I love that Pantone does this. Just let me say that. And now I’ll go window shopping and pretend to buy everything in Deep Teal and Orchid Hush.

Or maybe that would be seen as the sign of An Unserious Writer.

Whatever. I don’t need to be serious.

I just need the cash (and cache) to buy every single thing in Vena Cava’s spring collection.

Just the same, I really do always always always win these contests. I was officially the world’s most awkward, gangly, giant-pink-glasses wearing, short-thick-puffy-perm-triangle-head, “creative” accessories queen of the nerds.  We had this office contest once, where everyone brought in the worst pictures of themselves they could find. It was all fun and games  (“You were so pregnant!” “I wore funny pants!”) until I set my two pictures down. A hush settled over the office. In awe, my co-workers gaped and gawked at these sad, amazing, nerdy pictures, all the more inspiring for the total lack of self-consciousness the kid in them exudes. I thought I was hot. I thought I looked good. And that is what makes these pictures true marvels; they aren’t the usual pics of hunched-over, downcast pre-teens who look profoundly uncomfortable in their own pimply skin. No, these are pictures of a girl so nerdy, so weird, that she didn’t even know enough to be ashamed of it.

I’m kind of proud of this; to me the pictures show how happy anybody can be in their own head, despite the world. But for everyone else, (especially peeps who were popular kids and only awkward in the way everyone was: “I wore Eastlands! I tight-rolled my pants! Ha!”) there seems to be some sort of willful societal rejection in these pictures, and it clearly makes them squirm. I enjoy that. It’s what I try to do with much of my writing. Upend the social order! Even just enough to make the laughter a little uncomfortable, a little forced. Just a little.

The always fabulous and talented Ethel Rohan is doing interviews for Dark Sky Magazine. So far, so very good: the first two happen to be two of my favorites, Kyle Minor and Amelia Gray.  In other awesome Ethel-ness–did you know? Ethel is a “hot opener” at the Potomac Review. Day-um. That is pretty impressive. So is her story. So read it here.

One of my favorite favorite lit mags, alice blue, has a new all-fiction issue up with fabulous stories from the likes of Brian Evenson, A.D Jameson, Michael Kimball, and Amelia Gray.

Matt Bell has a great post up on his blog giving us the good news: Dzanc Best of the Web 2010 is finished! I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of this. Yes yes yes. Congrats to Dzanc and Matt and to guest-editor Kathy Fish and to all the fine folks featured in this year’s edition. There is so much good writing on the web it makes my head vibrate with happiness.

In news of the shallow, the new British P.M.’s wife may be a Tory (or maybe not, actually, I shouldn’t assume) but her style is anything but conservative. In fact, it’s kind of fabulous, and young and fresh, and high-low, and…anyway, nice job, Samantha Cameron. You’re pretty hot.

And speaking of fashion, what’s worse than Obama’s mom jeans? How about whatever-the-hell the prime minister of Japan is wearing (pictured above) here? Seriously. I’m pretty sure I had this exact shirt back in 1990. I guess at least we can be greatful the dude’s not wearing it like I did, tucked into some acid-washed black jeans with the cuffs tight-rolled and a pair of unlaced Eastlands to finish off the ensemble

And please. No one remind me that the 90s are back in style. This is a basket of awesome, not a basket of lukewarm, leftover 90210-flavored puke. Thank you.

From the Times article:

The idea that “short kids have social problems,” as Mr. Schwartz puts it, is largely a myth, eagerly embraced by makers of human growth hormone.

“When Eli Lilly was telling the government that it should be allowed to sell its growth hormone to kids who were simply small,” he writes, “it presented studies that supposedly showed that short kids are prone to teasing and bullying and ‘exclusion’ and they suffer from ‘social isolation’ and a ‘perception of lower competence.’ ”

But David E. Sandberg, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, reports that “short kids actually cope pretty well with being small.” In a study of hundreds of children in the Buffalo area, Dr. Sandberg found there was no real problem with being short and “there is little benefit to being tall.”

This is good news for the children my husband and I will someday have, since they’re destined to be short. I’ve certainly never minded being short very much, except at concerts. Well, and rallies, and pretty much any public event. And I did always want to stand on a riser. Sometimes I’d love to sweep through a room like Kate Hepburn, all bangles and wide-legged pants and flowing shirt cuffs. But these are minor, minor issues in the course of life.

But here’s the real secret to happiness, fellow short people. FIND A GOOD TAILOR. No I am not kidding. Find one now and suck it up and pay for it and your clothes will all look glorious on you.  And you will be happy. At least, if you’re shallow and vain like me.

A striking image from Robert's Bone Art series

Francois Robert’s amazing Bone Art series, featuring religious iconography, weapons, and other instruments of violence and war.  It’s devastating stuff.

A fantastic story by Emily Schulz in Fanzine, featuring a woman and her…minotaur. Yes, exactly. How could it NOT be fantastic?

A killer blog called The Big Caption, which takes pics from The Big Picture and gives them choice captions. I could spend hours on this site. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the heads up on this one.)

An oh-so-good story by Jac Jemc in the new issue of Frigg. (Thank you, PANK, for this one.)

New exhibit in my town at the National Gallery that I’ll be checking out ASAP: Allen Ginsberg’s photos of his friends and fellow beats .

And finally: I WANT HER HAIR. (This is really not something you ought to know about, but I just thought I’d throw it in there anyway.) This whole looks actually reminds me of me in, say, early college, and it’s making me very nostalgic.  (Thank god my husband doesn’t read this blog, because if he did he’d be packing his bags right about now. He missed most of the stripey tights phase, though he did know me during the wearing-costumes-I-found-in-the-theatre-wardrobe-discards-bin-as-clothes phase. I still mourn the loss of my Scarecrow pants.)

From the Guardian:

McQueen was a four-time winner of the British designer of the year award as well as the international designer of the year award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. He was awarded the CBE in 2003.

Chanel Iman rides an elephant while dressed as Minnie Mouse.

At HTML Giant, Justin Taylor has compiled a vast and impressive list of various editors, writers, poets, publishers, and other literary lights’ favorite books of 2009. Read it and add to your holiday gift list.

The L.A. Times reviews a full-of-blood-sex-horror-and-gore (well, okay, allegorically speaking) new translation of Charles Perrault’s The Complete Fairy Tales. My favorite fairy tales were Perrault’s when I was little. I can’t wait to pick this up and read them again.

Ohmygodsocoolwhydon’twehavethishere…oh. Right.

How we live now, in a lovely comic nutshell by XKCD.

Via Pharyngula, a long list of secular charities that need your dough.

That is all. Now I think I’ll go watch that trailer again.

Here’s the description:

High Society: The History of America’s Upper Class explores the intrigue of New York’s upper-class society and culture. From Greenwich Village and the Sugar House to Stone Street, author Nick Foulkes unravels Manhattan’s past, starting in the early 17th century up to the present. With stories of Manhattan’s most opulent citizenry, the narrative weaves the political, social, and literary moments of the eras, delivering a spectacle of culture alongside nostalgic photography.

If that sounds like your cup of tea, perhaps you’ll enjoy another selection from the same publishing house:

To be fair, Assouline does publish some beautiful, non-snooty-white-rich-entitled-people-clinging-to-a-faded-dream books.  But these are not them.