emlocke

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  • Girls’ World

    It’s a new world when the fall 2005 issue of The New York Times Style Magazine comes out and we can all turn a practiced eye on the high fashion models, saying, “she just looks uncomfortable” or “she really does ‘love Salvatore’” like the panel on America’s Next Top Model.

    When the Isaac Mizrahi for Target two page spread comes before Banana Republic’s ad, which comes before the Hermes, and maternity-wear is featured on the center spread. When cleavage is called “that marvel of divine engineering” and female readers everywhere discreetly check themselves out at the newsstand, the cafe, the salon, the kitchen table. When no one gets worked up over the could-be sexist innuendos in an article entitled, “Wine, Women and Shoes” because they’re too busy wondering if a stiletto heel could really uncork that bottle of Cabernet in the clutch, as the illustration suggests. When a Portuguese pair of jeans laced with moisturizing vitamin-E seems to mean that someone has finally figured out what we need from a pair of pants (beyond the perfect rise and the hugging of all the right places and none of the wrong ones. And a good length, too. And…)

    In The Girls’ World, everything is more expensive or more accessible, and we can drool over it or run out and charge it, and we enjoy both equally. The Girls’ World is exceedingly luxurious, clever and colorful. We appreciate lace balconettes as much as we adore the breasts they scoop up. And we’ll lose those satin heels and pour out the apple-tini if it means we get to kick back in our Levis with a bottle of wine.

  • Secret Society of Rainy Saturday Afternoon Movies

    The original, archetypal, 1961, Hayley Mills version of The Parent Trap was on the Hallmark Channel this afternoon. My favorite part is at the end when Mitch decides to get seriously “washed up” and turns on the hi-fi and manages to charm knots into Maggie’s apron so she is forced to ask for help undoing it.

    My mom showed me this movie when I was a kid, about 13, the twins’ age in the movie. I felt like she was letting me in on a secret society of really, really good movies to watch on rainy Saturday afternoons.

  • I Know Where My OneCard Is

    I think the photo ID side of my OneCard is heavier than the magnetic strip side. This, after observing that, every time I toss it on the floor, it lands face down. I think leaving my card on the floor right at the doorway is a great way to remember to take it with me when I leave.

  • Las Vegas Lady


    LVN 025
    Originally uploaded by EmLocke12.

    I had a low-key Vegas Night. I was hot enough to begin with, with my smokin’ outfit and my fever, so I decided to skip out on hot and sweaty Chapin, with beer on the floor and strangers hands in inappropriate places, uninvited. Instead, I got dressed up and visited all my dearest, drunkest friends to take pictures and celebrate MHC’s biggest – and by biggest, I mean only – party night.

    Highlights
    – it finally stopped raining
    – the pouf
    – a guy in a vinyl jacket asking me where I was going, and if he could come.
    – telling him I was going to bed with a fever and I was probably contagious.
    – making it through the whole night without taking off my heels in pain, because my whole night was approximately four hours long.

    Thrilled. Love to sequins, love to Vegas, love to MHC.

  • The Heat Goes On, The Heat Goes On

    The heat has kicked in and the whole building smells like the crackly crust on a burnt marshmallow. It’s the brittle, charred scent of something that’s not supposed to be burning. But you can’t complain because inside is frothy warmth, like a melted marshmallow, a welcome alternative to the rainy drafts from outside.

    The first evening that it churned hot steam, my heater wailed louder than the TV. Hopefully, it will settle down as it stretches its legs (which almost resemble lion’s feet, like an old-fashioned bathrub). It’s going to be a long winter together in this room.

  • Watching for A Grand Slam

    Baseball season, for me, starts a little earlier every fall. Once a sport that I followed only on a game to game basis, in a moment of small talk with someone wearing the NY emblem screen printed on a t-shirt or stitched on a cap, or to distract myself from the whirring of the elliptical pedals in the gym, every game has become all extremities crossed for luck, a navy blue t-shirt hem frayed from being fidgeted between anxious fingers, and “what’s the score?”

    I used to memorize names and lingo. As long as I knew what to look for, I could identify a big moment when I saw one. I knew who to applaud and who to fear, I liked saying “grand slam,” and if I paid enough attention to the little blue diamond in the upper-left hand corner of the screen, I knew when to cross my fingers and what play to cross them for, chanting under my breath, listening to the on-edge watchfulness in the commentator’s pauses.

    Of course, it was all a scam. The whole time, I just tried not to cheer or gasp at the wrong moment, metaphorically kicking the ball between the other team’s goal posts.

    It is through this hold-your-breath patience that I learn to love the baseball game a little more each season. I like that, with a little observation, I can predict the next move with a certain degree of accuracy. I like that everything you need to know fits into that little baseball diamond graphic in the corner of the screen. That leaves more room for the impatience, the fan hysteria, the grudges, the surprises, and the grand slams.

  • Wordsmithette

    In class on Monday, we talked about the Harvard concordance to the works of Shakespeare, which counts and catalogues all the words so you can see how frequently certain words are used in certain plays and in what context. The internet must make a resource like this a lot more fun to use.

    I knew there had to be a recreational concordance tool out there somewhere, so language lovers like me could enter a URL or copy/paste text and count words and draw thoughtful conclusions. There is, and it’s called Turbo Lingo. How appropriate. So I plugged in the URL for my August 2005 archive page, and the results were…pretty inconclusive. In the month of August, I wrote the word beauty four times, the word universe twice, and crush-of-the-minute once. I also used my own name once. And, ‘chocolate.’

  • Punched – or – I Didn’t Lose My OneCard While I was Drunk

    I lost my OneCard on Friday, the day after the crazy, random party in Safford, somewhere between my room and dinner in Prospect (pizza, I deserved it).

    Considering my record, it is a wonder I didn’t drop the card in the dark the night before, back and forth between Safford and the ‘Delles, far beyond punch drunk. Hours before, on my way upstairs after a quiet, gourmet dinner at Melissa’s apartment, I was hijacked into a party where I ended up drinking a lot-dka vodka instead of catching up on homework. The truth is, I didn’t even have it with me at that point. I was relying on Ally to get me back inside!

    My lost OneCard moments happen multiple times a day. It’s nothing knew if I have to retrace my steps, toss clothes around the room or dump the contents of every bag I own in a mad search. Naturally, people assumed that I’m scanning the sidewalk with my headlamp outside of Safford because I lost it during the escapades of the night before. They smile sympathetically, not because they’re in the pool betting on how many times I will have to look for it this week, but because I must have had a wild night (it’s a small dorm, everyone had a wild night.)

    Luckily, Public Safety doesn’t ask questions unless you’re actually sauced when you show up to get a temporary card for the weekend. And I found my real OneCard on the closet floor about ten minutes after I got the temp, as if I had tossed it toward the laundry basket like a dirty sock. I had to wait until this morning to have it reactivated, and as soon as I got it back, I punched it. You’re not supposed to put holes in your card, but I have lost it for the last time.

  • Internet Junkies Need Stuff Like This

    There’s First Love, and There’s Emily Love.

  • Stubborn is a Fiery Red

    For the girl who is often metaphysically frustrated to the point of grouchiness because her favorite color, purple, is a contrasting complement to her least favorite color, yellow, ColourLovers is a consuming, addictive thing.

    I can’t believe there are so many other people in the world who give such serious thought to color palettes in web design, packaging and advertising, fashion etc, and then go and define schemes with evocative or amusing titles and build this library online – all for entertainment’s sake, of course. Or for OCD color loving satisfaction. Probably the most dangerous element of this site is the access to other color lover’s websites, which distract me with visual stimulation and new inspiration (and by inspiration I mean a challenge to continue forcing myself to attempt new designs with characteristically high expectations and stubbornness.)

    This site is so intensely colorful that it actually runs a little slow, but it may be the only thing that ever turns me on to yellow.