As many of you might have read, my best friend Victoria over at Parfait Doll wrote the most excellent article about breaking up ever. With reading that, and coming to some terms of my own discovery, I have also reached to this point in my own world to where I need freedom. But freedom in what exactly? Freedom in so many different forms that can be expressed. I am a wild butterfly, that needs to fly in the sky. I jump from flower to flower often, hoping I am going to find the right petals to stay near and rest my tired wings. I feel that I am still in my stage of flight, and I need to keep flying until I have reached my destination. I am still searching for that destination. (WOW DALIN, way to be a cheeseball)

2012 has been a year in which I have made countless mistakes, and learned from each and every one of them. Mistakes in my romantic life, my career, and most importantly my self respect. I need a lot of things from the dream life I have. I am not asking them to be perfect, cause hell even dreams aren't actual perfect, I require some tough love and an argument about my life now and then. But what I want is something moderately close to the goal that is my dream life. So here I thought I would share those goals out of interest and for therapeutic reasons. Maybe you will find them helpful or interesting, you can find out for yourself.

Over on Lolita Blog Carnival this week, the topic of discussion was What Is Your Lolita Playlist? Sadly, because of Sandy I didn't get a chance to post on time for the deadline and thus I wanted to make my own separate post on the topic! Seriously, I really couldn't let this topic just fly by, since playing music while I am getting frilled up is truly one of my favorite parts of this whole experience in wearing Lolita. Music helps me get in the right state of mind, feel confident, and just overall kick ass in my coordinates and attitude. Curious to take a listen, check out the list here:

As you might have notice, things have been pretty quiet here over on Magic Ala Mode. Many of you in the USA and outside of may know that recently the east coast (mostly Tri-State area) was given a huge blow that we call Sandy (Insert Grease jokes here). Hurricane Sandy was by far one of the strangest weather events I have ever experienced in my life (and trust me, I have been through my share of hurricanes including last years Irene, which was no fun time either!) Sandy truly gave me a lot to think about. I really had thought past 9/11 that New York could really deal with anything, and that nothing could stand in its way. But Sandy proved my home otherwise. New York City and its fellow state sibling New Jersey are not in any sort of condition that could be considered livable, or even functional in most cases.

In my area, we were very lucky that a few trees and some days with no power were the worst of our worries. But I have to just take a moment to reach out to the families in my state that lost loved ones because of Mother Nature. This especially goes out to two young boys that lost their lives in Sandy that happened to live in a nearby town to me called North Salem (you can read about the tragedy here) These deaths are of course terrible, but especially when they hit close to home, including the fact that your family knew these children personally (my cousin's went to school with them and played with them on the local sports teams.)

Now you might be wondering why my frilly and sparkle covered blog is even writing about this? Well as much as I would love to avoid talking about such sad news as this, I need to write about it here because I feel this is the best place I can reach out to people. As a fellow New Yorker, I please ask that if you feel in your heart you could, donate something. If you could take a moment to not buy a new t-shirt, brand dress, or video game credit online, please donate anything you can to help! The residents of New Jersey and New York City, two areas which I know very well and have grew up in (including my family's origin city, Hoboken) need all the help they can get. Here is the list of donation sites and charities that will be able to help what I call my home.

Also, if you know anyone in the area at which Sandy hit, please reach out to them and give them your love and support. And to the fellow frilly Lolitas out there affected by Sandy, please know we can get through this together. I know that I have been lucky in that I have not been hit by the incident as bad as others, but please know we are all here for each other. My love goes out to all involved, and those that are still suffering from the Hurricane. My thoughts are with you all and will continue to be until things are well again.

Welcome again another edition of Lolita Blog Carnival at Magic A'la Mode! One on this week's post, we will be unearthing something not that mysterious to some but also a mystery to others. Many wonder what a Lolita looks out of, well, Lolita style. For many that have been reading my blog, you may all ready know what I look like when not in the frills, but to the new readers here then I am about to reveal my Bat Cave, take off my glasses, show you my inner mysterious Jedi powers (Bring it on, nerd references!) and show you what I, Dalin, look like outside of the frills. Can you handle it? Lets do this!


So as you can imagine, I don't wear Lolita to work. Sure, I love being extremely girly and totally frilled to the nines, but with my line of work lets just say that isn't very supportive. I work in the film industry, currently as a transcriber and hoping to getting to be a film critic and historian. As such, I try to be myself but in cloths that is more fitting to the fast paced work environment I live in. Sure, I could girly it up a bit and would love to, but at the same time I tend be carrying around a giant backpack and cute girly dresses with a 30 pound thing on my back in the hot subway tunnels is definitely not a good mix. So what do I do to look cute in such circumstances? The answer is easy: Cute vintage tshirts!

As many will know, I collect nerdy graphic t-shirts the represent all my favorite things. From Jem, to Sailor Moon, plus Back to the Future costumed Muppet characters, I have an incredibly big huge t-shirt collection. At this point I am needing to get rid of a lot of my items, but until it really gets out of control I am not planning on stopping too soon. In addition, I also am a cardigan addict. I love ones with giant long sleeves and fluffy feeling, plus one with beautiful fabrics. One of my favorites I have is from the Madonna's Material Girl collection, in which the cardigan is mostly gray with big pink leopard spots!

Another thing I love in Skinny pants/Jeans. I love the curvy feel that shows off (for the most part) all my favorite aspects of my figure. The best is the wide variety of colors they come in, one of my favorites being a purple pair I got from Forever 21. Now I got to get myself a black pair for work, and I can definitely tell you I'll be heading back to Forever 21 for such an item! And to top it off, I love myself a good pair of boots or especially a comfy pair of Chucks/Converse. With the wide variety of designs, they pretty much go with all my outfits, in and out of frills.

To say this weekend was epic is seriously the biggest understatement. I had a truly great time this weekend at New York Comic Con and on Sunday at the Sweet Streets/Hasbro Pony Project! Though a lot was hectic, some stress was had, it was very small in comparison to the really awesome and unforgettable moments that this weekend provided. Though the best part of course was seeing friends new and old, and having an excellent companion (aka the boyfriend) to go along with you on the ride. Here is a breakdown of each day of the con, with pictures (and video!!) for all to enjoy.