What are you doing this weekend?

Happy Friday, friends! What are you doing this weekend? I'm packing up and heading north to see ACS and visit my college roomie, Mel, and her husband, Joe. Mel and I lived together for two-and-a-half years; she is one of the best people I know and one of my closest friends. We always have a blast when we get together and I cannot wait to see her.

What about you? What are you up to? If you're in the mood for some weekend reading, here're some links that might strike your fancy:

As someone who works in media, I found this piece about editorial salaries—and the discrepancies between what male and female editors make (yup, still; ugh)—pretty interesting. (Refinery29)

I have several family members who suffer from bipolar disorder. Sandy Doyle's piece about her own diagnosis for Rookie is a great, moving read. (Rookie)

This is a bit of a cheat, because it's actually a collection of articles, but The New York Times Magazine's "Inspiration Issue" is cool. Of particular note: "Junot Diaz Hates Writing Short Stories" (Diaz is one of my favorite authors; his The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is one of the best books I've ever read). (The New York Times)

Photo above: My cat Oscar. Would also like to copy what he's doing quite a bit this weekend. Would not like to copy the fact that he rubbed his head in something green last night and now has highlighter-green face fur. Alas.

Her name was Lola...

I've got weddings on the brain lately since I'll be attending five of them within the next eight months (!).  Isn't this Lola wedding dress from Whitney Deal so sweet and pretty? I'd pair it with a bright lip, a colorful shoe and a braid just like the one in the photos.

Do you love weddings of all kinds (like me) or would you rather avoid all the hubbub?

The secret life of bees.

We need to talk about the fact that, if it wasn't incredibly creepy, I would pack up the cats and move right into Rebekka Seale's adorable Nashville home without looking back. Looking at these photos makes me so happy—Rebekka's aesthetic is so close to my own—and I'm totally copying that stamped bee DIY project (I've been saying I want to give my apartment a makeover for months now, and gold bees and a chalkboard wall are, I think, how that project is going to start).

Photos by Melanie Watson, via Design*Sponge 

Dandelion Chocolate.

I am sucker not only for good food (obvs) but also beautiful packaging, so when I come across something that combines the two, my little pink heart feels especially joyful. Enter Dandelion Chocolate, a small-batch chocolate company based in San Francisco that's available here in Sarasota at Artisan Cheese Company. Dandelion Chocolate uses only two ingredients in its bars—cacao and cane sugar—and the result is an intensely rich chocolate in which you can actually taste all the flavors of the cacao bean. Plus, hello, check out that gorgeous wrapper—there’s no way I can throw that away.

P.S. Louise at Artisan Cheese Company told me that she has a customer who mixes a small square of the chocolate into her coffee every morning—yum.

Photo: My own. 

Bangs.

It's been a little while since the last time I changed up my hair, so I'm itching to do something new with it, and the idea that keeps coming back to me these days is bangs. I'm not even really sure I can pull them off, but I think if I'm going to get them, they'd look best with the length my hair is now (that is, long). And after all, it's just hair, right? It grows out.

P.S. Don't you just love this photo of Zooey Deschanel (and her iconic bangs) getting ready for the Emmys? It's from her Instagram feed.