On Hiatus...

until after the new year.
(due to the holidays, traveling, hunting ewoks, entertaining out-of-town family + friends, etc)

Happy New Year(!)

The secret to a good secret santa...

Assuming the role of a secret Santa is as stressful for me as watching Ben Stiller’s character continually screw up in Meet the Parents.

Greg Focker: You can milk anything with nipples Jack.
Jack (fiancée’s father) dryly: I have nipples Greg. Could you milk me?

I always get so emotionally invested in the secret Santa process. I spend more time dropping fake hints, whistling to appear nonchalant, and causing panic and isolation among the other participants to divert attention from myself, than I actually do purchasing secret Santa gifts.

Imagine my delight, when I came across guidelines on how to be a perfect OVERACHIEVING secret Santa.
I’ve listed a few of my favorites below, the rest can be found here.

• Cover your tracks by spreading rumors that you're someone else's secret Santa.
• Wear black when staking your [secret Santa] receiver's residence at night.
• Study his patterns. What time does he wake up? Go to bed? What route does he take to and from work? Does he answer his phone when he's home? Does he have pets? What are their names?
• Grow a beard or moustache.
• Befriend your [secret Santa] receiver's friends and make them his enemies.
• There is never a wrong time for war paint.
• If your Secret Santa identity is compromised, be prepared to leave the area for an extended time.
• Use cash to buy gifts. Credit cards and online retailers leave you prone to hackers who could reveal your Secret Santa identity.
• Move like water - adapt quickly to changing circumstances when others are like the sloth.
• Feign confusion over how Secret Santa works. Your receiver will be less prepared for your perfect gift.

Photo Credits:
Christmas #19- Timberland Santa
Kevindooley, Flickr

In which we meet Project Runway’s Tim Gunn…

Last weekend I went out to dinner with two friends; it was a bitterly cold DC night—the kind of cold that dictates you will be home by 10pm or else your head will fall off due to a severe case of frostbite. Somehow, through a sequence of spontaneous occurrences that involved getting word that Tim Gunn was hosting a private event in the fine establishment next door to our restaurant, getting rejected from Tim’s private event because we didn’t have $100-a-head tickets, and resiliently sneaking back into the aforementioned private party (because Tim is ALWAYS worth the risk of getting arrested), we met Tim Gunn.

Since I spotted Ty Pennington (Extreme Home Makeover) in person (his sun-damaged skin looked like old, beaten leather that had been submissively dyed orange), I’ve been tremendously dubious of any television personality and have adopted a “beautiful people on television are ugly when they appear in person” rule.

but Tim obliterated that tenet.

He was just as courteous, wise, amiable and well-groomed as he appears on Project Runway. At one point I wanted to present him with a half-finished Soduku puzzle that was in my purse, just so I could watch him examine it and furrow his brow doubtfully, then challengingly say to me: “S, make it work.”

Two minutes before I was about to meet him I text messaged a friend asking her what I should say to him. I’d spent so much of the evening plotting, hustling, dodging, and sneaking around to see him that I hadn’t really thought about what we would talk about when we met and I didn’t want to do the cliché fan speech. My friend passionately responded via text with:

“Simply say: Tim I think you are an innovator, one of the few people I know who still understands the importance of class and sophistication. You are one of the few male style icons of our generation."

I looked at her speech and tried to memorize it a bit, but the second my companions and I stepped past Tim’s harried PR handlers and introduced ourselves to him the words of the text message evaporated and our conversation became a chorus of:
“Ahhh Tim! We love you, you’re great!” “Oh Tim, I’m such a mess; help me fix myself!” “Oh stop girls, you ALL look FABULOUS!” “Oh no Tim, YOU look FABULOUS!” “Make it work!” “Oh Tim what are you doing for NYE…” and our conversations kept getting interrupted by newspaper and magazine photographers yelling “Tim, over here!” “Girls, pose, pose!”

He was like a wise uncle, a sensible dad, and a distinguished, older boyfriend all wrapped into the package of a dignified man in a well-tailored suit. His kind and approachable professorial vibe isn’t contrived; it’s a part of his natural appeal. He is so genuine—the personality he plays on Project Runway is really a representation of who he is. When he said my name, I imagined him saying it in the crowded Parsons loft full of cameramen and really ambitious queens that would cut me into a dress pattern with their scissors in order to make it to Bryant Park.

I would love to apply to Project Runway—because it’s a show actually based on innovation and talent. Unfortunately, I can barely stick thread through a boulder-sized needle hole so it isn’t in the cards for me.

The only other reality show I would ever consider would be the Rachel Zoe Project, not because I adore Rachel Zoe (I don’t), but because she seems like a boss that would be easy to handle (mainly due to her emotional neediness). She'd pick you up a latte and a pastry at Starbucks and then she’d start crying about her expensive vintage clothing addiction and negative paparazzi press while intensely encouraging you to eat every last bit of the pastry and enviously asking you how it tastes since she hasn't had food since the 70s.

Photo Credits:
Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum
A Continuous Lean, Flickr

What if you don’t finish your coffee?

I never finish my drinks.

For more on the Starbucks proposal story.

Cake balls + Ice Cream= Party Cake Ice Cream. Why can’t people grasp that?

The average childhood is full of birthday parties, Nintendo games, playing with live ammunition, and party cake flavored ice cream. Or so I mistakenly thought until last week. Apparently I was wrong about party cake ice cream.

I was in a grocery store with a friend when I spotted some party cake flavored ice-cream. I was instantly excited due to the fact I hadn’t seen it in YEARS; I immediately picked up a tub of it.

"What is that?" My friend inquired curiously after peering at it. “Party cake flavored ice cream," I responded waiting for her moment of realization. "YEA, what is that?" she repeated. Apparently the moment was not going to arrive. I switched from expectation to concern on her behalf. "Haven't you had party cake ice cream before? You know, assorted neon colored balls of cake and blue buttercream frosting swirled into a pint of vanilla ice-cream?”

"NO, I've never even heard of it before. Sounds weird." We stood there for a minute, two companions, each looking at the other pityingly. I walked away from that evening ruminating on how tragic it must be to have been deprived of party cake ice-cream during your formative years and wondering if it had caused a permanent void in her stomach that she'd never been able to accurately identify or understand until this point in time.

The next day, my roommate saw me eating some and curiously asked, "What flavor is that?"
"Um, party cake ice cream." (This was getting old). "Never heard of it." She picked it up and studied the top of the carton. "The lid says 'surprise’ with multiple exclamation points," she said with some degree of astonishment. I nodded defensively, unhappy that party cake flavored ice cream was under attack again. "Of course it does, it's party cake ice cream! Every other bite is an unexpectedly delicious mixture of cake, frosting and ice cream. And the cake balls NEVER get soggy. Instead of buying cake and then buying ice cream, you just buy party cake ice cream and you have both."

Why couldn't people understand how cool party cake ice cream was?

I mentioned party cake ice cream to another friend a day later and received the same blank stare. And that's when I realized that party cake ice cream was not a pop culture phenomenon—it was a personal one.

I couldn't understand the lack of enthusiasm and I still don’t. Didn't other people have party cake ice cream as a treat when they were kids? I remember eating party cake ice cream at elementary school birthday parties in London. Is party cake ice cream a British thing?

How are people well-adjusted if they didn't grow up with party cake ice cream? Someone help me understand. The stuff is fabulous and America's youth NEEDS it.

Well....considering our off-the-richter obesity rates perhaps ‘NEED’ isn't the right word.


Photo Credits:
Everyone gets a sprinkle.
Cursedthing, Flickr

Dear hard news, it’s not me…it’s you.

I soak up every breaking news announcement, update, analysis, column, opinion, hard hitting story and news related blog post like bread dipped in broth. My brain functions like a newsroom: it’s constantly accumulating content, filing quotes, updating stories, and processing it all in my head. If I’m not consistently checking the news, I get mental hives and the news ticker in my cranium starts malfunctioning.

My hard news addiction became crystal clear to me earlier this week when I walked in on a group of friends casually talking about the heightened security on the metro in DC because of the Mumbai attacks. This observation propelled me into a long diatribe about the lack of safety in our country, the reality of the ailing job market, my irritation at the National Bureau of Economic Research for announcing news we’ve ALREADY known for a while, and my frustration at GM for their attitude of bailout entitlement in light of their internal mismanagement and lack of realistic corporate vision for their company.

I delivered my entire speech in one breath and when I was done I think my chest stung a bit due to oxygen deprivation in my lungs.

When I had finished, I realized that I had expelled the frail cheerfulness that had existed in the room when I had entered and replaced it with a thread of fear and misery that had curled around each individual and had eventually enveloped them all, the way cigar smoke does in a crowded parlor. One guy turned to me and said with disgust: “God, you’re as negative as a newscaster.” Another bitingly called me the grim reaper and told me he was surprised I wasn’t wearing all black and holding a sickle. And then everyone shuffled out of the room dejectedly. EVERYONE.

This made me think hard. Since when had I become so negative? I used to be light and carefree like those giddy little bubbles that inadvertently escape a bottle of dishwashing soap—but somewhere along the line I had gotten jaded and was now the social equivalent of an ice cold hot tub.

While discussing this with a friend later on she pointed out: “It’s the news. The news is EXTREMELY negative these days. You are always reading the news. You do the math. Maybe you should stop reading it so much—it’s getting to you. It’s affecting your outlook.”

And then I realized she was right.

Now, completely abandoning the news is simply impossible—that would make me end up with a panic attack in a hospital emergency room with doctors trying to sedate me while I anxiously scream: “JUST READ ME THE FRONT PAGE HEADLINES …NO?....THEN AT LEAST THE OPENING PARAGRAPH FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS HOMEPAGE …”

But I will try to reduce how much hard news I consume during the next 7 days in order to clear my head.
Here is the plan of action:
First: I will check the news less frequently—life will be okay if I don’t get an hourly update. Besides if something HUGE and noteworthy happens—like if shaky, youtube footage of Hillary Clinton, Madonna and Sarah Palin playing hopscotch together in the White House emerges—someone is bound to alert me about it.
Second: I will not write about anything news related—unless it’s positive—for TWO WHOLE weeks.


[Cricket, cricket]


Hello writer’s block...

"Extra, Extra! I’m a New York Giants player with a multi-million dollar contract and I accidentally shot my best asset. Ooops!"

Plaxico Burress, a receiver for the New York Giants, allegedly shot HIMSELF in the leg last week at a night club (that’s about as believable as O.J. Simpson saying he was napping when Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were murdered).

Probably the smartest decision Burress has made since publicly shooting himself is hiring Benjamin Brafman, the brilliant lawyer that represented Diddy (AKA P. Diddy, AKA Puff Daddy, AKA no one really cares) during his night club shooting case with Jennifer Lopez.

Quote from the Bloomberg article:

“Bail was set at $100,000 and the player, who didn’t speak during the hearing in a New York court, also had to surrender his passport. Prosecutors asked for $250,000 bail, citing Burress’s guilty plea for failing to appear on a misdemeanor charge in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in July 2005.

“Whatever bail you set, he’s got 35 million reasons to come back to court,” Brafman told Judge Felicia Mennin. His next court appearance is scheduled for March 31. Burress signed a five-year, $35 million contract extension in September.”

Then why didn’t those 35 MILLION reasons stop him from wandering around a club with a loaded gun and shooting himself? When you find a way to convince society to pay you 35 MILLION dollars for catching a ball that’s chucked to you and running it to a specifically marked, and well-manicured patch of grass, you don’t jeopardize it by doing something as dense as shooting your leg in a club.

Burress is being charged with two counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon (but he should really be charged with 35 MILLION counts of intense stupidity).

Photo Credits:
ljcybergal, Flickr