Ultratart: It's Got Bite

Product Love

Okay, it's been a while since I talked about girly beauty products, but I have to tell you guys about something I am in love with. The WAY awkwardly-titled T3 Plump Heat Seeking Liquid Hair Plumper. It is expensive for hair product. HOWEVER. I am telling you right now, it is the best volumizer I have ever used. And I have used a LOT of volumizer. Because I am a bit obsessed with volume. It may help that I am using it with a T3 hairdryer, but I am IN LOVE WITH IT. My hair looked decent after a half-assed blow out and five hours on a plane. Loooooove. Love. I am obsessed with it. Well, you know. As much as you can be with a hair product, anyway.

And that's my very superficial update for the day. I just had to tell someone.

Hope you all are well. Heather and I were out of town recently for some book-related shenanigans, including a lovely party Simon & Schuster and New York Magazine hosted for us, which was both very exciting and sort of nerve-wracking. (I had to lick a Xanax to calm my nerves. I didn't want to take a whole pill, because it would totally knock me out, but I thought a little taste of one would at least calm me down a little, if only via the placebo affect. Is this the first step toward Amy Winehouse-ville? It is, right?) I don't know why I was so nervous, but I was. However, the party was -- of course -- great. We met a lot of really nice people and generally felt well-loved.

We've been out of town a lot more than usual lately, and it's good to be home for what should be a nice stretch.  I'm looking forward to settling in for some cozy election-watching and fictional-vacation-planning and magazine reading and closet-reorganizing and socializing with all my friends again. And MARCH MADNESS!

Whoa. I can't believe it's almost March.

 

How You Know You're An Adult

Despite your fondness for Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the ads for their new show Quarterlife make you want to stab someone. Despite having been full of existential angst at 25, I feel no sympathy for the angst-y 25 year olds on said ads. Get off my lawn!

Dear Turner Classic Movies

Thank you for your 31 Days of Oscar. I wish I hadn't forgotten all about that until we're halfway through the month, but even so, by the end of the week, I will be stocked up on enough old movies for hours and hours of rainy days, break-ups, sick days and pajama parties. In fact, just today I turned on the TV in time to fortuitously catch the last three minutes of Gone With the Wind (which my TiVo, SWEET APPLIANCE, was recording as a suggestion) -- which is, I think, possibly one of the best endings to a movie ever. Thank GOD the Oscars are happening this year. When I was a kid, Oscar Night was my FAVORITE night of the year, save MAYBE Christmas Eve. I'd sit on the floor right in front of the TV and watch the Red Carpet while my parents were making dinner, and if anyone showed up looking pretty and/or crazy, I'd yell at the top of my lungs for my mother to run and see it, like, "MOM!!!!!!!!!! CHER HAS A HEADDRESS ON! HURRRRRY!!!" In other words, I'm so glad someone thought of the children.

That being said, I haven't seen ANY of this year's Best Picture nominations, all of which I said about, at some point, "I totally want to see that." I am so ashamed. I hardly saw any movies this year at all, and after every single one of them, I am pretty sure I said, "I LOVE going to the movies! Why don't I ever go anymore?" Is it because I am home watching Girlicious too often?

Why, I Ask You

...is Sophia Bush being forced to wear formal shorts in ever scene on One Tree Hill this season? Is CMM's child bride working in the costume department now?

PS: Why do I love K-Fed SO MUCH on this show? He's just so funny. Heather wisely pointed out that they're writing to his strengths, since he keeps calling people "ho" and getting punched, but....I'm sorry, he was awesome.

PPS: How can I be sort of invested in Lucas and Peyton when I really hate CMM? HOW?

Back!

HELLO ALL.

I feel like I have been gone forever. Heather and I have been doing an unusual amount of traveling lately and I had this moment when we landed at Newark where I literally thought, "wait. Where are we now?" This must be how those of you who travel for work often feel all the time. It's fun -- but I am glad to be home.

Fashion Week was great. It's always really entertaining, even just as a people-watching venue, and I still feel really, really fortunate that I get to go. Seriously, sometimes I am not entirely sure how we've pulled this off, so far. Other times I am just thinking, "what is UP with that girl's hair?!" I had voted absentee ballot, as I mentioned earlier, and it was weird for me not to be in California on the day of the election. I just realized, in fact, that I have no idea what happened with any of the California propositions, so I better look into that.

People were definitely talking about the election at Fashion Week. At one of the shows, I was sort of wandering around the runway before it started, waiting for them to bring the celebs out, so I could see what they were all wearing, and I got into a long conversation with one of the US Weekly camera guys about the election. We agreed that, no matter what your politics, it's pretty great that it's an incredibly close race between a woman and a black man, and it's also great how invested people are in this election. After so many years of hearing about voter apathy, it's fantastic that the primaries are drawing big numbers, and I'm so excited that I'm actually really REALLY interested in seeing what's going to happen. When I got home, my sister -- who is voting for the first time this year -- gave me a very detailed run-down of what's happening with the delegates and the caususeseses (caucii?) and...I don't know. It's just exciting, you know? Not to mention the fact that now we've all got something to talk about other than poor Britney and the writers' strike.

I feel like I'm a bit all over the place here, but the upshot is that: the last few weeks have been crazed but fun, the election is crazed but fun, and I am still feeling crazed but I am having fun, and I am glad to be back to my regular routine for a bit. All this racing around has made me committed to actually taking a proper vacation this year, but I need suggestions.  First I want to go to, like, Paris, but then I want to go somewhere I can just lie down, like Hawaii. Then I really want to do somewhere exotic and dramatic, like Marrakesh (I really want to go to Marrakesh). Then I think that I want to go to somewhere called Lie Down and Drink This. And then I think, "aren't you supposed to be saving for a house. Stay home and save your money, dumbass." Maybe I'll just take out a subscription to Conde Nast Traveler and call it a day.

So how are you, anyway?

Super Tuesday Indeed

So, it's Super Tuesday, right? AND the GFY book comes out today (although we've heard that some people have already gotten their copies from Amazon,those tricky minxes). I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that it is truly a momentous and earth-quaking day in American history, one which shall be written about in epic poems and the like. That's true, right? Right?

In all seriousness, this election is VERY interesting indeed and I'm extremely curious to see how it shakes out. I realized a few weeks ago that I would be in New York on Super Tuesday and so I have already voted via absentee ballot. I hate not getting to go into the little cubicle and draw the little curtain and aggressively punch my chads, but I will get to do so on in November, and I have done my duty thus far, thanks to the miracle of being able to mail in my vote.  I have to say, without the guide of the little thingy with the posts you are supposed to hook your ballot over, so as to make it easier to figure out which bubble you're supposed to be inking (and yes, sentences of like clarity probably do appear in the book, so if you're flipping through it in Borders and come across a sentence using the word "thingy" but no proper nouns, it is my fault), it is a bit confusing. I may have voted for Ralph Wiggum for all I know.

In addition to Book Day and Super Tuesday, and Fashion Week Tuesday, today is also the day of the Giants' victory parade, so getting around New York should be interesting. It was awfully exciting to be here for the big upset. Heather and I opened the hotel room window and stuck our heads out and could hear people whoo-hooing. We may also have whoo-hooed into the cold air, because we can not resist a gleeful, sports-related WOOOOO. We did not, however, run down to Times Square to tear it up. For one thing, I've already been in a championship-related riot (UCLA '96 in the house! We burned down the KIIS FM van and I ended up climbing a 10 foot brick wall to escape the riot police! Whoo!). For another, I am too old to climb a brick wall of any height now.

In other words, it's busy round these parts. But good! So, in short order: don't forget to vote; when you pop into Barnes and Noble to pick up the latest Meg Cabot, please flip through the GFY book and laugh uproariously so as to seduce others into buying it; yay for the Giants, and I'm sorry, Tom Brady. You should be comforted by the fact that you are still very hot; it snowed today!; I miss you, sweet blog, but I will be back from this madness soon; the end.