A Colorful Way of Living

I recommend that everyone buy and read the book above. I checked it out of the library and read it in 3 hours.

The cofounder of the Vera Bradley lifestyle brand wrote the guide. Round about 12 years ago I bought the Vera Bradley messenger bag seen in the second photo.

I will quote from the book in this review:

“Look for ways to put beauty where it doesn’t exist,” Vera would say.

“That very colorful way of thinking evolved into one of Vera Bradley’s driving principles–We create beautiful solutions.”

What beautiful solutions–to living our lives; to how we connect with each other; to what we think and feel–can we design and refine?

Creating memorable experiences like the Vera Bradley team does is the second way to craft happiness.

How about for a dinner party use cloth napkins and a ceramic pitcher? Change the tablecloth and use a different centerpiece each season.

Little touches can make a big difference.

There’s beauty everywhere if we open our eyes to see it.

Today more than ever in America it’s time to do what I coined: Take a B.I.T.E. out of life–to express Beauty Individuality Truth and Empathy.

A colorful way of living is the best way of living if you ask me. Accepting and embracing all colors and creeds of everyone living on earth.

The cofounders of Vera Bradley had an Aha moment about designing colorful bags after a layover in an airport when they rued the drab neutral colors of the luggage women carried.

Vera Bradley was Barbara Bradley’s fashion model mother.

With $500 in seed money they built a brand worth half a billion today.

Per Barbara Bradley everyone should Be Nice. If being nice is good enough for her I’ll take this from other people too.

We should not be afraid to show our True Colors. We can do this in style with a Vera Bradley handbag.

Cheers! to living colorful and loving colorful and laughing colorful.

Getting Loud

This week I read in one day the Drew Afualo memoir and manifesto Loud: Accept Nothing Less than the Life You Deserve. The Samoan American young woman has 9 million followers. She created a career for herself as a content creator whose platform is centered on kicking the asses of misogynist men. Afualo has received death threats for speaking out against the patriarchy.

Since she has 9 million followers perhaps some of you follow Drew. I’m all too familiar with being the victim of anonymous venom in the comments section of online articles.

No—I don’t identify as Queer or Asexual. I don’t like those terms. It’s because in fact if you’re not heterosexual and not caught up in relationships with men who abuse you you’re not queer at all. You’re the normal one. In a society where it’s the misogynist men labeling females as freaks of nature for not having sex on the third date and not submitting to their abuse in the patriarchy.

The attorney I employ first used the word I took up to describe my M.O.: Unusual. I prefer calling how I operate Unusual not Queer as I do not want to be identified by my gender or sexual orientation.

In my email signature I won’t use personal pronouns. Instead I use specific nouns and list in my signature Christina Bruni (Chris/Christina). I have no idea what others reading my emails think of this. It’s a f*ck-you that might not be subtle in not using gender to refer to who I am.

I’m no fan in dwelling on gender and sexual orientation. Too often doing so reinforces the focus on parts of our identity that a person like me doesn’t want to be the first or prime thing others notice about us.

Only how we look gets us judged. My intent in using my given names in my email signature was because I want others to view me through the lens of my personality not through my plumbing down below.

Yet how you and I look is the first thing others notice about us. An impression is formed of us within 7 seconds. No kidding.

In coming blog entries I’ll do my part along with Drew Afualo to dismantle the expectations women have of ourselves to please men.

Real Self-Care

I checked this new book out of the library. The subtitle is Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included.

I’m not a fan of social media so don’t follow influencers on Instagram. As well I haven’t been a fan of traditional self-care that is touted like cleanses and bubble baths.

My only self-care I’ve persisted in engaging in is going out socially with friends and eating healthful food and engaging in some kind of exercise.

If I remember right the self-care industry is a billion-dollar business.

Who can afford to buy products marketed as wellness tools. These products don’t instill actual health over our lifetimes.

What I think that the MD author doesn’t connect is the dot dot dots that are connected: If self-care products gave us optimal health why are women getting cancer heart disease and diabetes routinely in America today?

The promise of a product to make us feel better is an empty promise.

Far better to cook yourself a healthful meal from a recipe to share with friends at your dining table. Sharing a meal promotes health and wellbeing.

Nobody’s making a quick buck when you do that. There’s no money to be made in capitalist America when each of us is inherently well and doesn’t need fixing.

I say: buy a new shirt or blouse to feel good. Old-fashioned fashion therapy is one kind of self-care as recommended in the Allison Bornstein guide Wear It Well that I reviewed here.

The fall is coming in two weeks. The time to edit our closets and bring the fall clothes front and center on the rod is here.

Does the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” apply here. Likely likely the rod to hell is hung with failed purchases.

In a coming blog entry I will talk about the wonder of editing our wardrobes.

“In with the new out with the old!” Why wait until New Year’s Eve to celebrate.

Rebel Girl

I checked this book out of the library and read it in one day.

Rebel Girl was disturbing on all counts. First because of the recounting of the endless stories of seedy men who raped young girls.

Second because of how the Riot Grrl movement didn’t witness the experience of Black Indigenous and Women of Color individuals.

Simply reading about these encounters was hard to bear. The book should be read anyway.

Author Kathleen Hanna was the famous singer and frontwoman of the bands Bikini Kill and LeTigre. She had her own band The Julie Ruin.

Hanna is also married to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz and has a son Julius she adopted with him.

The story turns out better in the end.

Hanna’s narrative of her life as a survivor of trauma and abuse is worth reading.

Every survivor’s story is worth telling and reading and listening to.

We can’t continue to get into fights about whose pain is worse than everyone else’s.

Nor can we act like the pain doesn’t exist when a person says they’re experiencing it.

Just because we can’t see what’s going on from our viewpoint is not proof that there’s no such thing as sexism or racism.

Too often other women (yes!) and Conservative women authors blame women for reporting rape and sexual abuse.

In the climate of no one else believing that a rape survivor is telling the truth. Or in the way the rape is swept under the rug because the man is powerful or allegedly a pillar of the community.

Or in how women are thought to be retaliating over their guilt about having had the sex in the first place.

Too often women silence ourselves. We fear no one will take us seriously. Though it’s not our fault we can feel worthless. Leading to not reporting the crime because we think nothing will be resolved.

Too women have to jump through hoops in a court of law to prove the crime happened. The establishment cries out that the men on trial deserve “due process.”

Of course there’s due process. The old world order doesn’t like when a member of their tribe is held accountable.

I’m a Rebel Girl too who would call herself a Feminist Punk like Hanna does.

If you’re a woman you’re told it’s okay to open your mouth to kiss not speak.

We all of us whatever our orientation must speak our mind or nothing will change in society.

Wear It Well

The book in the photo above intrigued me to want to figure out my Three Word Method.

Your three words comprise the items in your wardrobe that you choose and use to convey your personal style.

Author Allison Bornstein is a stylist who champions expressing your Authentic Self through how you dress. To her fashion is wellness and beauty is wellness.

Getting dressed in the clothes you love and wear well is an act of self-care and nurturing.

As ever I think everyone is beautiful. Today I’ve come to see that how a person dresses is their own version of having a personal style.

More in the coming blog entry about the myth of needing to buy a Louis Vuitton Speedy to express yourself. Is plunking down $3,000 on a pocketbook the way to be original when everyone else is carrying the same handbag.

The Three Word Method is the best most useful way I’ve found to figure out my personal style. Forget taking a quiz to figure out the style type you should be that a so-called expert tells you to dress in.

The second philosophy I’ve been intrigued with is Carol Tuttle’s Dressing Your Truth.

I bought Wear It Well with a gift card. It took me two weeks to figure out my three words which are Chic Quirky Confident.

I recommend reading the definitions of the words you’re considering using. Bornstein tells the reader that it’s OK if your three words are opposites.

On a video she helped a woman find her three words (Oversized Fitted Warm). I wish Bornstein had more videos that feature ordinary women’s three words.

She advocates that you can find your personal style by examining the wardrobe items you own. Then “shopping in your closet” is the ultimate sustainable method for getting dressed. Her AB Closet Editing System is right-on for deciding what to keep and what to donate or toss.

I’ll end here by venturing that expressing your authentic self through your personal style can help a person heal and recover. Dressing well was how I started to become well in my life after I recovered.

Living Free

The book above I recommend buying though I checked it out of the library.

In I Did a New Thing: 30 Days to Living Free Tabitha Brown cheers on the reader. The more of us who motivate each other like Brown does for her readers the better off America will be.

I was mistaken in the previous blog entry: Brown isn’t an Emmy-winning actor she was Emmy-nominated. Instead of having sour grapes when she didn’t get the award she hosted a celebration for herself simply because she was nominated.

Day one of the 30-day challenge was to Do Something Fearless. For this I swiped on a deep purple lipstick. Not earth-shattering in terms of a bold move. Yet awe-inspiring nonetheless.

Couldn’t find a lavender or lighter shade like the tube I was using that wore out.

Brown has this to say: “Your freedom and transformation aren’t about how big or small that new thing is. It’s about what God is saying to us all through them.”

She believes her whole life: “Is a testimony to what can happen when you release the noise, comparisons, and outside perceptions and simply do the new thing.”

Swiping on the deep purple (the Sephora matte collection Watch Me shade) was a big deal. Precisely because I’ve thought that with my black hair and pale skin I look like a Gothic clown wearing dark lipstick.

Finding a statement lipstick that doesn’t make me look garish was the start of a grand tour in doing new things.

What new things might each of us do if we didn’t care what others think of us?

How to Be Old

I bought this book last week. Critics on Amazon railed against her privilege to do the things she’s achieved. I wasn’t turned off by her lifestyle. In fact it inspired me to think positively about my sixties: the era I call the “This Is It!” decade.

For all my adult life I had a different haircut every three years. That changed three years ago when I fled the second former hairdresser who subjected me to haircut horror.

In 2021 I risked going to a trendy salon. E. expertly cut my hair the way I wanted it showing her a photo of the first woman president of my alma mater. Ever since then I have what is going to be my forever haircut.

Too short my hair resembles what Andy Warhol’s haircut would look like if his hair were black. The haircut costs $90 today not a cheap sum.

I’m thinking of my now forever haircut considering having read How to Be Old by Lyn Slater the Accidental Icon blogger. She has become famous and is 70 years old.

As I turn 59 this spring, I would like to go out of my fifties with a she-bang. I’m exited to turn 59. The eight years since I turned 50 have gone by like eight days. I’m glad to be getting older.

Like Slater who originally quoted David Bowie in her blog I’ll do so here:

“Aging is the extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

Ever since I was a teenager, I did NOT want to get married and raise a family. I was only 15 or 16 years old when I knew this. While in college the only thing I aspired to was to have “an artist’s life in the city.”

My goal as I turn 59 is to break the rules at every opportunity. While I might not reach icon status it’s clear that I might always be an iconoclast.

To get you to buy the book I’ll quote Kim Gordon the former bassist of Sonic Youth who wrote in her memoir Girl in a Band: “I’ve always believed that the radical is more interesting when it appears ordinary and benign on the outside.”

How a person appears often belies that they’re radical in their thinking and how they approach living life.

For better or worse my claim to fame will always be living life Left of the Dial.

The older I get I find myself rebelling the status quo as a matter of course.

Your age should be all the rage regardless of the number of candles on the cake.

Living Lightly

On a kick I am after reading Project 333 to simplify my life.

The above book I recommend reading and if you want buying as a reference.

The author attests:

“When you release physical clutter, mental clutter often gets swept away with it, giving you a jump start on your path to inner well-being.”

Too the author understands:

“The goal is not to get more done but to have less to do. Fewer distractions and more focus lead to freer, more fulfilling days.”

The single most useful advice she gives is to create “white space” around objects. Seeing overstuffed cabinets, closet shelves, and dresser drawers can overwhelm us.

After I donated 20 bags to thrift stores in the last three years I no longer need to spring clean all the time. There’s space surrounding everything now. The contents are lean, and I feel serene.

Reading Lightly I had one issue: the author assumes the reader is a woman. Aside from this I recommend reading Lightly first so that you don’t have to get to the point where you need to offload 20 donation bags.

Living lightly upfront you won’t have to go through one of Marie Kondo’s “tidying festivals” in the end.

Project 333 Clothes Encounters

After reading Project 333 I thought long and hard about when we should welcome discomfort versus when it’s better to feel confident.

Ultimately feeling good in our clothes is what we should strive for. Thinking about using a capsule wardrobe I realized that each of us should dress to please ourselves. We don’t need to step out in clothing trends or outlandish outfits.

Dressing in clothes that are ill-fitting, make you appear sick or tired, or that you’re simply not comfortable in is a mistake. It’s the surefire way to feel miserable all day.

Breaking the fashion rules and other rules can be fun and is often necessary. Isn’t it likely that other people expect us to conform to how they think we should behave precisely because they have their own insecurities they can’t live with. They want us to be company in their misery.

Courtney Carver frowns on thinking you have to do things perfectly.

No—I didn’t follow the guidelines to the letter. You can revise how you execute Project 333. My collection is geared to 39 to 44 items so technically you could call it Project 339 or 344.

Plus there are about ten or eleven items of clothing that I don’t wear that I haven’t discarded or donated. They don’t get in the way of reaching for the ones that I want to wear. So they stay for now.

My jewelry items are listed separately and Courtney said that’s OK. Nor do I count hats tote bags coats pocketbooks or bandannas.

In the summer I list under one item number each my black and white tee shirts. Since they are basics and I own three or four of each color. Those tee shirts get worn-out fast so it’s fine to rotate wearing more than one. Then list in the 33 only one white tee and one black tee when you actually use more.

The alternative is to wear only one white and one black tee shirt. Discard them at the end of the season when they get grubby. Then buy one new tee each summer.

Again Courtney Carver wrote that you don’t have to do this in a perfect way or follow her 33 guideline to the letter.

Coming up my winter capsule wardrobe.

Project 333 Guidelines

Minimalist maestro Courtney Carver created Project 333 to better manage her health by using a capsule wardrobe of 33 seasonal items worn for 3 months.

Following the Project 333 system makes sense to me. Especially for those of us who have a hard time getting dressed in the morning. Pulling clothes off hangers, throwing on the bed the discards, and finally arriving at the outfit to wear.

Sound familiar? In a future blog entry I’ll go into detail about making our lives easier with other strategies in addition to creating a capsule wardrobe.

Here’s what to include in the 33:

Clothing

Accessories

Jewelry

Shoes (one pair counts as one item)

What not to count in the 33:

Wedding ring or one other sentimental piece of jewelry that you never take off.

Underwear

Sleepwear

In-home loungewear

Workout clothing (when you use the gear to exercise – wearing yoga pants to run errands in town is part of the 33)

Coming up how I created my own capsule wardrobe.