girls, on the internet, talking about stuff

Remember that time I wrote about that thing and then I was really quiet about it for a while because I had a tiny doubt in the back of my mind that it was too good to actually happen? Turns out my distrust in the world has only made the fact that it IS happening only better! I am talking about the website I am starting for teenage girls. It is called Rookie, it is at RookieMag.com, it goes up Monday, September 5th, and I am going to talk about it a lot on here and feel not a hint of yuckiness because I care about it and I care about everyone who has worked on it and I want people to see it.

But I want it to be a surprise, too, so for now, I will just say things like: we will update three times a day -- after school, dinner, and before bed. Each month is a differently themed issue, and September is "Beginnings." (GET IT? I know you do. You're a smart one.) Working on a back-to-school theme has made me almost enthusiastic about being back at school. (Almost.) (This is a lie. I don't know why I pretend to dread school. I love my women's history class, OK?) Many awesome people have been very nice and written/made things for us, such as: Joss Whedon, Winnie Holzman, Patton Oswalt, Zooey Deschanel, Shannon Woodward, Anna Faris, Kid Sister, Supercute!, Paul Feig, Dan Savage, JD Samson, Jack Black, Alia Shawkat, Fred Armisen, and Miranda July. You should look at what they did on my website because they are FAMOUS and MAGICAL! (They're also talented and funny and thoughtful and you might like what they've done in the past so you might like this, too.)

Lastly, if I had to give an award to Best Staff Of A Website Called Rookie, I would give it to ours. And there are a lot of websites called Rookie! So let me remind you of our URL once more: rookiemag.com. We also have a baby Twitter.

I don't have anything visual of it for showing off right now, but I do have a video of me lip-synching to "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift I made for Hello Giggles.

Lastly, I'd like to encourage you to vote for my pal and all-around wonderful lady Isabel for the Who Inspires U? contest. I've been reading her blog for years and watching her style and ideas about feminism evolve has made me feel like a teary-eyed Bubbe at a Bat Mitzvah. Think of this contest as her Torah Portion. She'd like to start a feminist fashion magazine (which I know will be just awesome) and the winners' prize of $10,000 would help, a lot. Watch her video at the link and vote for Isabel! (And then think about how extremely unpowerful Bat Mitzvah and Torah Portion metaphors are in writing.)

In case you only hear things a third time: RookieMag.com. Monday. (And so my plan to pry everyone away from the outside world on Labor Day and make them sit in front of their computer in protest of the 1882 Central Labor Union has been put into effect!)

RIP summer

Today was a good last day of summer. I finished rereading The Virgin Suicides (summer ritual), watched The Virgin Suicides (summer ritual), then went thrifting and found the perfect Virgin Suicides dress. I would be really, really concerned if I didn't know me! Seriously though, it probably informs my ~aesthetic sensibilities~ more than anything else, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it (like summer, it already comes yellowing and foggy, so that helps). The short explanation is that it's really, really pretty and eerie. The medium explanation is that it's easy to get obsessed with a story about obsession and to glorify a story about glorification. For a long explanation, I think I best explained it here, especially in relation to the way I've been decorating my room. Still, I'm too afraid of actually thinking about it, because I would hate for something that's been so personal to me to become anything less than that, for my reasons for liking it to be based on positive critique instead of all the ways I've insisted it speaks to me specifically. Because I'm really deep and profound and wounded and I understand this book and movie better than ANYONE and you don't get it and could never fully appreciate it the way I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the dress I bought.

I don't know if it belonged to a very small bride or a very big Christian baby, but it was $6 and it's beautiful.

I literally Wikipedia'd "Christening ceremony" to figure out what religion to put there just now. Maybe I do need school after all. OR MAYBE IT'S CUZ I'M JEWISH OKAY? Ugh whatever check out this bitchin' little Virgin Mary thingy I bought

1970 Barbie trunk, Virgin Mary, painted candle holder, rainbow candle, and a butterfly box.

I haven't posted this shelf yet.

Flowers, confetti, barrettes, doilies, candy jewelry, tiny boxes, shells, baby teeth, letters, nail decorations, stickers. I count this zine and this record among my prized possessions. (Ebay.)

I'll miss you, summer! Come again soon. And I do mean soon, because today I saved a Hello Kitty band aid I'd left on the bathtub ledge because it was from June, and I don't think that's very healthy.

(You guys know I've been talking about Summer from Diva Starz this whole time right?)

and she's so busy being free

The thought of summer and its nearing end is causing me to make unnecessarily profound observations about the way the light is hitting all the crap on my desk while the sun sets. I feel ridiculous! But sincerely sad! Summer nostalgia is the worst kind because you're thrown into an entirely different routine so fast. You go from going to McDonald's barefoot whenever you want to having to get an education. (Some people might argue that the reverse of that would be the undesirable circumstance, but these people have obviously never felt the pure bliss of a stoner's spilled ketchup between their toes, or the sheer dread of a privileged teenager to have to listen to a smart adult who knows what they're talking about.)

Another part of it is summer itself. The yellow tint of old photos and the haze of blurry memories are inherent to its weather. Also, how readily romanticize-able the weather is when you want it to be. Like, it'll be December 26th, and you'll be like, I can't wait until the summer so I can look like Kirsten Dunst in the Virgin Suicides and dance in a field with a unicorn! Then it comes and you're like, oh, nevermind, that's cool I guess, I'll just continue to sit in front of the air conditioner picking at my scabs while watching Why Would You Wear That What The Hell Is Wrong With You: Gay BFF To The Rescue! Edition. (This also happens when you watch it and you're like, I am definitely going to have a crush on the next person I see! And then you're like, wow, everyone I know is way, way sweatier than Josh Hartnett, including myself.) (Note my use of a general "you" so no one knows that I am actually the sweaty one.)

Summer also comes with other pop culture that can really make a person sigh wistfully. Stand By Me, The Sandlot, The Wonder Years, Now and Then, Almost Famous; music like the Beach Boys and Cat Stevens. These can be referenced and momentarily revived with bike riding, ice cream trucks, the fourth of July, and people at Lollapalooza who say things like "This is our Woodstock!" while a nearby aging bearded sound guy gently weeps.

This dress was really important to my summer. I bought it at a vintage store with my friends and wore it when we performed spells in the park and drew pentacles on the pitcher's mound at midnight. It has 16 buttons and a good Mormon/70's vibe. Spencer took really nice smokebomb photos when I was wearing it when we went to Michigan in June. What a multi-talented young sir.

It also suited my mood quite well when my dad and I went to Los Angeles in July. Petra took this pretty picture when we were hanging out. I am so popular and I have so many friends and everyone just wants to take pictures of me all the time!!!!!!!!!!!

(Me: Do you think you could, um, take a picture of me in this dress, for like, my blog, or something? I don't know I just really want to um, capture this moment because like, I don't know I really like this dress and I feel like it has a lot to do with my summer, and so does LA, and I really like being here, and I really like California, and it makes me miss my grandparents, and um, do you think that would be possible?

Petra: Yeah sure?

Frankie: RELAX)

It's now very odor-ridden. I don't mind smells or stains on my clothes, it's like hiding flowers and stickers in all my books...I like having a lot of stuff that show some signs of life, mine and their own both. This is also why I like birth marks, pimples, rashes, and scabs.

And I really do love California. Its VIBES SPEAK to me. It's a good place to be bored.

I went to an antique store with Autumn and Arrow and got a lot of nice old photos and postcards. I couldn't believe this one a soldier or nurse wrote, or that it ended up in an antique store somewhere:

I wish I knew shorthand.

The acquired records:

I'm really excited about the recordings from Alan Lomax's trip to the south in the late 50's I got at Ooga Booga. Also, I never find anything like Carole King or Carly Simon at the thrift stores here! Always a lot of Barry Manilow and Barbra Streisand. This was basically my soundtrack to LA as well as the whole summer, or, "Movie Soundtracks!"

Oogum Boogum by Brenton Wood Maybe Baby by Buddy Holly Breaking Up is Hard To Do by Little Eva Signed Sealed Delivered by Stevie Wonder Surfer Girl by Beach Boys Society's Child by Janis Ian Band of Gold by Freda Payne My One and Only Jimmy Boy by the Girlfriends America by Simon & Garfunkel Stand By Me by Ben E. King I Want You Back by Jackson 5 You're So Vain by Carly Simon I've Seen All Good People by Yes Congratulations by the Chantels Lollipop by the Chordettes Second Hand News by Fleetwood Mac Let the Good Times Roll by Shirley & Lee Magic Man by Heart Johnny Angel by Shelley Fabares House of the Rising Sun by Joan Baez That's the Way Boys Are by Lesley Gore Where Do the Children Play? by Cat Stevens Yakety Yak by the Coasters One Fine Day by the Chiffons Come to the Sunshine by Van Dyke Parks Tiny Dancer by Elton John Be My Baby by the Ronettes So Far Away by Carole King Summer Breeze by Seals and Croft Cactus Tree by Joni Mitchell.

But it's coming to a nice close. Ella and I found a spot of grass by the highway that doesn't feel like the streets next to it and spent some time singing there, and at Spencer's yesterday his cousin, mom and I looked at his mom's old diaries and letters from her friends from the ages of I think 9-16, in the late 60s and early 70s. Things like Peter Max stationary and a diary entry asking where a Harold from Harold and Maude-type boy was made me really weirdly sad, and want to utilize all this stationary I hoard.

And with that, I must now write in my notebook. It's 3:30 AM! So excited to start getting up at 6:30. Like, soooooo excited.

Ah, well. Thankfully, stoners spill ketchup on the floor of the school cafeteria, too. And while I have not been known to take my shoes off during lunch, perhaps I'll find myself feeling especially sentimental some day this year, and these babies will see the low-watt institutional light of day for just one moment of relived glory.

we'll come back for indian summer

As always, I plan to spend this last week before school starts thinking about how much I don't want summer to end instead of enjoying it.

oogum boogum

Long time no talk! I am currently enjoying these final summer days before school starts and my brain has to function properly, as well as working on that teen gurlz site I've been babbling on about. When I finish working on something for it I don't really feel like spending more time on the computer so posting here will now be less frequent. This makes me sad because of my obsessiveness over recording everything and nostalgia and things, but I'm also really, really excited about the site, and I love working on it, and it feels natural to be spending more time on that now.

Offline, I have been doing things such as summer reading! You'll never believe this, but I found a way to transfer something on the Kindle into real life, like, being in my hands. Right now I am enjoying this 3D Kindle in particular:

I am a big advocate for decorating and writing in books and lending and giving them to people. This one had a nice letter from the person who gave it to me on the inside that I didn't find for months until I started reading it, which was quite a nice surprise, and I support stickers of any kind on anything. The last time Ella and I did the Ouija board I needed somewhere to write the answers, and I like having them on the inside of the back cover:

(Bigger, more readable version here.)

Isn't that the best weirdest thing ever?? I thought it would be cool to try to make an outfit of what Bobby or her ghost would wear. (And I got her permission too, I just didn't write it in the book because the answers are so pretty right now and it would add some kind of insincerity.) (As Ella reminds me, Bobby probably doesn't know what a blorg is, but I'm just gonna take her enthusiastic "YES" and run with it.) (And in twenty years when I commit some terrible crime, it will be noted by an Internet Expert [a real occupation in 2031] that I was always going on about a "ghost" named "Bobby" as a youngun, which should have acted as a sign of my emotional and mental instability.) (Then I will join a cult!) (And John Waters will want to be my friend.)

Anyway, it was hard to get all those facts about her into one outfit, so I did two. This one is about how much she loves Ella's garden (the flower crown), and her age and ghostliness (the creepy dress). The inspiration for my hair being wet was that I had no reason to shower before 7 PM that day. Why would anyone shower early in the day during the summer? Other than because they, you know, have lives and motivation and hygiene and stuff?

Petra made this crown and the flower girl dress is thrifted. I've been wanting to take some kind of creepy Shining picture with it in our school locker rooms for forever because there's this one hallway of stalls and mirrors that's really eerie, but during the changing time for gym I'm usually too busy trying not to inhale any air to set up a tripod.

Then for this one I was thinking (very deeply and intensely) about red as Bobby's favorite color, being a kid in Kentucky in the 30's, and that this lil punk stole a gun from her big brother to go hunting.

Thrifted shirt and boy scout shorts, crown gifted to me by Meadham Kirchhoff, and American Flag bead pin found in our basement.

'

I think Ouija-interviews-as-outfits could be fun to do more often. These next coming months, as we revel in our fall witchiness, I think we will try the board in the woods for the first time. We probably got a little girl who likes a garden because we decorated the board with plastic daisies from my room, real flowers from Ella's garden, tiny jewels, and a pink plastic unicorn. Maybe next time we'll try all of my Twin Peaks memorabilia to actually get Bob.