Ruffles Not Diets

Mostly how I am not sure how to do it.  The world of job searching is full of all sorts of random, seemingly magical, and often contradictory advice, leaving a poor random recent graduate like me with no idea what is true.  It is also largely geared towards the business world, which is not really my field.  I've recently been able to cut out a lot of the noise with the site Hiring Librarians, which is fantastic and simply a series of interviewers with the actual people who make hiring decisions at libraries.  I know since I started reading it regularly my cover letters and resume have dramatically improved, but the question of how to dress for an interview hass, if anything, gotten more confusing.  A huge number of the interviewees list dressing "too casually" as a common mistake, but what does that mean? Should I wear a suit?  Crap, I don't actually own a suit.  Then I will read someone saying a common mistake is "dressing too casually, like some people show up in flip-flops".  Right, I wasn't really ever considering showing up to an interview in flip-flops. The most formal library staff I have ever seen still only dress in "business casual" wear, so I figure, slightly nicer/more conservative than that should be fine.  I do however, have a pretty weak grasp on what normal people consider normal clothes.  So, here are the outfits I am most strongly considering, your feedback and general comments are very much appreciated.




This is my personal top pick.  It is dressy, but interesting and not at all revealing.  On the left I wear it with a sweater since I may soon be interviewing in Maine where it is usually in the 50's this time of year. I'm wearing it with some earrings that have a bit of vellum from a medieval copy of the Justitnian Code.  I don't know if the print is a bit too funky or the whole thing is too casual.

Silly thing the First:
For many years I have been studiously hiding the dark secret that I am actually blond.  After layers of dye and integrating root touch-ups as part of my life I can almost forget this shameful fact.....  Except those moments when I don't have any makeup and want to just put on pants and run the store for ice cream at 10 at night and realize that my eyebrows are several shades lighter than my hair and look decidedly weird.  I could either take two minutes to apply brow gel or decide I don't care if the Giant Eagle stock boy knows my terrible secret.  Not anymore!
I spent a few hours like that yesterday to dye my eyebrows with henna.  Normal dye is both more runny and toxic so, you know, you can go blind (even I am not so lazy at 10 at night to think it is worth it).  The chance of going blind doing this seemed pretty low, but I am not a doctor, so you probably shouldn't try this at home.  I ordered samples of Twilight henna and indigo from mehandi.com, mixed them up together into a fairly thick paste and left them sit while I was at work, then applied petroleum jelly around my eyebrows, applies the henna/indigo paste on the brows, and covered with saran wrap for a few hours.  Apparently I killed the indigo by mixing it up to far before applying it, so they came out lighter than they should have.
before on left and after on right

I don't think any objective assessment would allow me to conclude that it was worth the trouble, but I will probably still do it again, because I am stubborn and want to get the indigo thing right


Silly thing the second:
I made a dress with no pattern and a sort of vague notion of how I should go about it.  I think it turned out fine, but I had to remake several parts and keep adjusting the fit.  Honestly, a really simple maxi dress really shouldn't have been this much trouble, and wouldn't have been had I spent ten minutes on google looking up maxi dress tutorials.  Still, Gorey print maxi-dress:

and with a sweater!