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The above just blew your mind, I know, so here’s a clockwise from top left explanation:

• M reading the menu at Sparky’s. I was so adamant about pancakes, but we ended up splitting a massive chicken parm.
• M pouting over agonizing eye wear choices at the chic and friendly Eye Dare office.
• M demonstrated her best DeNiro squint and a delicious graham cracker.
• Boots the kitten comes when we call her over. So does Scab. And Pimp Gandalf, but not Blanket.
• Pretty damn good chicken parm for a 24-hour diner. Plus, cute gay waiter boys and singing patrons.
• The creepy doll that greets you at Sparky’s.
• Some street art/porn to keep the Valencia sidewalk extension project construction workers* motivated.
• The mystery palm that showed up overnight in our little garden. Weird!

This is the day we walked over 3 miles! I really, really love our meandering walks through the Mission and surrounding ‘hoods like Bernal, Noe and Castro. We pop in and out of cute shops and boutiques, we giggle, we eat, we drink, we cross a few items off of our To Do list, we people watch, we peruse real estate, we mussy-sikk, we’re RIDICULOUS. It’s just completely spontaneous, unplanned bliss, and neither of us cares much that we said we’d be here or there or “should” be somewhere else. It’s what the best weekends are made of!

What are your best weekends made of in your neighborhood? (Otherwise, let’s face it, we’d all say something absurd like BORA BORA!)

*I am sure this is not the official name of the project.
**My ankles don’t even BELONG to me, they’re so shockingly white. No, seriously. Look at them. What the hell?!

Hello!

Happy Oscars!

Happy Spring Forward! (Almost forgot, didn’t you?)

How handsome does the tomboy look in her vintage bowtie and sweater vest?! GAH!

It’s been an exciting weekend. I had a fantastic dinner with my BFF on Friday night,  traipsed 3.2 miles with the tomboy through the Castro and Mission in yesterday’s gorgeous sunshine, went dancing to the ladies of the 80s at New Wave City and brunched at noon today with a dear friend in the lovely Noe Valley. And if you want to hear a dirty little secret, I’ll tell you one (well, two):

1. I let the tomboy pick out my dress. I can’t believe it’s supposed to be worn this way!
2. M & I redressed in last night’s outfits for a FFAF shoot because we didn’t have time to last night!
3. I was forced to wear tights because my bruises from self-defense fights last weekend are still quite prominent and nasty looking. In fact, just yesterday I dubbed the one just above my left knee “the eye of Sauron.” It’s very serious!

I had a lily in my hair last night, but the rest is basically the same. Anyway, we were hoping that you could help us. The tomboy needs a new pair of glasses, and she tried some on yesterday but just isn’t sure. She is also convinced that Tom Ford frames are going to be the answer to all her prayers (not that she prays). Take a look at the three different frames below and let us know which ones you like the best in the comments section!

Howdy, kittens! This day was strange. It began shrouded in fog and sadly, a local tragedy. When we woke up this morning, we could hear the non-stop fog horns on all the cargo ships out in the bay, coming and going from the Port of Oakland, under the Golden Gate Bridge. We’re pretty far from the water, so it was kind of spooky and magical. M got the alert about the power being down as she dropped me off at the office (wearing a sweater!), and headed back home to wait it out while I worked.

Fast-forward four or so hours. 30 minutes south a town and company on the cusp of their IPO and surely the family of the crash victims began to pick up the pieces. The lethal fog had lifted completely, leaving the sweet, warm sun to shine down on the city. It lapped it up. M picked me up. We lapped it up! She and I decided a day this spectacular didn’t deserve squandering, and so we packed up and headed out into the world for a reading date. Our first thought was Atlas Cafe – they have such a great little back patio. Then, I remembered Pilsner Inn’s lovely little courtyard and we decided reading over beers at 3PM was far superior to reading over iced mochas. Alas, Pilsner Inn had workers toiling away back there, with loud machines and sawdust (and carting in, I think, a Creature from the Black Lagoon arcade game!), so we bid the bartender adieu and made our way down the street.

After snapping a few pics of intriguing local scenery (cherry blossoms, painted deer (above, being air-shot by M), scooters with giant wooden boxes affixed to the rear), I remembered Cafe Flore in the Castro! It was perfect. We quickly took up a carafe of margaritas and a small table. Nouvelle Vague played quietly in the back of my mind. The sky shone blue, blue, blue and it was heavenly.

Two more days until Flourish’s one-year anniversary party! It’s going to be fabulous. We can’t wait.

PS. I know. I pegged my jeans. I couldn’t help it. I felt a gripping need to show some ankle.

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.

Happy hump day, y’all! I am ever so slightly under the weather with a bit of a head cold, but otherwise life is just lovely. The sun came out again today and despite the fact that I can scarcely breathe, I decided it was midweek and FFAF needed some action. I’ve been living in this outfit, as it’s not too cold here lately, but it’s not warm by any means, either. This is a nice balance because it’s super comfortable, and a great excuse to rock some color, too. I’ll admit I’d hardly given Spring a second thought until yesterday and all the Groundhog Day activity! The internets, they do not let you forget. My head is far too stuffed to continue on in any meaningful way, so let’s make a list of shows I’m obsessed with at present:

1. LOST, because it’s bananas:

2. The Tudors really needs to hurry up and get back on the air already. Sex, violence, religion, politics, corsets. Need I say more?

3. The Pacific, which is a new miniseries coming to HBO this March, a sort of complement to Band Of Brothers, which I really, really loved and always watch whenever it’s on. I need to own it. Maybe they’ll create an amazing box set with both series after The Pacific premieres.

4. Big Love is the show I want to be addicted to, but I’m not quite there yet. It’s in the queue! M & I watched an episode or two awhile back and were pretty ambivalent about it, but have since been convinced by friends that we need to start from the beginning and give it some time. (This better not be like True Blood, y’all!)

5. Last but not least, Grey’s Anatomy. This one is all my BFF’s fault. I’ve mocked her incessantly for years about this show. I’ve spent countless Friday mornings rolling my eyes over coffee while she went on and on about Izzy this, McDreamy that and last season, we somehow got sucked in. Unbelievable. Now we have the video game. Yang, of course, is our favorite, and now I know exactly what the BFF means when she says, “You’re my person.”

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!

Welcome back! It appears that Fit For A Femme was down for much of yesterday and last night, and I had no idea. Sorry, folks! I must confess I was rather vexed, but late last night the tomboy fixed it and all was well again. Phew. (There might have been a brief hissyfit, during which I refreshed my Gmail account rapidly, snapping “I PUT IN A TICKET! WHEN ARE THEY GONNA GET TO MY TICKET!?” while M reminded me it was a late Friday night and no one was working, most likely. Harumph!)

On Wednesday night, M & I decided to get dolled up and go to Flourish, a “sexy extravagant dance party” for us flannel-clad, Birkenstock-wearing dykes! No, really. It’s like the entire purpose of this event is to get all fancy and dressed up for no reason at all, and sip strawberry-topped champagne by a roaring fire and dance dance dance dance dance to the radio (or DJs). It was their last Wednesday night – they’re moving to a Friday beginning next month! – and we wanted to be sure and catch it in its mid-week glory just in case a weekend crowd alters the premise overmuch. I hope not, because we had the most amazing time and will definitely be back. Plus, the gal who runs it is lovely and once rescued me from an evil Mongolian heiress.

So, this dress: LOVE YOU, MODCLOTH! I love the flutteriness and kicky shortness and pretty, saturated palette. I love the keyhole back and how it hangs perfectly across the collarbone but refuses to fall off one shoulder or the other. I’m not at all fond of elastic waistlines (in fact, I’ve been known to recklessly tear them out with my handy seam ripper), but Sheeba the Belt remedies that effortlessly, and the spots tie the two together perfectly. Of course, I had no choice but to pair it with these shoes. MEOW.

In other news, let’s all give my beloved Grandma Jones a round of applause, because it’s her vintage necklace got me wearing gold again and she’d just get the biggest kick out of seeing me rock it at a big gay dance party if she were still alive. XOXO.

PS. Once again, these pictures were taken at 2AM. Forgive me, but know that I spared you any in which I was chowing down on the buttery, sugary tortilla I bossed M into making me when we got home!