Between Mom Jeans and These, I’ll Take Mom Jeans

I just got this email about the next big trend at Anthropologie. Oh. Hell. No.

 

 

P.S. I actually wore harem pants in the 6th or 7th grade. I was in my Weirdo-Awful-Trying-To-Be-Claudia-Kishi phase where it was also okay to wear jingly bell anklets (maybe I was just in an I-Want-To-Be-Indian phase) and this pair of wicker shoes I bought at Pier 1 for $2. I also held on to a pair of hand-me-down electric blue suspenders whose clips were Coke bottlecaps, just WAITING for the right occasion. It never came . Let that be a lesson, she who waits too long for the right occasion to wear the electric blue suspenders will inevitably be crushed to find out there is no right occasion. 

P.P.S. I love that the copy next to the pants reads “…especially when paired with the right top.” It might as well just say “Fatties, Caveat Emptor” or even more honestly “Mwahahaha. There is no RIGHT TOP.” 

P.P.P.S. “Right Top” makes me think that if I ever write about a British character, his last name will no doubt have to be Wrongbottom.

 

I Fearnet for our Future

At-Home-Alone Companion decided to peruse the movie selections On Demand last night while I was out and found a goldmine of hilarity. It ensued here.

 

Go banana!

In keeping (as opposed to inn-keeping) with my recession-friendly lifestyle, I seem to be taking actions that would be taken by someone who lost their job. I’ve already mentioned how much I love coupons and in-store circulars and other ways to find bargains, which is one way of going about all that. But you know how they’re saying that the arts will be on the upswing with so many people losing their jobs that those people will return to their more creative pasts as an outlet? Well they are. And even though I still have my job, I applied for a residency at a printmaking studio just because I like to pretend I’m laid off and have nothing better to do with my time. 

I don’t know if I’ve gotten in – the application deadline was a week and a half ago and for all I know, in my typical haste I didn’t fill the thing out correctly. But I found a drawing I did that I submitted as part of my portfolio and I made it my desktop because I think it’s kind of weird and funny. Uhh, still life of bananas. Go banana!

 

Martha Stewart Living is Harder than Regular Living

Through some good/bad fortune, Live-In Companion and I are moving up one flight in our apartment building. The bad fortune is that we really liked our neighbor and it’s sad to see him go. The good fortune is that his apartment is nicer than ours and we asked  the landlord if we could swap. It’s a good deal and we’re very excited (except for packing and all the hassles that come with moving). I’m not really stressed about it, but I did decide to change all my addresses yesterday on magazines I subscribe to. Those magazines are Lucky The Magazine About Shopping, New York Magazine The Magazine About New York, and Martha Stewart Living The Magazine About Making Complicated Things Seem Appealing. 

I await my Martha every month and  savor it – I skip over whatever landscaping tips Martha has because it’s lost on my yard-less self, I immediately read all about the Cookie of the Month, and then I do a performance piece where I lower my voice and read Martha’s responses to the Reader’s Questions aloud for my own enjoyment. 

I went to the Martha Stewart Living website yesterday to find the “Subscription Services” section, and when I clicked on it, the only option was to buy a new subscription. It was maddening. I clicked all over and couldn’t find the “Change of Address” link so I entered “Change of Address” in the Martha Stewart Search Bar. Because that seems logical, yes? Not so much. Perhaps at Lucky Magazine or New York Magazine this would be a simple task, but Martha takes changing an address very seriously and rather than directing me to the place where I can enter my new address, a cornucopia of options about finding the best letterpress artist to create a “We’ve Moved!” card, the most polite way to announce your change of address to your neighbors, what to do with your two-ton stone fountain once you’ve decided to change your address and nothing about how to change the address on my magazine subscription. Uncouth, Martha! Finally a sitemap pointed me in the right direction. All that, just to change the  ”Apt. 3A” to “Apt. 4B” which won’t make a difference anyway because the mail carrier puts everyone’s magazine’s in a pile on the building’s entry table.

 

As IF we’d forget “The Night Time Is The Right Time” and “I Got the Feelin’”

When there is nothing else on TV, I will always turn to Nick at Night or TV Land or whatever channel it is that seems to play The Cosby Show nonstop. It will never get old and is always classic (except for the Cousin Pam year, no thanks).

So I saw this interview with Keshia Knight Pulliam where she talks about her dream role as if the world doesn’t remember her famous forays into lip synching:

What’s your dream role then? 
If Janet Jackson does the story of her life and I’m still young enough, I am there. No one can pull her off like I can. I have a dance background. I’m definitely not cutting an album anytime soon, but I can lip-synch all day. I can’t sing, but I can act like it very well.

Umm, everyone knows Rudy Huxtable can lip synch.  Aside from her relationships with Bud and Peter and her desire to have two kids – a boy and a girl – and a dog named Tiffany, it’s what she’s famous for. 

Embedding not allowed, but enjoy this clip on Youtube.

 

Idol Chatter

For those of you on the edge of your seats waiting for all the American Idolatry you can handle, the site I’m working on launched today, complete with all my recaps from earlier in the season. 

http://american-idol.scandalist.com/

Questions, comments, suggestions for items you’d like to read, and outpourings of biased love for Danny the guy who’s gonna win it all are always accepted. 

 

Punny jokes for my non-existent stand-up career about Hollywood

Q. What did the costume designer for Gladiator say to Russell Crowe?

A. These boots were made for Joaquin

 

Idol hands

I’ve been feeling really restless at work lately, basically because I’ve mentally checked out of my day job and I’m ready to move on to other things. I have such cool bosses that I feel bad feeling this way because it’s nothing personal. I feel like the way those depression commercials say you’ll feel – no hope, restless, sad all the time, but only for 8 hours a day. It’s strictly job-related, and it’s not quite depression so much as it’s general annoyance. And of course, once I jump on the subway, I leave it all behind. On the one hand I’m really lucky to have a job I don’t take home with me, but on the other, in my pure, guilty heart I feel bad feeling this way. I especially feel bad because the office itself is so cool. As I unwisely told my gay department head, “Our officer is gayer than Ugly Betty.” I meant that decor-wise, but also it’s pretty gay, population-wise too. Which works for me, I just don’t think it was the most diplomatic thing to say to the man who could dropkick me off the lucite, backlit bar in the office and out the door forever. (Seriously, lucite bar in the office. Not kidding.)

I’m so restless because I’m doing more work at VH1, writing about and recapping episodes of American Idol (the first one that’s been posted is here) and they’re creating a whole site for Idol which I’ll have a hand in, so that should be fun. I just wish I didn’t have to do my day job in addition to that. I’m having recession dreams where I choose to quit my job and live in (relative) poverty so that I can just be crafty all day and then write at night. I don’t think that’s practical. I’m starting to hate practical.

I’m enjoying this season of Idol even though I never religiously watched every episode in previous seasons. There sure are a disproportionate number of single mothers and crazy people who love singing, that’s for sure. Once the site launches, I’ll be sure to link away.

 

Black coffee in bed. Turtle-wiches optional.

Also, what the crap is this? It looks like a sea turtle trapped between two Eggos trying to scuttle away from an impending coffee tidal wave. And yes, I received this image because I am on a Dunkin’ Donuts email list but I gave up on actually eating at Dunkin’ Donuts somewhere between the Omwich and Eggwhite Flatbreads.

 

Let me eat cake

As I’ve mentioned before, I enjoy watching Ace of Cakes for no other reason than the artistry it takes to paint fondant well and the ability of those lovable stoners to sculpt frosting in the shape of hamburgers and fries. It makes me happy to see the weird stuff people want made out of cake. The problem with the show, as is the problem with all food tv, is that when you can’t taste something yourself,  then if it doesn’t look good, you lose faith in it. And you know what doesn’t look good to me? Dry-looking sponge cake with barely a coat of buttercream. Which is, of course, what you will be eating once you cut open the likeness of your pet llama that the Charm City folks created for you. As cool as it is to create a cake that is a work of art, what matters most to me is the taste. Which is why if there is ever any doubt in your mind where to buy me a cake, I’ll help you out by saying go to the Milk Bar.

I decided that for the birthday of the Foss, I would buy some desserts for him at the Momofuku Milk Bar. I’ve never even been to the regular Momofuku restaurants which are famous for their pork buns and bacon-y brussels sprouts and noodles, but after reading about pastry chef Christina Tosi, I got a wee bit obsessed yesterday with the Milk Bar. She makes cookies out of corn flakes, marshmallows and butterscotch chips, has a pie called Candy Bar Pie that is chocolate and peanut buttery and her cakes are literally a foot high. Also, it sounds like she has high fructose corn syrup in her veins because in some interviews I’ve read, she talks about how her diet is almost entirely sweets. I’m pretty obsessed with junk food too, although I can control it with the occasional salad or bowl of tofu stir-fry, but her sweets were the epitome of what 8-year-old me would have wanted to create.  

I got us chocolate chip cake and Corn Flake-Marshmallow cookies and Candy Bar Pie and it’s impossible to pick a favorite but they were some of the best sweets I’ve ever had. If ever there was a place that recognized the harmonious and complementary way peanut butter, marshmallow, chocolate and caramel can co-exist, it’s the Momofuku Milk Bar. I’m pretty sure there would be peace in the Middle East if loads of this cake was operation dumbo-dropped over there. Hold the pork buns, obvs. 

Once when I was living in the city during a college break, Becky came to visit and we walked the entire length of Bleecker Street to find Magnolia Bakery, which wouldn’t have been terrible had it not been 10 degrees out. All for one cupcake. Magnolia gets the frosting-to-cake ratio right, in my opinion, that’s the kind of sweet tooth I have , it’s not “too” sweet for me, it’s just right.  The Milk Bar gets the ratio of everything right, and while it was a balmy 25 degrees last night, I’d go back every day if my heart could handle it.