Top 5 Things I'm Going to Buy With My First Paycheck

Anyone ever see the movie "High Fidelity" with John Cusack? Not as in, went with John Cusack to see the movie; he stars in it. I suppose that's stating the obvious, but whatever. Anyway, in that movie, the main characters love making top 5 lists, mostly about music, but about other things as well. Well, I'm a pretty big list person myself, so I think it's about time for top 5 lists to become a feature on Swallow Light Bulbs. Today's is the top 5 things I'd buy with my first paycheck (I swear I'm going to get a job eventually!). Some are fashion-related, such as clothes and shoes, some are art or home-decoration things, and some are just ridiculous-- but they're all things that I just can't afford without a steady income right now. So here they are:

1. Winter boots: specifically, these:

They're Steven Madden's grey suede Binbolo boots, and I love them, but they're $174. I do need winter boots soon, though, so my cheaper options are:

These are also Steve Madden, but not as expensive. I can probably get something like these for under $50.


And these are ModCloth's D'arcy Boots. I love them to death (look at the amazing buckles!) and although they're just a little above what I can afford right now ($50, plus $7 shipping), they look like they'd be a bit sturdier in bad weather than the (cheaper) Steve Madden boots. Well, except for the killer heel. But damnit, I really want them.

2. Tutu: My roommate mentioned to me last night that her boyfriend's sister is a professional ballerina. If anyone told me that they were a ballerina, I'd probably laugh, but professional ballerina has such a nice ring to it. It sounds.... like the most amazing job ever. So while I was looking up green tights on eBay today (whole 'nother story), the search bar suggested green tutus, and who was I to say no to that? There's something so dreamy about the layers upon layers of soft, feminine colors and flouncy fabrics; and I especially love the bolder, flirty colors like red or apple green. So I ended up spending a solid hour looking at green tutus and turning a similar color myself for envying my roommate's boyfriend's sister and her glamorous, surely fulfilling life of tutus and swans. Or something. Obviously I'm not totally sure what the life of a professional ballerina is like, but I sure can imagine. Mostly I just want to be able to have conversations where people say, "Yeah, I hate my boring desk job. Anyway, what do you do?" and then I can say, with the perfect combination of smug and casual, "Oh, I'm a Professional Ballerina."
Anyway, if I could wear a tutu regularly on my college campus without the risk of getting stoned, here are the top contenders, in many different colors (I gave up on ebay and found all of these through Google Image):

I love the combination of light blue and neon green for this one:



AN ORANGE TUTU! Need I say more? I do, actually: that skirt is gorgeous. Look at the ruffles! I seriously want to sink my teeth into this one, it just looks so.... juicy.


I thought this one was just sweet-- the colors, the striped waistband, and the big pink rose:


This one is orange and pink. Love. It's like a soft, warm cloud of girliness and cotton candy.


Although this one's colors are kind of soft, their combination has a bold result:


Again, the combination of colors (yellow and blue) and fullness of the skirt really get me:


I love love love love LOVE the bright green, polka-dot bow on this one ($30 at tbugdesigns.com, get it before I do!):


This is such a bold, fiery red, and I love the thickness of the skirt that goes with it:

I think this girl is amazing. I found this picture on her blog, The Flying Saucer, and if you want to see more tutu stylings then click on the link. I thought she was wearing a red tutu, but it turns out that she's actually wearing a white tutu under this red dress:
Adorable, no? Here's the actual tutu:

Great outfit.

Also, in case you're wondering, "But where on earth would I wear my extremely impractical tutu?", well, it turns out that there's plenty of activities that include tutu-wearing.
Biking:


Horseback riding:


And even ballet dancing:



So don't give up hope. Even if your normal day-to-day life doesn't include spivots and plies and tip-toeing, or whatever it is that ballerinas do, you can wear a tutu too!

(Sorry, I really didn't mean for this post to turn into a frenzied worship of tutus.)

Also, I would have sooooo much fun here. Makes me wish I was majoring in theatre because if I could, I'd spend my whole life in a costume and makeup room. You can probably tell how excited I am for Halloween.

3. Vagina couch: My roommate and I have decided to bunk our beds so that we'll have more room, and we want to fill that newly-acquired space with a couch. I'm pretty sure that she would frown on a vagina couch, but I just happened to be googling couches and oddly, this was right at the top. I won't post a picture on here, but this is where you can check it out. It's being sold for $600 on Craiglist by the crazy art student that made it. Think it's worth $600 and a drive to Northern California? (And the wrath of my roommate?)

4. Tibetan hand-painted end table: Okay, I guess my home-decor tastes are pretty eclectic. But I saw this on overstock.com and it's just so damn pretty and refined (yeah, the polar opposite of the previous... thing).

Maybe not worth $200 though. Then again, is a couch shaped like a woman's genitals worth three times that? Probably not, no. Okay, maybe a little.

5. Everything on ModCloth: Well, this post took longer than I thought it would and I'm running late, so I think this will do for #5. After all, I love everything on ModCloth, and would be hard-pressed to pick just one thing from there to buy. I'll have to do a ModCloth feature soon of all my favorites. But yeah, for this one, the total will probably come to a couple thousand dollars, but didn't I mention that my future job pays that much, like, per day? That's right, I'm going to be a high-end hooker.