Lessons From Charm School

You learn a thing or two interning at a Southern Progress Corporation publication. Thank you, Miss Gracious Living --beloved blog of Southern Accents.

Raise your hand if you want to buy me a subscription...

Perhaps there should be a transition stage from college to the working world. They don't take naps in the office. They also don't hang out on benches with frat boys after lunch.

So I made it through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and half of Friday. Then it was time for escapism. Well you see, at my internship office, there is a library devoted to journalism and southern books. Alone. And this beats the bench tradition hands down.

To celebrate the long weekend, I sat for an hour reading magazines, and fell in love with Art & Antiques. Best lunch break yet.

If you have a hankering for art history, Architectural Digest or Southern Accents, throw this one in the stack next time you spend two hours at Barnes and Noble.

Mason Belle Jar

Mason jars are so southern.

Uses: iced sweet tea glasses, Vera Bradley pencil collection holder, hydrangea vase, tea light displayer.

A "roaring" unmentionable

Quirky company Your Slip is Showing operates under the tagline "Where fabulous elopes with whimsy." Though these underthings are made in Seattle, it takes a Southern Belle to pull off these slips with such panache.

Ohwellheynow, Zelda Fitzgerald. F. Scott would be pleased.

Label lover

I'm sucker for personality quizzes. It all goes back elementary school days when Camilla and I would steal her big sister's Seventeen magazines. Because when you are in fifth grade, your "flirt style" is important to know.

Somehow taking this Ethan Allen quiz makes me feel more mature.

And look, you still get that same warm-fuzzy feeling with your quiz results. "Your style result is Glamour. Glamour is the penthouse with a view, the Old Hollywood mansion, the home of the connoisseur. A knowing marriage of fashion with sumptuous comfort. A fearless blending of Art Déco, Chippendale, and Modern. Glamour is shamelessly smart, elegant, and timeless."

Timeless? Moi? If you insist.

Goodbye to an era

1. BCW attending NYU? But...but...I don't think they wear satin headbands there, Blair.
2. Do you know how much I invested in my headband collection because of you?
3. That's all.

Tartfully prepared

I've smugly uttered the following phrase approximately 26 times: "Oh, well I never order the same thing twice." My, my. How cosmopolitan of you, dear. But alas, as I add years to my life I find some comfort in having my "usual." At my table. In my restaurant.

Enter Gilchrist--despite the menu, I always relish my toasted wheat pimento cheese, complete with a juicy southern tomato and leafy lettuce. I even forgive the plump sandwich's forlorn attempt to contain all of the cheese as it drips onto the styrofoam plate. Gilchrist's famed limeade adds to the panoply of flavor. Must admit that I've never tried anything else on the alphabet-sign menu.

Gilchrist is an Mountain Brook village mainstay, tucked into its old-school, drugstore location for decades. It's a pledge sister outing away from our glorious campus cafeteria. An after-school stop for my 9-year-old boyfriend and I before baseball practice. It's even calmed my nerves on a first date with an older boy. (Are we calling that a date? No? Okay.) Company regardless--I'll have the pimento cheese on toasted wheat with a limeade, please ma'am.