Category: Fashion

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"Other people" Beginnings Being a girl Children Drew Family Fashion Friends Love Memoir Nonfiction Parents Pregnancy

Oh brave new world: Babies on the internet

I have a dilemma. And I know it will be one that people have differing opinions on. But I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it, precisely.

You (maybe) know how on your Facebook timeline, you can scroll all the way back to “born 1983,” and you have blank years between, say, 1983 and 2006, when you actually set up your account. But at some point in the not-so-distant future, there is going to be a wave of teenagers with every single year of their lives filled out, thanks to their overenthusiastic parents.

And I guess no one really knows what this is going to mean for the future. And maybe I’m giving Facebook (or whatever comes after Facebook) too much credit. But I think it’s a pretty safe guess that things aren’t going to start turning backward. Everything’s going online.

When Drew and I got married, we got into a small scuffle or two with friends over the fact that we preferred that people not post tons of pictures of the wedding, particularly if they’re, you know, sitting in the back and taking pictures on their phone. Ultimately, yes, some pictures got posted, and it didn’t really bother either of us. But the other day, I saw that a (far-flung) friend of mine had posted 300 pictures into an album called “Wedding,” and my first thought was, “Oh wow, I didn’t even know she was getting married!” and then when I looked at the pictures I realized it was just a wedding that she attended. (I don’t even think she was in it…just a guest. Which seems extreme to me.)

But at least those people are all over 18. Lately, I can’t stop worrying about the whole phenomenon of posting a million pictures of your baby on your Facebook page. Let me just admit, I don’t think I will be able to resist that, for a couple reasons.

1) How can you not show off something like that? How cute would an Instagramed baby be? Am I right?
2) I’m pretty sure that I’m still like halfway in the closet with this whole “being pregnant” thing, and if I post a couple pictures of me and Drew holding an infant, it’s going to make it a lot clearer.

(There’s also a whole other side issue of the “attention wanted” posts, versus the “for entertainment purposes” posts, versus the “for the family members” posts.)

It’s not just the possibility that one day this kid will want to be the president (ha, yeah right), and won’t want pictures of himself or herself naked in a bathtub. It’s also a safety thing. Drew pointed out there are people on Facebook, who we don’t really know in real life…but we know EVERYTHING about their (very young) children. Like, we could probably use the knowledge we have, to kidnap said children. And we would never do that, because we’re cool, but there are people out there who would totally do that.

I can’t claim to be particularly good at staying anonymous – I’m sure that I’ve accidentally let slip too many details here. Things that I didn’t mean to say, but “oops” happens.

And even if I can resist putting a bunch of pictures – there are still all these other people running around with cameras and phones and wanting to post stuff.

I can be kind of private about some things. And delivery is going to be one of those things. I’m good having our parents in and out during labor, and hanging out…but when it comes down to business, it’s really important to me that it’s me and Drew (and I guess some doctors or something). It fits with our whole “we’re a team” thing.

So I’m going to be pretty bummed if I come home two days later and find out that it’s already on Facebook, because someone jumped the gun – purely out of excitement, I’m sure. But how do you put that out there, without sounding like a total bitch? It’s just gotten too hard to put restrictions on things like that.

Friend anecdotes: one friend was very strict about things early on. She didn’t want her kid posted anywhere linked with his name, or with the names of her or her husband. I think she was thinking about safety. But eventually she’s posted more and more pictures and videos of him on her Facebook, which I’m sure has the highest security settings.

Another friend has been strict the whole time, and her kid is 3 years old. She’s also told family members to take things down because she doesn’t want them just floating out there. She also told us a story about a relative posting a video online with the caption, “[Name]’s first steps!!” And all the family members were commenting and loving it, and she had to say, “Hey, listen, she had her first steps a week ago and her father and I were there you can’t just take that away from us.”

I guess that’s my fear. My long-winded fear. I just don’t want this to get away from us. I want the two of us – Drew and me – to be the keepers of the milestones and the reveals. That’s all. I guess. Luckily, none of our parents are really into Facebook, so they won’t go crazy. Other friends and relatives…might be harder to rein in.

Silver lining, which I keep reminding myself: I am so grateful that this kid is arriving into a world of people excited and happy to meet him or her.

PS. He or she has been kicking the whole time I’ve been writing this – perhaps as if to say, “Moooo-oom, you’re embarrassing me” ?

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"Other people" Being a girl Children Drew Family Fashion Nonfiction Not awesome Parents Writing

In this case, E stands for “erroneous”

Stuff like this drives me crazy.

I realize this is just one little e-card. It’s not even a physical thing – it just exists as a jpeg. (And however things on the internet exist.)

This was probably a Mother’s Day card at one point. But I just saw it today, because this “your ecards” thing has somehow merged with Facebook and George Takei to create the unholy trinity that I like to call, “Why is my news feed now composed entirely of semi-funny, oft-shared pictures??”

Anyway. “9 times out of 10 children get their awesomeness from their mother.” What’s being said here? Why are we leaving out the fathers?

I’ve been running into a lot of father-bashing (or father-ignoring) on all the pregnancy boards to which I am now addicted. A common occurrence is that a woman will start a thread about being upset with her husband about a specific incident, and then comments will quickly pile up about how “it’s different for the men” and “they don’t understand” and how “they’re not interested in the pregnancy.”

Based on this and similar stories, Drew and I started a running “joke” about how much more important mothers are than fathers, which is basically us just repeating how the baby doesn’t even know who the father is until they’re 3 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old. (We just keep exaggerating because that’s what humor is.)

But this morning, I had to stop and say, “We’re both just kidding…right?” because it’s kind of getting to me. Enough is enough. Dads love their children too, and contribute to their health and well-being and yes, even to their awesomeness.

Maybe I just grew up in a very lucky kind of household, where my parents shared responsibilities and were around us equal amounts of time. I would say I get 50% of my awesomeness from my mom and 50% from my dad. And I would say that with a totally straight face.

It’s possible I’m overreacting to a stupid Facebook share. I mean, such things happen. (Some time last year, a WP blog post about bullying made the FB rounds, and everyone yelled about how their kid is such a special snowflake, and they would kill anyone who said anything mean to their perfect and sensitive child. I’m sure my coworkers enjoyed my attitude that day.)

On the other hand, maybe we’ve seen enough of FB e-cards, and enough of comments under-appreciating fathers. Hmm?

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"Other people" Books Celebrities Fashion Not awesome Self improvement

50 Shades of Awful

I get kind of worked up about bad writing. Particularly about bad writing that makes all the bestseller lists. Especially when this bad writing really serves no purpose. And when everyone is talking about it, even though they all admit it’s bad.

The worst is when I secretly want to read it, just in case I’m missing out on something big.

But no. I will not succumb.

When I first heard about Fifty Shades of Grey, I wanted to see what all the hype was about, even knowing right off the bat that it was housewife erotica, and then finding out it was based off of a Twilight fanfiction – ugh. On Amazon, the first two chapters of the book were available for reading online, so I sat down and spent 20 minutes with Anastasia.

Oh. Good. Gravy. From that oh-so-purple way of getting the first-person narrator to describe herself (by staring in the mirror and bemoaning how “unattractive” she is – spoiler alert, she’s bee-you-tee-ful!) to the horrific exclamations (“Holy crap!” etc), this is one of the worst things I’ve read. And people are eating this up? Because…it claims to be erotic? For the record, there wasn’t any of that in the first couple chapters, but I could see where it’s going. And it’s nowhere good.

The articles I’ve read about the book(s – there are three of them) since then have all been making fun of it and talking about how bad it is. The reviews I’ve heard have been mostly, “Meh, it’s all right, but it’s not very good.” So why is this thing doing so well?

The only thing I can do is keep promising myself that I will not spend any money to read it. And that I will not succumb and get it from the library either. (Getting erotica from the library…ew?)

But this is my PSA so that hopefully no one else gets sucked in to this terrible writing. Don’t do it, people! Here is a list of other good series that would be way more worth your time:

  • The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • Harry Potter by JK Rowling
  • The Green Mile by Stephen King (a serialized novel – kind of a cheat)
  • Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
  • Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
  • A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones, etc) by George RR Martin
  • The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
  • Earth’s Children (The Clan of the Cave Bear, etc) by Jean M Auel
  • Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Just a list of ideas, running the gamut from children to YA to adult. I’m kinda just pulling this off of my shelves, so I know there’s a lot that’s not represented. (Let me know if there’s a series you feel I should include!)

For the record, this article about Fifty Shades of Grey from Vulture is kind of hysterical. (Also kind of graphic, so maybe not for everyone.)

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Fashion Self improvement Technology

Facebook, do you miss me?

Last weekend was about the halfway point during Lent. I meant to do a little introspective on how it’s been going without Facebook. But I got distacted with real life and it’s happening late.

I find that I don’t seriously miss Facebook. Occasionally I want to wander over there to kill some time, but I’ve found other websites to take care of that aspect of it. I am afraid I’m missing friends’ birthdays. But oops. I did totally miss one friend’s birthday party invite, but it was at a bar on a Wednesday night in San Francisco, and chances are I would have taken a raincheck anyway.

I kind of like not having Facebook in my, um, face all the time. I don’t have to read the endless posts about The Hunger Games movie coming out. It’s not like I’m not interested in The Hunger Games, but when I have opinions on something like this, it’s so hard for me to watch other people’s opinions go by without saying anything…lol. I don’t miss seeing the same memes posted over and over again. Or seeing the horrible grammar and spelling on the wall for my high school reunion (yikes).

I have also accidentally sort of fallen off of Twitter. I just love not having the pressure of staying caught up on what everyone is saying all the time. Do I sound old?

The only thing is – I guess I thought I’d be more missed. Looking at it now, I get that people are more likely to comment on something I post, rather than just posting a comment onto my timeline. But I don’t know. I thought that someone would want to talk to me. But it seems that no one really does. [Why do I know this? Because I have to get on Facebook for work sometimes (don’t worry, I don’t go through the news feed, I go straight to facebook.com/theatreworkssv), and so I see the pitiful number of notifications.]

Or if they do want to talk to me, they are emailing or texting or talking to me in person. And isn’t that what this is all about?

So…I guess so far this experiment is successful! Still no word on whether I’ll be back on Facebook on Easter Sunday. We’ll see!

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Being a girl Books Dreams Fashion Food Friends Love Nonfiction Religion Self improvement Sentiment Writing

21 in 2 months

After yesterday’s post about how I have bought too many books since Jan 1st, a friend asked me to list them all. So here goes!

These are the ones I bought from Amazon with a gift card:

Cell by Stephen King – this is me collecting every Stephen King book
Who the Hell is Pansy O’Hara? by Jenny Bond and Chris Sheedy – I saw this in the used bookstore I used to frequent when I worked at the Opera, and even though Erin said it was so-so, I’ve wanted to read it since then
Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs – I want to own all his stuff because I think he’s a good role model for me
Naked, Drunk, and Writing by Adair Lara – I idolize her, and this is one of the best “how to” writing books I’ve ever read
A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs – collecting all the Augusten Burroughs books is a lot easier than collecting all the Stephen King books

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin – so good!
Touched by a Vampire by someone named Jones – from the used bookstore, about religion in Twilight…it looks like a joke, and that’s why I bought it, although I paid $7 for it, so who’s the joke on now?
The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – love Sherlock Holmes!
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather – love these Barnes and Noble volumes!
A Widow for One Year by John Irving – love John Irving!
More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin – I really liked the show at ACT, and I really liked the first Tales of the City, so I look forward to reading more

Oh! Here’s The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume I, near the foot of the bed. I was reading it about 6 weeks ago.

I shouldn’t count these since they were Christmas presents, but they are sitting out, so…

Etiquette by Emily Post – the 1922 edition!
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

This was also a Christmas present.

11/22/63 by Stephen King – one of his weirder premises, but I still enjoyed it!

Two major finds a couple weekends ago – two Stephen King books I thought were going to be difficult to get. But they basically fell into my hands!

Blockade Billy by Stephen King – $4.95 on the sale shelf at Barnes and Noble
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King – $2.95 at the used bookstore in Berkeley

Books 2 through 4 of the Underland Chronicles by the author of The Hunger Games. I love these books. I cannot recommend them enough. I also have the first one, but loaned it to Erin. I haven’t bought the fifth and final one yet, but I will when I finish the fourth one.

Gregory the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (not pictured)
Gregory and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins
Gregory and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins
Gregory and the Marks of Secret by Suzanne Collins

Next to the bed! I’m about halfway through and really like it. I think I will read each book before the next season of the HBO series comes out.

A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin

So that’s 19 books that I’ve purchased since January 1st, plus 3 Christmas presents. But wait! I am currently awaiting two books from Amazon:

These are for next month’s book club – they’re both pretty short and we couldn’t meet for another 5 weeks, so we decided to do both of them. I am actually pretty excited about both, but I will probably read them in this order.

The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney – this book has been on my “to read” list FOREVER

So there you have it. Twenty-one books purchased in the first two months of 2012. Will the trend continue like this?

The thing of it is, I’m obviously not embarrassed or worried about this behavior. I love buying books and having books and reading books. I have no intention to stop buying them. I make no promises like, “I won’t buy anything else until I read everything I own.” There’s a Barenaked Ladies lyric,

I don’t buy everything I read,
I haven’t even read everything I’ve bought.

I identify with that.

Stay tuned, and I’ll give you a full breakdown of all of Stephen King’s works, and the few I still need to complete my collection!

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Awesome Beauty Drew Family Fashion Friends Home improvements Love Religion

It’s Christmas in South City!

There’s this neighborhood in South San Francisco, where they must have some kind of agreement or something that you have to sign when you move in, because everyone goes crazy during the holidays. I love it. I aspire to one day live in a place where I’m forced to put up hundreds of dollars of decorations every year so people can come park in front of my driveway and take pictures in my front yard.

Oh, that came out as sarcasm, but I’m totally serious.

Drew, Erin, and I went the other night, but we just drove through and so all my pictures are a little blurry, as Drew was reluctant to stop in the middle of everything and wait for me to get the perfect shot. I had to just magically get it while he was stopped momentarily in the line of cars.

Here are an assortment of – but not all of – those pictures:

The blue house...
...next to the white house
Candy cane fence
One of many Santas riding motorcycles
The best house!

That last house is the best house – it’s one of the first ones you see on your way in and the last one on your way out. It’s the prettiest and the cleanest-looking. There aren’t any weird creepy anamatronics in the windows, and what you can see of the inside of their house is also nice and Christmassy. It’s just the best house of the bunch.

I could have taken my blurry shots and been done with it – and supplemented this blog post with a handmade holiday poem or something – but then last night some of us went out for dinner and on the way back, the one person in the car who you’d expect to be the least excited about Christmas, said, “Ooh! Ooh! Have you seen the neighborhood with the decorated houses? Can we go look at it?”

I mean, that’s just adorable, you have to say yes.

Plus, we had Starbucks, so we were all feeling the holiday spirit.

So we parked and walked around, which means I got slightly less blurry pictures. Although I think that, without a real camera and a tripod, I was never going to get magazine-spread-ready photos. But I mean…cameraphone diaries.

Here are some details I didn’t get during our drive-by visit:

A closeup of the best house, and their tree.
On any other street in any other neighborhood, this house would be amazing. But here, it's like...Okay. What else you got?
I just like the reflection of the house across the street.
A couple years ago, Drew and Erin and I did this, and I had a picture of myself in front of this wreath. Oh yeah, a lot of houses reuse their decorations.
This house goes for quality, not quantity. A real snow globe! These kids were losing their minds!
I just love Nativities.
This is the bear house. They have two of the creepiest trees ever - made all out of bears, held hostage with Christmas lights.
A closeup of the upstairs bear tree...
God knows I tried to take a good picture of us. But I look awkward in all of them. This is the least awkward-looking.
An assortment of characters!
I like the reflections here too
I'm hoping that these people are on vacation or something, and they don't hate their lives.
Mesmerizing
I remember this from last year too. I don't think they're all children. In my head this is a daycare center or something.
Drew likes this tree. He thinks it should be in Downtown Disney or something.
Geese on the roof!

It sure feels like Christmas here – and I can’t wait to see my family tonight and Drew’s family tomorrow! Merry Christmas, all!!

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Awesome Beauty Beginnings Being a girl Endings Fashion Food Friends Love Memoir Self improvement Sentiment Work

Megan’s Bachelorette!

Megan wanted to go into New York City for her bachelorette party. So 2 days before the wedding, 9 girls piled into a limo and prepared to take the Big Apple.

2 Ms of Honor, 5 bridesmaids, 1 friend, and 1 bride!

It was about a two hour drive into the city, with one stop for orange juice (to mix with the champagne we’d brought) and another bathroom/snack stop (the first of many of the day).

The limo dropped us at Astor Place, where everyone grabbed some pizza to get us through until dinnertime. Then we walked down to our East Village nail salon, called Blush – a place I would highly recommend (I really need to write them a Yelp review).

I love this picture!

I originally wanted a French manicure, but ended up just getting a regular one with a super pearly pale white color. I really liked it – and the whole thing was worth it for the cuticle cleaning up and the hangnail clipping. Man, I love that.

A success!

After our salon time, we walked back to Astor Place to catch an N train to Times Square. A couple of the girls had never seen New York City, so we checked out Times Square, including the M&M store and the Hershey store.

Then we walked over a block to Megan’s favorite New York restaurant, La Masseria.

After that we wandered through Times Square, and down to 42nd Street. We went into Dave & Busters to find a bathroom, then we heard from the limo driver that he was trying to get back into the city but was stuck in traffic. So we decided to walk back up to Toys ‘R’ Us to ride on the ferris wheel. But we all got separated, so 6 of them went on the ferris wheel and 3 of us ended up watching.

Then, Megan realized she was missing her phone, so her cousin Emily called it about 20 times until someone answered. Turned out it was back at Dave & Busters. Then the limo driver called and was going to meet us at 42nd and Broadway. So I grabbed Megan and said, Let’s run back to Dave & Busters, the two of us can go really quickly. So we dashed back and got her phone, then back to the limo.

He drove us downtown past the Freedom Tower (I’m still not totally sure why) and then back to Connecticut. We got back to Mindi’s house and drank and talked and ate Cheez-its and played with her kitten. Then around 1:30 we divvied up the sleeping places (I got the couch!) and passed out.

The next morning it was back to the hotel via Dunkin Donuts breakfast, and then lots more to do before the rehearsal dinner Friday night!

A muy successful bachelorette party: a great salon, a great dinner, NYC fun, and Megan even got her lost phone back!

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Being a girl Fashion Work

Day 4 – Not a picture, but I make up for it with words

Yesterday, around 11:30 am
Hmm…look at those co-workers wearing dresses. I never wear dresses. What’s up with that?

Last night, around 9:00 pm
Yeah, I could definitely wear that one dress I bought at American Eagle like 2 years ago…I have worn it like two times ever. I should do it! I should wear it! I will wear it!

This morning, 8:30 am
Find spanx. Find strapless bra. Put on dress. Inspect self in mirror. Think, I can pull this off.

8:37 am
Hair dryer miraculously works again! Stop while drying hair and look in mirror again. Think, Is this too low-cut?

8:39 am
I could wear a real bra instead of a strapless bra?

8:40 am
This dress is too revealing for work. What will people think? Will they call me slutty?

8:41 am
This dress is not revealing. I am just a prude.

8:43 am
It’s not too late! I could still change! I have freshly washed jeans, and a brand new UCD hoodie. I hear them calling me.

8:45 am
I should be adult about this.

8:46 am
Besides, I have to take advantage of this nice weather before it turns again.

8:47 am
OMG, I hope the weather doesn’t turn bad again any time soon.

8:49 am
Tell self to focus – I have to leave soon. Inspect self for twentieth time this morning. Remember the white cami I bought two months ago expressly for the purpose of wearing under revealing dresses.

8:53 am
After trying to go through clean laundry bag nicely, get desperate and dump laundry all over couch. (Sorry, Drew.)

8:55 pm
Find white tank, do fastest living room quickchange ever, one last inspection in mirror. Approved! I mean, white cami looks kinda weird, but better than making work friends uncomfortable with low-cut dress.

10:00 am
Realize that wearing a dress to work? Not really a momentous occasion in most people’s lives. Adjust to life in a dress rapidly. Just like a skirt, that covers more of you!

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Fashion

New look!

What do we think? I’m not sold on the header font, but seeing if it grows on me.

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Beauty Being a girl Fashion Self improvement Sentiment

Pincurls: good for getting hair to fit under a wig; not good for much else.

I am the perfect target audience for marketers. The kind of person who sees a pizza commercial and thinks, Let’s have that tonight. One strong memory I have from New York is of watching Kung-Fu Panda on DVD with Drew one night, and during one scene where they’re all eating noodles, we paused the movie and went to Duane Reade to get Cup Noodles because they just sounded so good.

I know, right?

(Side note: Is it just called “Cup Noodles”? I feel like when I say it out loud, it’s like “Cup-a-noodles” but this was what they had on the official Nissin website, so…)

So what’s a girl to do with 8 hours of free time, no chaperone, and a book called Kabul Beauty School? She gets an idea to have her own little beauty school. And with still-damp hair from the shower, and a two-thirds-full card of bobby pins, nothing sounds better than putting her hair in pincurls.

I finished Kabul Beauty School, Drew said he was swinging by the apartment to pick something up, and suddenly I felt kind of stupid. So I unwrapped all the curls and was left with a head full of very crimpy, still slightly damp, hair. After I brushed it out it became very crimpy and now fluffy, too.

This is my friend Kirsten’s dog. He’s a schnoodle named Attila. We now look somewhat alike.

In fact, I remember having this same revelation years ago in college, when Kirsten spent like two hours braiding my hair into tiny braids, while I chatted on AIM with some guy. The reveal at the end of that escapade – which, I’m sorry to say, lasted a couple days as I left the braids in for maximum style – was much the same at this, and our third roommate, Hailey, dubbed me “Weird Feet Poodle Head.”

(The “weird feet” part came from a whole separate story, involving the interesting patterns in which I wore out my flip-flops.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s true that if you don’t learn from your mistakes you’re doomed to repeat them. And yes, I fully believe that in a few years I’ll be watching some movie or reading some book, and have some free time, and go, Hey, pincurls are easy and might be interesting!