Personal Style Post-Forever Endeared

I wore this outfit to a sushi festival a few weeks ago where I ate toro like tuna was going into extinction. My love affair with raw fish started in high school while working as a server at Todai, an all-you-can eat sushi buffet inside Arcadia's Santa Anita mall. My motivation for working there was not so much monetary (I only worked one shift a week) as it was driven by entirely romantic motives. Word on the street was that the servers were all super hot college students. At the time, I was a senior in high school and found the immaturity and boyish tendencies of my peers quite passé. It was time to graduate from boys to men.

At Todai, I was the youngest employee so everyone was super nice and took good care of me. It was such a fun and rewarding job! I served drinks, cleared plates, ate sushi to my heart's content, and took home a roll of cash every time I worked. I also socialized with college kids who didn't live with their parents and clubbed in Hollywood on the weekends. The manager was particularly cool. He wore a suit, had spiky hair, pierced ears, and a set of perfectly matching dimples. He was just a few years older than me but was so driven, mature, and charming. We'd chat during breaks and he'd always catch my eye and wink whenever I passed by him. I was crushing. But my crush didn't become full blown until the day we both showed up at Todai with tissue stuffed in our nostrils. We had bloody noses! Since middle school, I'd been inflicted with a bloody nose disorder where my nose bled uncontrollably at least once a day. Doctors couldn't figure out why it happened or when I was going to stop leaking. Apparently, the charismatic and cool as a cucumber manager was inflicted with the same dorky disorder. And knowing that made him all the more attractive and endearing. In an off-kilter kind of way, it gave him the X factor.

We eventually did go out on a date. Dinner at Noodle World. But it was a Todai chaperoned date as two of our co-workers came along. It was quite awkward as they basically just sat there while the two of us talked, slurped noodles, and gazed into each other's eyes-a San Gabriel Valley version of Lady and the Tramp. After that nothing really happened between us as my love life was already overly complicated. But thanks to him and the rest of my co-workers, my love for sushi blossomed at Todai Seafood Buffet. And just in case you're wondering, I stopped bleeding once I got to college.

I played up the simplicity of my blouse and jeans outfit by adding some color and print to it. I'm not big on fringe but absolutely love my Jill Stuart leather fringed boots. Even though they are a full size too small, I wear them every chance I get. Because a girl should never let something like pain or blisters stand in the way of her love for shoes.