suburban kamikaze

The Teenager's Guide to Creating an Authentic Costume with Nothing but Money and That Skirt You Wanted Anyway: Plus Cats!

At some point today, in between items 9 and 73 on my to-do list, I am planning to dig a few Halloween decorations out of the basement closet and throw them onto the front steps in a slapdash, last-minute attempt at seasonal decor. For the children.

Coming in at number No Fucking Way on my list is a quick shopping trip for something called a skater skirt that Veruca Salt needs for the last-minute Halloween costume she may or may not wear.

If history teaches us anything, it is that - all profane protestations to the contrary - I will be going to the mall today, despite the fact that this is unreasonable, ridiculous and not particularly relevant to her costume theme.  

But apparently, there is no other way to make a cat costume work. I know this now because the look she gave me when I suggested that any of the 45 pairs of black leggings she already owns could serve the same purpose - made it clear that a skater skirt is the difference between a cat costume that works and a cat costume fail.        

Then, if I manage to accomplish nothing else, I will dig my skeleton hand wine goblets out of the cobweb covered boxes and pour myself a glass of something cheap and red. I may also pull out the remnants of the very tiny, very adorable cat costumes the children wore so many years ago and get a little nostalgic over a giant pile of Twizzlers.

It is a very sorry excuse for a holiday effort and I would apologize, but I know that you are only here for the cats.  

Photo: My neighbor has a giant fucking cat.

from the History has Taught us Nothing archives: Tinkerbelle is so last week

from the costume bin: Hallowhat?

What Not to Wear Teen Edition: If you can find it, you probably shouldn't wear it

There are no close calls in Teenage Fashion Court. Deliberation is actively discouraged.

COUNSEL FOR THE DEFENSE: "Members of the jury..."

TEENAGE GIRL JURY FOREMAN: "Guilty. All counts. Also, those shoes are hideous."

Sometimes I get a ruling before I even know there is a case pending. This happened recently when I combined what I mistakenly thought was a fashionable pencil skirt with what I erroneously assumed was an acceptable sweater and wore them with ankle boots I incorrectly believed pulled the outfit together. Compounding my offense, I added a vintage-y pin under the could-not-have-been-more-wrong impression that I was accessorizing.       

I could not have been more wrong.

GIRL: OhMyGod. Take that off.

ME: Really? What about the ...?

GIRL: Get rid of it. Now

ME: But what do you think of...?

GIRL: Yeah. That's a no-go.

It was a no-go. I changed my clothes. I also recently got rid of a pair of jeans after the girl communicated with me, via eyebrow, that they were hideous.  But there is a limit to how much fashion advice I am willing to accept from someone who draws hearts on the back of her hands with a Sharpie.

For one thing, her dictates can be awfully narrow:  All jeans must be skinny jeans. All skirts must end above the knee. Everything I do with my hair is wrong.

Also, there is a price to be paid for her approval. Wardrobe components of which she approves most enthusiastically tend to disappear. I get points for my taste in hats, shoes, coats and earrings, which we are now sharing under a system in which they have all been relocated to her room. Or possibly the basement? She may have left some of them in the car. They are around here somewhere.

 

from the SK fashion archives: The Underachiever's Guide to Accessorizing

A reasonably true story I have decided to call "Justin Bieber's Cat"

In the course of a recent interview for the cover of PTA Mom Weekly, I was asked what "Suburban Kamikaze" even meant.

It stumped me for a minute because 1) Nobody told me the name of your blog was supposed to mean anything, and 2) I was in the car with Veruca Salt, 15, who insisted on turning up the radio in the middle of my telephone interview because the latest One Direction song was playing and it had been almost 10 minutes since the last time she'd heard it, and 3) I always assumed that anyone who came here would figure it out. And then explain it to me.

I'm working on a better story for the next person who asks because if blogging has taught me anything - and I am not saying that it has - it's that you had better be prepared for your 5.3 seconds of fame-ishness, because there is really no second chance to get it right when the Daily Planet is on the phone.   

The trick is to condense your story into a "sound bite" - which is journalism slang for "Seven to 12 easy-to-spell words, at least two of which should reference a celebrity, or a cat."

The long version: When I first moved "here" from This is Living, I felt like an alien. I was so much cooler than the other women I met, which scared me a little because in other parts of the world I was never more than like the third or fourth coolest person. When I showed up at their get-togethers, I'd be the only woman in the whole place wearing a bikini, or drinking a Margarita. And then one day it dawned on me: It was 15 degrees. Also, I was at a PTA meeting.

Eventually, I learned to adjust to the rhythms of my new life in the so-called "Midwest." And by "adjust" I mean, "complain loudly about how much I hated it here." It didn't help that everyone I met told me I was going to hate it here. And that I was crazy for moving to Chicago from a place where they imagine everyone sits around the pool all day drinking mojitos under the palm trees, while handsome men in Disney costumes feed them guacamole and cocktail shrimp.

I lived in South Florida for 15 years and that sort of thing probably happened less than twice a week.

But the point is, when you spend all your time complaining to everyone you meet about how cold you are and how hard it is to find a decent mojito in the suburbs, eventually, you will run out of people to complain to. (Also, in one of the truly charming quirks of the Midwest, people will start planting mojitos in their backyard gardens just for you.) 

The Internet provides a practically unlimited audience of people you can complain to. So, I started a blog. I named it Suburban Kamikaze because I didn't have the business savvy to call it Justin Bieber's Cat.

The End

It's cold.

Good Morning Kamikazians and welcome to a brand new season of "It's Too Fucking Cold in the Greater Chicago Area."  It is - despite an ongoing smear campaign by certain members of my immediate family - one of our most popular features.

And why is that? I'll tell you why: It's because I am not afraid to say it. It's too fucking cold in the Greater Chicago area. People know this on a certain level, but no one wants to talk about it. The people of the prairie are in complete denial.

"You call this cold?" they will say, raising a frozen eyebrow in scorn. "Back in the winter of 00-something, it was so cold we had to wear coats over our clothes."

If you get caught wearing a coat before the temperature falls below ice rink, they will look at you as if you are an alien, which let's face it: if your parents' parents didn't grow up within a snowball's throw of the house you're freezing in, you are. 

There is a lot of pressure to pretend it isn't cold. You can see it in the icy grimace of the early morning dog walkers, the stroller pushers, the teenagers who walk to school with icicles hanging off their basketball shorts.

And of course, a few years back, the conspiracy went so far as to include a recalculation of wind chill, which had the effect of making the reported temperatures higher than they really were, which was already higher than they actually felt.

I'm pretty sure I read this somewhere. I could look it up for you, but my whole point is: I don't need someone else to tell me when it's time to start complaining about the weather. I just know.

Photo: Too soon? That's what they want you think.

from the archives: Chicago winter forecast: Yeah. It's Going to be Cold 

Taylor Swift only thinks she has trouble now