Gorgeous, right? Another thing I more than like is the fact that New York’s “Fashion” section is claiming that crazy-colored hair is way in style this season. Why do I like this? Because my hairdresser and I have been planning some shenanigans for this winter, and it’s nice to know I’ll be trendy rather than just nuts. Here’s the hot photo from the fun article, click to follow it over:

In furniture, the Thing I Really Like right now is my new lamp. Isn’t it sweet?

It’s heavy and gorgeous and it means my reading corner is back in action. Yay for light/table combos!

Finally, I have to ask you about what YOU like. I just bought tickets to go to San Francisco to visit my lovely friend Jana, and also to attend Juliet Blackwell’s annual Halloween party. I need to look fabulous and slightly trampy.  The theme is Carnival. Where should I look for a costume??? HELP!

I am very well, if tired. After an epic week combining our first days back at teaching, my beating my revisions for Tempest’s Fury into some semblance of readiness, and probably the most social engagements I’ve ever had in Pennsylvania, I’m feeling rather groggy, but great.

Actually, I just feel great. There’s nothing like sauntering through a deadline that makes me feel obnoxiously smug.

So I thought I’d celebrate by sharing with a few things I like. The first up is from Ida Maria’s summer release, Katla. It’s an adorable, very funny song:

Another thing I thought I’d share was a recent purchase I’d made, that I really like. It’s Benefit’s Smokin’ Eyes Palette. I was playing with it on Twitter a few days ago:

I would also like to acknowledge my excitement that, according to Elle, this fall’s fashion trends involve Victoriana, Mod knock offs, AND leather biker wear.

So basically it’s everything I like, and I plan on dressing like a Victorian biker with horn rimmed glasses EVERY DAY.

A more disturbing fashion trend is that they’ve brought back the poncho AND the cape. For a short girl like me, that means I will spend the winter constantly tempted to appear in public as some sort of  midget troll doll come to life.

So there are some fun things for Fall. Anything you’ve recently discovered/are excited about?

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know I’ve recently become obsessed with the television show, Mad Men. Many people perceive it as a love/hate relationship, because I tweet things like “Mad Men makes me want to stab something while watching EVERY EPISODE.”

These tweets are misleading, however, as I don’t have ambiguous feelings about the show at all. I adore the show. I think it’s brilliant, and at least five times an episode there’s something that happens with the writing, or the cinematography, or the direction, that makes me marvel at the show’s genius.

What pisses me off (and what is supposed to piss me off) is the society Mad Men depicts. But it pisses me off in a good way, and it pisses me off in a way that I think our country needs to be pissed off, especially now.

After all, we’re living in a time of major economic difficulties. I’d love to be all upbeat as usual, but when it comes to the economy, I can’t. I think America has been living in a very luxurious bubble for a really long time (something that Mad Men addresses) and the fact is that bubble has to break. When half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day, it’s a bit bizarre to assume we should all have our own McMansion, complete with multiple cars, flat screens, etc. The fact is that Americans are going to have to scale it back, and live like the rest of the world. But this is a difficult adjustment, and another sad fact is that major inequalities in our society mean that some still get to live the caviar lifestyle, undented, while others have lost everything. This makes people angry, and it makes people lash out against easy scapegoats. Age-old scapegoats for rough times have traditionally been the Other: other races, other religions, and other genders.

I have a lot of friends who shake their hands, wondering at the recent spate of attacks on women’s rights. Under the auspices of “pro-life” legislation, there are insane attempts to redefine rape and ever-increasing attacks on women’s health care (even Fox News reported on this one). I would argue that these are merely the more extreme symptoms of a more pernicious malaise: the idea that some people wish we could go back in time, to when things were “simpler.”

When confronted with America’s instability (both economic and social), with our countries ever-loosening grip on its role as the world’s sole Super Power, and the struggles with our own identity that these facts engender, is it any wonder that people are looking to the past for answers?

Especially when that past was so lovely, right? We’re involved in a “quagmire” of a war, when the war my grandparent’s generation fought is known simply as “The Good War.” Everyone had employment, and people stayed in those jobs until they retired. Children didn’t engage in inexplicable “flash mobs” (either of the dancing or the looting variety). Wives didn’t work 60 hours a week when their husband’s can’t even find a job, and they certainly didn’t divorce their husbands to “find themselves.”

It all sounds so great, right?

The fantasy does sound awesome. In a world where I confront about 50 decisions a day, where I see myself, my friends, and my students struggle to figure out how to make it in a world in which there are no more rules, even I understand the allure of a black and white world.

And that’s where Mad Men comes in. It is that golden world that we’ve heard discussed in hushed voices. A world in which the Greatest Generation strides the earth like lions, smoking up a storm and napping at work. At work! After having a four martini lunch!

Then there are the outfits, and the hair, and the garters. I swoon at the women’s garters, alone, and I imagine myself with enormous torpedo-shaped breasts, swanning around in about fifteen layers of lingerie, and petticoats, and dresses, while batting my luxurious fake eyelashes up at my gorgeously suited companion.

But let’s look under the proverbial petticoats of that world, something that isn’t hard, since Mad Men‘s genius is that it makes sure we do just that.

The structure of Mad Men is a bit like a call and response song. For every moment of glamour, beauty, luxury, and ease of lifestyle that’s depicted in Mad Men, there is an answering moment of pettiness, ugliness, poverty, and difficulty. Yes, the white women in the beautiful dresses go into powder their gorgeous noses in a luxurious bathroom. But the answering tableau is of the African American bathroom attendants peering out at the ladies as they leave, wondering how they’ll make a living now that the purses in fashion are too small to hold the tip money upon which the attendants live. Yes, Don’s beautiful wife Betty wears the singularly most gorgeous outfits we’ve ever seen, but she does so while sitting for hours and hours, smoking alone, at her kitchen table. Yes, the men all pull out the ladies’ chairs, but they also order for them, and this situation is a metaphor for their whole lives.

In fact, there are a hundred little carefully inserted needles an episode, puncturing the balloon that is the fantasy of Mad Men. For example, in the wonderful scene where Don’s secretary confronts her nemesis, the great beauty of the office, Don’s secretary says something about how she’s the first woman to write copy “since the war,” pointing out that part of the country’s current largess was due to the hard work of women who stepped up while the men were fighting, and who had to then step back into subservient roles when the men returned.

But the greatest triumph of Mad Men is what makes it so difficult to watch. When I first Tweeted that I was watching it, I had about a dozen people reply they couldn’t get past the first episode. And I had the same feeling. I wanted to punch everyone in the show in the face, hard, about fourteen times an episode. The women? They’re vain idiots, who fill me with a deep sense of shame and anger. The men? They’re monsters–silly boys who with no sense or sensibility, horrifyingly granted the powers of Mark Twain’s vicious child on the beach who destroys his sandcastles because he can.

It is here that I locate Mad Men’s singular power: it understands how, as we saw in the Plantation South, great beauty can be built upon grotesque underpinnings. We also see the fallout the various characters endure: the loneliness, spite, and eventual craziness of the women (Betty Draper’s shooting the pigeons with her cigarette dangling from her lips has to be one of my favorite TV moments ever), and the emotional paralysis of the men that has them shuttling between variously inappropriate women while competing with each other with the viciousness of  fighting cocks.

And this is why I think everyone should watch Mad Men: because it does piss you off. Indeed, it wants to piss you off. Its power and its genius is that it makes you so angry about issues that we don’t even want to fight about any more. If I had a dime for every young, awesome, confident female student I’ve had that has blithely said, “I’m not a feminist, ew,” I’d be a millionaire. I think the feminist revolution was so successful that it’s easy to forget how recently we were empowered. Watching Mad Men’s women ask their husbands for money, or ask them whether it’s all right they work or pursue interests, or sit quietly despite desperately wanting to know about their husband’s lives is an amazing lesson in what our own realities could still be like, if we hadn’t had women willing to stand up for themselves, and for us.

So go watch Mad Men. Get really, really pissed off. Become absolutely horrified. Then think about what you’ve learned from those feelings, while you look around our own world.

See anything you don’t like?

*********************************************

And now for our Wieners from last week’s contest! The Contest Can has spoken!

The Wiener’s are Allison W., Holly K., and donnas! Email me at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com with the name of ANY book on Amazon at $7.99 or under, with your address, and I’ll have it shipped to your door!

Thanks for playing, folks! Your comments were awesome and I’ve learned a lot. I’m really glad people are reading the blog, and I’m considering doing a newsletter, probably 2x a year.

Thanks again for all the comments.

It’s heaven. I have a long standing hatred of pants, and would be without them at all times, if both modesty and the law didn’t require bottoms.

There’s also the issue of chafing, but that’s neither here nor there.

Anyway, my anti-pants stance is not a joke. I say things on twitter about not wearing pants, and everyone’s like, “Hahaha, that crazy Nicole, her and her tweets about pants.” But I am deadly serious people. Deadly.

Like an adder. Deadly.

Indeed, I pretty much knew a recent, budding relationship was going to go nowhere when we had the Pants Talk. My new beau and I walked in to my apartment from a day doing something or other, and I immediately took off my pants. Here’s what ensued:

Him: “Wow, you really don’t like pants.”

Me: “Nope. Hate ‘em. You can take your pants off too, if you like.”

Him: “Um, no, that’s okay. I’m more comfortable with pants, during the daytime.”

Me (aloud): “Oh, okay.”

Me (in my mind): WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? MORE COMFORTABLE IN PANTS? WHAT? YOU PANTS LOVING FREAK WHO LIKES PANTS.

So, yeah, I’m pretty serious about the no pants. But I’m also serious about my underpants.

The great irony of my love of lingerie is that I currently spend half my time dressed for the gym, and the other half wearing whatever I cobbled together for a day spent in a place where Steeler’s jerseys are this season’s black and, I shit you not, people still wear scrunchies. You’ve seen that episode of Sex and the City, right? If you haven’t seen it, here it is. You only need the first minute and fifteen, and keep in mind this was nearly a decade ago, way back in 2003:

So on an everyday basis I don’t feel a pressing need to break out my vintage wear or my best black dresses. Instead, I try to blend in by making sure I match, and that I look at least five years older than my students. In other words, I rarely care what I’m wearing, and yet, underneath I’ve inevitably got on some fly panties.

Because I’m open about my love of the underpants, I’ve recently had a lot of talks with women about lingerie. The thing is, despite it being a major conglomerate that apparently makes bajillions, I know very few adult women who shop at Victoria’s Secret and are actually happy with their purchases. Occasionally there’s the “great” teddy that was worn once but never seen again, but for actual underwear a person can wear, be comfortable in, and still be sexy? Victoria’s Secret is a treasure chest of lies.

Part of the problem is that none of the five-year-olds they employ know what they’re doing. How can you measure my chest when you’re physically incapable of looking at my boobs? The other problem is that even if I were sized correctly, Victoria’s Secret has about five bras I can wear, and they’re inevitably the plain ones, in the back, hidden behind some flouncy A-cup. So I usually spend a visit to Victoria’s Secret saying, “Wow, pretty. Not my size. Wow, pretty. Not my size. Wow, pretty. Not my fucking size…”

This gets frustrating. And the same thing happens at the high end retailers, like La Perla, that I prefer to VS anyway. They’re made for lovely lithesome creatures. Unforttunately, I’m built more on a “Mesopotamian fertility goddess” scale, and even at my thinnest, all of my weight is in my tits and ass. Even now, as I’m finally losing all that thesis weight (it’s like baby weight, but without the lactating), it’s peeling off my arms and waist and calves . . . and sticking like glue to my hips, thighs, butt, and boobs.

So this is what women talk to me about. Women talk about it with me at signings, email me about it, DM me or Facebook message me: where do I get these underpants that I so love?

I usually hear from women who are like me: They’re too big in certain places for certain stores, but not big enough for other stores. We’re in a sort of size limbo: too small in most of our bodies for plus size, but way too plus size in other parts for normal stores. Oftentimes, women resort to just tenting themselves in the larger size, swaddling their little arms and legs and torsos so that something, anything, finally fits over their ass.

And that makes me sad, people.

So first of all, the secret is to find stores that sell a range of sizes. I will never need a size zero, but neither do I need 3XX. But there are a few stores that carry sizes from 14 to Much Larger than 14, and there are also stores that make a habit of catering to those who aren’t built on the fashion industry’s “perfect size 8″ proportions.

My favorite place to buy the sorts of things you wear everyday, if your everyday is sexy, is Intimacy. It’s awesome. There’s very little storefront, as they immediately whisk you back to a room where they stare at and prod your boobies, then they only bring you what they have that will fit. It’s amazing! The products aren’t cheap, but they’re beautifully made and they’re gorgeous. So indulge! They’re also made for all sorts of weird sizes. So if you have enormous boobs and a tiny rib cage, or a huge rib cage and tiny boobs, they’ve got you covered.

As for robes, I’ve got to give Soma the big thumbs up. I just bought a gorgeous little robe from them, and I can’t wait to rock it out.

When it comes to fripperies–and who doesn’t love a frippery?–I’ve just ordered a shit ton of stuff from this place. It’s the kind of place I love as they actually have a lot of smaller sizes as well as larger, and a lot of mix and matching, so I can cobble something together that fits everything.

So these are some of the places I buy my underwear. They’ve got what I like: a range of styles and sizes, so that I can put together looks that fit.

Because I think so much of being confident in what we’re wearing is knowing it does, indeed, fit. No one feels good in a caftan, but it’s equally hard to feel confident when one is squeezed into something like a sausage in its casing. So take your measurements, be honest about those measurements, and only keep what actually fits. Never be afraid to go up or down a size, depending on what looks good. So many people are ruled by a number they think they are or should be, but all clothes are sized differently. If you look good in a 12, rock it out–but if you look like you’ve wedged yourself into that dress with a shoehorn, try the 14. No one will see the tag, they’ll just see you.

So feel free to be gorgeous, ladies, even if it’s under our yoga pants. Or to sit by ourselves on a couch all day and write a book. Life is short, and our underwear–like everything we do–should be fun.

*For the entirety of this blog post, I will be using “pants” in the American sense, meaning underpants. But my British readers may feel free to read this entire post with “pants” in the British sense, if it gives them a giggle.

It’s been crazy here at Casa Peeler. Midterms, then a visitor in town, and prepping for Romantic Times in a few weeks. There’s also a LOT of very fun things in the works that I’ll be able to tell you about very shortly. But until then, here’s an update of some fun things going on with Jane and with me.

In AWESOME news, our League Red Cross Critiquing Auction for Japan raised $576.00! I’m so proud of all of us, and so happy for the winners. We will tear your shit apart, in a good way! You’re awesome for donating that much to charity, and we heart everyone who bid.

I’ve just mailed out the page proofs for book 4, Eye of the Tempest. So that’s another book put to bed! I’ll hopefully have some cover art and everything to show you, soon, and then I’ll get up its official page on this website.

Book three, Tempest’s Legacy, has been bought by Germany, so there’ll be another beautifully inaccurate mermaid cover coming at you, shortly!

In very exciting personal news, I’ve found and booked a lovely flat in Bloomsbury, London, for a month this summer. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this trip, and if it works well I may try to spend the majority of the following summer in England, next year. Minus our MFA residency, of course.

As for Things I Like, I’m totally digging the new super-long chain necklaces everyone’s sporting. In fact, I just bought myself a rather lovely one at Nordstroms. I feel like I could use it in a barroom brawl, if I have to, or maybe to tie someone up. Hey, it happens! Anyway, here are some somebodies wearing them:

I’m also totally digging all the biker chic looks in stores right now. And I like that, due to my running and hot yoga, I’m starting to fit back into ‘em. I’m dangerous when I’m thinner, especially to my wallet. I’d forgotten that. Here’s an example of biker chic from Burberry:

I also have to say I am seriously obsessed with this season’s crop of updated Oxfords. They’re so androgynously sexy, with just a hint of nerd chic (to balance out the biker chic):

So there are some Things I Like, in terms of current fashion.

And here’s some music that had me singing along on the looooong drive home from the airport, today. Cat Power singing, “Silver Stallion”:

I hope you enjoy! See you soon with probably another blog post on querying, unless one of my announcements breaks early.

Before I announce the wiener of Sophie Littlefield’s AFTERTIME, I want to introduce you to something new I like. Well, only half new: Y’all should know by now that I loves me some Airborne Toxic Event. They’ve just released their new video for the song “Changing,” and it is amazing.

And by amazing, I mean that on the scale of shagability, pretty much everyone in this video is a perfect 10, up to and including the drum set. So much eye candy! And such a great song! And it’s so fun! Here’s the video:

Isn’t that fun!

But even more fun is being a WIENER. The Contest Can has spoken!

The wiener of Sophie Littlefield’s AFTERTIME is Kt! Kt, email me your address at iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll have Sophie send you your book. Congrats!

And thanks to everyone for playing. It was great fun! Don’t forget there’s now another contest, underneath this post.

Ciao for now!

First of all, I have a very exiting announcement. After a year or so of sitting with our thumbs up our asses, we at the League of Reluctant Adults are BACK IN BUSINESS.

Go ahead and click on the above banner, and you can see the beautiful Kevin Hearne’s announcement, plus BOTH of Mark Henry’s pseudonyms dancing in leotards. RAWR. We’ll be bringing such crazy shenanigans to you every month, and we’ve welcomed new member Allison Pang:

Her book apparently involves a horny unicorn, for which I will be buying it forthwith. I can’t get enough horny unicorn jokes, people. I really can’t.

In other news, I’ve been watching Denise Townsend finish her smut. I gotta say, I dig it. She’ll also have her own website soon, where you can keep updated on her selkie shenanigans. I’ll tell you as soon as she sets it up.

Besides these announcements, I thought I’d tell you what I’ve been listening to…somewhat obsessively in the case of the first band. I’ve known about The National forever, but I never really got into them. I think I liked a harder sound, and I’m all about the lyrics but the lead singer is totally a Molly Mumbler. But how things have changed, ever since I heard this song on Sirius:

When I heard “Bloodbuzz Ohio” from their new album High Velvet suddenly all reservations were gone and I wanted to lather myself in this man’s voice. From there, it spiraled into an all-out love affair, with me downloading all the older albums and just reveling. Here’s “Slow Show” from Boxer:

I think that part of my new obsession is the fact that I can write while they’re on. They’re not super intrusive, and the have such gorgeous beats. It’s like a steady thrumming of sound that I can tune into and out of as I write.

The other new album I’ve just downloaded is White Lies, Ritual. I haven’t had a chance to really listen to it, yet, but here’s a taster:

And here are my favorite songs from their last album, To Lose My Life… First we have the optimistically named “Unfinished Business”:

And here’s my ultimate fave from that album, “To Lose My Life”:

So that’s what I have been/will be listening to. Anything fun you’ve found recently?

And here’s what has to be one of my all time favorite videos, for “Crossfire”:

It’s like an urban fantasy novel, in a lot of ways, and I love what it suggests about female empowerment and the contemporary shift in gender roles. Plus there’s the invocation of the tiny 20′s stache, which is the only kind of stache worth attention.

In the kind of excitement that makes me worry I might need a diaper, Mercedes Lackey–the woman who put the fan in my fantasy–is releasing a set of novellas that are all UF and include a Diane Tregarde story. It’s called Trio of Sorcery:

For those of you new to UF, I’d argue that Diane Tregarde is the grandmother of a majority of the heroines running amok on  shelves today. As I’m apparently tapped directly into the zeitgeist, I actually randomly started rereading Diane’s books last week. I reread Burning Water and Jinx HIgh in quick succession. Diving back into those books was like going home, and I see so many ways that Lackey influenced me at a very young age (I was probably around 12 or 13 when I read them). Anyway, if you consider yourself a UF fan and haven’t read Diane Tregarde, you’re missing out. I plan on rereading Children of the Night next.

If you do pick ‘em up, or pick them back up, let me know what you think.

On another note, I’d like to invite you to my debut as a zombie. I kill a character, who looks my friend and Alpha Team Reader James Clawson, named “Peeler.” It’s all very meta. And, yes, Three Quarter Comics are the team who made my zombie profile picture:

On a final note, I finally finished Carolyn Crane’s Double Cross. Now, I wasn’t dragging my heels finishing it because I didn’t enjoy it… I love this series, and Double Cross is as sensual, intelligent, and original as its predecessor, Mind Games. However, as a TRAINED LITERARY ACADEMIC, I could tell by that title that I was in for a rough ride at the end. And boy, were my highly trained reading skillz correct on that one. I finished the book last night, and I’m still traumatized.

In a good way.

This is another series that, if you haven’t read, you need to get on that. They’re amazing, and totally different from anything you’ve read–but in a good way. How often can that be said, anymore?

For those of you in SF, I’d love for you to come see me Saturday, during Lit Crawl. You can find out more info at the official site, here, and on my Upcoming Appearances page, here.

I’ll miss everyone else, but I thought I’d leave you with something to remember me by while I’m gone. Someone had brought up Neko Case in comments to one of my “Things I Like,” and it reminded me to showcase her. I’m always going to add her to Things I Like, and then I always forget. But not this time!

Here’s my all time favorite Neko Case song, “People Got a Lotta Nerve.” It cracks me up, every time I hear it:

And another of my faves, “This Tornado Loves You”:

If you’ve never heard her and you’re interested, I think iTunes offers a good “best of” iMix. She does have a lot of albums, so it can be intimidating to dive in.

Y’all be good while I’m gone, and I’ll see you here in the Emporium when I get back. Hopefully with a lot more Jane written and some good stories I may or may not share in their entirety.