Icicle War Zone

Break out your wayfarers and grab your helmets kids because the sun is shining here in the Bean. Suburban workers need not worry – it’s only a winter warzone here in the city. As those warm rays start melting snow and ice on sky-high buildings, downtown Boston turns into an icicle warzone.

You think I’m kidding? Last year I saw a Starbucks bound gal taken down by a 2 foot long icicle off the Omni Parker House. We put our life into our hands every time we leave our office buildings. Like a real life video game, every time you turn the corner another “Beware of Falling Ice” sign greets you.

Well let me tell you this, If I’m going down, it’s not going to be because of an icicle – and it’s definitely not going to be on the way to work.

My advice: Bring lunch, work less, and whatever you do, do not look up.

Just Say No to Capri Pants in the Winter

Cropped pants with boots are not okay. What the hell is going on this season? I’ve been seeing this horrible combination all over town. Just because your tall boots happen to end right where your summer capris begin does NOT mean you should wear them together.

If you feel compelled to pair the two together, ask yourself two things:

1) Are times so tough that you can’t afford winter pants?

2) Do you like these Capri pants so much that you want to wear them all year?

If the answer to both of these questions is a resounding “yes” then, okay, wear them if you must. Otherwise, stop it. Now.

Recently Real Simple magazine identified something similar in their “Wardrobe Blunders” column:

Problem: Cropped Pants with Boots

Solution: Taller Boots

No! Taller boots are not the solution. Longer pants are the solution. The only advice you should be taking from Real Simple is how to organize your junk drawer.

Wolves, Fairies and Misfit Toys

Is my family on your Christmas Card list? If so, you should be aware: the front of your card may become part of an ongoing family joke/tradition that my mom started back in the 80’s.

If you’re a long time reader of my blog, you may have caught on to the fact that I come from a quirky and creative family with a wicked sense of humor. After each Christmas season my mom would save the Xmas cards that our family had received and use the front of them for next year’s gift tags. But, it became so much more than an adventure in recycling. Of course we had to add our own sarcastic commentary via a Sharpie to these quirky gift tags.

Some of these gift tags have been around since 1988. Take “This Wolf” as your first example:

“This Wolf” hasn’t missed getting me a gift in decades. Wolves may have been a big trend in the 80’s, but “This Wolf” has stood the test of time. Year after year he comes through big time.

The Crystal Fairies are another one of my favorites. I think these mystical gals started gifting me bags of socks in the mid 90’s. Jane attached the fairies to a gift bag one year – and since we save every morsel of wrapping paper and gift bags in my family, the Crystal Fairies have been very limited in what they could fit in their bag.

Some are just too easy, take “Hark” for example. This Herald Angel always has a gift under the tree for Amber.

Now that all of the kids in our family are adults, we tend to push the envelope a bit.

Merry Christmas!!

One of my favorite holiday traditions is sobbing over Beth March’s death. At least once a Christmas season you’ll find me bawled up on the couch sobbing while watching Little Women (the 1994 version.) I don’t know why, but there’s just something about a ghostly pale Claire Danes dying of scarlet fever that gets me in the holiday spirit. The immigrant German family living in the ramshackle hut in the woods also dying from Scarlett fever? It doesn’t really do it for me. But, simple, kind, piano-playing Beth? Works every time.

Last year, I made my in-laws watch me sob while I used their DVD player to help me get into the Christmas spirit.

And, yes, I’ve read the book, and yes, I know the “book is much better than the movie” In the words of Jim Gaffigan, “You know what I enjoyed about the movie? No reading. It only took two hours, and then I could take a nap."

What are your creepy holiday traditions?

Wedding Wisecracks

Lola Grace Events asked me to come back as a guest blogger this month. Since I can’t pass up the shameless self-promotion or the opportunity to make wedding wisecracks, I happily obliged.  Check out my take on Kate Middleton’s royal wedding dress hunt. http://lolagraceevents.blogspot.com/

Waspy Wednesday

What’s that noise you hear? Why it’s the sound of my street cred fleeting faster than you can say knock-off Tod’s driving shoes.  As I sit here listening to the Kid Cudi Pandora station I’m embarrassed for myself.  Who do I think I am in these lobster lover's loafers? Don’t worry, I’m changing to the Vampire Weekend station now.   

Jazz Hands

My mom found this picture of me recently. She said, “You were born loving fashion. I've known it since you were a 3 year old kid rocking smurf jammies on Christmas morning playing dress up with the hair accessories Santa left in your stocking.”

Awww…my mom is a pretty nice lady, albeit one who never took a lint brush to my smurf jammies. But, it’s funny how things come full circle, because I’m pretty sure I own worse looking pajamas now. Brian usually purchases me a brutal looking pair every year in the midst of his X-Mas Eve male mall dash.

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King of Wishful Thinking

Oh hey wide leg pants! Welcome back, I feel like I haven’t seen you awhile. What’s it been, 20 years? I can remember Julia Roberts rocking a pair of you when she was playing a hooker on her way to becoming a refined young lady back in 1990. You made her feel classy wide leg pants! You, polka dot dresses, and culottes made it possible for Edward to take Viv out on proper dates like polo matches so she could pat horses and get sexually harassed by Jason Alexander.

Anyway, this post is about the pants. These large pantalones are hot for Spring 2011. Get a pair if you dare. Check out Rachel Zimmerman rocking a few pairs by Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Dior, Derek Lam and Balenciaga in the January 2011 issue of Vogue. Or, as I like to call it, The Black Swan issue of Vogue. On newsstands now!

Finally

Do you know how many text messages I've had to hold off on responding to because of the chilly weather? Too many to count.   My nice Italian leather gloves are absolutely no help to me when it comes to using touch screen technology. I can remember this one time I was in my car and using my navigation and I actually had to remove my gloves (my hands were cold) to use the screen.  Can you believe it?  Luckily, the geniuses behind the backwards ear muffs invented I-Phone compatible gloves.    Gosh, they've thought of everything huh?

Celebrating 6,000 hits!

I mean honestly, I’m sure about a 1,000 of them are mine, and I’m sure at least 500 of them are my mom – so err…5,000 hits wow! To celebrate this amazing feat that means absolutely nothing, I decided to look back at some of the things on the internets that have made me laugh over the years. Enjoy.


1) 10 Worst Album Covers of All Time – “Julie’s Sixteenth Birthday - John Bult” “This photo appears to have been taken closer to Julie’s 27th birthday, but let’s pretend we are idiots for a minute. In the world of visual communication, you have to worry about things like the feeling an image evokes. I *think* they wanted this to be a picture of a father consoling his young daughter on her sweet sixteen because she got pregnant or something. I’m not a father, but I’d guess you do stuff like that when your daughter turns sixteen. What I see when I look at this picture is a married guy (wedding ring) in a bar (beer and cigarette), holding hands with a girl who is twenty years his junior. She has been in the trunk of his Camaro for two or three days, and he made her put on lots of makeup so he could get her in to the bar for a “date”. He is busy insisting that she loves him, or will grow to love him if she knows what’s good for her. She silently screams for him to stop squeezing her hand so hard and just let her go. The absence of eye contact says it all. She is praying for the sweet release of death.”

2) The wonderful fashion commentary of the Fug Girls – Here a quote from one of my favorite posts – “Now, she’s more like the oldest daughter in Eight is Enough, starring in a community theatre production of The Sound of Music, and this is her costume for the scene in which Captain Von Trapp throws the ball, and she’s only supposed to be watching the children until they sing their little song and scamper up the stairs, and then the Baroness talks him into letting her stay for dinner — mostly, of course, to vaguely humiliate her and her convent-learned manners — and she claims she has nothing to wear, and indeed puts on a this homespun looking little frock which pales next to the Baroness’s shiny gold outfit, and of course, it doesn’t matter, because Maria’s spunky goodness is more than enough for the Captain to decide that there isn’t going to be any Baroness, but in this instance, I think this is a little too All Natural Fibers Woven By Blind Carmelites, topped off with a haphazard salute to toplessness.”

3) Richard from Gawker – This recapper extraordinaire is hilarious.

4) It’s Decorative Gourd Season – I don’t know much about this blogger or blog, but this is one of the funniest freaking things I have ever read. The blogger is a little potty-mouthed so might be NSFW.

5) SNL digital shorts – Natalie Portman’s Gangsta Rap, Space Olympics, Lazy Sunday

I’m Right on Top of that Rose

Remember romanticizing about working in an office when you were little? I couldn’t wait to be just like Christina Applegate in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitters Dead. I would pretend to file and wear my mom’s giant reading glasses. Oh, and the thought of being a receptionist – how glamorous! And, don’t even get me started on office supplies – I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a swingline. Silly innocent me, if I had only known that all my office dreams would come true.

No one tells you that you’ll eat 10 meals a week at your crappy desk. In your office fantasy you probably woke up early and had grapefruit and cereal and midday you dined leisurely with friends or brought a healthy and enjoyable packed lunch. LOL. Hilarious! The reality: You’ll probably have a desk drawer where you keep your takeout napkin collection, plastic knife depository and weird snacks that you only nibble on in extreme hunger circumstances. You’ll hate all the lunch choices around you, but it still won’t motivate you to bring lunch.

Every company I’ve ever worked for has employed a number of individuals that are unable to properly participate in a conference call. The steps are simple: call the number, type the code, say your name and put your phone on mute. Sounds so easy! But not for everyone, there are always a few that never make it to that fourth crucial step. For a small number of people the words “say your name” have the same affect as Winona Ryder repeating the word Beetlejuice to Michael Keaton.

I don’t know what it is about conference calls that makes these individuals breathe like blood thirsty vampires and crash around like rabid animals in an aluminum trashcan, but it does. Some get so worked up over the call that they rustle bags of Lay’s potato chips so furiously that there is no way that they could ever hear the conference call going on. Others show off their fierce typing abilities and beat the living crap out of their keyboards.

Then, there’s always that dark horror movie of a conference call when a participant decides to put on their workboots and take their captive audience with them on a walk down a long gravel road. Oh, and I almost forgot the guy that says to himself, “hey, I think I’m going to do this conference call while in the drive thru at Dunkin Donuts.”

Today's Hipster Update

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling's highly anticipated film Blue Valentine, hits theatres December 31st and good news for you - the flick's much buzzed about "NC-17" rating got bumped back down to "R." So now that we all won't feel like total creeps, we can go see it.

Honestly, is there anyone cooler than Ryan Gosling? This kid was in the Mickey Mouse Club with Christina, Britney and JT for god sakes. Then, he makes us believe that maybe our ex-boyfriends really were still pining after us in The Notebook. Gosling follows that (and how do you follow that) with playing a real good whacko in Half Nelson and this month’s All Good Things (see this now.) And now, there’s Oscar buzz for his portrayal of a Brooklyn hipster husband in Blue Valentine. He’s dynamic, edgy and street. Amazing.

And another thing - it seems we're finally seeing the actors and actresses from our generation that will stay relevant.  The ones that will win awards and make us feel proud for being huge Dawson's Creek fans. Jen Lindley anyone?

Gosling, Williams, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Kirsten Dunst and Anne Hathaway have been killing lately. Move over Meryl.

Mixing Prints Like Whoa

Blair Waldorf kills it in the closet. No one this season has made the mixing print trend look better than Blair (Leighton Meester) has. I suppose the Gossip Girl costume designer Eric Daman should get most of the credit.

Yeah I know, my biggest fashion inspiration is a 20-year-old fictional character on a CW television show that I’m too old to be watching. And, her on again off again love interest is my future fake husband. But that’s a entirely different blog post all together.

So, anyway, how do you mix patterns without looking like you were getting ready while half in the bag, the dark, or dressing for a whimsical tea party in the forest with Johnny Depp and some talking animals?

Try this –

• Pair florals with stripes;

• Layer madcap plaids over each other;

• Top a simple polka dot shirt with a boldly printed skirt or pant; or

• Accent with animal print.

The always hip Refinery 29 shares their print mixing tips in their cleverly named column, “How to Mix Prints.”

Dear Formal Shorts:

Please go away. No one looks good in you. Save for J. Crew models, Blake Lively, Alexa Chung and maybe Chloe Sevigny.

I don’t care if Jenna puts sequins and a $250 price tag on you – I will not covet you. I barely wear shorts to the gym these days. Do you really think I’m going to be putting on a pair to attend my office Christmas party?

And another thing, it gets cold up here in the Northeast. If you find yourself walking to the T on a cold winter morning in a pair of fancy shorts, opaque tights and oxford shoes, not only will you risk looking like an extra in Oliver Twist, it’s also going to take you until lunch to thaw out your thighs.

Dreams Do Come True

I wish I could give my 20-year-old “do gooding” self a swift kick in the rear. Had I known that all my interning, volunteering and meeting attending was going to put me on every non-profit and election call and email list in the nation I think I would’ve been better off volunteering at a fur factory.

With the amount of blocked calls I’ve gotten over the past few years from Planned Parenthood, John Kerry, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, and Emily’s List I really wish I could beat the living hell out of my idealistic adolescent self.

If I could have a conversation with her, here’s what I’d say:

• Stop wasting your summers working for free. Go to the beach. You’ll never have time to go the beach like that EVER again.

• Spend your money at the mall, not on the commuter rail. You’ll spend plenty of time on Beacon Hill in your 20’s. And, in the future, clothes and pop culture will end up making you happier than politics.

• Stop trying so hard. These people called “Generation Y’ers” are going to come along and ruin everything for you. They won’t have to make copies, work long hours or be expected to do menial task.

• The kid you’re dating is a tool.

• You really should save your babysitting money.

• Oh, and you look great in that bikini.

Sweet Iphone Riffs

Have you heard about Atomic Tom? They’re this Brooklyn indie rock band (is there any other kind) that had their instruments stolen. So instead of going to the police station and filing a report or calling their insurance company like normal humans they decided to make music with “instrument I-phone” apps.

These guys posted a video of themselves riding the subway into the Big Apple while performing their single “Take Me Out” and using their iPhones as instruments.

Well, the video went viral and received millions of hits in days and their hit even made it to the iTunes single chart. But, why do I feel like their instruments might be safely packed away in a storage facility somewhere?

I saw Atomic Tom “perform” live on stage at the Miracle on Tremont street at the Orpheum theatre on Thursday. While I have to admit watching them play their instruments from their smartphones was pretty amazing, after their YouTube video buzz dies out they’re just 4 geeks, 4 iphones and one average indie rock band from Brooklyn. Maybe they’ll get a Pistachio commercial out of it?