Alternator?

Oh, I hadn't thought of that one. Alas! More things on a car I am not qualified to fix myself. But I can look all smartastic when I interrogate the actual mechanics in the morning.

Re purses: leather always matches, preferably black leather. At least, I think so. No one looking at me would consider me a reliable source of fashion advice.

Ick. I hope you're clean, msbelle. Was that what you were scaring Mac about?

I have a small black leather backpack that replaced a small black leather backpack. And the disproportionately expensive pewter satin Coach evening bag.

Allyson has a purse I want to steal. Contents she can keep. I want the outside prettiness.

Robin linked to a bag a ways back that I vaguely remember might have enough pockets to work better than my current bag. I hate fishing for stuff, even though my bag is small and the zipper runs around three of the four sides.

Jewelry that might as well be made for me. I love that aesthetic.

And this dress is made of win.

If this came in pink, I...nah, but almost!

Cool pants. No way I spend that much money on pants (uh, well, unless they're jeans), but they are cool.

This would need a hell of a lot of boning to not look like crap. Even mannequin looks slouchy and droopy.

Aw, man. I hope you don't have Lyme, but if you do, it responds quickly to treatment.

I don't carry a purse everyday. I have a satchel to carry all my crap in. It's larger than I really need for everyday, but it works for work. It needs some serious washing and leather spa-day, I think. When I don't want to lug that around (99% of the non-work time,) I have a sparse collection to chose from. There's the monster black rectangular one I use for flights-because I could fit a couple books, cd player, water bottle, wallet, etc. Except I think I can now use the smaller slingy black purse now that I have an ipod. That's the one I carry if I need more than a wallet. Just the wallet (and keys and sunglasses) I have a small boat shaped black bag. Target-faux-coach, I think. Sense a color theme?

When I lived abroad, I carried a 5x7ish embroidered pouch (color!) to fit my passport, visa and metropass holder, a skinny wallet and a vice. I later upgraded to a leather one about the same size (from the same place I got the satchel. Man, I doubt you could find that quality of goods now for what I paid back then-$150 total.)

And that's all I have. And I don't travel with more than one if I can avoid it.

Which is why I've needed to borrow one of Kat's cute bags when I visited last.

In non-fashion-related news of weirdness, I just learnt that Sean Paul has a song out in which he talks about two people I know. Family friend who died of brain cancer at about 18, and another family friend that died this past weekend. He knew the one, and knows the son of the other (this is the son that put out a record with Me'shell Ndegeocello and I'm thanked in the liner notes).

Hi. I missed Natter.

msbelle, what flea said. I hope x3 that it isn't really lyme. But a coworker recently had it, and after a strong round of antibiotics she's fine now. Man, when I was a kid we never thought twice about running around in the grass barefoot. If we got a tick, we pulled it off and that was that. Has lyme always been lurking to catch us, or is it new? Maybe we were just naive.

I buy purses, but I only ever carry the same three. I should really dump all the others on Goodwill. I usually carry a tote bag to work to carry all my junk. And my purse. And the purse with my iPod in it. I need my stuff.

I used to never do anything to my eyebrows except pluck the Sign of the Werewolf between them. They were really thick. Then I got this stylist that my friend recommended. She talked me into having them waxed. They looked awesome. I actually gasped when I saw myself; it made me look like a movie star. I don't do it anymore, though, I'm scared to. But after a year and a half of permanent-dying my hair (and a while of bleaching it and dying it red), and permanent-dying my eyebrows too, my hair started to fall out. Eyebrows too. One day I was sitting in the styling chair, staring at myself in the mirror, and I said, Oh my god, my hair's gotten so thin! She tried to tell me it was always that thin. It was not. I have the photos to prove it. So I stopped using permanent dye, started taking biotin and using all sorts of (possibly useless) all-natural hair-grow stuff, and slowly it's growing back. I live in fear that it won't all come back and I'll be left with a hairline like a guy's and empty patches in my eyebrows. It's worse than being fat, I tell you; fat I know I can fix, if I'd just exercise. But hair? What are you gonna do?

Welcome back to Natter, Susan!

And this dress is made of win.

Geeble.

WANT.

Umm. Yeah.

That's... oh, yeah.

If it is Lyme, there's an excellent cure rate when they catch it early like this.

This is the purse I would carry every day in my fantasy life. [link] Anyone got $20,000 extra dollars for me?

Hi Susan!

This skirt is almost wonderful. Wrong size and colour, but I love the idea.

Okay, is it possible that I've run out of 'net?