Dance, Nails. Dance

Flattered that fashion swap site Bib + Tuck featured me last week. I’m a fan of swapping clothes in general (actually wrote all about it years ago for Seventeen), and discovered B + T while I was researching for a story.

They pinged me a few months ago to see if I was interested in “selling my closet” online. YES was the answer. I had a hard time parting with some items — especially those perforated Loeffler Randall heels — but I did what had to be done. 

If you’re exhausted from the eBay reselling game, sign up for Bib + Tuck. It’s super curated and, now, filled with my stuff. Go shop my closet. 

I just found this thing I wrote for BuzzFeed 2+ years ago as part of my edit test. I still think it’s hilarious. Read on:

1. I know, but you didn’t see what happened to the other guy.

2. You sit on a throne of lies.

3. Bribery was involved.

See the rest of the article on BuzzFeed.

Buy a flag of your choosing.

Drape the flag around yourself ever so casually, as if to say, “Oh, this old thing?”

Stare at the ground while holding the ends of the flag up, still keeping yourself wrapped inside it, of course. (Option: Change your focus and stare up towards the sky, then close your eyes. Look like you mean it.)

Get your boyfriend photographer to take a picture of you.

You did it. You can throw your sweats back on now.

• 4th of july
• independence day

I want to talk about dancing. I used to be bad. Then I got good. But, now I think I’m bad again?

Yoko Ono is not a bad dancer.

Pre-teen years were spent holding up the slick walls of middle school gymnasiums and slyly engaging in mindless chatter with classmates in order to delay joining in on any sort of freak train situation, but a friend eventually taught me how to pop my hips so my wallflower stage was short-lived. After that, off went the top of my overalls and into the center of dance circles I went, butterflying and bodyrolling as my suspender clips jerked around my waist like the arms of the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Dancing Car Man. 

My confidence grinding and throwing elbows at dance parties took off, and in college I ended up as a background dancer on Soul Train. It’s actually pretty dorky, but at the time I thought I was boss. I’d get super dressed up, slip on some absurd push-up bra and clunky Steve Madden wedges and head to the studio, where I’d be handed a lukewarm box of KFC in lieu of pay and be given the task of head-bobbing. The real dancers were paired up with partners, I was just background noise. But, shit. Did you get to head-bob on Soul Train? I think not.

Something’s happened in the last 10 years, though, where I forgot how to do all that damn good grinding and head-bobbing. I just jump now. Up and down. Drunk or sober, it doesn’t matter. That’s all my body knows how to do now. 

Do I take a class? Do I give up? Find old VHS tapes of my famed head-bobbing for inspiration? HALP!

For the second time in 6 weeks I am without credit card. Not because I lost it, but because my card was hacked. 

It’s frustrating, sure.

It’s a pain in the ass, of course.

It’s exceedingly ridiculous when your credit card company suggests that you start doing things like, “Try using PayPal for all of your online purchases.”

But it’s also really weird that both times my credit card company called me within minutes to ask about the pending charges. Literally within, say, 30 minutes of it being used fraudulently, they had a hunch the charges weren’t from me.

So I asked the fraud department when they called. “I’m just curious, what tipped you off? How did you know this wasn’t me?” Because, let’s be real here. I buy all types of weird shit.

"You’ve never shopped at Game Stop before." 

I’m all about disruptive inventions — I’ve been ob-sessed with “Shark Tank” lately (can we stop for a minute to talk about Mr. Beautiful Terrible?) — but here’s an idea I’m not ready to get behind: Print Your Own Makeup.

Huh?

I don’t even trust the stuff that the beauty companies put into their lipstick (lead much?), I’m supposed to dream about having Canon whip me up a batch of their finest cosmetics de cartridge?

It’s cool that we can do it — and trust that I’m ready to 3D print EVERYTHING — but I just don’t think I want print my own fuchsia eyeshadow.

Sharks, are you with me?

• makeup
• beauty
• diy

You were dark and mysterious.

No you weren’t. That was dumb. Why did I write that?

You were soft and welcoming, like a first kiss. 

You were everything I imagined a biscuit would be. You see, I don’t really eat biscuits. I’m a flax seed grain kinda gal, and that’s on a good day. Most of the time I’m a hold-the-bun, can-you-just-give-me-the-meat type of lunch order. You’d hate me. 

I fronted when we met earlier. “Yah, lemme get that egg and cheese biscuit,” I said, all poser-like. I had NOCLUE that when I unwrapped you from the confines of your wrinkled paper you’d present me with a cacophony of palate explosions. Butter, then egg, then sausage, then more butter biscuit, then that perfect E-minor chord that makes you shiver.

OK, this is getting dumb. I ate a biscuit from Bojangles and it was good.

• food foodie

                            Not pictured: 10 more pounds of sauce and cheese.

Just what kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn’t follow up a post about being a bad cook with a detailed story about my 20-pound lasagna?

In my house lasagna is the Thanksgiving starter course. It comes after a trough of beautifully arranged antipasti and before the mains. Yes, I said mains.

Part of the fun of the lasagna, aside from watching my mom nearly drop the thing pulling it out of the oven and seeing my dog get all too excited that it might just happen this time, is what comes after it’s served. There are always groans from newbies who don’t know how to pace, and cocky smiles from those that resisted the second helping. Then we all make nice and go on a walk. The walk’s exactly 5 minutes long and the purpose of it has yet to be determined. I guess we do it in hopes that the brick of lasagna will jiggle its way down into some hiding spot in our stomachs for the remainder of the night so that we can help ourselves to turkey and the 10 desserts awaiting us.

This year I’m making the lasagna at my Friensgiving. I’ve abandoned hope that it’ll be remotely as good as my mom’s because she makes her own cheese and has an intimate relationship with each noodle she places into her pan. (Geeze I said pan. It’s not a pan. She uses a turkey roaster for it.) I just want people to eat so much that they have to go on a walk. Or at the very least unbutton their pants.

I am baffled by people that can cook. Parents cook. Grandparents cook. My mother can cook. Scratch that. MY MOTHER CAN COOK!

Young adults throw crap into a tray — maybe — and leave it in the oven longer than needed because they get distracted by wine and by Instagramming their efforts. But that’s OK because they’re cooking for people that came over without expectations. And the chef knows that, which is why they purchased three blocks of cheese and four bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon ahead of time.

But when do you make the jump? When do you graduate from serving your buddies overcooked plain chicken and step into the Cuisinart Stand Mixer territory? Age 35? 40? Does it happen when you get a real kitchen with a real stove and a real table, or are you destined for a lifetime of being the dinner party guest?

• cooking