Pink Bon Jour

I'm a sucker for travel-related accessories, natch, because I love to travel. Except they have to be related to places I've been to & love. Well, I loved the one trip to Paris I took ages ago, & I'm planning to return very soon. No to mention I took five years of French language classes, which are stuck somewhere in the back of my brain, struggling to come out, LOL. So yeah, I had to have this silly little necklace. Mai oui!

What I'm wearing:
Black & pink stripe knit top, Ralph Lauren | Black linen skirt, H&M | Black leggings, American Apparel | Black socks, unknown brand | Black flats, Aerosoles | Silver "Bon Jour" necklace, Claire's | Gunmetal hoop earrings, random accessory store

Multiple shades of black!

Status Report: My Workaday Bag

For my current job, I work from home quite frequently, as I've mentioned here before. But when I do go into the office, I have to bring my laptop & a lot of gear. So my work bag is, by necessity, a giant backpack.

It's not sexy or stylish, but it gets the job done. It's the only bag I owned that was big enough to hold the extra-long MacBook Pro the company gave me! This laptop wouldn't fit in my other (prettier) laptop bag.

Also, since I work on the laptop itself in the office instead of docking it to a monitor, I have a wireless keyboard & mouse, which I also carry around. Plus a backup drive, my notebook, my phone, wallet, & miscellaneous personal stuff. So yeah, I need a big bag!

What I'm wearing:
Grey sheath dress, Target
Black & pink stripe sweater, Macy's
Black tights, Calvin Klein
Black & grey pumps, Target
Black, gunmetal, & rhinestone choker, random accessory store
Black & pearl drop earrings, random accessory store
Prescription sunglasses, ZenniOptical.com
Chanel "Vamp" lipstick
Yahoo! backpack, Targus

All this goes in that bag!

What kind of bag do you carry to work or school? Share in the comments below.

Eye Spy

The Gothic Optician feautred me today on her blog -- check it out!

Full Disclosure

After I took this photo, I realized I'd forgotten to put on my rings (wedding & engagement) or any earrings. Quelle horror! Kind of hard to tell in the picture.

Also, even tho' I'm going bare-armed here, I grabbed a black cardigan before leaving for work. It was a beautiful, warm spring morning, but my office building tends to be overly air-conditioned. And my husband reminded me to bring some kind of cover-up because, as he said, he didn't want to see me posting on Facebook in the afternoon that I was freezing.

What I'm wearing:
Grey knit dress with black trim, bought in London | Black tights, Calvin Klein | Black high-heeled lace-up boots, Aerosoles | White & black skull-print scarf, Amazon.com

To the Mother Country

There's this joke among some costumer-friends & I that England is the "mother country." We're all anglophiles in the worst way. We've read too many Bronte & Austen novels (or at least watched movie versions endlessly), we love the fantasy of having royalty (& those of us who are old enough remember watching Princess Di in her ridiculous meringue wedding dress),  we love crumbling castles & running across the moors in white nightgowns, we drink way too much tea out of prissy little china cups. This is all a big part of why we spend inordinate amounts of time & money creating crazy historical reproduction costumes.

So yeah, my first trip abroad was to the Mother Country of England. My then-boyfriend/now-husband convinced me to go, & we visited sites associated with some of my favorite English authors, from Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey to Wordsworth's Dove Cottage in the Lake District to the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth. Not only am I a nutty costumer, I'm also a frustrated academic -- soon after this seminal trip, I went to grad school to continue my pointless studies in Victorian literature. Not like you can get a job in that very easily! So I dropped out a few units shy of a second degree. Ah well. I'll settle with a cool T-shirt from my most recent (& fifth) trip to the U.K.

What I'm wearing:
Black velveteen jacket, White House Black Market
England T-shirt, bought in London
Black jeans, Levis
Black ankle boots, Aldo
Silver filigree earrings, random accessory store
Jet & gunmetal cocktail ring, random accessory store
Grey & black flower hair pins, random accessory store

Status Report: Bag It All

Subject: For May, let's show how we carry all our stuff to work or school. Do you have a backpack, messenger bag, or computer bag? Do you bring your lunch to work or take gear for a gym break? How to you lug everything around? While you may carry a cute little purse for weekend fun, many of us need a giant bag to get through the week.

Due Date: Monday, May 13 to Wednesday, May 15

How to File Your Report:

1. Post to your blog on or around the due dates.

2. Include the following code in your post so the This Is CorpGoth Mid-Month Status Report graphic will display (if you're using Blogger or WordPress, switch to the 'HTML post' setting & then paste this code in):

<a href="http://corpgoth.blogspot.com/search/label/corpgoth%20status%20report"><img border="0" src="http://www.trystancraft.com/corpgoth/corpgothstatusreport.jpg" /></a>

3. Comment on my Monday the 13th post including your blog link.

4. Read everyone else's reports via their links in the comments!

Grey and Memories

Not sure when I took this outfit post (sometime in fall 2012?), but it makes me wistful because I wore a bracelet I don't wear too often. It's a charm bracelet with special photos -- pictures of things that mean a lot to me. There's one from my husband's & my wedding, there's one of the Taj Mahal to symbolize travel, & there is one of each of our cats, Toulouse & Melusine. Only ... Melusine died in February after 16 wonderful years with us.

I didn't want to post here about her passing when it happened. It was too raw to share in this, one of the few places online where I am completely public. I'd talked about it elsewhere in locked-down, friends-only spaces (even my Facebook account is friends, or at least acquaintances-only).

But slowly, I've come to let the world know that we are a one-cat household. I updated my profile on this blog, where it used to say we live in a bungalow "with two cats who hate each other" now it says "with a silly tabby cat" (yeah, they acted like they hated each other, but now that she's gone, he really seems to miss her; I suspect it was a one-way relationship).

Bracelet showing photo of Toulouse

Little things, like finding this outfit photo, remind me again. Memories of our Melly-girl will never go away, she'll always be a part of our family. And slowly, the reminders won't hurt.

What I'm wearing:
Black & grey knit dress, Coldwater Creek
Black long-sleeve knit top, Old Navy
Black elastic belt, NY & Company
Black tights, Calvin Klein
Red ankle boots, Kohls
Silver, black, rhinestone necklace, random accessory store
Silver earrings, random accessory store
Burgundy flower hair pin, random accessory store
Silver & pearl photo-charm bracelet

Melusine in 2004