Addicted to Summer of Love

The twice-yearly Lucky 50% off sale is going on now and I have to say I was a little underwhelmed by the offrerings. So, while I did buy these versatile black walking shorts,$30, I had just not fully satisfied my craving for 70's, hippie, boho chic. And, like adorable kittens and small children, addictions, too, must be fed.

I do dig this crochet-fabulous top for $25.50 at Urban Outfitters. Think of it as a nicotine patch - a boho-chicatine patch, if you will.

Euphemistically Speaking

For various reasons -- let's say my hatred of the beach and the non-stop rain of late* -- I do not expect to put on a bathing suit ANY time soon. But if I did, I would like it to be this one ($29 for both pieces). I would also like to be this chick.

*While these are both valid reasons, I do admit that in this case, they are merely euphemisms for "my ass" and "my pasty white skin."

Ebony & Ivory (Live Together in Perfect Harmony)

Amanda and I share more than this blog and a love of cupcakes. And a love of mac'n'cheese. We also share a lack of skin pigmentation. So I too cannot wear the dress she just blogged. But I can wear this top, that is, to a degree, the reverse of her dress. It's what you would see if you stared at the dress for a long time and then looked away. Is that a selling point? No? Then how about the $6.50 price tag?

Non-Whites Only

I was born in the wrong century.

Had I been born, say, 200 years ago, I would be described as "fair" or "porcelain-skinned" and prized for my beauty. Instead, I was born in the 1980s, and have been called "whitey" pretty much ever since.

As a result of being so pale, I have to avoid wearing certain colors for fear of looking washed out. I never really know what those colors are until I am getting dressed in the morning and realize I look like crap. But one thing I do know is that I must avoid wearing all white at all costs. And that's why I will pass on this adorable sundress.

It's also why I've never been to P. Diddy's East Hampton White Party.

Portuguese Shoe o' War

I bought these in pink a couple of weeks ago, when they were $20 and this sea foam green pair (the brand calls them "turquoise," though I disagree -- however, Jayn has become somewhat of an expert on the color turquoise, so I will leave it to her to cast the deciding vote) was $40. But now the sea foam green is on sale for $24.99! Which leaves me to wonder, do I need this pair, as well?

I'm pretty sure I do, and so do you, and here's why. While they look light and summery, they are actually quite well-suited for the never-ending monsoon that has taken residence in the skies above New York City. For one thing, they're not leather -- excuse me, they are 100% synthetic patent leather -- so you don't have to worry about them getting ruined in the rain like leather would, nor do they really get soaked like fabric does. And that cute little wedge heel lifts you up just high enough to avoid soaking your feet in the shallow puddles that are EVERYWHERE. (Save the really big puddles for your Hunters.) 

Plus they're named Lisbon, for a city which, Wikipedia tells me, has one of the mildest climates in Europe, complete with sunny and dry summers. That is certainly something worth celebrating, particularly by immortalization in shoe-form.

Sandal Me

I am really warming to this ingenious registry idea of mine. I'm just so clever. One of the best aspects of the "buy me things" registry is that you don't have to share it with anyone. No one is going to argue with you over a single choice you make because it's, say, redundant. Or, how do you say it? Unnecessary. Or, what's that word again? Frivolous. Or even because you don't have room for the shoes you already have. Throw these $40 galadiators on the registry, baby.

Where do I get one of those registry bar code scanners, so that I can keep it in my purse and whip it out at the sight of a must-have item, regardless of the store I'm in? Surely there's already an iPhone app.

Buy Me Things, Lots of Things

I made a grave mistake when I got married that I plan to rectify now. See, I registered, but for a minimal amount of items, at a single store, and I had only a shower and a wedding, and I received only a single gift at each. I have since learned that I deserved an engagement gift and multiple shower gifts, as well as the wedding gift. And there should have been, in addition to the shower, a destination wedding, with a weekend's worth of group activities, a theme shower, and a bachelorette party (ideally also destinational in nature). (I am happy to report that spell check does not accept 'bachelorette' as a word. Because it's not. OK, it doesn't like 'destinational' either, but that's because I made that one up.)

I am rectifiying this situation by registering. Not for a wedding or a baby. Just formally creating a list of things I want. Should you wish to buy me a present - and who doesn't really? - the registry will be your go-to list of everything I simply must have. I recommend this approach to everyone, especially those who have not yet gotten married or had a baby, and have therefore not yet been in the position of instructing every person they have ever known what must be purchased for them, and where.


I am initiating my registry with this $30 skirt. It actually resembles the wrapping paper I just used to wrap three shower gifts. Buy it for me and I promise to spare you the toilet paper wedding dress game and the oohing and ahing at dish towels and measuring cups, as well as having to dedicate a holiday weekend to touring some remote city you never wanted to visit anyway.

The Perfect Quarantine Pant

I have been in quarantine all week. Working, holding 10 conference calls a day, but in quarantine nonetheless. I started out dressed in actual clothes, but I've been sliding downhill all week. Today's pants are very loose and flowy, and the fold-over knit waistband is gentle to my person, but the pants are linen and that's just too formal for quarantine. As day four of my quarantine approaches, these cargo capri sweatpants seem to be the perfect next step in my quarantine pants continuum. Exiting the realm of the cargo, but not yet entering the kingdom of the sweatpant. And I need to pace myself, lest I find myself in 3 day-old pajama bottoms with cheezit stains I have no recollection of making.

A Scowl is a Frown Turned Right Side Up

Today I was literally trying to decide if I was cranky or crabby. Crabby or cranky. Such a tough decision and so little hinges on the outcome. So imagine my curmudgeonly thrill at finding this $15 scowl muscle tank? OK - it said 'cowl,' but how much better is 'scowl'? And, yes, that is the second time this week I have been convinced that my dyslexic interpretation is better than the actual copy.

Could you not wear this to work under a jacket? Could you not wear this with jeans out shopping? Could you not wear this out to dinner? With a scowl, or without (but with).

Snack Attack

Mmmmm, yum, this shirt's color is "brownie." Not as clever a color as "Jack Black," but much tastier. Of course, how great would the "orange crush" shirt wash down the "brownie" shirt? I'm sure that's a combo Jack Black would appreciate and just as sure this style would not be the most flattering on him. So when his birthday rolls around, I'm definitely not getting it for him.

If Brooklyn's So Great, Why Are You HERE?

Well, I am locked in my bedroom as a TV interview is being conducted in my living room. First the interviewer/sound guy/cameraman insulted my neighborhood. Then the man told me how great his neighborhood, South Williamsburg, is. This happened only hours after I complained (ranted) on Facebook about not being able to bear one more person's extolling the virtues of hip Brooklyn. Someone should tell this man how rude it is to a) insult your host's neighborhood, while in her living room, when perhaps nobody knows exactly where you went and therefore where to search for the body and b) to chat about the people living in your new, hip neighborhood for generations before you got there as if you are observing them in some sort of zoo. Also, learn to pronounce their sect's name - they are not 'the Satmire.'

And so, while stuck in my room, I am shopping. Are these not great? I know a certain hipster in my living room would not think so, because they are $20 and come from Old Navy. But I can quadruple their price, put them in an eco-bag with with the name of a store in some fake Brooklyn neighborhood ("Redhook Heights Vicinity" - or better yet, "DoWiSeTrePla") and watch him snap up a pair for his overly pierced ("it's art") girlfriend.

PS - the color is "Black Jack" which I misread, and preferred, as "Jack Black.

My pet dress

I love dogs. I really do. I think that the only thing missing from my life right now is a canine companion. (Ok, that's a lie. For my life to truly be complete I will also need the deed to a 2-bedroom duplex in Manhattan, a personal chef, and the ability to run a mile. But a dog would be a good start.)

I will admit that I am spoiled. I grew up with the greatest dog in the world. (Rest in peace, Mac.) I know you don't believe me, and you probably think your dog is the greatest dog in the world, but you're wrong. I mean, can your dog walk himself? Well, Mac could. And did. It was awesome. He was also a loyal friend, always taking my side in fights against my brother.

So after growing up with the best dog in the world, in a house in the suburbs with a big backyard, I am kind of spoiled. I would love to have a dog now, but in a 200-square-foot apartment in Manhattan, where I live alone and don't always spend that much time at home, it's just not quite the same. It's a lot harder to have a dog here. A LOT harder. (Even though every other person in this city seems to be able to manage it.) So as much as it saddens me (and it saddens me very, very much), I'm not getting a dog right now.

But I suppose I can look on the bright side. With the money I would have used for dog food and vet bills, I can buy dresses. Lots and lots of dresses.

P.S. If I ever did get a dog, however, I would NOT get a poodle. Poodles are the worst dogs EVER. For one thing, they are ugly. For another thing, they are the devil. (This is a true fact.) As a child, I was once bit by a poodle, and I know it was premeditated. All poodles do is spend their day plotting how to kill you, hoping you'll be too distracted by their ugliness to suspect a thing. But I know better. I have no qualms about exacting my revenge on the entire devilish breed. Even if someone I cared about got a poodle, I can't guarantee that I could hold myself back from trying to kill it every chance I got. Watch out, poodles.

Strawberry Whine

I went into K-Mart yesterday because it's not far from my apartment and I needed a bunch of things that I couldn't find anywhere else nearby. As a result of that trip, I have this advice to offer you: never buy a 6-foot ladder and a couple of 5-lb. hand weights in the same shopping excursion if you have to carry all of your purchases home.

Another result of that trip? Realizing that some of K-Mart's clothes are actually pretty cute. I got a striped racerback dress that I will totally wear. I couldn't find it on their site to show you, but I found this one, which I'm also loving. It makes me want some strawberries.

One Pattern, Two Patterns, Three Patterns, Four

Wanna hear the weirdest thing about my fear of patterns? You know you do. While I fear a single pattern, I adore multiple patterns in a single item. Oxymoronic, no? It's kind of analogous to how some cold medicines will either knock you out or have you springing around your apartment like a Tigger wind-up toy. OK, maybe it's not, but that is kind of a fascinating range of side effects, is it not?

So I love this shirt. Although certainly not with the short shorts pictured that will force everyone who sees you to do a double take to ensure you did not in fact forget your pants at home (fingers poised over their tiny keyboards, ready to text their friends if in fact you did). And, Lord knows, not with leggings, or face the wrath of Amanda. Which, by the way, can be quite considerable in both its depth and breadth. And I mean that in a good way.

Don't think about walruses

Like most incoming college students, I had to attend orientation the summer before my freshman year. Because my orientation was exclusively for Honors students, my experience may have been slightly different than that of some of the other freshmen. When the older student leading a workshop on choosing a major told us that his major was zoology, one of my really cool fellow Honors students took this as an opportunity to announce that he really loved walruses. I'm sure he thought this would make him cool in the eyes of this upperclassman, because not understanding what cool means is an inherent problem among Honors students. But instead, the orientation leader, who it later turned out was something of an expert in the field of researching some obscure sort of shellfish, announced, calmly but with a monumental amount of disdain the likes of which I have not heard before or since, "I have no interest in vertebrates."

This line -- and its delivery -- have stuck with me for many years, as I hoped I would someday have the opportunity to use it (or a variant, as I really don't feel one way or the other about vertebrates). And finally, after all this time, I am able to conclusively state:

I have no interest in leggings.

I just don't. I'm not interested in how comfortable they are, or any benefits they have. My disdain for the legging knows no bounds. I'm not interested in them. I'm not interested in them, and I want them to go away. And when they do, I hope they are accompanied by all those awkward, too-long-to-be-a-shirt-too-short-to-be-a-dress garments that were made to be worn with them, so the rest of us are not forced to spend time in stores holding things up to our person suspiciously and wondering why someone thought to make a dress that won't cover anyone's ass.

And when leggings do go away, we can all keep our legs warm under our dresses by wearing tights instead. This $12 dress looks great with them.

Stomp!

It's been a crappy day. And what tops off a crappy day better than anything else? An evening on a crowded subway. I kid you not. A crowded subway can be the perfect place to take out your anger on perfect strangers (before coming home to your loved ones - and taking it out on them). A nice passive aggressive move is smashing a stranger's foot on your way out the door after he has body-slammed you with his backpack. Sigh, I wish I were kidding.

Ahhhh, these $50 shoes shall do the job nicely. Plus, I'm fairly certain I wore them in middle school.

Honesty is the best policy

I have publicly declared my love for Gap's Supersoft line in the past. But here's something else I like about it: they are not lying when they say "supersoft," and I appreciate that sort of honesty from such a large corporation. You don't often find that these days, when corporate greed and corruption runs rampant.

Let the Gap know that you value their transparency and frankness by purchasing one of these Supersoft v-neck tees. At $10 each and in 11 colors, you can really show your gratitude.