All posts filed under: Fashion

“Waste-to-energy” outfit

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“Why the long face?” I ask Modigliani‘s women. Like the artist, this sweater is vintage Italian. A work of art created in knitted wool in lieu of oil paint. It was a $10(!!) thrift store win during a dark time when I needed all the wins I could get my hands on. Especially one I could luxurious wrap around me to ward off the existential / actual cold. My favorite cheap Cheep find maybe ever. I wore it all winter long, prattling on about a Modigliani face on my back (no one knew what I was on about because no one else happened to have The Art Book as required toilet reading during their 20s. Ah, shit.) Who knew it would perfectly match the Spittaleu in Vienna. This is a municipal waste-to-energy incinerator. Once an ordinary industrial building, it caught fire in the 80s. After the burn, artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser turned it into whatever this is. An odd attraction. The opposite of an eyesore. What would that be? An eyesalve. Magical unrealism in a sad …

“Rise from the depths” outfit

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“Awaken! Stay awake! Rise out of the depths of the underworld!” — The Secret Book of John After a decade of steady weirdo fashion humor, you might (not have) noticed that I haven’t Cheeped in a year and a half. Because I almost died. Then wandered, dead-inside, through the sick-hued Valley of the Shadow of Death for over a year. So it’s not super funny. And I don’t really know how to explain it still, except in lyrics and verses. It was spiritual and it was mental and it was existential. It was the worst of times. I have had so, so many bad times, but this went beyond even my most depressive imaginings. “How long baby have I been away? It feels like ages, though you say it’s only days. There ain’t language for the things I’ve seen. The truth is stranger than my own worst dreams. The truth is stranger than all my dreams.” — Lord Huron “Meet Me in the Woods” The year before it all went down, I gradually lost my …

“Reality Bites” outfit

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“Évian is ‘naïve’ spelled backward,” said Janeane Garofalo in the 1994 classic, Reality Bites, blowing this then-young Gen X mind on the thin glossy line between commerce and satire. “See you in the ditch!” read the business card for Willie, the tow truck owner in Challis, Idaho, whereabouts my sainted Honda CRV found itself* ass-deep in a freak hotsprings quicksand mud patch. I just turned 45. It’s been hell on wheels so far. Lots of minor league lessons with super hard turns. Even on the attempt to get up to Tunnel Rock Cafe for a slap dash writing retreat. Rag & Bone black cashmere sweater – $210 (discounted from $700), Nordstrom’s Rack | Zara Woman premium denim collection floral dress – $10, Saint Vincent’s thrift store | Frye knee-high black leather boots – $75, Bombshell & Blokes “head to boots” fall make-up event Cheep it while speed-dialing first your dad then AAA in middle of nowhere Idaho. *read = its driver is an slip-ass idiot

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” outfit

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Lost my ever-lovin mind somewhere between home and the Capitol. For legal reasons, this story will be told exclusively in Eminem “monster” lyrics and batsh*t public displays. “I’ve created a monster‘Cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more, they want Shady, I’m chopped liver“– Without Me, Eminem Monster, you get in my way, I’ma feed you to the monster (yeah)I’m normal durin’ the day, but at night, turn to a monster (yeah)When the moon shines like Ice Road TruckersI look like a villain outta those blockbusters– Godzilla, Eminem “I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bedGet along with the voices inside of my headYou’re tryin’ to save me, stop holdin’ your breath… “And you think I’m crazy, yeah, you think I’m crazyWell, that’s nothin.” – The Monster, Eminem Like BLTs are my comfort food, this is my winter comfort ‘fit. Bruno Duluc KUSH burgundy velvet dress – $6.99, ReStyle thrift store | NN07 No Nationality pastel rainbow wool from Italian yarns – $170 (? on sale), Nordstroms Rack | Croc Allcast faux fur lined …

“Cocky Chick” outfit

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The staircase in my art deco dream pad is dramatic and steep. When you turn the corner, you’re surprised with a giant oil painting in a gilt gold frame by my friend Skyler Pierce of girls riding horse-sized roosters in the yard. I remember a few years back, newly single, bringing a beautiful man upstairs, eager for his reaction. “What do you think of my giant cocks?!” I asked, emphasizing the consonant cluster(f*ck), as I turned on the neon light I had in my bedroom then. It read FEAR, ILLUSION, DECAY and cast a sickly green pallor over the skin. “I’m…a bit afraid…of big birds,” he said in his dreamy British English accent. It was then the truth struck me like a bolt from the blue(jean): It’s me. Hi! I’m the problem. It’s me. Or if not me, at least my taste in art. I borrowed this outfit from a story slammer to wear last night at Story Story Night’s SLAMMER OF THE YEAR, because the team I coached decided to wear Canadian tuxedos. We …

“Not Going Back” outfit

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What a month and a half, no? The day of Trump’s near-assassination, I happened to be in Challis with a group of circled-up women, outlining rough plans if a Civil War breaks out after the election. You know. Just in casesies. (Waves white…er….American flag.) I know what I would do, I thought to myself, getting up to go….anywhere else….I would stand in the middle of the road and say, “Flatten me now, please and thank you. It’s too late to make me breeding stock, joke’s on you.” Putin-fleeing-journalist Masha Gessen wrote right after Trump’s election in 2016 about the apathy that sets in after a too long spell of the violently absurd. It felt almost surreal to feel….what is this strange thing?…after Biden dropped out and Kamala was vibing her way into the presidential race. Then it popped into my mind, a long-forgotten phrase fully formed by the wise words of Sarah Palin: “It’s that hopey changey thing.” It’s been a long, long time, hopey changey thing. Nice to feel you again. Custom Leather Works …

“Blowin’ in the Wind” outfit

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What if you’re so late to bloom you go to seed instead? Motherf…nature. I cannot pinpoint exactly what went wrong this year but it started with sudden weight loss and insomnia and hair loss and skin eruptions and severe unrelenting anxiety and you know when you learn new words to help better define your world? I highlighted ANHEDONIA in the Oxford: the inability to feel pleasure. “Ahhh, sounds about right. Dead-voiced yay.” Dictionary footnote: Maybe just don’t get off your meds, ok. “My books will be my kids,” I’ve said since I was 20. But what if I never wrote any books, and it’s too late to have kids, and what if I always thought all the gutting and hilarious and hideous things that happened were the ultimate storytelling fodder, but what if I was just dissociating from my real life, fictionalizing it in real time, instead? Here I am, 44, looking at myself dead-eyed in more ways than one. A pale vintage childless cat lady in a desolate red state in a white vintage Caddy …

“Yeeeeeehawwww” outfit

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For some obscure reason this outfit makes me think of Major Kong riding the nuclear bomb like a bull in Dr. Strangelove. I always thought he said, “Yeeeeehawwwww!” But he actually yells, “Whaaaaahooooo!” So we all learned a bit of annihilation cowboy trivia. I wore this to a saloon-themed awards ceremony, The Rockies, for the Boise advertising industry. I’ve been a writer in this ad scene for nearly 20 years, and it’s been one of the strangest years yet. AI has warped some brains, including mine. I had a horrific client who fed my work into ChatGBT to rewrite and it sounded like a high schooler with a thesaurus trying to sound smart. (Then she stiffed me for $6k. I should’ve known.) Demoralizing doesn’t begin to describe the way AI twists my painstaking writer mind into knots with its instant spitting out of mediocre paragraphs. My mind has been spinning for several reasons. I’m attempting three equally ambitious projects this year—run a successful business, launch a new brand, finish a book—and it appears I’ve bitten …

“Queen of the North” outfit (aka Lucrezia Borgia of the Idaho Wilderness)

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By the favor of the free and cheap, Cheep Universe, I ended up on an exquisite hand-painted pink-and-purple wooden Viking ship (ok, a Dory, but it felt like one) floating down the Main Salmon River for six days through the vast Frank Church Wilderness. For weeks before, I had been seeing salmon everywhere. Then a college friend spontaneously asked me if I wanted to take a last-minute cancelled spot on her long-planned birthday trip. I think she knew I’m one of the few on earth who could drop everything on a moment’s notice to simply float for a week.   For a last-minute gift, I went thrift store shopping and gave her the Caitlin River Capsule Collection in a neon green duffel bag. Because what do you get for the woman who embodies everything, but more ways to embody herself? Each outfit had a ridiculous name and tagline, ala Cheep, and brought such weird magic to every beach night. I am finally using my superpowers for good. Lately, magic has been a running theme. At …

“Desert bougie solitaire” outfit

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No one will read this because it’s Treefort in Boise but I’ll write it anyway. I stopped at a thrift store in Las Vegas and bought…everything. This dress says, “I sell crystals to heal your chakras from my Mercedes sprinter van. #vanlife”. My dad gave me this sweet cowboy hat right before I left. It has a Harley Davidson emblem in the middle. I was, indeed, born to be wild. pink & patterned Sage boho dress with fringe – $13, Savers in Las Vegas | Harley Davidson cowboy hat – $0, gift from dad | hot pink Columbia trail shoes – $80, REI outlet