I’ve read that the first four years are the hardest. And you are most at risk to kill yourself.
I’m still here. That can be tough to excuse or justify.
I’ve lit my candle. It’s only right to thank the people who lit candles five years ago when I asked them to.
So thank you. It really helped.
xoxoxo
I was absolutely thrilled when I first saw this little Handbag Raincoat at Shopbop. It’s such an obvious solution to the problem of shielding your nice handbag from the rain! Why didn’t anyone come up with this sooner??
Think of all the times you tried to stuff your handbag inside your jacket when it suddenly started to rain.
When my rose-colored Chanel bag was new (and I’m talking to you David Duff) I worried about the slightest drizzle and I wiped the bag immediately to make sure it was dry. Now that it’s beat-up from years of service, I don’t worry too much about rain.
But what if you have a suede bag, for fucksake! Your bag deserves a raincoat.
It even comes with its own cute little pouch.
So imagine how disappointed I was when I went back to consider buying one, only to see this review:
A piece of junk that is nothing but an inconvenience?!
Ugh, you’d have to be pretty stupid to buy one now. Unless the reviewer, “ashsmith,” is just some crazy troll determined to dash my hopes and dreams.
Meanwhile, I’ve been wasting hours looking at expensive designer bags, conflicted about the whole handbag thing, knowing as I do that the nicest handbag won’t help anything. But still.
Does anyone out there still give a shit about handbags? I’d like to hear your thoughts. (But not yours, David Duff.)
God what a cultural wasteland. The Billboard Music Awards was one long Disney ad, disguised as a tribute to popular musical artists, with the word ‘artist’ meaning in this case ‘no-talent little shit.’
Sheer torture throughout. it was nothing short of a call to arms: Taylor Swift Must Die.
It was all about Taylor Swift, either Tayloring up the place with her sickening speeches to her fans (“You guys! I’m obsessed with you!”) or just grooving in the front row to whatever awful music was murdering our souls from the stage. She is one awful girl. She’s the girl we all hated in junior high, still pretending to be nice while making life miserable for anyone who crosses her.
There was Kanye, reminding us of his genius at getting bleeped out on live TV. I read that he said the word ‘nigger’ forty-one times. If he could just chant it the whole time, we wouldn’t have to hear anything! Think it over, Yezy.
Nicki Minaj livened things up with some solid twerking, and domestic-abuser Chris Brown danced around in a florescent blood-red suit. He danced with Pitbull, that bald guy who nobody can figure out why he’s famous.
Some awful country band sang about having a ‘girl-crush’. I’m sorry, I can’t even talk about it. Let’s see, what else. OH! Ed Sheeran was surprisingly inoffensive. I don’t like that elf look of his but at least he plays an instrument.
One Direction was there but we didn’t know if one guy was missing because we didn’t know how many there are supposed to be. It seemed like there were three or four too many.
Iggy Azalea and Britney Spears did a lip-syncing number that both seemed bored by, and Iggy betrayed me personally by getting a new nose and chin, nullifying her claim to originality. She’s dead to me now.
Some kind of fake Sam Smith person played a song with Wiz Kalifa. Much less perturbing than the real Sam Smith, who, mercifully, is recovering from throat surgery.
Chrissy Teigen was an embarrassing co-host to Ludacris, who is a pretty decent actor if nothing else. Chrissy is married to John Legend, so one assumes she must have hidden depths of some kind. However, the two men present for this viewing agreed that she was a “mean and stupid Filipino girl.’ They said this was a lot of authority, too.
That long-haired Hozier guy took us to Church, and rated a pass from all of us just for seeming like a real singer and bringing a little Goth melancholy to the situation.
There was one moment that offered a glimmer of hope: When two Kardashian girls came out to introduce Kanye, the audience booed. For just an instant, the audience acted like they had standards of some sort.
But then, no. It was Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, all the way home.
Let’s start with my favorite look just to get it out of the way: Rihanna. She is a fucking goddess.
Rihanna is proving to be the best source of daring, original fashion that the pop world has ever seen. She wears the coolest under-the-radar designers and puts together the best outfits, period. With her yellow fur-trimmed cloak, she has ushered in a style I will call ‘Regal Ghetto‘.
Her outfit is the work of Chinese couture designer Guo Pei and apparently took two years to create. Rihanna didn’t care about dominating the red carpet as it was cleared to accommodate the mileage of her trailing cloak. As she said about social media recently, “Do I even give a dick about that?” And she doesn’t. Not one dick.
Let it be known that I will marry Riri if she will have me.
Next up are the naked butts. J Lo, Kim Kardashian, and Beyonce all unveiled their outsized butts, hoping to grab the spotlight. Kim was SO CLOSE to winning the ‘Most Naked’ prize until Bey showed up in a few sequins, posing her butt in every angle possible from a standing position.
She is pretty damn proud of that butt. I have now looked at it so much that I just want to put a thermometer in it. Mothers, do you feel me? And don’t forget, she is a feminist.
Anyway, Bey wins ‘Most Naked’ but Kim still gets ‘Biggest Bare Butt’, as if there were any other butts in her league.
Why, Kim??? Just stop it. We can’t, okay?
For ‘Most Egregiously Horrifying’, the prize goes to Kim’s mom, Kris.
What the fuck! Surely this is deliberate. But how can this even happen? Where do you find such awful 80’s crap? Sea of Shoes‘s closet? Salvation Army? While we ponder the horror of Kris Jenner, why don’t we say what we’ve been thinking about her marriage. I’ll go first. She and Bruce don’t need a divorce; Bruce can be the woman and Kris can be the man! It’s such a no-brainer. Kris is halfway there, or at least as far along in her ‘journey’ and Bruce is in his.
Never mind, you can’t save every marriage, not if people won’t listen to reason. On to the ‘Most Tragic’ award, it was an easy win for Sarah Jessica Parker.
Should we feel sorry for her? I don’t know. Let’s not. She brought it on herself. On the other hand, she’s married to a man who won’t come out of the closet and she has to pay women to have babies for her. That part is kind of sad. Still, that fucking headpiece: criminal.
Winners in the ‘Simply Awfu’l category were Miley Cyrus, Solange Knowles, Anna Wintour Herself, that 50 Shades of Grey girl, Lady Gaga, and most surprising, Jennifer Lawrence. Maybe the Chris Martin thing is fucking up J Law’s game.
Two gorgeous Chinese actresses who put almost everyone else to shame were barely mentioned, so let’s give them their due. Gong Li is always stunning and her appearance at the Met was right on point. I could watch her movies forever, just to admire her face.
Fan Bingbing is an international red-carpet favorite who always brings it. Always. Last night she was pure ‘Ooooooooooh.’
Finally, my choice for most annoying is Amal Clooney. She is always looking around for a camera. Her bony arm must make Angelina furious. And I’m disgusted that George had to buy a castle in England to pay off his beard uppity starving wife. Just take them away.
Okay, over to you. What did I forget?
At first I thought that video of the angry Baltimore mother smacking her teenage son was kind of comical. I was a little embarrassed for the mother, who came off like a stereotype over-the-top ghetto mom, screaming about I’ll hit you upside the head!
Now that I see she’s being hailed as a hero, I’m disgusted.
If you see a white mother slugging her kid, you know it’s child abuse. Case closed.
But because it’s Baltimore and the kid is wearing a hoodie, she’s a fucking superstar!
I’m glad that she loves her son and wants the best for him. I know she must feel desperate. But smacking him and swearing is not okay for one ethnicity and wrong for everyone else. It’s just wrong. It’s violence. What does she do to discipline her other five kids when the cameras aren’t rolling?
Violence teaches violence. To commend this mother is racist.
Anyone?
Earlier this month, I came across a story about a family in Nepal who suffer from a genetic disorder known as Congenital Hypertrichosis Lanuginosa (CHL). It causes excessive body hair growth and is sometimes referred to as “werewolf syndrome.”
The photos by Navesh Chitrakar are staggeringly beautiful. They show a very poor family living in a remote village in Nepal, making regular trips to a hospital in Katmandu for free laser hair-removing treatments.
Despite their unsettling looks, I thought I could perceive a kind of happiness that I’m incapable of achieving.
They are a family, joined in a team effort to survive poverty and disfigurement. They are surrounded by natural beauty. The children look cared for and happy. They know what matters and what doesn’t.
I’m probably projecting a fantasy on them but it helps me to see how depression not only distorts everything, but how traumatic childhood experiences deprive you of something essential. I don’t feel okay being me. I feel disfigured and unlovable. I find it hard to be at one with nature. I want my mommy.
Anyway, today I woke up to learn there has been a massive earthquake in Nepal. What about my werewolf family?!? It is unbearable. Are they okay? What about everybody else??
Let’s all give money to relief efforts in Nepal, because we are so blessed, no matter how miserable we are, to have somewhere to sleep tonight and to know where our loved one are.
No. No no no no no.
Make a bag shaped like a boombox if you must, Moschino, but not this big. Is the joke, ‘Haha, you can’t even get it into a car?’
Or just, ‘Haha, you bought this!’
I like the words ‘spacious’ and ‘roomy’ in the description.
At $3,195, there are only 2 left!
Jeremy Scott must think he’s Andy Warhol. Can someone fire this cunt?
Some guy who’s going to host a TV show has just caused a huge fit of umbrage because he once tweeted about ‘fat chicks’ and made a joke about Jews. How dare he! People are arguing about whether he deserves to host a TV show.
Prepare yourself for an endless witch-hunt if this shit goes on. Nobody will be allowed to say anything that might be objectionable to anyone.
The subjects of gender and sexuality are already so fraught with potholes of political incorrectness, it’s not worth getting involved. If you use the wrong word for transgender, you’re just a big mean homophobe. The Fat-Shaming thing is a variation we have already discussed here.
I’m wondering if this is the result of social media and internet trolling, or if it’s a natural consequence of liberalism. Being progressive now means being constantly indignant. When did everyone become such big babies?
I’ve been reading about the problem of free speech on college campuses, and the absurd level of sensitivity that students now require. There is a controversial ‘Trigger Warning Movement‘ afoot. You have to be careful not to ‘trigger’ someone by talking about rape or racism. You have to make sure everyone feels ‘safe.’ It’s like there are only two factions, bullies and victims, and if you’re not one, you’re the other.
Oberlin’s faculty members are advised to:
“[u]nderstand triggers, avoid unnecessary triggers, and provide trigger warnings.”
Triggers are something that:
“recalls a traumatic event to an individual, and experiencing a trigger will almost always disrupt a student’s learning and may make some students feel unsafe in your classroom.”
Now, here’s the juicy part. Professors are told to be aware of….
“racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression. Realize that all forms of violence are traumatic, and that your students have lives before and outside your classroom, experiences you may not expect or understand.”
This leads to changes in curricula and worries about material that might trigger someone. Madame Bovary might really fuck someone up, given its ending.
Here is a great essay on the situation.
Meanwhile, here’s one of my favorite jokes. A Priest and a Rabbi are standing on a corner chatting when a little boy walks by. The Priest says, “Let’s screw him!” The Rabbi replies, “Out of what?”
When I see something this awful, I almost feel it was put online just for me. Who else would get a thrill from such unmitigated stupidity?
These jeans are called ‘Shredded Dad Pants,’ available from Opening Ceremony for $600. Try explaining why anyone would wear them, let alone pay six hundred bucks to own them. To get attention? To enjoy a private joke with yourself? To signal another wealthy trust-fund kid that you know where to shop?
I have no fucking idea. Whereas, this pair below has the clear appeal of its name – ‘Cobain Dundees Jeans.’
Call anything ‘Cobain’ and it’s a winner. Kurt is powerless to intervene.
These are only $136, and offer a nice comfy elastic waistband AND elastic cuffs.
Maybe the Shredded Dads for evening and the Cobains for everyday errands?
I had a close call the other day, when I came across an expensive and totally inappropriate fashion piece that ignited my fantasy of being an angry schoolgirl.
Look at how bad ass this is! I pictured my self wearing it with a white tank top and black jeans.
It even says ‘loser’ on the front! It’s so ME, I thought. It’s some kind of polyester and costs around $600, but I was THIS CLOSE to buying it.
Then I found a lookbook for the designer, showing sulky young girls wearing the jacket with a Goth Lolita flair, smoking cigarettes and clearly ditching school.
It suddenly occurred to me that I’m not an angry schoolgirl anymore, at least not on the outside. No one wants to see grandma in her kooky jackets at this point. It was a highly unpleasant epiphany.
I’m still not over it. Yesterday, I waked into my husband’s home ‘office’ wearing a faded pair of Levi’s with a black wife beater and demanded, “DO I LOOK TWENTY-TWO?” He answered Yes, like a dutiful robot, but he may have been trying not to laugh. I don’t even know why I chose 22; it could be Gwyneth Paltrow‘s famous boast of a “butt like a 22 year old stripper.” That’s the kind of statement you can never forget. It’s part of why we all hate her.
Sometimes I wonder about the function of fashion, even though I’ve read more than my share of long-winded essays on the subject. What are we really trying to express with the clothes we wear? Our coolness? Our amazing taste or ingenuity? Our credit card limit? Are we trying to project our inner selves or to create a false identity?
Normcore was a great trend, even though it was preposterously stupid. Normcore is like having a private joke with yourself: Haha, I look like a boring Nothing but I’m doing it on purpose, that’s how hip I am!
It’s so much better than the current trend of paying a trillion dollars to look like a bedraggled biker.
I just want to make peace between who I am inside with who I am outside. As if that could happen.
