ugh

I have been practicing guitar so much the last two weeks. I'm glad something clicked to where it's not a chore, it's something I really want to do. But I feel like I'm in battle and I'm going to beat this thing - this thing being my guitar. I'm trying not to take it personally, but I really do think we're at war. Either that or it's laughing at me.

I've been practicing Spaceman by 4 Non Blondes, love that song, which is supposedly an easy song. Yeah. After two weeks of practicing about 2 hours a night, it still doesn't sound even remotely like the song. Then last night I asked hubby - who started playing at the same time as me - for some help with the strumming pattern and he listens for a second, picks up his guitar, and plays the song. Just like that. I'm glad he's so good, and I enjoy listening to him play, but I had to forbid him from ever playing that song just because it was too much to take for him to do that without trying after I've been trying so hard.

Anyway, I bought this 4 Non Blondes guitar tab book from the internet for $1.95, how cool is that?

summer

My plan is to wear some sort of a sundress every day this summer, because 1) I love the '90s, and 2) well, I'll show you:



Getting into a hot car with black interior mid-day - I didn't think it could get any hotter. But then it did:

And then it did again:

There's my photographic evidence. I had jeans on that day and I vowed not to do that again until at least October.

las vegas in pictures

Las vegas! We stayed at Bally's, which was very cheap and convenient, but not that nice compared to some of the others, especially considering that everything there is pretty cheap right now:

Our room was nice, and bright:

But there was no coffee maker (I hate that!), so we just resolved to order a pot from room service every night to be delivered first thing in the morning:

I totally want little cups and saucers now. Oh, and a little cup filled with sugar cubes with tiny tongs to dish them out (and this).

Here's the view from our hotel window, it looked like some kind of artificial desert wasteland:

So desolate, but if you looked higher above the buildings, you could see the mountains. It's so weird to me to have a city with those incredible mountain views that pretty much just looks in on itself instead.

We were connected to Paris, and had to walk through these little artificial French streets to get where we were going:

It was quite bizarre, you couldn't tell at all what time of day it was, and I really felt like we were underground.

Paris had a restaurant that we went to the first day for dinner and the last day for breakfast. Both meals were quite good (blueberry french toast with whipped cream and blueberry syrup!) and the servers were really nice:

We didn't venture out too far for most of the trip; I spent most of my days surrounded by palm trees (and drinking dancing bikinied girls celebrating 21st birthdays) at the pool:

(but only for a few hours at a time because it got hot so quickly! I've decided that I need a hotel pool here. I love being home, but I really love being on vacation.) And going out to eat. Here's Serendipity 3 where we stopped for lunch the first day:

and had giant mugs of cinnamon coffee:

There was also a $1,000 sundae on the menu.

Las Vegas Blvd. had many, many lanes with crazy drivers, but so many walkways connecting the casinos and sidewalks that you hardly ever even had to go onto the actual street:

The strip looked so much prettier at night:

That is how I expected Vegas to look. During the day it really kind of sucks as far as being something to look at.

It was so much fun getting dressed up every night. I'd been waiting to wear this dress from Rome:

We both wore purple - matching outfits! This was to go to dinner at SAGE in the Aria hotel, it was really nice and they even had fancy stones and flowers in the restroom sink:

The hotel was pretty fancy also; here's the view from the front:

where we waited for a cab to take us to The Venetian, so that D. and his friend could play Texas Hold'em (with a funny group of men including three guys from Holland).

I totally pretended I was Vesper in Casino Royale, and in charge of deciding whether to authorizing the next million. She had a purple dress too:

I also figured Vegas was an excuse to wear my sequin dress, even though we just went to dinner and some window shopping in the Forum Shopps at Ceasar's Palace:

Even in Vegas, people kept asking whether we were going someplace special.

Again, good food, but oddly enough, they had some kind of peanut butter and butterscotch puddings for dessert, good pudding, but still, pudding?

Anyway, that was Vegas. The whole thing has sort of a Times Square/Broadway type of feeling (but maybe a little better?). Good food, great shopping (which we actually refrained from! Will power! Or maybe just having already overstuffed carry-ons), fun poker (ESPN - here we come), and the airport is really close. I'm glad we went, but if I ever go back, I think I would rather go outside the strip and into those mountains.

prada

I love this dress:

Absolutely love it.

It's not that I think it would look good on me, or that I would have any place remotely appropriate for wearing it, or that I could ever justify the cost (which I'm guessing is around $4000), just that I am in love with it. I love the colors, and the cut of it, and the vintage-looking beach photograph just kills me. I've actually gone into several Pradas looking for it, and while I've seen this one in person:

(way too prudish of a style for the fabric) and even tried on this one at a saleslady's insistence:

(it had a long printed sheer scarf attached to the back that I really hated, and the bust seams were not pretty) I can't find my dress anywhere. Which I guess is a good thing. It's popping up in new photos online though:

If I was very, very rich, I would buy this dress in a heartbeat, not even to wear, just to have and look at whenever I wanted. Maybe even frame it and hang it up on the wall like a photograph.

random

We'll be in Las Vegas until tomorrow, and the last few days have been so fun, but I'll keep the post until we are home. Instead, here's an outfit that shows some of the shopping I've been doing, mostly off my summer list:



New shoes, jeans, aviators(!), and turquoise necklace(!). The necklace is so exactly like what I wanted it's unbelievable. We stumbled into a little silver shop in Houston that had so many! This one is a long strand that I double to make the choker. It's perfect, but a little heavy.

I wore this to go watch one of D.'s friends play with his band at a little bar. They were so good. It really made me want to keep practicing my guitar, I think maybe I can get a little better at it...

There are so many things that I want to to do one day, that have been one my list for a while:

Film. I miss it. And I still have loads of stuff to get developed. I'm thinking it may be easier just to drop them off somewhere instead of waiting to get back to a darkroom. Not sure I would even remember how to do it!

Sew something. This has been on my list since we were living in Gloucester and I bought a sewing machine. Especially now since touring our neighbors' apartment: he had told us he was a designer, and he has a little studio (even does metalworking for these intricate clasps) making the coolest leather pieces and other stuff. It was very impressive.

And another thing, that for some reason has been in my head to do for a while: horseback riding. Especially now after War and Peace. We live 45 minutes from the cowboy capital of America, so this shouldn't be a problem!

I just love this necklace, I usually am not an accessories type of girl, but this is one that kind of goes with everything and that I don't feel silly wearing:



I also bought the Nars Dragon Girl lip pencil, and I've been wearing it so often that I feel weird without it. It's so easy to apply, no lip brush involved and very matte and long-wearing. I think this is it for red lips, definitely my favorite and now I have no desire to try anything else.