hotter than what's in your wallet

Anyone who knows about my penchant for color-blocking and knack for turning my morning commute into a runway knows that nothing warms my heart like great collab. Creativity is so very hard to come by these days when everyone is hanging on to the latest and greatest trend. Luckily for me I happen to live with someone whose fashion interest and keen eye for coordination mirrors and in a lot of cases supersedes my own. Fashion is not just what we wear...it shapes who we choose to be on any given day. I'd die for fashion, go bankrupt for it...because it has given me everything I've ever needed to survive: confidence, courage, freedom, autonomy, sacrifice...

For this reason, I have decided to feature an outfit each week here on my blog and leave it to guesses how much dough was put into achieving the look. Just for fun, just for shits and giggles and perhaps just to spread some wonderfully contagious ideas.

My first subject is my roommate. She showcased this vintage mosaic of brilliance to me early last week and I'm thrilled to share her amazing prowess...

How much in total do you think this outfit (shoes, skirt, top) cost? Post a comment with your guess!! Answers will be given at the end of the week.

Week 1: White high waisted skirt, Hot Pink Patent Pumps, Houndstooth Silk top

Want to be featured?! Email 28starsontheceiling@gmail.com with photos of your greatest couture cash-ins!!

victims

Written about a very short-term lover I had once...women didn't mean a whole lot to him he'd insist...but he worshipped them. I quickly realized that I could never love him. I was merely obsessed with how it looked...how we looked together. We were beautiful but only on the outside...we, literally, were the epitome of no substance. I imagine this to be how most high profile relationships are...it was an interesting experience - all glam, money, glitz, rebound-esque, and emotional cutting. I never fought him over the wretched fabric of "us" because he came along during a time where I had lost all my fight. If anything...I know now that I could never exist in such a superficial and disrespectful relationship.

"All of his victims are the same. Cinnamon skin, long hair, thick thighs, most everything golden brown with the exception of her perfectly peppered eyebrows, with lips that take well to crimson shades. Same song, different face. His game remains the same. All that changes is her name." -March 21, 2011

I had no choice but to stay up and write this

Never has there been a time where writing has eluded me so much as it has in the past 12 months. Writers' block doesn't even begin to explain...actually, it doesn't suffice at all. I have been powerless to expose my own secrets. How do you write when you are afraid of the very story you create? How do you express what you are so sure could never be appreciated or fully comprehended by others? How do you share things that might help others without completely defacing your natural inclination to protect the sanctity of your own mind's contents?


Exactly 16 draft posts have been sitting in my queue; I've never been moved to publish them. Well, let me be entirely honest...it's not that I haven't been moved; it's more so that fear and uncertainty paralyzed my keyboard. I am a writer. I know this as sure as I know that I'm sitting, typing right now in a navy blue night dress with thigh high socks on having just texted,  "So...I was going to go to bed but I had to blog. I'm just spilling everything. I haven't written in months. I've been avoiding it. But I can't avoid it anymore," while simultaneously thinking that Love and other Drugs might have been a better movie if Ryan Gosling played in it.


Bear with me for a second...as I ask you to envision what you'd imagine to be the worst time in your life: how long it would last, what it would feel like, who would be involved, and what scenarios would play out...now scratch all of that because it could never be the way you've imagined just now. It could only be unpredictable.


Let me tell you a story about a story. I spent several months consistently living in NY after a series of unfortunate events. It was perfect for me...

"A beautiful mess and as dirty as my thoughts. A looking mirror for my own conscience. A peek into the future sans the shattered glass or the dillusional airbrush. The streets and I...we had a relationship. The city spoke to me: think of the smell of vomit in the average stall of a run down concrete dome of pop music and half-empty fish bowls as a token of the hatred I knew I must expel and reject from my equally as poorly sustained body. Think of the of pothole at the corner of 23rd and 7th as my emptiness: how it will linger there forever with no real resolve, no cemented filling to make it smoother, with staying power as reliable as the blood that continues to drive around the calcified pain in my soul like a slew of relentless yellow cabs. I sold my soul to the chaos of uncertainty, I got married to figuring out a formula. I realized that once a heart is broken it is never put back together in the same way as before. It's rough around the edges with empty crevices, brittle to the touch. We never get back the lost, we just gain. I took regular breaks from the complexities of my conscience...treasuring the wind gusts from one of few times I ride in a car anymore....at peace with the echo of "she's got to love nobody" tickling my ears. Yes, I'm consistently reminded that I'm marvelous and no one is put together quite like me. No one. These streets have saved me...time and time again." (12-4-11)

I have not made well on my promise to keep up with what could be considered "regular" blogging. I partially couldn't logistically...but part of me fell in love with being that person who had no problems making promises that I knew I could not keep. Although, very simple, not making well on a promise to write, is huge. Writing is the only thing that consistently makes sense for me. Putting words down further validates the truths I'm already aware of or forces me to sort out what might not make sense. Either way it forces a commitment from me, a duty to understand my own thoughts...which can be incredibly difficult to ignore when my words are staring me right in my face. By putting words in writing I proclaim their truth outwardly. I project on to the universe. In this way ink is like blood...and a bloodstain sustains a permanence that will forever elude dishonesty. I could never move to publish any of the 16 drafts in my queue because they weren't complete stories. They were partial truths and until I was ready to be honest it seemed pointless to put effort into publishing something just so it would be there and just so people could say, "Cam is still writing."


Within the past 15 months I have lost my job to thick red tape, lost my live-in relationship to a cheating user, lost my apartment to a cheating user, lost my fake live-in relationship to an ignorant beauty, lost myself to depression, lost my pride to social suicide, gained my humility, gained another job, been recommended for expulsion from an organization I support, gained love with an unlikely partner, lost a crucial organ to cancer, and gained another job. How could I say all this and not appear to be submitting a self-nomination for the pity party of the year? How could I share all this and sound believable when I speak my insistent, "but...I'm OK!" I have been worried too much. 


For sure, I don't need any more reasons to be at war with my God but I've discovered something very important. All human action is motivated by one of 2 things: fear or love. I couldn't publish what has happened to me because I was afraid of the truth it would hold. In my mind I can sustain my story; I can turn it into a fantasy, embellish it with facets that make the story more fun to listen to. When I write my story, however, there is no disputing it...there is no editing.


I thought that I might one day be able to provide an answer to a question I am commonly asked: "How did you get through all of this?" Sometimes the most compelling of statements is made when you can't read the expression of the person staring back at you, when you've no idea what's behind the gaze. It is true that even after more than a year following the fall of the first domino that I still don't have the answer. But I guess I don't believe there are any answers...just attempts at solutions and we end up responding best to the solution that is meant for us. I am survivor because I remain standing. I won't let myself fall and I no longer impose the duty of being my savior on anyone else...not even God. I am my greatest resource and always was. I'm equipped now with nothing aside from the knowledge that something devastating will happen to me again and the knowledge that I'm not the only soul to make it through these episodes. This is just a start...


Now, that feels better. Goodnight.

Something clearly happened to last dude....exxxplain! lol

How do I explain this simply? I wrote a blog about men recycling p&*^% and quoted him in one of his typical arrogant moments. He went back to an old girlfriend. LOL. Like I said, men never throw anything away. I don't have time. I don't. ;)

Ask me anything

I've never been really jealous of another person before, but I'm jealous of you, which is mildly embarassing to even openly admit. You're just so beauitful, and interesting, and ambitious, and you're the type of woman men want. I wish I had that.

I'm flattered...really. I can ensure you that there's no reason to be jealous of me. I've got my own problems and issues. While it seems a lot of men are attracted to me, they usually only want one thing which makes for some very narrow and frustrating dating experiences. But...to avoid seeming like I'm not taking your compliment well...thank you, sincerely. ;)

Ask me anything