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I braved the drizzle to nail this FFAF post today, you guys! Drizzle and a steep, steep grade, not to mention this lingering head cold. Cloud cover mutes the otherwise dreamy view of the bay in the background, but maybe you can make it out just a little bit. When I took out my gloves to put them on this afternoon, I noticed a faint emerald green print on the inside. Upon closer inspection, the left glove shows the no. 7, and Lionel Le Grand beneath it. Inside of the right, Made In France Expressly for I. Magnin & Co.! I don’t know how I missed that before. I found them at an old Lutheran thrift shop in the East Bay, of all places. Years ago.

Anyway, this magical, high-waisted, uber-tight, red hot miniskirt. Unfortunately, it’s all sold out at modcloth.com, but I love it. They had another of its kind – the Da Vinci skirt – in a pretty purple shade, but that’s all gone, too! Next time I wear it, I’ll try more color, but I couldn’t help but femme fatale it up a bit for the first go-r0und.

Last night, M & I went to a party at an aviation museum and the dress code was “business casual”. I realize that one might not consider sequins or an aviator cap meeting-appropriate, per se, but we felt the leeway was acceptable given the occasion (a party). It was awesome!

Life-sized models of the very first man-powered aircraft (successful or not) were laid out in all their rudimentary glory, all the way up to Boeing cockpits from the passenger jets of today. Of course, our favorites were the helicopters and airplanes from the 1940s and 1950s, and they had these amazing, fancily clad mannequins of yesteryear for a more genuine effect. Adorable.

We crashed every last flight simulator we got into – including an old hovercraft prototype – and it was just a lot of silly fun. Of course, M wore her vintage wings and leather aviator cap. (Poor thing fully expected to get a ride in a plane and I wanted to, too, alas.) Yes, in that photo above we are “flying”.

It was amazing to see miniatures of futuristic models, too, like the vertical landing and takeoff joint heavy lift rotorcraft:

In other news , holy macaroni and cheese, kittens, I got bangs! Soft, whispery, no-biggie bangs. I haven’t had truly serious bangs since early 2007, and they were VERY serious:

In short, too hard. Too much work, a bitch to keep up, grow out, etc. I loved them, but they totally traumatized me. I am not a girl who blow dries her hair. Curlers, sure. Curling irons I have down to a perfect science, but bangs this serious require rigorous styling and training almost constantly, which I am not for at this time. (Maybe later, though. I’m seriously considering a bob in the future. OK, jaw-length. Like in 2004, but modified for 2010.)

Let’s hope these are a bit easier to manage. I am rather fond of them!

Please to meet the wonderfully brilliant and gorgeous Kate. She came to stay with us for a few days and we had some excellent SF adventures together. The photos above are from a nice little walkabout we had through the Mission, in search of carnitas by the pound, chili/salt/lemon-drenched mango slices and Humphrey’s Secret Breakfast ice cream. It was overcast and cold, but we bundled up and dragged our hungover asses through the Mission and were met with much success (and an angry drunk, but that is neither here nor there). We stopped to take a few photos by some of the many, many amazing murals that can be found in our ‘hood.

Below, you’ll find Kate & I all sassed up and ready to go dancing. The tomboy snapped these before an epic night of Osha Thai (Kate ordered this massive fried rice dish served in half a pineapple! We all drank lychee cocktails!), a George Michael singalong at the Lexington and shaking what our mama gave us at Cockblock. It was all very wonderful and we had enough fun for the entire mafia. And then some.

CONFESSION: On our 5th consecutive day of blissful holiday PTO, M took me to see A Single Man (remember when I mentioned it here back in November?). Despite the dreariness of the day, we bravely set out on BART to catch it playing down by the water at the Embarcadero theater. I really, really enjoyed it. It was delicious. There’s an old L-Word actress cameo, model cameos, a Mad Men cameo, and one other that I cannot quite recall. It was a touch slow in places, but it’s so visually saturated that it really doesn’t matter, and it made me cry. On our way home we took these silly photos, and then it began to rain, so we hustled inside, made a big spaghetti dinner, opened a bottle of tasty red from Spain, and then FINALLY got around to the Johnnie Walker Black Label blending session we’ve been postponing forever. Dreamy.

Y’all can have special insider pics of the super elaborate scotch whisky blending set-up, because I love you like that:

CONFESSION: Fall arrived in head-to-toe drag queen regalia in San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, loud and brassy and thunderous and with all the sky’s gaudy sequins refracting through myriad bedroom windows. It was fan-fucking-tastic. Really splendid. Of course, M & I slept through most of it, or shall I say we experienced it from the comfort of our bed, but storms like that are really rare here, so I loved it. M said that it sounded a lot like an earthquake, and she kept waiting for the shaking to start! The rain that came was far less impressive, in fact, that part was more like walking around the Mission drenched in a vat of the appropriate CB I Hate Perfume scent. Lovely. Hope y’all had lovely weekends.

CONFESSION: These photos are approximately 8 days old. GASP. Really, they are just tomboy candy and for fun. An impromptu gay parody of sorts after American Gothic, of course, which makes ever so much more sense if you know my complete and total (and often hilarious and heartrendingly tragic) family history. After running around in my mother’s backyard, we found ourselves some serious gardening tools and had some silly fun.

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CONFESSION: Well, kittens, the weekend is winding to a close. It was a doozy! We restocked the bar at home and hunted for antiques and thrift store finds on Friday night. Saturday morning we tidied up for a nice, mellow Welcome Back visit for a dear friend, who just returned from her two-month long visit back home in Turkmenistan. She brought me back a beautiful bag, repurposed from the gorgeous material of a traditional bridal headress – will feature in a new FFAF ASAP! Sadly, during the visit a nasty migraine came on quite suddenly, but I fought it back with insanely spicy Indian food (a total first and kind of amazing). Later in the evening, M & I headed to the DNA Lounge for New Wave City in these outfits! It was the Duran Duran tribute and so, so much fun. A little too fun, in fact, so M & I spent the entire delicious day in bed, giggling and watching HGTV and taking naps. WHY DID I NOT KNOW THAT HGTV IS SO FASCINATING AND AWESOME TO WATCH!? Speaking of hella gay…

This antique table? See how pretty and awesome it is? The top is all junked up, so we got it for $50. Totally freaking hot. We’re going to sand it down and give it a nice, light wash and perhaps get in touch with the amazing artist that painted the Victorian Alice In Wonderland chairs to see if she’ll paint the tabletop with a tea party scene, because that would be, of course, perfect. I also got the really cool idea to take these three smaller photo frame collages and hang them in a grouping, inside of the antique frame that we picked up a year ago at the Laney flea. Since we took all of those silly, romantical photos carrying the frame together the day we were married last year, I thought it would be very dreamy to mix those photos with some others from our wedding. There you have it! The “nook of love”. Who wants to come over for a cup of tea?