With four hours before I have anything required of me, I decide I’ll go read at the new, improved Franklin Avenue library, rather than stay trapped in my house, which is how I feel now that I am sans job. The parking sitch at the new, improved library is actually worse than it’s previous incarnation  a decade ago when I lived across the street from it, but I am trying desperately not to dwell on that, while at the same time just KNOWING there will be a new ding in my door from close-set spaces. And, yes, I hear that there are “50 new spaces”, but those are next door at the senior center, which you are required to go back out onto the street to get to, as halfway through the “shared” lot is a one way/do not enter sign. (Guess who ignores that? No, not just me…EVERYONE. Because it is ridiculous.) And, sadly, I have never seen a hybrid vehicle in the numerous  CONVENIENT spaces set aside for them, so that seems both unduly hopeful on the planning comissions part, AND a waste of space. Dreamers.

I came in and looked up some books,even though I already have six checked out, because that is what you do at a library: Talking to Girls About Duran Duran   and I’m Down, both of which I browsed thoroughly at Barnes and Noble a few weeks back. Being jobless and with no idea when the child support will be deposited (it was the 27th in July, and I am still waiting on August’s, with no clue as to when to expect it, but hoping against hope that it will make it in for my car payment in five days), feeling free to indulge myself in a book-buying jaunt is more foolhardy than even I can dare, so I plan to patronize my “new” library  more than usual, and definitely more than when it was relocated to a space in the mall during the rebuild. Idjits.

They swear one of the books is in, but having looked in the three logical places for it to have landed (I am very library savvy, my dears!), and not having it appeared, I put it on hold instead. Let the library employees who get paid to find it do so. Slackers.

I’ve plunked myself into a comfy-looking chair, near a possibly-faux open fireplace, only to find that the comfy is what is truly faux. Furniture deception: a nasty, sordid little furnishings game. You don’t see what you get. You bastards.

And then…someone’s phone rings. Is there not such a thing as library etiquette anymore? I know there was when I was growing up, cuz I got shushed for just laughing too loud as a child.  As I write, I am treated to a middle-aged man (yes, MY age, who should therefore KNOW BETTER, for the record!) discuss his “online Facebook dating” of some woman, although once he starts talking about that, he quickly plays it down to his conversational partner, saying he doesn’t get on that often. Liar. The convo devolves from there, and I really wonder how his loud vocal stylings can NOT be disturbing the older man with the laptop, the fiftyish woman reading the paper on the other side of the fireplace, or the ten year old doing her homework. They seem unmoved; no one even flinches. Except me, and I readily admit to trying to peer through the 70s inspired see-through-to-the-other-side room-dividing fireplace, trying to catch this guy’s eye so I can shoot him with my eye deathrays, possibly shaming him out of the library in the process. Dude, I don’t have a job either, but I am not disturbing the peace of the goddamned library, am I? Fucker.

Perhaps I am merely being oversensitive. On second thought, I know I am not. As a culture, we seem to have forgotten even the definition, let alone the practice, of civility. This continues to irritate me, and continues to get me informed that I was born in the wrong era. Despite mass media, social networking, and my newfound love of Twitter, I STILL do not wanna listen to your bullshit conversations in public. Quit forcing me. You won’t like me when I am angry. Green=GO, dummy.

Despite my best attempts (short of getting off my ass to tell this putz to “TAKE IT THE FUCK OUTSIDE, FACEBOOK FUCK BOY!”), he remains oblivious to his surroundings, including the fact that other humans are present, and keeps talking, louder and louder, until he fiiiiiinally continues his conversation alllll the way across the library and out the door. Dipshit.

That torture over, I am now treated to the information that there is a crack in the new skylight of the new library. (Storms happen, lady. This is the Midwest. We have ALL weather here.) It is causing great consternation amongst one customer and, as she spreads the information without getting the response she craves, it spreads to every employee on duty, despite the fact that the longtime, eternally-youthful-looking librarian swears it did not leak last time it “rained cats and dogs”: a colloquialism lost on the customer, who looks confused over its use and interrupts, “Did you say rained DOGS?!” Ahhh, my entertainment for the day. Thank you, random thirty-something mother with cracked skylight fears! By the way, quit standing under it with your toddler if it worries you so, halfwit.

I wish I had been asked to design the revamp of this library. These colors, people! This carpet is practically 70s colors(to go with the fireplace?), and by that I DO mean the rust/avocado/urine yellow (albeit muted) shades of the home furnishings and appliances of said era. And these uncomfy chairs? Upholstery print is in similar colors BUT DOES NOT MATCH. In addition, each area has DIFFERENT bad upholstery with the same carpeting. It’s actually rather nauseating to look at the chairs against the carpet. Like multicolored zebras in a room with vomitous patterned wallpaper. Train wreck.

Now some old man is bitching about how the latest Sports Illustrated isn’t out, and wanting to know when they will put the old issues out for him to buy,  because “it comes out every week! You have to have a lot back there and I don’t wanna pay for a subscription!”  He ends with a compliment on the nice new building, coupled with a complaint about how their old set-up was better. Well, sir, you’ll adjust and eventually relearn where everything is, I guarantee it. If you want to, I that is. I suspect you just need to be dissatisfied with something. I know a lot of people like that. I live with two. Complainer.

Oh, good gods, these chairs are just AWFUL! Not just ugly, also hard. But, I did not want to spend another instant stuck in the house, biding my time while trying to discover a way back to my painting-soul. (I don’t know where it went, but I hope it returns soon. I miss it.) So, I shall attempt to block out my aesthetic disgust and read. Maybe it will all just grow on me…although my design degree begs to differ. Loudly. And with much screeching and nail-on-chalkboard reactions. Shut up, voices! You bitches.

Oh, they found my book! I knew those bastards had it in back, waiting to be shelved. I’ll slide over to the other side of the fireplace, where I can look out on the street instead of being completely surrounded by this travesty of a decor. Maybe today will be a good day to just read, and limit my exposure to other humans. For their own safety.

I still wish I worked here, though. I’ve always loved “my” library. I still do, even if it makes me want to claw my eyes out to look around right now. Oedipus.

Libraries rock. Give them money. Use them. Libraries just beg to be used. It makes them happy. Sluts.

It isn’t because none of our politicians have anything close to MY best interests at heart.

It  isn’t because the distribution of wealth in this country is totally and completely unbalanced and generally fucked and more people are starving to death than are having parties.

It isn’t because I need Prozac (that’s the one thing I believe puts me IN the majority!)

Here’s what it is:

I am not competent at…playing video games.

No, seriously.

Now let me say, I can play the SHIT outta some Ms. Pac Man or some QBert or some Dig Dug or some such “classic” shit as that. Yes, yes, I can. I can take them bitches to the mat. I’m ALLL about the good ole days of little roundish things that run around and eat and blow shit up with a tire pump or just jump around, avoiding snakes. (And these actually seem like activities important to REAL LIFE, if you think about it.) And I can Wii Guitar Hero to a degree that I am totally happy with, especially since I am only competing against MYSELF.

But while I was off raising my kid in the 90s, on welfare, and struggling to have gas in the car and food on the table at the same time, video games done passed.me.by.

I have these friends…we will call them Jack and She…cuz their names are Jack and She…who are fucking MASTERS. And while I play it off, and encourage their video exploits like the nice girl I am, I AM JEALOUS.

Yes, yes I am.

I WANT to be good at video games again.

I WANT to be excited about the newest releases, and I want to feel like I COULD justify standing in line for hours the day they come out to get the cool marketing item that comes with it. Especially if it is an action figure or a T-shirt. I love me some interesting-graphic Ts. (Yes, I accept gifts. Why do you ask?)

I WANT to be able to play Halo without shooting at the sky or falling out of the little jeep-thing (see?! I can’teven remember what it is CALLED! is it some kind of warthog or something?) that Jack and She let me ride in so I could feel like I was participating! I want to be able to shoot them without them standing completely still and going in to the kitchen to get a drink so I CAN manage to shoot them!

I LIKE shooting games. When I was a teenager, I LOVED the zombie/ asylum game (House of the Dead, maybe?) at the movie theater…yes, kids, it was a freestanding arcade game you stood in front of, with big plastic guns attached, AND I LOVED IT! “Chel, movie’s starting. We’ll miss the previews! You hate to miss the previews! COME ON!” …”Yeah yeah, just a sec, I’m killing things!… Get out of my way! I HAVE TO RELOAD BEFORE THEY GET ME!”

I hate guns IRL…but I still love me some shooty games.

But now I find…I suck at them.

This not only saddens me to the very fiber of my being, it affects my self-image, and makes me feel JUST REALLY DAMN OLD.

Now I understand, as She told me once, that she and Jack didn’t have kids, and are a two-income family, and that those things contributed a great deal to them getting into games so much…basically, they COULD.

I had the community baby; they have the marriage and the game console and the big-ass TV.

I still feel left out.

So, I was thinking I might just buy a system and some shooty games, and maybe some adventure type games (yes, I played D&D with my brother, what of it? It was really more because I liked the little pewter figures we got to paint, more than anything else), and just play until I get good. Which I could see happening. And I am not someone who really feels the need to COMPETE with others, really, so I wouldn’t need to get online and play with other friends, so I wouldn’t need any of those extra mumbo-jumbo arrangements, like internet or some shit.

So I asked around, and more than a couple people told me that if that is ALL I wanted to do (like I was choosing to be a manure spreader instead of a heart surgeon, is how they made it sound), all I really needed was a Nintendo…I think. Or maybe there were numbers, like 360, after it. ANYWAY…something with decent graphics so I wouldn’t get bored (possible) or disgusted with the quality (more likely), but not some top o’ the line for hardcore gamers who were online playing like 24/7.  And,no, they said, Wii games aren’t the best, even though I actually have a Wii–okay, a Japanese Wii from the dawn of the Wii era, which you can only use Japanese Wii games, which you order from Asia, on anyway–and since I only play (Japanese) Guitar Hero on it, I am really NOT complaining about it, especially as it was a gift from my friend when she upgraded to the first AMERICAN version—

I mean, hell, people, I grew up with an Atari. I still remember how excited we were when the first Indiana Jones game came out for it. I think we wore the rubber off the joystick, running our little blockhead Indy past the snakes all day…I never DID master swinging across the chasm on the rope, though…that part stayed hit-or-miss until the day Nintendo came out and we dumped Atari…and I am pretty sure I used to have my little brother do the rope part and then give the joystick back to me anyway, to be honest…

Where was I…

Oh yeah. Just say no to Wii.

Okay.

So I was thinking about getting that, and some games, and calling it my very own Winter Holidays gift. (My daughter doesn’t play. Has pretty much zero interest, aside from the occasional afternoon of Japanese Guitar Hero, which is why we don’t HAVE a gaming system already. I thought I raised her RIGHT, but now it’s feeling like SO.VERY.WRONG.)

But one thing led to another, and we needed new cell phones, and there were bills and I am trying to successfully masquerade as a responsible adult who doesn’t care for frivolous things and merely lives to slog through the daily adult bullshit and blahblahblah…

So I didn’t get a system. Or games. Or anything.

But I have come to feel that THIS, this ONE supreme lack in my life, is the reason that I feel disenfranchised and elderly and shit upon by the modern era.

And yes, I DO realize that I just quit my job because I just could NOT be spoken to in that demeaning manner ONE MORE TIME, but…I still want to play. Which means I need a system. And, as far as I know, there is no rent-to-play system, or scholarship set up in the world to help underpriviledged, exhausted, depressive, disenfranchised, unemployed, adult mothers of teenagers who don’t have any interest in gaming.

I’d apply for the program immediately if there were! I am sure I could write the hell out of a successful essay, pleading my case and showing my suitability for the awarding of such bounty! 

And then, THEN, people!, THEN I WOULD FEEL MODERN AND COMPLETE AND IN THE KNOW AND STYLISH AND WORTHY OF WORLDWIDE ADMIRATION AND FRIENDSHIP!

But I still have no shooty-game outlet.

And I still feel out of step, even though I KNOW about the games, and even their plots, and HOW to unlock the secret whatevers…because I do not play them.

And at this point it doesn’t matter anyway…

I spent the money on books instead. 

(Because, I am OLD, that’s why!)

http://squishingbrain.blogspot.com/?zx=93c12ee2ed2bb540

But, as I crawl back from the edge of madness, I am slowly but surely (well…relatively surely), becoming more social again.

Be that as it may, my re-entry into the blogosphere is a less weighty one. Hey, baby steps, people.

For your reading…enjoyment…I present a not-quite-random sampling of texts sent from my phone lately. I am not giving you context, or anyone else’s texts, just mine. You can thus see how fricking odd my brain/life is, firsthand.

Next blog will be “better”.

8 hrs of sleep should automatically mean you are happy & well-rested. Period.

I forgot to cancel match.com and they just took $60. Fuck.

What I hate about shows like The Bachelor & Bachelorette: these are always pretty–albeit stupid–people who can get dates anyway. That seems a flawed premise.

When I get up, my feet hurt so badly that I have to hobble to the bathroom, holding onto shit so I dont fall. This greatly angers me.

Ahem…Im bored. At work. Shocker. I believe it should be way later than it is right now. Something must be amiss with the atomic clock.

Dear Douchebag: it’s humid, fucker, that’s why the machines aren’t setting perfectly. Yell at me one more fucking time. I will show you fucking “ridiculous”.

Dear June: you’ve been the shittiest month in many a year. So, good riddance & FUCKING BITE ME!

I hate makeover shows where they throw all your clothes away. They are rude to their victims and basically tell them they arent good enough to choose their own clothes. I just watched part of one…and they are just flat out unkind.

My car is so hot it hurts.

Outside to store for ten mins…can’t breathe now. Fuckin Iowa weather.

How can one f up The Doors? Dipshit.

I’m gonna Manga Chelle when I can finally get my lic & car reg taken care of.

I don’t like Springsteen. I do like Mike though.

Yeah. I’m so beaten down now I can’t see straight. But I feel like I’m thinking somewhat straighter now. But for now, I’m just lying in the dark, watching The Name of the Rose & trying to calm down enough to sleep.

OMG my mother is so fixated on my registration being two days over June that she is fucking going to bring me getting pulled over & ticketed into being by fucking worrying it out loud into existence! gaah!

There’s a line in Cat On a Hot Tin Roof about drinking until he feels “the click”; he’s waiting for the disassociative click. I’m not drinking but I feel my click coming on here at work. It’s almost like…peace.

There’s a peanut in my belly button. Damn gluttony of body parts!

Yes, Max is my pawed-wan. The Force is strong in him & his lessons are progressing nicely. We have only to keep him from the Dark Side & we shall succeed! (Okay, ONE explanatory note: Max is my friend’s kitten in Chicago)

Hmmm…that’s it for today, kids. See you next time when I talk about shit that you might find relevant or something.

XOXOX

Ahem. So, back to me and the fashion world. While I am more of a jammie pants/tee shirt kind of girl, or, alternatively, a red and khaki have-a-job kind of girl, I do dream of a perfectly tailored, fun, beauteous wardrobe that makes me look gorgeous and chic and sexy and important and blahblahblah, ad nauseum. (Yes, I know, I need to be rich enough to have both a tailor and an army of stylists.)

My basic problem with this love of fashion is that I am also a great lover of self-esteem and loving one’s self and one’s body as they are, which is NOT what fashion markets to us. From birth on, we aren’t quite good enough, and we spend tons of money on,  and tons of time detesting ourselves for,  it. Thanks to the capitalist society we live in, the drive to make money (Money is King!), and the drive to sell shit people do not need and keep them coming back for it time and again, we have a society built upon self-hatred. Personally, it took me a long long loong time to get over it, and OF COURSE I have my moments still, but I can now look at pretty clothes and airbrushed ads and not think, “We are supposed to look like that. “  We aren’t. It is physically impossible, and those that get closest to the ideal look ill and underfed and close to death. Sorry, girls. And I say this having a daughter who is very slim. Don’t think I’m not watching her to make sure she doesn’t go over that edge. But, I also must say, I raised her to LIKE herself, more than I was raised to like myself (they didn’t really think about that so much in the 70s and 80s), so I am not worried about her so much.

BUT, that is my difficulty with loving fashion. That tug to the underlying possibility of harmful effect on girls.

Still…pictures and clothes and such are PRETTY!

So today, rather than talk to you about Prozac (guess that’ll be next time), you get to take a walk through the latest Harper’s Bazaar with me! Stop looking like that; it will be fun.

First things first: why I chose Harper’s to subscribe to, over, say, Vogue or Elle…I went to the store and flipped quickly through all of the top mags. Guess who had the most ads, with the most colors that popped? Yup, Harper’s. And then, by coincidence or universal convergence, I got offered six free issues when I bought something, somewhere. There you have it. Choosing a la Chelle. (How do you do French punctuation marks? Cuz I know they are supposed to be there; I remember just enough French to be…well, no, not dangerous, really. And y’know what my favorite thing to say is?—”accent agout”! I love that. It sounds awesome.)

First off, I am trying to find you a cover shot of the spring fashion issue I just received. So far, no luck. It’s the subscriber cover, not the newsstand Kim Kardashian one. I am not surprised, as it is horrendous. Truly. (My daughter says she likes it. Oy. The artiste in me is shuddering.) Even on their website, I cannot find it. I’ll take one on my phone later and add it for your…enjoyment. Looks like a lovely Chinese district, lanterns hung in the street, etc…however, the main image? A waify model in a barely-a-color dress, with a bored and somewhat drugged out look to her face…holding hands with a person in a smiling panda suit. Panda is standing still, model is walking…I am appalled. Yes, I CAN assign many interpretations to this photo. I just don’t wanna. Euw. I vote euw on this cover.

GOT IT!

By the way, there is an ad for Harper’s Special Collector’s Issue of best covers. As a lover of strong images, I’ll probably buy it, but this cover ain’t in it, I am sure.

Let’s move on. The first page ad has clothes that do not match in it. BAD Chanel! Bad! They fixed that bad on the second ad. Much better. And, no, we are not going to go through each page together. That is not the point. That would be oversharing of opinions, because I WILL have an opinion on each page. Euw, Gucci! Oh, Dolce & Gabbana is actually a good story ad. Sorry. Said we weren’t doing that. Onward.

Bright rusty orange seems to be the color of the season this year, folks. Raise of hands—how many of you actually WEAR orange? …yeah. Not the most popular clothing color. For good reason, I think. It takes a special person to wear orange. Or rather, it takes a special shade of orange to look good on a person. But this seems to be the trend. Dior, Fendi, Prada…they all got some orange in there.

Guess by Marciano is still making “Young Sophia Loren” looks that I always wish I could be more like. In my head, I AM that dark and tall and sultry and sexy and fuckable. (Yes, I said it. Right out loud.)

Celine is making pants that will make you fall downstairs and kill yourselves, so potential suicides, take a look (yes, I know that is not FUNNY, but it DOES make my point. Lighten up.). I hope they come with a warning label: “So long that you may well die if you are someone who walks ANYWHERE in this world, even to your fridge.” Of course, seeing the thinness of the model, perhaps fridge is not the correct object for that warning.

Michael Kors has a nice skirt, except it’s white. I am NOT going to go on a raging  tangent of what I think of white (Or khaki. Or, really, ANY “neutral”. ) Let it suffice that I like COLOR. That, and I spill something and stain anything white I own, first time I wear it.

I have just fallen in love. Okay, let me preface this by saying I KNOW I will never own any of these clothes, unless there is an apocalypse and the gold standard collapses, and rich fashionable people have to come beg me for water and trade their fashionable apparel for it, BUT… I just fell in total and COMPLETE love with Max Mara’s satin (?) purple jacket. OHMYGOD! Here’s a pic from nymag.com:

Not the runway color, the buggy-sunglasses one.

LOVELOVELOVE!

Please PLEASE someone who owns this who needs water, come see me.

Okay. Pulse is slowing. Whew.

I will never own clothes from any of these designers, will I?

In a cosmic quirk, as soon as I typed that, I turned to…a Target ad. OH, me of little faith! It even has that pretty purple color in a dress, which is a good dress…if you don’t already HAVE hips of your own. But still, I got the message: never say never. Thanks, Cosmos!

It amazes me how high fashion puts together clothes no mentally-sound person would ever wear together. Lord almighty. No one should EVER think the tiny white tiered skirt should go with the khaki shirt with the nautical top under it and a plaidy kind of thing on top of it all. No.

Oh great Jesu Christo—the poor Calvin Klein model looks like a zombie.

I am sorry, honey, whoever you are, I am sure you ARE pretty; I am sure it is just the way they decided to make you up, but you look fresh from the grave, albeit in their spiffy white dresses which proves you did NOT just arise from the earth. Calvin, you did this model a great disservice, and honestly, I cannot even focus on your clothes in these ads.  And why do I suddenly have the urge to have a chainsaw permanently affixed to my arm?

Bulgari has Julianne Moore in their ads this round. Hullo, pretty…you have no clothes on. Just purses. Aaaand a white tiger cub across your boobs. It actually looks like he may have been chewing on the strap of the worth-more-than-my-car bag, and that they stuffed his own paw in his mouth as an afterthought, though. Which makes a fun little scenario of the photo shoot run through my head, with design people cursing and running around in a panic because a tiger is chewing  thousands of dollars worth of bag. But, what are they trying to say, exactly? There are LION heads on the purse clasp, so they failed on that one. The first purse is a gorgeous blue color. The tiger…er, lion, purse looks pimply like a tan-skinned teenager. Still, whatever they are selling, hot white Julianne, I’d buy on you alone. Or maybe I would just BUY YOU alone. Whichever.

When you turn the page, you KNOW what Boss is sellin’…but even the guy in the ad doesn’t look like he’s buyin’.

Mini-rant: I am SO TIRED of people’s models ALL LOOKING THE SAME. I am sure it is SUPPOSED to make them less individual so you look at the CLOTHES, but it just irritates me. Oh, look, we have three girls and they look like identical triplets even thought they are NOT, so pretend they are not there and look at the clothes, please. This matching-model thing is just taking matchy-matchy too far, I say. (Do you hear me, BCBG Max Azria?)

Oh look! Juicy Couture has three little matchy wanna-be hippies! TRES early 70s…waaay before they were born, I may add. How do I know this? Because that is when I was born. But semi-kudos, in that these three aren’t COMPLETELY matchy-matchy models…they are just incredibly SIMILAR. It’s a step. Oh, the clothes? Like I said, tres early 70s. I ”have a hippy kind of vibe” (thanks to longtime friend Tes Brown for that succinct and incredibly accurate summation of me!) , and I wouldn’t wear them, except maybe the cool sun hat. By the way—hippies do not usually wear stilettos. Just sayin’. I am sure that detail just got…overlooked in the planning stages. Yeah. That’s it.

Oh look! Another tiger in an ad! Hey, this isn’t the Year of the Tiger, is it? I didn’t  think so. It’s the Year of the Rabbit, people. And nary a bun-bun to be seen in Harper’s.

Meet the Hilfigers. No thank you! I know enough people.

Dear Leon Max: This IS who I am…deep down in my psyche. How did you know? Le sigh. Please be my personal designer. (Photo from maxstudio.com)

WHAT?! I don’t LOOK silky and chiffony to you? Well, I AM! My soul totally looks like that. (Stop laughing; I am serious on that one.)

 Katie Holmes is up for Ann Taylor. Katie looks so exhausted and pissy that I didn’t notice the clothes. Oh, it’s a blue suit. Not bad. Might wanna wear a shirt under it, though. Just sayin’.

So, Chanel has this new pair of gladiators, so new I cannot find a pic online for you, even at chanel.com: gold, flat, kind of a Mary Jane strap, with leather cut into really cool swirls—SO me! If it wasn’t for the alligator texture detracting from the swirls, I’d be in love again. Should I take this as a sign that I should never have a great pair of gladiators, or just as a sign that some people overdesign pieces into ick?

While everyone else is going gold this year, Ralph Lauren is going silver. But should we really wear that huge-ass longhorn belt buckle with our silver-embroidered brown suede chaps and the silvery-tissue jacket with the poofy almost-mutton chop sleeve? Probably not, really. Seriously, it’s as big as the model’s face.

Hmmm…Louis Vuitton’s matchy-matchy models also look like men in drag. Nice colors, though, Louis. TOO MANY, but nice.

Roberto Cavalli, you ALWAYS scare me with your ads. ALWAYS. It’s always TEXTURE HELL in there!

See? Gives me the shudders!

ANOTHER tiger! Way to jump on the bandwagon, Vince Camuto! You DID get the prettiest tiger thus far, though. Full grown, well manicured, fluffed well, twice as big as your model (she wouldn’t even be a frickin’ appetizer, that’s why he doesn’t actually eat her!) Do designers have meetings about this shit?!

Cute little dresses, Pamella Roland.

Lanvin is winning for the “DO NOT WEAR THIS IRL!” award (which I just made up, yes),  for these ready-to-wear…tropical bags:

Just DON’T.

I am happy to report that Badgley Mischka is still making cute, sexy dresses you couldn’t go anywhere in if you ever had to sit down, even though they used Rumer Willis in their ad this round. Although she IS finally starting to look more like her mom than her dad (no offense, Bruce—you’ve got a manly look, that’s all. It doesn’t translate well in the feminine),  and I am happy to see that the girl has a booty to fill out the dress. Unless they fake-bootied her, in which case, forget my compliment on the booty. Fake booty does not impress me.

Marc Jacobs is quoted as saying he does not believe there is such a thing as good taste or bad taste. I beg to differ.

There is also an article on Michelle Obama. I notice they do not mention that she also wears Target, American Eagle and H&M brand clothes out in public.

I rejoice at the trend toward ankle-length skirts. They have always been my favorites to wear, and if they are suddenly trendy again, maybe I CAN FINALLY FIND SOME TO BUY!

Okay, fashion break. There is an ad for SculptraAesthetic injectable poly-L-lactic acid, “anti-age for the modern age”. Tag line? “You didn’t age overnight. Why should you anti-age overnight?” BECAUSE YOU TRAIN US TO WANT IT ALL NOW, FROM BIRTH ON, THAT IS WHY! Ahem. The model looks beautiful with her crow’s feet and smile lines, and if I was her, I’d not inject a damn thing. The inside flap model, showing the gradual anti-aging, looks…odd. She maybe should have stopped after three treatments, because the after-25-months picture is…kinda creepy.

Poor Rita Wilson thought she was fat. Now that she looks too skinny for her head, she feels better. Thanks, Jillian.

Okay, this ad placement CRACKS ME UP: there is a skin special section, followed by…A CIGARETTE AD. HAHAHAHAHAHHA! Yeah, cuz those cigs are gonna do WONDERS for your skin, ladies. Smoke up, Johnny!

Versace used matchy-matchy boys to go with their girl. And even she looks like they could be almost the same person, except the hair. STOP IT! It looks SILLY!

Oh, gods help me. The cover photo is used again inside the magazine. GAH!

OMG. They use the panda suit in another pic too. And another! Someone is smoking too damn much doobage at Harper’s.

OOOH! The Karl lagerfeld Interview with a Vampire spread is actually really pretty, artistically speaking! Like a silent movie.  All black and white, with red added over. And really, when I see Lagerfeld, I kinda think vampire anyway…he SAYS he is really nice, even though he seems scary. Says it right there in the interview, so I must not be the only person who sees him that way. Maybe it is just the hair coupled with the sunglasses.

They have a Mike Nichols film tribute in here, with fashion stars in pictures taken from his “great” movies: Working Girl (seriously?), The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Winona Ryder looks just like Liz Taylor in this shot!).  That was a nice break.

And turn the page to…ORANGE ESPADRILLES WITH FEATHERS! Oy. Gretchen! Stop trying to make orange happen! It’s not going to happen! (Lord, tell me it isn’t happening.)

Followed by an article on Daphne Guinness, in which she is all Black-AND-White Swan in an Alexander McQueen. At least it ain’t orange. Wow, she is QUITE the character, that one. Artiste to the max. The wealthy can afford to be that way. I am jealous.

Oh good lord, they made Kim Kardashian into Cleopatra. Are they trying to KILL ME?! And she is going on about how she needs to be on a diet. And now she is “interviewing” Liz Taylor. Hear that silence? That is me, having stopped reading the article all together. Why is this pretty girl famous, again?

Next up, “the season’s sexy side”…it ain’t sexy. And it ain’t the gorgeous black models’ fault. Skipping it.

Chloe Sevigny…in clothes that do nothing for her, mostly shot in near-darkness, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

Hillary Clinton. Woulda been nice to see her in something besides black suits. But I have to love her for this quote: “I have this Ferragamo hot-pink bag that I ADORE…I mean, how can you be unhappy if you pick up a BIG PINK BAG?” Word up, lady. Color has power. And that bag? It’s big enough to knock your husband OUT COLD. Try it. I am sure the opportunity will show itself again. If only you had had that in the White House!

The “what’s up next” trend looks like a throwback to the 50s…lots of white and 50s silhouettes. Although, there are a couple pretty ones in there. Namely the one that ISN’T white, but is coral. And the model has pink hair, to offset the whiteness, so…this wasn’t a bad browse. But 50s style will make my huge bazooms look GARGANTUAN! Like take-over-the-world big. May have to skip that trend altogether.

Interview with Liza Minelli on “her” New York (bottom line– do whatever Halston says) finishes it off, followed by “What’s In, What’s Out”: Bold glam retro cuffs, patterns of fruit, “dainty feline pumps (tigers again?), bright colorful “exotic skins” for purses, updated tuxedos, and “coquettish cocktail numbers” are IN. ID bracelets, mannish paisleys (have paisleys ever been mannish? seriously), “aggressive studded heels”, dark  moody patent bags, skintight bandage dresses and pouffed miniskirts are SO TOTALLY OUT! Dammit. There goes everything in my closet. What the hell do I wear now?! Oh yeah…red and khaki.

So, to sum up trends this spring: orange, chartreuse (although I must say their chartreuse examples are really neon lime green–yes, I WILL split hairs in respect to  color; but now that I look, there are actually some really cute MiuMiu sandals in their idea of chartreuse…if only they weren’t, you know,  CHARTREUSE. But at $595, it matters not what I think!), gold (and you KNOW someone will try to wear all three of those first ones at ONCE!); lace, pin-up, lesbian overtones (as usual), and bright colors with horizontal stripes (half the females in the world just groaned—I heard it. I didn’t add pics because I do not want to be the cause of anyone rushing out to buy those Celine pants in response!)

And tigers. Can’t forget the tigers.

Roar.

And, yes, I just bastardized the Unbirthday Song from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland for a title. I love that song. It’s completely nuts.

As those who know me best can attest to, I do not “do” New Year’s resolutions. Hayl to the NO.

While I do think that we should live aware lives, and always strive to better ourselves, I do not think that making promises to do things and make certain changes in a year is the way to go.

Please note, I HAVE made resolutions in years past. Many years. I had lists, I told people what I resolved in the small hope that having someone have the knowledge would force me to keep on the straight and narrow and achieve what I thought so direly needed to be fixed about me. Or, even better, make them babysit me when I strayed. Like I needed to be bitched at by another human being in order to do something good for myself. (Actually, I think that may have actually BEEN me, as a teenager…but I digress.)

 I stopped doing the resolution thing about ten years ago. I like to think that I am exactly who I am supposed to be, Perfectly Myself, and need no tweaking. In reality, I think it is really that I finally just woke the hell up and realized this stunning fact: LIFE IS FUCKING HARD. Yep. It is. It is supposed to be. I think that is the point. We choose a path, we incarnate, we live the path, we learn, we improve, we grow, hopefully we enjoy some of it.

And y’know what? LIFE IS STRESSFUL ENOUGH ALLLLL ON ITS OWN.

So why would we, as complete and magical spiritual beings on a physical journey, want to add more stress to our lives, on purpose? Because setting yourself “have to do”s, picking over what you think is so very wrong with you, does that, in spades. Why put yourself in a position where, at the end of the year, you get to hash over what a fuckup or a failure you were, for not accomplishing what you resolved? Masochist much?

I figure there is enough in life to feel insecure, unworthy, or just plain bad about without adding to it ourselves, on purpose, every year. So I stopped.

For some of the last years, I made lists of things that I might want to work on changing in the new year. But not that I was required by Self-Law to do. A few years ago, I believe “walk the dog more”, “paint more”, “organize filing”, “get some damn exercise so your lungs start working better”, and “eat out once a month” were on there. Last year I didn’t even do that.

This year, I do not have a list. Mentally, maybe. And I figure I am a responsible enough grown-up that mentally will do for now. In my daily life, I very often note things that do not please me and what I could do to change them. The things noted change, often. But I am aware enough to note them to begin with, so yea me!

So, in that vein, I am going to share my Unresolutions with you, as they are at this very moment, in the full knowledge that they could change at any instant.

MY UNRESOLUTIONS: First Edition, 2011

 * I am not going to yell at the dogs for doing their business on the floor. They don’t have opposable thumbs, so it is obviously not their fault that when nature calls, they are unable to get to nature to do their thing. I’m gonna say “EW.” and clean it up. There are 3.85 adults in this house–there is really no excuse for the dogs not to be let out every few hours. But I am not going to yell at them for human error or downright laziness. And I ‘ll be telling the other 2.85 not to either. We need our pets more than they need us, and we need to keep that in mind.

 *I am not going to go to work when I am sick. I am a repeat offender at this, as if sacrificing myself for a job is important, appreciated, or honored, let alone at all necessary. I am a cog. We are all cogs, even if we own a business. Health before profits, people. (I sound like a Northern Sun T-shirt. And if you do not know of the greatness that is Northern Sun, you should. www.northernsun.com, I believe, peeps. Google it, and go.)

*I am not going to stand quietly by while someone usurps who or what I am, and takes my identity or my natural actions for their own. I am also not going to be berated or belittled for who I am. Period.

* I am not going to go through a single day without doing something that makes ME happy.

*I am going to try not to use the words “shit”, “fuck” or “blowjob” in a public setting. As much as possible.

* I am going to do something creative BEFORE I get so stressed out that I cannot.

*I am not going to stay away from Hippymom.com for long periods of time.

*I am not going to be a hermit…as much.

*I am not going to berate or belittle myself for physical flaws, and I am not going to say stupid things (even in my head) like, “Maybe without that belly you could get laid.”

*I am not going to stay home when I feel like going out.

*I am not going to undermine my intuition by rationalizing it away and going against what it tells me. My intuition is a damn fine engine, and it is powerful. I am not going to waste it.

*I am not going to only blog once a month. I am going to babble about whatever I want, when ever it comes to me, and I am going to share it; it needs to get out of my head so I can go on thinking about OTHER things. More important things, like how to make the world less skinny-focused, or how to teach people compassion in a way that won’t interfere too direly with the capitalist society we live in, or figure exactly HOW processed sugar and corn syrup can be so bad when they are clearly so damn GOOD on the tongue, or how to invent the Internet, or how to get my business running, or how to survive the Apocalypse should it arrive, or how to get people to realize all gods are one and then live in peace together, or why the plastic perforated “pull here to open” seals on things don’t ever work right, or some magic way to drink enough water even though I do not like its taste(s) –yes, water all tastes different–do not mock me, or finally figure out a hairstyle for me that won’t be straight and flat, or figure out how to survive in a money world when I am not money-centered, or what the appeal of Rob Schneider movies is supposed to be, or why my Old Lady Cat rolls in the dirty catbox, or how to finally break down the barrier of understanding between dogs and people so we can actually finally have a dialogue and TALK to each other like the equals we are (yes, I know this will not work with cats. Once they started being worshipped as gods, we were just screwed on that count.), or how to stop dust from taking over the world, or how I can get a house and a travel budget for mere pennies, or even better, FREE!, or why Gerard Butler hasn’t been lucky enough to meet me yet and let me make him the happiest man in the universe by marrying him and living happily ever after, or the REAL secret of nuclear fusion, or THE ANSWER TO ALL THE QUESTIONS IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!…

Ahem. You get the gist. See you BEFORE the month is over.

Start your Eleven by doing something that makes you happy…every single day. Go do it. Go on, do it now…

from flagger central

I dreamt I was flying.

First I had a helicopter-car, but it was dented and the wheels had fallen off, and I didn’t know how to fly it and it had no gas. I asked for help, but no one could, or would. I was trying to get home from an outdoor holiday celebration of some sort, and couldn’t find my friends, Shelia and Jack, and was trying to get away before an ex showed up…it was the ex who had trashed the tires, I believe. And some upwardly mobile lesbian was camping out in my copter-car, so I had to get  it away from her—not sure how that happened, but then I was flying it by jumping off trees (didn’t work) and buildings to jump start it.

Then it morphed, and I was a young boy who could fly with special fabric clutched in his hands, and I was jumping off expensive houses and flyyyyyying.

Then it morphed and I was a Harry Potter/Daniel Radcliffe, or a lookalike. I was him and I flew away out of a fancy cliff top restaurant. Just took a run from the raised maitre-d desk and out the floor to ceiling windows (which should not have opened at all.)

Then I was myself, and I could fly with fabric rubberbanded to my hands, and I was constantly taking off from stranger’s roofs and flying out to sea. And then I morphed and was other people, most memorably Kristin Chenowith, and ANYONE could fly, I think, and she/I would just kick open tall windows and fly away into the air and over the ocean and convinced her lover (who was a geeky, recognizable character actor who i will try to come back and make note of when I can recall his actual name) …and we convinced him to fly out of a dinner party we were having, just leaving our guests and flying together, gliding away; kicking open high,  tall windows after climbing on furniture to get to them, and just gliding away together over the sea as the sun set.

It seems that any lightweight material would work; As Harry/Daniel, any fabric would work at all, but by the end, with Kristin, for example, it was gorgeously colored sunset-reds silky stuff.

The magic seemed to be in the rubber band configuration in each case. THEY had to be wrapped and clutched in your fist correctly, and then it was easy. You just WENT. You had to flap the fabric a few times and then just gliiiiiiiiide.

The ocean was always the destination—even in the first campout-holiday celebration part…that person flew over the town, toward the ocean, but ended up staying inland and swooping a swimming complex, where my daughter was happily swimming, but my character self (who was male at the time) wanted the ocean, not any old water at hand.

No, that isn’t right—the ocean was never the actual destination…but each time the flying took place over the ocean, on the way TO the destination, be it “home”, out to sea, or an unknown (to dreaming me)  island destination I couldn’t see from my takeoff point.

After Kristin, I suddenly woke up and saw that the sky was light and, muddled and forgetting I had gone to sleep at 1 p.m., I thought I had overslept and missed my 4 a.m. alarm and started to freak out…but it is 4:44 P.M. instead. I get to go back to bed in 4 hours.

It is fading, but it was the most peaceful, beautiful dream I have had in ages, despite occasional feelings of sadness in some plot moments. That all went away, because I could FLY.

I miss my dream.

Cuz it should be alll about her pleasure, dudes.

the seven-pack of preggo tests (WTF?! Seriously?! Really?…um, well…okay. Some shrink somewhere should be makin’ buck on the people who need THAT in bulk),

um...seven?!

and the Monistat 3© Combo Pack

yikes!

—which are all, conveniently, located in the same aisle together, to accomodate those mistakes you plan to make, the ones you already made, and the ones you did not learn from and will be making again—I was having some thoughts. Besides wondering about the above three items, I was thinking random retaily thoughts, seeing as “The Season is upon us” (even though I think it is too early for that particular season to be upon us the least bit).

Here’s a little list for you: WHAT I WAS THINKING:

*Dear Grandma whose six year old granddaughter desperately wanted a $35 Bakugan Red Dragon set: I meant it when I said I think she is the coolest. And, thank YOU for saying I just made her Christmas by finding it for you. You’re a good granny. And you had a good attitude. Feel free to come visit me again when it is birthday time. I’d love to rock her little gifting world again. And I hope it is in the action figure aisle.

* Do you suppose those people whose voices are ALWAYS screeching, loud, and strident walk around feeling like they are invisible and need to constantly speak this way in order to feel seen and heard? It’s annoying as hell, especially in the wee hours of the morning, and I think the only way I can stop from hacking such folks to death is by believing that they are so deeply damaged that they HAVE to do it to stop themselves from killing themselves. And I do not want to be responsible for helping them with their self-esteem issues, so I may just have to believe this and see them through a gaze of  shiny-eyed pity. Because, y’know,  I do not particularly want to go to jail, either.

*When people are shopping and looking for something, you can tell if they do NOT want your help (even if they need it), by their noted refusal to make any eye contact with you. I am required to greet guests and ask, “Can I help you find something?” (which I cannot seem to do without an endearing, slightly giddy, lightly Southern accent). It is a job requirement. But man, oh man, sometimes I have to be glad humans have not yet evolved into beings with death-ray eyes. So, sometimes (not in line with company policy, I admit), I choose to just say good morning. People are less likely to try to shishkabob you with their eye-rays if you just say that. Most of the time, anyway. And if they WANT help, they will then ask me. (Happens all the time, I swear.) Sorry, retail-chain I work for–I have to follow my intuition with people, even if it means our score drops a point because of me. Besides–I still get most of them greeted and assisted and out the door happily, regardless.

*Dude. I am so clumsy today. I single-handedly created three dented cans in the market aisle this morning. But I DID then take them to the back room to be thrown away, as protocol dictates. Seems a terrible waste of perfectly good pineapple chunks though. I woulda had ‘em for lunch.

*Why do people look at me strangely when I finish off a two liter of Mountain Dew in less than a full workday? Do they not understand I have not had pop in two days? Did they not wonder why I could barely fricking move, or why I was not smiling, or why I had to concentrate so hard on scanning bar codes, or why I kept dropping crap all day? Don’t judge me, you freaks. Caffeine and sugar are all that keep me able to work from  4 a.m. to noon-thirty or later (like today’s ten hour day) without ripping any of you apart…and that’s even when I LIKE you. Seriously–you do not want to see how it could go, was the situation not taken care of with alacrity. That two liter may have just saved your lives. Seriously.

* I colored the most beautiful turkey picture at work, and if I do not win our contest, I will be very upset. I have a design degree, people—honor me accordingly. If you had given me any glitter to use, it woulda been a slamfuckingdunk.

* Things you should not say during The Season, in a retail store:

• “Are you fucking kidding me, lady? Not even the fucking President can get that toy this year. No fucking way are YOU getting it.”
• “Then GO to another store! I am not threatened by the possibility of losing your $34.99 sale, no matter HOW much you berate me in public… jackass.”
• “Stop yelling, or I will KEEEEEL YOU with this Harry Potter Lego Set! I mean it!”
• “What? The MHM store was dissin’ us? Well, them biatches don’t know SHIT.  Just cuz THEY ain’t got any on the shelf and never have, don’t mean WE ain’t never had em! Did they come to our store and look?! Huh? NO. Damn crackers.”
• “Lady, if you do not make your child get off the side of the cart right now, I will fucking ram you with a pallet of merch to make the point. ONE of you is going home in a body cast. You choose. Or, alternatively, YOU could parent that kid and PUT THEM IN THE SEAT!”
• “Dude! WHY IS THERE A PIECE OF POO ON THE FLOOR IN THE ENTRYWAY TO THE CAN?!” (Actually saw this today, I shit you not. *snicker*)
• “Well, this store doesn’t carry the conditioner I want, either, but ya don’t hear ME having a goddamn hissy in every aisle of the store so that EVERY person in the tri-state area knows of my complete displeasure.”
• “Buy the Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses…they are totally Christmas CRACK!” (Although I WILL probably say this at some point, to someone. Speaking of which, this year the breeeelyunt company has put out a “BIG BAG” of said crack for holiday purchase. I cannot decide if they love me, are trying to kill me dead, or some mix of the two. These possiblilties will in no way limit me using my purchasing power to make my approval of said marketing brilliance known.)
• 

  CHRISTMAS CRACK!

   

• And, the most important not to ever say in a retail setting: “Seriously…shut the fuck up.”

So, just to be clear…I HAVE NOT SAID ANY OF THESE THINGS. EVER. And probably will never say them in said setting.  But I DID think them all. And giggled (mostly to myself) as I thought them. Yes, at work. I figure I just look like a cheerful little retail elf, ready to help and spread joy.

That is all my mind vomit for today…go about your business…talk amongst yourselves.

Mwaw!

It matters not what excuses I make or have—not following through is RUDE, and I sincerely apologize.

Laura: I am sorry I never returned your calls when I first got back. My life was a mess and I just couldn’t pick  up the damn phone to reach out. I AM SO SORRY. That was fucking rude. I am sorry I blew you off.  I sitll hope to meet your wife and dog someday.

Danette: I AM SO SORRY I did not RSVP to the baby shower, after I said I would go, in conversation. When I got my schedule and realized I had to work, I thought, “I’ll call tomorrow.” Then a few days later, I thought, “Maybe I can get the day off. Someone may want the hours…” Then a week later, when I KNEW I was not going to make it, I STILL forgot to call you. And THEN, that weekend, I had the flu, and totally forgot about the party anyway. That is what happened, but it is still no excuse. I was rude to blow it all off. I apologize.

Alyssa: when I came home from work last Wednesday, I fell asleep at 3 p.m. and stayed asleep most of the night…I totally forgot about calling you to discuss what we planned. To make it worse, I JUST realized I had blown it off LAST NIGHT…almost a week later. I am a putz…I apologize. Sincerely. No excuse…I was rude. I am sorry.I will send you an email with the info I imagine you will need, and if you have already taken care of it all yourself, GO YOU! Otherwise, I apologize again.

I am not afraid to be wrong. I am not afraid to admit when I am rude or stupid or just forget shit.

But I am sincerely sorry for rudeness. I do not like people to blow me off, and I always try to treat others as I expect to be treated.

Apologies.

Sometimes I just suck.