This is an actual, legitimate question: Do people still use Tumblr? Is it, like, what the cool fifteen-year-olds use nowadays because it's #retro, or has it gone the way of MySpace (sidenote: I HIGHLY recommend figuring out how to login to your old MySpace page; it's like visiting a Museum of Shame, but in the very most entertaining of ways).
Blurry screengrab; favorite filter.
Currently wearing nearly every day: these vintage Givenchy clip-ons (lots of similar styles are here).
Because not everything in the world is broken. (17 Acts of Kindness by Total Strangers Who Expected Nothing In Return, via Buzzfeed.)
"Studies have shown that when going to the ER with urgent abdominal pain, women were less likely to receive any pain medication...A lot of times women's symptoms, especially pain, are attributed to emotional imbalance, or women being hysterical or crying wolf about their pain." Well. There you go. Thanks to all of you who forwarded this link to me.
Me, January 2018
I got an email the other day that reminded me why I keep writing this site, even during the times when it's especially hard, and I very much don't want to. The email was from a woman who feared she was in the midst of an ectopic pregnancy, and was having trouble "convincing" the doctors of her suspicions. She remembered the post I'd written nearly two years ago, about my own ectopic pregnancy - the one that very nearly killed me, and would have had I not been fortunate enough to have a friend who knew the signs to look for - and kept her questions for the doctors coming.
It's isn't the only email like this I've ever gotten. It's not even the only email like this I've gotten this month. It turns out that despite the fact that ectopic pregnancies account for 1-2% of all pregnancies - making them not particularly uncommon - vast numbers of us have no idea what they are, or what they might look like. Myself included.
I love cartilage piercings. I love all types of ear piercings, in fact. Alas, my body does not love them, and lets me know this by summarily rejecting 80% of the pieces of metal that I attempt to insert in it. This obviously doesn't mean I'm giving up on the concept - I plan to go in for a couple of new piercing attempts in the fall - but I have recently discovered the beauty of no-pierce ear cuffs, and feel, for the time being, somewhat sated in the body-modification department.
I want to be humble about this one, but it took me five hours, so I'm not going to be. (Granted, the creation process might have been slowed down ever-so-slightly by the fact that I was catching up on the 2-part season finale of The Bachelorette while fondant-ing, but STILL.)
So. To recap, the make-an-impossibly-fancy-birthday-cake-for-my-child tradition started with the Mermaid Cake (a process that began with my friend Alisa taking pity on me and teaching me how to make a cake that did not turn out like this).
Then came the Spooky Ghost Cake, the Moana Cake, the Bloodshot Eyeball Cake, and the Tie-Dye Rainbow Cake. This year my daughter suggested a "Moana Rainbow Unicorn Mermaid Cake," but I gently steered her in the direction of something a) new, and b) not that, because the chances of me executing that extremely specific vision were zero, and?
Late night lights in Truth Or Consequences, NM
I've been writing Ramshackle Glam for nearly ten whole years - which means that there is a LOT of good stuff hanging out in my archives. So each Friday, we'll be doing a little throwback to one of my personal favorites. This week, I got to thinking about readings - I've had a few done over the years, but two in particular stand out in my memory. The first was a reading that Kendrick and I did together midway through our cross-country move from New York to California. The second was a reading I got shortly after the divorce.
Both made me realize that there's something I've been trying so hard to find for years now. But I'm starting to wonder whether that something is a part of me I left in the past and want so badly to recapture...or a part of me that's still dancing around the edges, waiting to be discovered.
Ah, glam| camp. Our erstwhile little online shop specializing in spunky embroideries and postpartum sweatshirts. It occurred to me - only after a reader pointed this out in a comment yesterday - that I never actually addressed what happened to glam | camp, and since I know that so many of you are involved in your own e-commerce efforts, I figured it might be helpful to break down what went right, what went wrong, and what I learned from my own foray into Selling Stuff On The Internet.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: In 2014, shortly after I moved to San Jose, my friend Erin (now the coauthor of our Big Activity Book series) came out to visit me, and we decided to pool our resources - basically, her artistic abilities and my web platform - to open an online shop stocked with items both crafted in-house and created by a handful of other independent female artisans.
Illesteva sunglasses-turned-prescription glasses
It's always funny to me when this site suddenly becomes a little digital hub for something completely and totally random. For example: At present, a solid 5% of Ramshackle Glam's daily traffic comes from people in search of information on the glasses that Ali Wong wears in Baby Cobra. This makes sense to me both because they are fantastic glasses, and also because they're not actually glasses. They're sunglasses. That either Ali Wong or her stylist had made into prescription glasses. Which means that searching for them online is a bit trickier than you might imagine (enter: Ramshackle Glam!).
Which brings me to this little life hack.
I've been writing Ramshackle Glam for nearly ten whole years - which means that there is a LOT of good stuff hanging out in my archives. So each Friday, we'll be doing a little throwback to one of my personal favorites. This week's is a searing three-part post on a marriage torn apart by faith and politics - you may recall that it was originally written anonymously by a woman named "EB." In the years since she wrote these words, EB has published a memoir on the topic, and has given me permission to post her story here.
Lyz Lenz is the author of God Land: A Story of Faith, Loss, and Renewal in Middle America. She is also one of my personal heroes.
PART ONE: THROW PILLOWS FOR THE CAGE
