Dear Editor,

Thanks to this blog, I regularly receive emails that begin as such. They're from various up-and-coming fashion lines and companies who would like me to write about them and feature their wares/services on this site. I suppose it strikes me as funny, a little odd. Editor? What editor? Oh, wait. That's me. Allow me to clarify. Emails like these are, originally, the reason I got into fashion blogging-- so I could essentially become a one-woman PR show and write quality content for fashion companies, in the hopes that I will one day break into magazine publishing. And, oh, get paid.

Ha.

I'm going to level with you-- I like fashion and all, but I've been puzzling over what I want to do with this blog, what it means for me. Some people are able to make blogging into a vocation (I've been fortunate enough to start my freelance writing "career" this way). But I'll be honest with you; the pay is shabby at best. I was told by various college professors that writing is a "thankless job with little pay," but I didn't mind it then; given my passion for art and music, I knew I'd wind up in a creative field and have always thought of myself as a starving artist.

Then today, I got a little too hungry. Literally. Stomach rumbling, nothing to eat. Sure, I may own some pretty clothes (I'll never worry about going naked!), but things are rough when you can barely afford a cup of coffee. My student loans are killing me. I know I need to get out of my financial rut-- it's not quite Confessions of a Shopaholic caliber, but it's close enough! So lately, I've been reassessing my skills and career goals.

I've been out of school for two years. I work part-time. I write part-time. Blog part-time. Perform part-time. If I keep this up, I'll never be full-time anything or actually get anywhere (wherever it is I want to be going). I'm not sure what it is I want to do, but whatever it is, exactly, doesn't involve struggling like this.

Sorry if this seems like whining; it's not. I'm trying to get a little more real here. I know everyone struggles one way or another. I just wish I'd been a little smarter, made some better choices while earning my undergrad. Yeah, I worked hard for it; just maybe not hard enough.

So what's the plan now? A little begrudgingly, I'm going back to school. All this time I've been hoping that my B.A. would somehow be "enough," and that I'd land a job based on that. But in the rough, choppy waters that are These Economic Times, I'm quickly learning that, for some people, even a Master's degree is not enough. My goal now is to find an M.A. program that will allow me to hone my current skills while narrowing my focus; I want to add on top of the degree I've already earned so that I'm better prepared for the workforce. Because right now, a few publishing rejections into my writing "career," my confidence is pretty shaky. It's high time to build it up again and see where life takes me.

I've got a long road ahead of me. Since I'm finally caving and applying to grad school, and I only recently decided on this, I've got to quickly register - and cram! - for the GRE, contact old professors for recommendations, and fill out several applications (I'm too scared to put all my eggs in that one proverbial basket). All this, and musical rehearsals for a show that runs in October. Y-i-k-e-s. It's a vast undertaking. And I'm a-crazy.

In light of all this serious-type-stuff, I'm sometimes reluctant to do "outfit posts"; they seem superfluous. Obviously I love fashion and pretty, girlie things, but sometimes getting all gussied up and snapping pictures of myself to share on the internet feels wildly narcissistic and self-indulgent. Is it?

Elbows in the air! Now this is a fashion blog-y pose.

Until now, I haven't regarded it that way. Mostly I just love reading other style blogs and wanted to do something similar here. Straight-up fashion reporting is fun, but outfit posts make everything feel more personal, like I'm swapping wardrobe woes and joys with a friend. I think it's just my ridiculous self-consciousness that has me wondering if I'm really just a pretentious windbag for thinking that I need to document every single time I wear something cute and blog about it post-haste, as if I'm missing out on something if I fail to do so. As though the world would stop turning.

Ooh, looking at the ground. That's a good one, too.

There's also this tiny worry about getting too caught up in material things. After all, what are they again? Just things. Don't get me wrong, I adore lacy dresses, peep-toe pumps and cardigans with pearlized buttons like the Mad Men-obsessed girl-next-door. Obviously we know there's more to life than that; we aren't shallow enough to think otherwise. The style blogs I read on a near-daily basis are penned by wonderfully smart, retrospective, artistic young women with big dreams and goals and witty things to say. I wouldn't dare call fashion bloggers shallow; these girls are innovators. Simply, on my end, it's difficult to drum up excitement over clothes and blogging when my bills are taunting me. I guess that's even more reason to get creative.

Hanging from a gazebo might help. Yes?

Tell me the truth: Am I just being a little too reflective here? Does anyone else ever feel this way? I'm curious to know your thoughts.

And now that I've gotten all this off my chest, that's the last I'm going to speak of such things for a while. Hardship. Crisis. Financial woes. Recessionista. (Love how that's an official word in our lexicon now and SpellCheck didn't dare correct me). Blah. I'm with these two:

NATALIE PORTMAN & RASHIDA JONES Speak Out from Natalie Portman

And thanks to everyone who gave me photo storage and uploading advice; I plan to try some of your tricks soon. And thank you, too, if you managed to plod through this mammoth entry. Just wait'll you read the novel! ;)