Category: Uncategorized

“You’re not going to be happy unless you’re going Mach-2 with your hair on fire and you know it.”

Well who is?!

I always preferred Val Kilmer, but I can remember when Tom Cruise was attractive. Now he’s just so Tom Cruise. Val Kilmer is still preferable.

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Nicole and I dusted off a nugget from 1999 to look at. You know what is hilarious? How completely and how absolutely an answering machine dates a text. Not just an answering machine, but characters with landline phones, who miss calls because they didn’t pick up the landline in time. No texts. No IMs. And only two cell phones out of six main characters. And they were probably carrying bricks, too.

Also, the fashion. I almost doubled over laughing.

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It is probably wrong that I am hoping it will pour down rain and cancel Thor’s baseball practice today, but since I am nursing my annual Spring sinus infection (or at least it feels like that’s where it is headed), I’d rather just wad myself up under the blankets when I get home. I did drag my carcass to work, though. I’m a trooper. Bah. (Actually, I like my coworkers and don’t want to leave them in the lurch.)

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I am getting ready to go buy boxes for the upcoming move. I have a feeling this will be what consumes me for a little while, at least until we are in the new place and settled.

We are gaining kitchen, dining, and living space, and a bedroom, but we are losing bedroom space. Thor’s room will be cut considerably. I think this new one is under half of what he’s in now. So, we are going to make floor space for him with a loft bed.

It will be really nice to have a dining table again. And really nice to have enough kitchen space to get my kitchen tools out of storage. And I’ll have my fake fireplace back! And our full-sized washer/dryer! So much goodness.

So many boxes to pack.

I am awake at an odd hour and am remembering being awake at similarly odd hours in my young adulthood. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about the wee hours of fun in NYC. And more specifically, I was wishing that I had worn my glasses so that my memories could be of more than just shadowy blurs. Alas, vanity. I also wish I had taken the guy up on his offer to trade his autographed Keith Harding t-shirt for my little black dress from Contempo. I seriously considered it but worried that walking home from a party in the middle of the City, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and tights might be making a statement I couldn’t defend. So, I kept my dress and he followed me around for two hours trying to talk me out of it.

Having been hilariously naive, thinking about that particular trip always makes me laugh. I was pretty prim, actually, and just expected that everyone else was too. In my world, drugs only happened in after-school specials, no one broke laws on purpose, and no one really had sex. I managed to end up trespassing, hiding during a drug raid, acting as a ticket scalper, getting minorly involved with mafia, witnessing a stabbing (and being physically dragged away from trying to help by the mafia-boy with whom I was minorly involved and two other people–probably to my health), and in retrospect, I think I was used as a drug mule during the ticket scalping incident. And I did this all with a Mr. Magoo-like innocence, with no idea of what was going on until after it had occurred, and even then not really understanding exactly what had happened. Honest to mergatroid, this could have been me.

I should have worn my glasses. Then again, not being able to see kept me veiled in my own hayseed idiocy, which is probably what kept me safe. Now I have contact lenses, which means that if someone offered me a handful of what looked like Mike and Ike’s and Smarties out of a ziploc baggie, I would recognize them as barbiturates, not just respectfully (and appreciatively) decline because I’ve already had more sugar than is good for me.

My lord those people must have thought I was an alien. Or already completely stoned. Probably the latter. Definitely the latter, given that one guy asked where he could buy what I was on. I’d just been the victim of an attempted mugging (foiled by my hysterical laughter, which terrified the mugger) and was frantically searching for my “friends” who had left me in the mouth of an alley to try to find someone to sneak them into a club. This random stranger thought my erratic behavior was a chemical result. He asked me what I was on and I told him, thinking I was sneering sarcastically, “It’s called fear, and I got it in the alley from a guy who tried to mug me.” He was very excited and took off, talking to himself about how he was going to get him some of that Fear.

Nothing so interesting ever happened at home, no matter where I went, or how late I stayed. Granted, I always wore my glasses at home…

I got my official “Thanks, but no thanks,” letter from the racetrack. I will not be singing the National Anthem from over pile of horse droppings. I might audition again next year. At least next year I will know where to go, and won’t have to totter along for half a mile, down a gravel road, in high heels.

Last week, I started watching Fashion Star on OnDemand. I didn’t expect much, but was pleasantly surprised. Instead of it being obvious that the Personalities are going to be staying on Sewing Survivor Island, it appears to be all about performance. In fact, the most “reality show perfect” cast member was gone in the second episode.

I love the concept of the designers facing actual buyers and their successes being dependent upon the actual wearability of their clothes, rather than their ability to make a dress out of pop-tops. And, I really like that the designers can sell just a trouser, or a skirt, or an accessory. The process seems much less arbitrary. If you sell, you are safe. If you don’t sell, you face elimination. And the buyers represent a varied enough clientele (Saks on the high end, Macy’s for the minivan set, and H&M for the lower end fashion forward) that everyone really has a good opportunity to fill a niche in a market.

In the first episode, a girl showed a skirt that I was drooling for. Saks was too. They bought it and have sold it out (looks like they have restocked it since I last looked, and good! That skirt is fantastic!) Price point? $350. Same episode, H&M bought a very cute dress. Price point? $19.95. See what I mean?

While I might have to agree with one discarded designer that Jessica Simpson isn’t exactly high fashion, I have enjoyed what she brings to the show. She seems to be the Macy’s version of the mentor, where Nicole Richie is H&M, and John Varvatos is clearly the Saks level member of the panel. Very little to do with clothing is high fashion, and very little to do with clothing sold at Saks makes it into the average closet. I like the diversity and appreciation for variety in shopper.