Things were clearly very busy around here.
The reason I always have a filter on the end of my lens? That nose directly above constantly gets pushed into it, because a certain someone is always, always ready for her close up. And just maybe the camera will attack and I’ll need protecting.
We like to imagine Gusbuster walking around with this song playing in his head.
When people ask me what I did over Memorial day weekend, I really want to say, “Everyone did a whole bunch of really awful Indiana Jones impressions before watching the movie, and then my mom threw a cookout during which my 79-year-old grandmother led a sing-along to House of the Rising Sun because my uncle’s trying to start a band called “They’re Not Here Yet”.
But I’m afraid that’s too much for people to process, so instead I say, “we visited my family.”
Hold on to your pants, because here’s a list totally frivolous things that make me happy. Sorry, no freebies here, but you can use the links to buy them for yourself.
Whether or not you want Gayle King to be your girlfriend is totally up to you.
1. Kiehl’s Lip Balm – this is the duct tape of lip balms. It not only prevents and cures chapped lips, but it’s great for smoothing down split ends when you’re in a pinch, and it’s also really good at cuticle moisturizing. It also has no scent, no color, and comes in an SPF version so you can avoid cancerous lip tumors.
2. Gap Long-Sleeved Layering T-shirt – soft, thick, just long enough, and won’t shrink – I have seven of these in different colors, and I want them all.
3. Aveda Pure Abundance Hair Potion – I could write an entire list of my favorite Aveda things. In fact, while sitting in the back of a party bus drinking a bottle of wine some time ago, I wound up listing all the hair products I own, and subsequently, I had to finish the bottle of wine because I felt so ridiculous. Then the next day, I felt very hungover, but that’s a different list. However, if I had to pick just one thing to splurge on, this is it. Magical, but for short hair only. Not for inexperienced users.
4. Dale and Thomas popcorn – the sampler pack is a great gift for anyone, especially your favorite visually impaired blogger. Don’t forget to buy some for yourself, and then prepare to buy bigger clothing. Because you cannot stop eating this stuff, even as TLC comes to videotape you as firemen carry your obese, bedridden self out of the house. Still worth it.
5. Honda Element – I broke mine badly earlier this year, and I didn’t realized how much I loved dear my Ellie until I had to drive a piece of junk Mazda rental SUV. This is not a car for tall drivers, or those who enjoy aerodynamics, but if you want possibly the most practical, affordable automobile ever made, go buy one now. If you have messy things in your life, like dogs or kids, bodies to hide, or wives who spill things, this is the car for you. Honda, if you’re reading this, how about a hybrid model?
6. Richard Russo books, all – He’s amazing. Check him out.
7. Cole Haan G-series, any – Looks like a pump, but actually is a sneaker, comes in sizes bigger than 10. The ballet flats are my favorite. I wore a pair all over Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and was not attacked by a bear, so I’m also going to consider them bear-proof.
8. Sirius Satellite Radio – I love this so much, I asked Santa for the Stiletto 3 so I can listen all the time. Far superior to XM in programming choices, they’ve got Howard Stern, two NPR Stations, CNN and CNN Headline news, E! Radio, and a 90s grunge station, very few commercials, and just about anything else you could imagine.
9. Levi’s 525’s – I’ve tried those annoying jeans that cost a fortune and have never found anything that fits and lasts like these.
10. eBags Mother Lode – We have all sizes of this type of luggage. My husband was a convert, but I was skeptical until I used it on a trip, and he forced me to admit that he was right, I was wrong, and suddenly, I did not understand the universe anymore. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I got a laptop, two days worth of clothes and shoes (including a suit), all toiletries, a huge textbook, a flat-iron, and a bunch of marketing materials into the carry-on size. Whether or not I could lift that bag is another matter.
11. Tervis Tumblers – You will put your drink in these, and then you will forget you poured it. An hour later, you’ll rediscover your drink, and think, wow, it’s still cold, if only it could find my keys for me. Perfect for absent-minded bloggers and good-looking lawyers. The hubs and I have been known to fight over who uses these when only one of them is clean, so buy at least two. Actually, buy only one. I know a great divorce attorney who can always use business.
12. Marc by Marc Jacobs Softy Faridah – It is overly expensive. However, I fell in love with the clever design, oversized zippers and pretty color. Your younger dog will constantly climb into the front seat and try sit on it while you are driving around town. This is why you need to attend the obedience class called “No, No, We Do Not Sit on Pricey Leather Goods.” We apparently missed that week; perhaps that is also when they taught “Why It Is Not Ever Acceptable to Lift Leg and Pee on Sofa.”
13. Gillian and O’Malley Ultimate Fit bra – I think this is what consumer reports rated as a best buy. All I know is that I have tried every type of undergarment at a variety of price points, and this one outshines all of them. This stopped my dressing-room frustration in about five seconds. Sure, it might wear out sooner, but it’s 11 dollars. Buy five at a time. And if you are one of those ladies out there for whom flimsy little numbers don’t cut it, this thing does the job without looking like something your grandma hangs on the washline.
14. MoMA stacking coasters – it took me four years to find the coasters I wanted. My husband calls it being a pain in the ass. I call it being particular. These can pop in the dishwasher and also work wonderfully as safe projectiles when you get yelled at for setting your glass on the table right next to the actual coaster.
15. Target swimwear – if you’re noticing the pattern, I tend to spend less money on clothes and more money on shoes (because my foot size is never in stock or on sale) and accessories (because I am greedy). Bathing suits are no exception. I learned this by trial and error, by buying expensive things because I thought they might last longer – and realizing, hey, I’m so wrong, look at my expensive t shirts shrink, perhaps Calista Flockhart would like them now. My Target swimmies have outwitted, outlasted, and outplayed much pricier swimsuits and most of the cast of Survivor: China, and you can mix and match tops and bottoms. When they go on clearance, you can snap up bikini tops for five dollars.
16. Natural peanut butter – I don’t have a link or a preference, but no list of my favorites is complete without natural peanut butter.
17. Paulaner Hefeweizen – I love wheat beers. I love this one more than any other wheat beer. It’s best consumed cold out of steins larger than your head. I’m convinced this has stopped the onset of several colds, and it turns out, I’m not entirely incorrect. It’s loaded with vitamins and minerals from all the yeast used to make it – it’s like a lesser B12 shot. I love it so much I may indeed want to marry it.
18. gmail for Blackberry – now my husband and I don’t ever need to speak on the phone again,. This means I don’t have to clog up my work inbox with daily emails that say “hey what do you want for dinner? I don’t know. Me either. Well, pick something. No, I always pick – how about fish? I don’t want fish. Well, what do you want? I don’t know, what do you want?”
19. Patent leather desk accessories (can’t find a good link)- This is the answer to the question, “how can I make my desk even sexier than it is while I’m sitting at it?” Then comes the day when you have to ask your boss to fedex you something overnight while you’re traveling, and you have to say “it’s in the red patent leather file holder” and you hope he doesn’t judge you based on your hot tramp of a filing system.
20. The Harada-Ito – If it weren’t for this, there would be no blog.
I spent a lot of time with my sister this week, time without family or dogs or friends around, and I’m sad we can’t do it more often. She’s the only one who knows precisely how funny it was when our neighbor got stuck in a chair in the basement and we laughed so hard at him that she had an asthma attack and had to go to the hospital.
She bought these specifically to wear to an Elton John concert. However, I’m fairly certain she’d wear them just about anywhere. This is the same girl who wanted to include “will dress up in any costume at any time” on her application to volunteer for Barack Obama. She might kill me for posting this picture, but the awesomeness is so out of control that all the internets should see it. Because of this picture, I am sitting in the midst of a very serious financial conference singing Crocodile Rock and trying my very hardest not to get up and dance.
I don’t normally watch American Idol. However, my hotel surprisingly has only the most basic of basic cable, and it was the best option. For real, fancy-pants business hotel. If I wanted to live in colonial times, I’d go to Williamsburg and get a tri-cornered hat and possibly play a fife – is Bravo or Discovery Health really so advanced you can’t hook me up?
I immediately got angry (so angry I don’t care about this run-on sentence) at the television because a bunch of half-rate singers with horrific hair and a tendency to end every line by singing a drawn-out vowel-based syllable were butchering perfectly good George Michael songs. My love for George Michael songs, while mostly undocumented, is vast and consuming. If anyone’s going to butcher “Faith”, it will be me, and it will be in my shower. And it will be so awful that it will be amazing and you will think, gee, is that Andrew Ridgley there washing his hair?
In the midst of all this anger, who appears on my screen but the ACTUAL GEORGE MICHAEL. And then the camera cut to a crying, swaying Paula Abdul. And then he announced he’s touring again. It was as though someone stole the mix tape I made for my 9th birthday sleepover, gave it some quaaludes, and put it on TV.
Once upon a time (a time we’ll call when Double Vision did not eat enough and instead drank her dinner because she was a moron), I was president of a sorority. I don’t look back on that time with too much fondness, and I don’t think my husband (who became both boyfriend and fiance during that period) does either.
I blame my involvement on the fact that 60% of the women at my college were involved in Greek life, and I probably shrugged my shoulders at one point and said, “why not?” And then I probably also thought I knew better than everyone else, so why not become the boss of them while I was at it? I didn’t grow up with a burning desire to clap and snap and sing and talk shit on people behind closed doors while their picture was projected on a screen, but social life on our campus seemed to me to center around parties and date functions and fraternity row, so I went all in. I spent 12 years previous to this behaving myself in front of nuns, pulling up my knee socks on command, and rebelling only by wearing backless shoes (the sight of my heels drove the boys crazy, I’m certain of it). After a while, it’s hard to be so good and righteous, and I kind of flew off the deep end when faced with choices to make without the specter of Sister Leo hanging over my head.
For a long time after graduation, I regretted my sorority days. I realized I had few memories of college until I started seriously dating my would-be husband that didn’t involve parties or drinking or jumping in fountains. Many of these memories are good ones, but plenty are not. I had spent too much time around people who made me feel like I had to hide parts of my personality, people who said horrible things about me,, people who I’m not entirely sure ever really knew me. I did those things to other people, too, and I’m ashamed of it. These were choices I made, and no one forced them on me, and it’s hard to fathom the things I missed out on because of them. Regret tastes bitter.
But now, ten years later, there’s a significant part of my job that requires hand-shaking and small talk and ego-stroking, and I’ve come to realize that there was no better training for this than sorority rush. If you can handle a national sorority convention full of stone cold bitches wearing pearls and snotty grins, ready to cut you with the meanness dressed up in backhanded compliments, anything else is cake. I’ve exchanged t-shirts for conference badges, party favors for marketing materials, but I’ve finally come to appreciate being a sorority girl just a little bit.
I spend one evening with my sister, and wind up coming back to my hotel room to google “hot pink garbage dumpsters.”
I leave you with this quote from her:
My ringtone is Indiana Jones and if I don’t answer your call, it’s because i like to listen to the whole thing. Sorry, but indy wins.”
Act 1
(Starring C-Bear)
Dog sees path across stream is flooded, realizes this means she might possibly get to go in the water.
Begins to tremble uncontrollably at the excitement of swimming.
Giant splash.
Drinks water.
Dunks entire head in water.
Heads in opposite direction, refuses to move because the swimming. Must. NOT. END.
Lies down in water, stubbornly refuses to get out.
Fails to listen to stern warnings of her people, who threaten no bones for a year. Knows people will not follow through.
Finally removes herself from stream, shakes self all over male-person
Proceeds to try to get into every puddle of water for the rest of the day.
Smells like wet beach towel left in trunk.
Does not care.
Act 2
(starring Gusbuster)
Dog sees path across stream is flooded, realizes this means he might possibly have to get paws wet
Begins to tremble uncontrollably at the sheer terror of wet feet.
Digs heels in, refuses to move.
Doesn’t respond to commands. Paws MUST NOT GET WET.
Dragged across by his lady-person.
Shakes self off with mournful look of torture on face.
Writes letter to PETA about apparent water-boarding of dogs while hiking.
**ten seconds pass***
Forgets entire incident in excitement at peeing on tree.
Fin
Leonardo DaVinci did not wake up one day and think, gee, let me repaint the Mona Lisa.
So how is this happening?
