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CONFESSION: I know the rainbow heart print is a bit twee, but the button-up backline sold me on this dress. It’s a fairly well-made H&M number that I scored at a local thrift store for $5. It’s sweet and comfortable, and I love that it can be belted or not, paired with sky high heels and a skinny, studded, layered belt to punk it up a bit. Or not. (In fact, I’ve got a pair of killer moto-chic heels headed my way that I can’t wait to pair with this dress.)

SCENT: ARE WE READY FOR THE LAST OF THE LAST? I can’t say how pleased I am to be done with this sad, trashy collection of Victoria’s Secret fragrances, I honestly can’t. A friend of mine tweeted today about the arduous task of finishing a book she disliked. She started reading it in March. I think she read a bit of it each day. That’s torture. It’s exactly how I feel about this little scent experiment. Thank heavens it’s over with and I can now return to reviewing sniffs worth their salt.

Victoria’s Secret Very Sexy: I spritzed a bit on, turned to M and said, “Sweet, sharp floral…” and she added “…with citrus!” and sure enough, it’s described as a “sultry blend of sensual vanilla orchid, sparkling clementine and juicy blackberry.” It still smells like shitty potpourri and continues to on the drydown. I fail to comprehend why all of their scents are pitched as hyper sexy, alluring, come-fuck-me irresistible when they couldn’t be further from it. It’s so bad I can scarcely take satisfaction in the fact that I was right – and I love being right – the quality and caliber of their fragrances parallel the quality and caliber of their lingerie. I was open to being proven wrong or humbled, alas.

In summary, it’s all very black and white, kids. Like so:

PS. ZOMG, someone hold me back before I ruin everything I’ve been working toward and DYE MY HAIR these 84,000 colors:

CONFESSION: Check-out at Hotel Vertigo. Super dreamy lobby. You can read more about it here, if you’d like. We are up and at ‘em on approximately 4-5 hrs. of sleep and absolutely pining for donuts and coffee. We weren’t sure how nightmarish the Love Parade malarkey would be, so we just dashed out of there right before noon and headed to our favorite Noe Valley donut shop. They have Peerless coffee there! A plus. Let’s see if you can guess what I’m thinking as I gaze fondly down upon that polished, gorgeous hunk of wood.

CONFESSION: It was so Fall on this day! Monday, to be exact. I used to loathe the grey + ivory combination, but I am for it this season, especially if you swap the predictable dash of mustard with a nice, predictable and lush rose instead. Ideally, in some sort of ridiculously lavish, ruffled suede. Mm. I guess I’m sort of a moron for not throwing on my pink posie Tulle coat on over this. Next time!

CONFESSION: We discovered that M hates shooting at night and Halloween today. I know, right? OK, so night shooting is HARD and a pain in the ass, but hating Halloween? I think I should remind her about candy corn and slutty costumes bonding with loved ones in a creepy way. In any case, I can’t let her hate Halloween until we’ve dressed up as Moroccan Tranny Patsy and Edina first. It’s our dream! I had fun on the night shoot; we explored the creepy alley across the street and I pretended to be scary and chased kittens around.

NOTE: I gave y’all a three-for-one because even though they were different pairs of jeans, they were still jeans. Never fear (esp. not you, H), I had heels on in both of the above and a brand spankin’ new pair of hella fierce Betsey Johnson tights that are dying to debut themselves.

QUERY: An extremely lovely and devoted reader recently wondered if I might do a Q & A here at FFAF, and you know what I thought? I thought I would, if you’d like. Feel free to send burning questions to fitforafemme@gmail.com and I’ll answer enthusiastically and in bulk to the best of my ability!

CONFESSION: One of my favorite San Francisco quotes is this one, One day if I do go to heaven I’ll look around and say, ‘It ain’t bad, but it ain’t San Francisco’. Oh, to be here. Quotes about San Francisco are always love letters, lavish or gritty, meandering or ravenous, but that’s one of my favorites. On Saturday night, after a very long day of chauffeuring one of M’s old MIT classmates and his lovely wife around our fair and fickle city for their new home, we discovered we were bring sprinkled upon. It was, well…spittle from the sky, basically, but in July. It brought with it a double rainbow (like the ice cream!) and the sweetest fresh rain smell on our sweet little block, which is greener than most.

I am happy to report that they got the flat they wanted best – they sign the lease tonight and are making a cross-country move from New York City to San Francisco this August. It was actually super fun to check out some of the places we had to pass up that wouldn’t take pets! As a thanks, they took us to dinner at Sinbad’s, an old-fashioned, super romantic seafood restaurant situated right on Pier II, adjacent to The Slanted Door. Watching night tuck the last bit of twilight away was gorgeous, especially with the Bay Bridge looking right over our shoulders. I got lost in wistfulness just looking at it…I knew I’d miss that drive over the water, heading into San Francisco, in some ways just as special as being a part of it.

Also, we bought a very dreamy couch from Pier 1. Praise Dolly.

Here’s another bit about San Francisco-as-heaven, one of the best parts from HBO’s Angels In America (though I’d do very bad things in order to see it onstage, in a heartbeat):

Roy Cohn: [under the impression that Belize is the Angel of Death] Can I ask you something, sir?
Belize: [going along with it] “Sir”?
Roy Cohn: What’s it like? After?
Belize: After…?
Roy Cohn: This misery ends?
Belize: Hell or heaven?
Roy Cohn: …heh…
Belize: Like San Francisco.
Roy Cohn: A city! Good! I was worried… it’d be a garden. I hate that shit.
Belize: Mmmm. Big city. Overgrown with weeds, but flowering weeds. On every corner a wrecking crew and something new and crooked going up catty corner to that. Windows missing in every edifice like broken teeth, gritty wind, and a gray high sky full of ravens.
Roy Cohn: Isaiah.
Belize: Prophet birds, Roy. Piles of trash, but lapidary like rubies and obsidian, and diamond-colored cowspit streamers in the wind. And voting booths. And everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion. And all the deities are creole, mulatto, brown as the mouths of rivers. Race, taste and history finally overcome. And you ain’t there.
Roy Cohn: And Heaven?
Belize: That was Heaven, Roy.
Roy Cohn: The fuck it was!

Confession: Sandwiched between the Berkeley Public Library on Shattuck and our parking garage for the evening’s events was this wall of art. I think it belonged to new condos hidden behind it. Twilight had just sighed goodnight for the evening and the wall looked especially enchanting and creepy, like a playful wink to Gaudi. Despite the terrible up-lighting for portraits, it was great for bringing the colors alive and for making terrible shadows! I also found some lovely flowers and embedded seashells and danced around for M. Thus, it become the background for an unplanned FFAF post.

Here we are at a celebratory newlywed dinner for our friends, and M bears the wedding gift in the elevator:

Confession: Seeking fresh air and the smell of new books, M & I took the petite to the bookstore in between bouts of late afternoon rain at Jack London Square. I settled on a copy of Mirage and Fashion Now 2, inwardly cringing at the neglected stack of books back at home (The Gift Of Fear, Infinite Jest, The Doors Of His Face, The Lamps Of His Mouth). We strolled through the bookshelves while the petite browsed the YA section (she ended up with Pretties, the 2nd book of the Uglies trilogy for all you YA fans), and after taking some FFAF photos we passed a display of little squishy baby toys. I instantly lunged for the Max doll, from Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

Right then is when I learned that M has never read this book. M HAS NEVER READ WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. “What is that little thing?” she asked, almost distrustful. “He’s Max! It’s Max! You know…Max is very, very naughty and gets sent to bed without supper and then he goes on WILD adventures with the wild, wild things,” here is where I grab the little monster wild thing doll and shove it right into M’s furrowed brows, “THIS is the wild thing,” I say, “Remember?” “No, she says, “I’ve never read that. That one looks like a wild thing, too,” she pointed at Max accusingly. I gasped and shook my head sadly. I was beside myself, flailing both dolls around and hissing about how is it even possible that she’s never read nor seen nor heard of the book because HELLO!?!?

The petite wandered over, probably to tell us to shut up as we were embarrassing her a great deal, but she was 100% Team Skinny on the matter once I informed her. She just rolled her eyes and sighed as if the burden of M’s lifelong deprivation of this tale was simply too much to bear and left us standing there. I put Max into my pocket and followed M into the travel section and tried to explain the significance of the beloved book to M.

It’s just that M, in so many ways, is Max. All dressed in wolf’s clothes, a stubborn, brooding little thing, wears a crown and makes mischief? Likes boats and a good rumpus and bossin’ folks? Good grief!

Scent: Forgive me, I’ve been so negligent in the fragrance department! I won’t pretend I’ve been

too busy – I have been busy, but also just sort of moving from Winter to Spring wrapped in a cloud of contentment. To tell the truth I was once so opposed to

that word, equating it with

tedium, mediocrity and perhaps worst of all, a sort of falsehood. Perhaps I am lucky in that it now means something else entirely, something epitomizing pleasure, satiety and a dreamy and genuine peace of mind.

Which brings me to today’s new fragrance: Ligea La Sirena from the Italian island of Capri’s Carthusia. This is so well named, “bearing the name of one of the three Mermaids who tried in vain to bewitch Ulysses, Ligea is a feminine, sensual nectar, surprising and full of passion, which combines the warm powdery scent of wild white rose with the fresh, soft aroma of mandarins.” It’s just…enchanting, really lovely. The citrus isn’t at all overwhelming, perfectly balanced with sweetness and the right amount of opoponax, or sweet myrrh – something earthy and almost salty to anchor it all down. I love it. I find it comforting!

Let’s take a closer look at the Carthusia logo, shall we? (It’s not a stretch to say that if I were into whimsical and playful tattoos, I would absolutely get this. It’s cheeky and awesome!)

PS. I’ve missed you all!

PPS. Bullocks! I left out the earrings. Delightful little art deco studs from Silver Crane Sterling – I love their shiny little things.

Confession: I spent most of today wanting to vomit after listening to that showboating, smarmy POS Ken Starr discuss my equal rights and marital status in CA Supreme Court today. Is it just me, or does listening to him sound like chugging bottles of castor oil must feel like? Yeah. About that. In more pleasant news, I will be dusting off my laptop, CDs and vinyl to DJ at a new lesbian club in a few weeks. I know all y’all wanna get at that, right? Details soon. Maybe. If you’re nice.

Lastly, I haven’t run out of perfumes, I’ll review a few this weekend!