Currently Digging

Sweet pink and white ♥ Please stop

♥ Japanese Lolita style
Upon purchasing, receiving, and falling in love with this incredibly dazzling Baby, The Stars Shine Bright skirt, I've realized that there is truly no fashion subculture so comprehensively unique than that of Japanese Lolita style. Sure, anyone who's hung around this tiny little wonderland that is Cocoa for longer than a few days will already know that I'm constantly digging Lolita style, but as of right now I feel the need to reiterate it with a little more oomph - no other genre of clothing has redefined fashion and the lifestyle that comes with it as creatively and eloquently as this tiny little craze has. Lolita style consists of making little kid clothes for big kids, it's a silky whipped-cream and pink cherry topped slice of pie to tide over your inner child, and wearing its clothes give you the kind of thrill that only frilly dresses and big pink headbows could provide.

♥ Doorstop novels

For those who don't already know, I'm an obsessively avid reader who practically lives in the library, but recently the novels I've been throwing myself into have been more like long-term relationships than two-day flings. Usually I read about three or four 300-page novellas at once, but as of late I've been falling in love with gigantic, 800-page epics so thick that they could be used as doorstops. From Steinbeck's East of Eden to Dantec's Babylon Babies, these gargantuan life stories stretch through whole generations, capturing every tiny moment in a different time, a different place, a different world. There's something so comforting about toting around a book that thick - it's almost like carrying an infant in the womb, protecting it and nurturing it, accepting it as a distant yet forever part of your world when you finally do turn that last page and set it free. Everyone should read at least a hundred books like these, or at least use them to prop open doors and steady wobbly tables!

♥ Vegetarian burritos

I'm constantly in search of really spectacular vegetarian burritos and I have to say that my two absolute favorites as of late hail from unlikely places. Whole Foods, the all-organic grocery store of national fame, makes an abnormally delicious black bean and cheese burrito on a spinach tortilla, one which can usually be found in the pre-prepared food section, but a little-known burrito chain called California Tortilla can also hold their own. Since CalTort has recently closed their one and only Florida store and, for now, don't have any locations in New York, I've settled into an uncomfortably jittery burrito withdrawal, but if you live in northern-most part of the U.S. South you're in luck - there are locations abound in towns near you so check them out!

♥ Foreign films

Why do the French and Japanese tend to make the weirdest, strangest, and absolute best movies? After watching Luc Besson's Angel-A, a charmingly twisted love story featuring Jamel Debbouze from Amelie, I've realized that I could probably spend my whole life watching nothing but foreign films, picking up new languages, new references, new tales to tell. As for those forespoken crazy Japanese flicks that I love oh-so-much? Two words for you: Battle Royale.

Always,
Penelope ♥