What. The. Heck???

The Men's London Fashion Week happened recently.  I saw some of the pictures on Pinterest and it was so...mind blowing, shocking, horrifying, pick an adjective that I just had to show you in case you haven't been exposed.

First there was the cheese puff.  I'm guessing that's what this was supposed to be.  Maybe an orange percent sign?  At least this guy's face is covered.  He never has to admit that he was once the embodiment of a childhood scribble.

This man, on the other hand, looks like he has some deep anger about his cleavage baring full body oven mitt.  Nuns have similar headpieces but we don't typically look to them for their keen fashion sense.  On the plus side, look at those shiny legs!  He must moisturize.

Then there is this related sweater, thing, abomination.  When would anyone, even assuming they were a blind naked hobo, wear this?  It has massive holes in the middle that would let in an awful draft, but you know those mittens are hot.  We should make convicts wear this as their punishment.  Crime rates would plummet.  Also, how big would your needles have to be to make stitches like that?  That is the least of my questions though.

Now we are into the more "normal" men's clothes.  At least there are no visible mittens on this.  Still, think of the men you know, how many would wear this, ever?  Unless they are riding a Delorean into the future, the answer is probably none.  There is so much going on, SO MUCH BLUE, that I don't even know where to look.  The sweater pattern creates an optical illusion that makes him look like he's moving.  Don't let him catch you!

This is like the walk of shame outfit for men.  He's like "yeah, so my frat brothers took my pants, I'm owning the boxers.  Ladies, you like what you see?"  The blue returns, apparently the designers were inspired by the Smurfs.

Okay this is okay, or at least as okay as any of these clothes can possibly be.  I feel like this should be a 1970s wallpaper.  He appears to be making a house call with that bag too.  I don't think Bill Cosby could pull this sweater off.  I want that square to light up like a Teletubbie, that wouldn't even be shocking at this point.

This guy looks like Justin Timberlake raided his substitute teacher/librarian mother's closet.  I can't exactly put my finger on what is so bad about this except to say that I would prefer the previous sweater.  I think this is color blocking gone wrong.  Like a geometry lesson that took on life and spawned a cardigan.

What absolutely amazes me is that this was a planned event.  Somewhere, a designer sat down with a team and decided that this was the way they wanted to represent themselves to the rest of the fashion world.  I don't know a lot about fashion, but I do know that in most industries the goal is to make money.  Who is going to buy any of these?  Girls pole dance to pay their way through school, but somehow wearing these designs seems more degrading.

Fall of Giants

I just finished a wonderful book called Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. This man is a positively brilliant historical writer. Fall of Giants was about WWI from several different perspectives, an American, English, Russian, and German men and women. There were also different class point of views.  To cover World War One from one country's perspective is an undertaking, but to cover that many differing opinions makes a tome.

Pretend there is a picture here 'cause it won't download. Pretending...pretending.

I have a confession, I knew very little about WWI before reading this book. My history classes never seemed to get that far. We got so bogged down in the Civil War that we couldn't get to more modern wars. I felt very educated and entertained with this book though. To the victors go the spoils and also the privilege of writing history. It is easy to make villains of anyone who loses a war, but is anyone without blame when it comes to taking millions of lives?  I was interested in reading the German and Russian (yes, I know they didn't lose the war) sides of the story. I was unfamiliar with both of those.  I feel much more knowledgable now.

It is one thing to know about the battles and the guns used in battles, but Mr. Follett spent a vast amount of time researching. He knew the number of the train that Lenin rode into Petrograd!  That is crazy!  You have to respect a guy who puts that much effort into his craft.  Besides, of course, the historical content, the story was engaging. Maud was my favorite character.  She was so strong and confident and I loved her relationship with Walter! So precious!  Also, I wanted to punch Lev Peshkov in the face. He was a sorry excuse for a human.

If you haven't experienced Mr. Follett's work (and you aren't put off by big books [who else started singing I like big books and I cannot lie? Just me? All---righty then]) then you need to get your hiney to the library and get on it. Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. day so your library will be closed, so go this weekend.

A Really Long Facebook Status Update

I was going to put this on Facebook as a status update, but for whatever reason it is way too long.  So here it is, my incredibly short blogpost in lieu of a status update.

Please pray for me this morning.  I have anxiety issues which are just a bucket of laughs to deal with, but lately they have been rough.  A lot of it is work related and work is now a new level of hell for me.  As in I have developed a phobia of the hallways at work.  Seriously, I start to hyperventilate just walking down them.  I sob and beg Josh to not make me go back every Sunday night.  Yeah.  It stinks.  I had barely made it in the gate this morning before I started having a massive panic attack.  So here I sit, at my desk, trying to breathe, but mostly just hyperventilating.  The lack of oxygen to make brain is making me super dizzy, so I actually can’t get up because I’ll pass out.  Fortunately I have some big gun anxiety pills in my purse and they will (crossing my fingers) kick in shortly.  Until then, or even afterward, pray I don’t pass out and that the anxiety about work tunes down a notch or twenty.  I’ll be the person hiding in the bathroom crying.  Anxiety party in the bathroom!

Monopoly Collection

You know when you are in a new group of people and you have to go around and introduce yourself and tell something interesting?  I hate that.  It seems like I'm always in the group with these people "I was the Gerber baby", "well I have met three presidents", "well I won a Nobel Prize...I was 11".  Okay, maybe that is a tiny exaggeration.  Suffice it to say that I tend to panic when you have to give the one interesting fact; everyone else seems to have way better things to tell about themselves.  Here is my go to fact.  I collect Monopolies, like the board game Monopoly. I have about 35 different versions.

There they are.  On display, sort of.  One day I would like to have a beautiful display case of some sort.  I think Josh is going to build me one in his spare time.  Haha, when he has spare time.  He has no spare time.

I have oddball ones like the ones above.  The first is a cross stitched one that Mom made me for Christmas this year.  I was HIGHLY impressed.  It took her over a 100 hours.  She loves me.  The next one is made entirely of chocolate.  Yum!  I won't eat it of course, because you don't eat your collection.  The last is obviously a purse, duh.

I get a couple of different common responses.  I get "Monopoly, like the board game?", "I saw a different version of Monopoly once.  It was a kid's one, like Spongebob or something.", "They make different versions?" and "That's cool!".  Needless to say the latter one is my favorite.  The second one is my least favorite.  That is usually from guys, don't know why.

So basically this post had no other point than showing off my collection and the awesome one that mom just made me.  Come over and we'll play a board game, three guess which type of board game ;)