It couldn't truly be said that the girls were sisters; memories of their entangled lives reached back no further than The Final War, as is true with all the straggling handful of survivors. The biological warfare that ravaged the planet was the result of growing tension between governments who had sought to annihilate each other, and perhaps in some aspects they succeeded. Those who lived through the horrors they had witnessed were not survivors, not really; that word invokes the image of grizzled youths fighting for their lives against forces they were prepared to combat, and no one had been prepared for this. The devastation was not meant to be survived. Even the officials in their bunkers had been found dead within 48 hours. It was a genetic mutation that saved the remaining humans, and those who were left seemed to sort of wander around in a daze, waiting to starve to death or remembering, as if hallucinating, the lives they'd lost.

The girls had abandoned names when they found each other. They referred to each other as "sister," a barely-remembered word that was almost lost with the rest of their memories. They wandered, day in and day out, living in a realm between reality and fantasy. They knew no age, no status, yet they clung to bits of propriety that were remembered more as habits than necessities; the elder still laced her corset every morning, and the younger tied her bonnet's ribbons under her chin as if anyone were still there to care.

On the first sunny morning after the attack, a half-remembered word flitted through their minds. They couldn't quite grasp it, but it was there, whispering seductively around every stream of sunlight on their skin, demanding attention. The sisters followed it through the trees, half-catching it and losing it again with every step, until they came upon the field. Something sparked when they saw the picnic basket, but it was the hoop for which a name produced itself. The elder touched it with the reverence of an ancient artifact and breathed the word "Toy," the only name she could grasp onto of all those vague remembrances flashing behind her eyes. She could remember nothing: only the dance.

The scene was like one of their plaguing hallucinations: everything was laid out - the table, the basket, the food - as if the diners had just gotten up and left on a whim. There was something so haunting to the whole scene that the younger found herself entranced by it- it made her feel like that ghostly word was within her reach, and that there was somehow something to be gained if she could only catch it. It was like grabbing at smoke until she put her fingers around the handle of the basket.

As the sisters passed the abandoned basket between their fingers, they couldn't help feeling like something had fallen into place. There was something here, they could tell, some link to a past that was feeling more and more distant every day. Perhaps they somehow knew the truth, that this picnic had been set out for them in the days when they had someone who cared enough to give them pleasant things. As they passed the basket between them, the younger smiled up at her older sister and whispered that elusive word that had so often escaped them.

 

"Home."

Yesterday I went into NYC for dinner with the ever-lovely Dalin and Crystal. After all the stress of the past few weeks, all of us really needed a girl's night! We ate at South Houston, an awesome SoHo restaurant/bar that serves Southern-style food like hush puppies and pulled pork; I had a veggie burger with avocado and a side salad. It also happened to be happy hour, so Crystal and I had some amazing sangria for only five dollars a glass, because we're secretly lushes.

Here's what I wore:

The night before, I was up til 4 AM finishing "Around the World in 80 Days" by Jules Verne. Inspired by that, my original theme was "Victorian traveller," hence the vintage hat, long JSK, and use of brown. Then I decided that none of my lolita blouses were hip enough to be included in this outfit, so I took a non-lolita blouse and pinned my Angelic Pretty detachable sleeves to make it a little more appropriate for the end-of-winter chilliness (which, today, turned into the end-of-winter snow that's currently accumulating on my car and porch steps. Sigh.) It may stick its tongue out at the lolita rule against showing your shoulders, but I think it works and creates a playful contrast to the grown-up classic feel of the rest of the coordinate, especially combined with the star-print bag.

(also, check out that picture on the right- could I look any younger?! This is why I usually don't smile in pictures!)

FOR FUN: Coord from a year ago today!

In order to better serve mobile viewers, Her Lumpiness now has its own QR reader. To use it, take a picture of the code to the right with the downloadable QR reader app on your smart phone or other mobile reading device (iPad, etc). It will open your internet browser with a mobile version of Miss Lumpy for ease of reading. Please let me know how it works! I don't have a smart phone, but I tried it out on my boyfriend's iPhone and it looked great!

I usually don't craft much. Lack of time, lack of money, lack of patience- that pretty much sums it up. All I really do is make jewelry. Unfortunately, desperate times call for desperate measures, so in preparation for the trips I'll be taking over spring break* I busted out my hot glue and button collection and did some grade-A scrounging to make myself a travel-safe case for my Kindle. I'm sure this will prove utterly invaluable, considering this is my second Kindle since Christmas (yes, I know, I'm a bit of a clutz...) I know I'll need something to protect it, since I have no idea what I did to break my last one- knowing me, I dropped it, stepped on it, or spilled tea on it and stuffed it with jam.

It seemed silly to blow a lot of cash on something that I had plenty of materials around to make for free, so I decided (rather sternly, if I may add), to spend absolutely nothing on this project. That's right- I made it for free, using only things I found around my house. That meant scavenging for the biggest piece of felt in the building; it was stolen from a puzzle box (I have no idea what its original purpose was) and a brilliant forest green. I was stumped for a few days, because there are few shades I've absolutely never seen in lolita before, and this particular green was one of them. I had to delve deeper, and decided to play with a mori-girl theme instead of my standard frou-frou-princess-shit. I don't know why I went with mushrooms for the decorations. My mom tried to get me to do acorns, but for absolutely no reason whatsoever, I was hooked on shrooms (bet you never thought you'd hear me say that!)

 Here's what I used:

• Felt in forest green, light blue, beige, and red
• Spray glue
• Cardboard
• Hot glue
•  Rhinestones
• Cute button +needle and thread to sew it on
• Some thin ribbon to make a loop for the button

The first step was to cut the cardboard... or if you're a huge weakling like me, have your dad do it for you. I used my Kindle as a pattern, and sketched two rectangles about a half-inch bigger on each side.

 

So, now that I had my cardboard protectors cut, it was time to measure the felt. Since I can't see myself ever really doing much else with this green felt, I didn't do it very thriftily; I found a fold in the fabric that was about at its center, placed the two pieces of cardboard on either side of this fold, and then measured to have about a half-inch to an inch on each long side; I didn't even bother to measure the short ends. I did this twice so I'd have two separate pieces that looked something like this...

Then I put them together using spray adhesive. I sprayed the bottom layer of felt with glue, stuck the cardboard in place (picture below), and then sprayed both the cardboard and the felt around the edges with another coat of adhesive so I could stick the remaining piece of felt to them:

Then I cut one short-end of the green felt to as close to the cardboard as I could without exposing it, and folded it together so the bottom of the pouch was where the original fabric folded. I used hot glue to fix the sides together, with the intention of someday stitching them up all pretty with embroidery floss. Then I used the cute mock-up I drew...

...to cut out my mushrooms from the red, blue, and beige felt, and hot-glued them in place. The fat little red mushroom looked kind of sad, so I added some bling:

As you can probably tell, they were just shoddy craft rhinestones from Micheal's, nothing fancy or special, since I know this is going to take some abuse. After making sure everything was glued down well, I raided my button collection for something suitable to act as a closure. I wanted something vintage and kitschy but still classy, so I sewed on a cute mirrored silver one, as well as hot-gluing a small loop of brown ribbon to close it.

The finished product:

Sorry for the shoddy pictures, by the way, I left my own camera at home so I had to borrow my mother's. I'd really like to revise this one in the future! I think it'd be adorable with some embroidery and crocheted lace on the flap, which is currently plain, and a nice blanket-stitch around the edges to finish them some more. For now, though, it's doing its job well and I can finally take my Kindle out with me, without fear of damaging it again!





*Note: You may remember my plans to visit Tokyo over spring break that I talked about a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, due to the tragedy they're currently dealing with, my boyfriend and I decided it would be best to push our vacation back a few months; we'll be going in May instead.  There are supposedly intense food shortages, power outages, and whole train lines that are down, so as impatient as I am to go back, I'm taking the logical route (for once) and waiting until summer vacation. Besides, this way, we're going only a few days after my birthday!

If, like me, you're concerned about the state of the nation, you can donate to the Japanese Red Cross here. Please remember that in times like these, any little bit helps, and I hope the meager amount I could afford to send over is enough to give a meal to some families in need or bring someone closer to finding a lost loved one.

I'm always one for depictions of lolitas in the media. Sure, there are plenty of manga and anime characters who wear bad-race monstrosities, but despite that, I just can't help but be excited whenever I hear about a new show coming out featuring one of my frilly brethren, especially if it's a live action (featuring actors and actresses, not just an animated cast). Therefore, I was ridiculously excited when I heard about Deka Wanko- not only was it live action, but the main character wore actual brand; she even had a career and everything! I waited patiently for the day I would happen upon a few episodes online.

And then I watched fifteen minutes of the first episodes. And I turned it off in disgust.

Now, I know this is probably not a very popular viewpoint to take. Everyone and their mother seems to have made Ichiko their new style icon, and I must admit, the main reason I watched those first fifteen minutes was because I just couldn't stop staring at that amazing Fantastic Dolly coordinate. This really doesn't surprise me; in a show that's mainly based around aesthetically catering to a subculture, they had better make sure they're doing an awesome job of it. I'm a firm believer in doing something right, if you're going to do it at all, and that's why you can't just look at the clothes in a TV show while completely ignoring the plot- a plot which in this case is at best vapid and boring and at worst largely anti feminist.

Here's the gist of the show that came through in its first fifteen minutes: Ichiko  (by the way, I had to google the show to find out her name- they never said it in the segment I watched) is a newly-appointed detective trying to live as a lolita in a man's world. She is apparently part dog because she smells everything and looks at everyone with huge puppy eyes, and she absolutely refuses to accept that there are certain times in which wearing lolita is just not acceptable. Also she thinks it's a great idea to put an Angelic Pretty phone charm on her gun.

Alright, I tried to be objective there, but I just couldn't. Seriously? There are so many things wrong with those three sentences. On the one hand, it's admirable that she's trying to make it in a very male-oriented field without giving up her sense of self and style. There are also a good number of careers where wearing lolita is acceptable- maybe being an entrepreneur, such as owning a sweets shop or a children's clothing store. However, a position in which one tried to impose force and power on dangerous criminals is really one where you want to give an appearance of brawn, for your own physical safety and that of the people around you. That's the reason I didn't follow in my father's footsteps and become a police officer: if you're going to work a job like that, there's a certain level of sacrifice you must be willing to make to get the job done, and one of those sacrifices is cuteness in favor of strength and an imposing appearance. That leads me to the gun. I'm sure this isn't common knowledge, so for those of you who don't know, weapons are supposed to be scary. It may be surprising, but if you have a gun, you don't want to actually have to use it on another person (at least, you shouldn't); that's why they look imposing and dangerous, so that your attacker becomes intimidated by them and backs off. This is the reason why there's contention about, say, pink or other colored firearms- if it looks like a toy, you'll have to prove that it isn't, and that isn't the point of using a gun for self-defense.

That's not even addressing the fact that her clothes keep everyone in her precinct from taking her seriously. Wait, no- maybe it's more the fact that she is completely and totally incapable of doing her job that keeps her from being a viable member of her team. It's true that she's new to the job- we're told early on that it's only been around a month since she took the job - so it's possible that that's the true explanation of her ineptitude. In the short amount of the episode that I watched, however, I was given no reason to think that this is true. Her attitude is just like a puppy, which I'm sure is on purpose; she's easily distracted, overly anxious to do everything, and she freaking smells people. I mean, what? And then she tells them what they smell like because she apparently has no idea how to keep an internal monologue internal. Would you want to work with someone like that, especially in a dangerous situation with multiple lives on the line? I certainly wouldn't.

There are so many reasons I couldn't stand watching Deka Wanko. Can I please just send out a general plea to the television producers and movie writers of the world? Never make anything like this again. I'm all for women succeeding in male-dominated careers, and I'm also a huge fan of representations of lifestyle lolitas in the media. But if you're going to attempt something like this again... please just save yourself the effort.

Readers: What did you think of Deka Wanko? Can anyone give me a good reason to keep watching it? I'd love to love this show, I really would, but if it's more of the same faux-feminist sexism, I'll just watch Twilight.

EDIT: To see an opposing viewpoint in an incredibly well-written review, check out Tori's article here!