These are done freehand by Dana Tanamachi. Mind explosion.

Ace Hotel Room 1021 from Dana Tanamachi on Vimeo.

The By & By from Dana Tanamachi on Vimeo.

A photographer from Fashion Assist stopped me on the street a few weeks ago to take a picture of my “street style”.  BLLLAAAP!  I wish my legs didn’t look so fat:

But all-in-all, I felt flattered to be identified as “fasionable” by someone other than myself.  WHO’S A FASHION SUPERSTAR?  Me.  I am.

I very seldom wear the same thing within a two month span, due to the fact that I have A LOT of clothing.

But I wore this skirt on the weekend and I’m wearing it again today.  It makes me feel like I’m a French girl on a bicycle about to stop off at a roadside cafe for a croissant. 

When I was in like, Grade 6 or something along those lines, I was a huge, huge loser. Like, epic huge. Like, I spent weekends playing “cheetahs” by myself in my backyard with no friends.

In the game “cheetahs”, you spend the entire afternoon pretending you’re a cheetah and walking around on all fours in circles in your backyard, trying to be all slithery like a cheetah by sticking out your shoulder blades, and crouching down in tall grasses to hide yourself. If you want to spice things up, you can pretend that a you’re being chased by an elephant… this is an acceptable modification to “cheetahs”.  You can also play “Princess and Cheetah”, but you have to have a sister who is willing to walk around the backyard pretending to be the princess, while you walk around pretending to be her pet cheetah.  This is also acceptable.

But the basic point here is that I was a loser with no friends. Overweight, self-conscious, awkward, cheetah-obsessed… you know. Just a huge epic loser.

Epic losers do not often get invited to parties or sleepovers or anything along those lines. Usually, you just hang out at home with your parents, pretending you’re a cheetah. So on the very few occasions when I DID get invited to these things, I would get pretty excited, and try really hard for people to like me, which would actually intensify my losery characteristics, and would further solidify my status as “epic loser” in my Grade 6B homeroom class.

This one time, a bunch of girls were having a sleepover, and they had the generosity to invite me. Let me tell you… I was pretty excited to be included in this event. Although Grade 6 “Dancing to CeCe Peniston in the Unfinished Basement” parties usually cast a wider net when it came to invitations, SLEEPOVERS always had a carefully edited invite list… which meant I rarely got invited to them. So I was excited.

This particular girl had a hot tub and a pool, which made the status of the sleepover skyrocket… I mean ME? Awkward, fat cheetah-girl? At a pool-party-SLASH-sleepover? Wow.

For anyone who doesn’t know, here is the mandatory schedule for a girls’ Grade 6 sleepover in the late 80′s / early 90′s:

6:00 – 7:00: Discuss boys you like
7:00 – 7:30: Order and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken
7:30 – 9:00: Discuss boys you like
9:00 – 10:00: Play the board game Girl Talk while discussing boys you like
10:00 – 11:30: Watch the movie Grease
11:30 – 12:00: Discuss boys you like
12:00 – 1:00: Make up complex dance to Backstreet Boys/*nsync song
1:00 – 5:00: Discuss boys you like
5:00 – 9:00: Sleep

So, naturally, we decided to sit in the hot tub during the prescribed 7:30 – 9:00 pm “Discuss boys you like” timeslot. Now – since I had virtually no friends, I was not used to being open and honest with other girls about the boys I liked, so I was resistant to this whole discussion. However, as time passed, I started to feel more and more included… and more and more cool… so I finally, after months and months and months of keeping it a secret, told a bunch of other girls which boy I had a crush on.

SIGH! What a release! I had been able to confide in some friends! They accepted me! I was one of them! Be still my beating cheetah-heart!

So, the next Monday in 6B homeroom, I’m feeling pretty good. You know… slightly less losery… slightly more included in the social landscape of the 6th Grade. My teacher asked me to help her “hand out papers”. Basically, you walk around, handing out scrap papers to the class for them to write on. This was a coveted position - it gave you a higher degree of access to the boys in the class as you walked by their desk and accidentally brushed their arms while handing them their paper.

Suddenly, one of my newfound sleepover friends walked up to me and whispered aggressively “I WANT TO HAND OUT THE PAPERS”. I was feeling overly confident… you know.. being newly cool and all, and I said “But teacher asked me to help!”

She paused, looked me straight in the eye, and squeaked “If you don’t let me hand them out, I’m telling EVERYONE that you like [name of the boy I liked, who I now forget]”

I could feel the combined shock-hatred-disappointment in my throat, seeping through my body. I was devastated. The ONLY time that I had EVER told anyone who I liked, and it was about to blow back in my face like a horse’s fart.

My cheetah hunting instinct started to bubble in my solar plexus. I was SO mad. SO mad. I wanted to fucking kill this girl. So I did the next best thing.

I took the huge pile of scrap paper, pulled my hand back to wind it up and gain momentum, and slapped her across the face with them SO hard that the pile of sheets exploded and separated upon impact, blowing into the air and fluttering throughout the entire classroom dramatically. Everyone looked at us.

Yes. I hit that bitch.

That was the last sleepover I ever got invited to.

Dear Chick Who Almost Gave Me a Heart Attack,

When you popped out of H&M in front of me and started walking down the street, I thought that you were actually naked from the waist down.  Like, I thought you were wearing no pants.  Actually pantsless.  For a split second, I sped up a little bit, because I was going to tell you that you forgot to re-put on your pants in the changeroom at H&M.

Then I realized you were wearing nude, slightly shiny leggings from American Apparel with a shirt that didn’t cover your bum or cooch.  The leggings were the EXACT colour of your skin, and they were so tight on your arse that they re-created your bum crack completely.  Thank GOD you weren’t walking towards me, because I didn’t have to see your gross freaky-deaky nude leggings camel toe.  I can only imagine you looked something like this. 

THAT’S SO GROSS.  YOU’RE SO GROSS. 

Love,
Natalie

Some “Heaven rainin’ down on Earth”-level sunshine cascaded over the “West-Side Doggie Poo Field” at Trinity Bellwoods this weekend. 

This doggie didn’t want to miss taking a plop in the Heavenly sunshine rays:

Mother Nature, why you gotta play me?  Stop teasing me with one delicate, perfect day, then pissing all over my face with rain for weeks and weeks and weeks.

It’s finally time.  My beautiful vintage Missoni shirt has been waiting in my closet with trepidation like a newborn puppy… waiting to get out into the fresh air and show off it’s sexy vintage 1970′s-esque stripes.

Ya.  I’m looking PREEEETTY good today.  Even pulled out the strawberry red pumps to amp up the bazzow.

Sneaky suit day again.  Here I am ready to negotiate million dollar real estate deals* in my navy suit:

And here I am in normal-person apparel.  Just add some shorts, untuck that shirt (uhem, vintage silk shirt from Austin), and add some intense oxfords, and you’re ready to walk the dog in Hipsterville!

*NB: I was not negotiating million dollar real estate deals.