of my friends who started out with make-up a few years ago began by using some concealer (or rather, these sticks to smear over red pimples to make them look like skin-colored pimples instead), lightly tinted lipbalm and, you'll guess, mascara. I went in on the pimple sticks, but I didn't really feel the need to darken my lashes, so I didn't. I was more intruiged by putting on lots and lots of pink and soon enough red lipgloss. Black lashes I had, but lips can't be red enough, can they?

Of course I own mascara. I'm not one to withstand material wealth. I'm on my third one (you may gather I don't exactly observe expiration dates); I've had a very cheap one for Halloween, a KIKO one afterwards 'cause I heard they were good, and right now I'm the proud possessor of the Roller Lash Mascara by Benefit. Proud, because it really does make my lashes look lovely, if I do say so myself. But, ugh, I just hate the fuss neccessary to take it off at night! To come home late, go to the bathroom and rub around on my eyes with some remover pads for what feels like hours, and yet it never fully vanishes and I get all paranoid about my lashes breaking at the tips or falling out for good and I either don't rest until there's not a particle of mascara left and my eyes are all red and irritated or I resignate and wake up the next day looking like I'm still in full make-up, with black-rimmed eyes like a groupie on the day after. It can be a good look at times, but I live in deathly fear of wrinkles. I shudder at the thought of them at this very moment.

Moreover, no matter what quality, as the day goes by I always freak out over lashes sticking together or itching or anything like that and I just want it off me. I'm not able to rub my eyes without having half of my face in a black mark on my hand afterwards and I don't always remember not to. So charming.

I also have this horrible fear of waking up one day and refusing to leave the house without mascara on. I know people whom I honestly wouldn't recognize without it and that's scary, don't you think? For once, it's a shame that people get so dependent and insecure, and secondly, who has the patience to apply mascara every single time they step in front of their door? It's so stressful. And probably gets expensive, going through so much product. I guess it's the same with cigarettes. The amount of times I've heard "of course I could live without it"....

Actually, no, no one ever says that. You don't joke about mascara.

Love,

Rosy Smith