Bad Advice

Glam Slam

Because it's fashion week here in New York—or it was, anyway—I've been looking at more girlie blogs than usual. It never fails to crack me up how so many lady bloggers just fill their pages with glamour shots of themselves. Apparently the pigeon-toed stance has overtaken the hunchback as this year's pose of choice, so if the paparazzi strike, you know what to do. I blame Miranda July. (As I do for every twee, annoying trend.)

Anyway, I don't have any fashionable shots of myself, probably because I'm not a very fashion-forward person, but I didn't want to be left out of the ego-blogging. So here's a pretty little picture of me, taken with the amazing Hipstamatic iPhone app. Who's the pretty girl?!? (And though the photo doesn't show it, my knees are knocked and my toes are pointing at each other.)

I suppose I was asking for it. . . .

Last week I wrote a piece for The Frisky on how to ensure the world's worst Valentine's Day. I'm pretty bored with coming up with V-Day topics every year, so I figured I'd keep with my whole how-not-to schtick. "We need something fresh" is a frequent editorial request and while I don't blame them, it's impossible to come up with some Valentine's angle that hasn't already been covered to death. (If you can think of any, please let me know and I'll note it for next year.)

Not to mention that I, like many of you, have a lot of lousy Valentine's under my belts. It was only when I started dating The Large Greek that they stopped sucking. Despite his loud, blustery outside, he's a big mush underneath and always does his best to get romantico. This year he bought me some highly overpriced gourmet chocolates in an amazing box designed by his friend Frog. (The box was the main reason for the purchase—one of the chocolates was made with OYSTER and I'm way more of a traditionalist than that.)

In turn, I got him this:

Yes, it's a garbage can. But not just any garbage can—it's a hands-free garbage can! You're probably thinking it's not the most lovey-dovey gift, but since we met, he has been bitching about the garbage can in the kitchen. I bought the original can because it's pink and matches my walls, but he hates it because you have to—eek!—touch it if you want to throw anything out. To show my love, I'm losing the pink and dealing with this fugly, gadgety thing instead.

So as you can see, our Valentine's Day started off as a thoughtful, traditional, almost romantical day. Unfortunately, it quickly morphed from a day of hearts and flowers into a night of unimaginable horror. And I feel like since I wrote that snarky, cynical V-Day story, I have no one to blame but myself.

PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU ARE IN THE LEAST BIT DELICATE AND/OR HAVE ANY ISSUES WITH DISGUSTING BODILY FUNCTIONS. REALLY—TURN BACK. DO NOT CLICK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Kell on Earth? or Snooze on the Sofa?

I had high hopes for the new Kelly Cutrone show, Kell on Earth. Maybe my reasons sound dumb—she doesn't wear makeup on TV! She's over 40 and hasn't stuffed her face with fillers or botulism! She's a tough broad! These are all qualities I love. I mean, when was the last time you saw someone on television without a mugful of Max Factor? Especially someone her age! Love it.

Unfortunately, the show is about as exciting as watching an elevator security cam, except sometimes funny things happen in an elevator. Like they get stuck and people panic. Or somebody cuts a fart and everyone looks around trying to figure out who dealt it. No such wackiness on Kell on Earth.

When the climax of your show involves an Excel error, you know you're in trouble. And that's exactly what happened last night. There was—no joke—an Excel CLIFFHANGER. Complete with a "To be continued" tag. Thank god those minxes don't get mixed up with Photoshop or InDesign; just imagine the hijinx!

Other peaks included a mad dash to clean up the showroom. Trouble reared its head when one of the doohickeys on the end of a rack just wouldn't straighten! Then there was the reminder of last year's fashion week firing fiasco that occurred after Kelly sat Elliott Spitzers' paid consort in the front row of one of her client's shows. We didn't even get to see that hissy fit happen, so Ashley Dupre—along with her mom and a dopey fedora—showed up at the offices to do the replay. Snore. And frankly, getting canned by some jerky fashion designer, who I've never heard of, isn't even interesting the first time around. In the retelling, it's even more boring than hearing your weird aunt gas on about her sorority days.

Then there was the manufactured gay-yenta crap—"I'm going to find you a boyfriend," Kell insists to her perfectly handsome young assistant. This dude needs help finding a man like I need help finding a donut. Especially when said help consists of scoping guys from a fourth floor window.

Someone who was actually hurting and could've used some help was one of the Stephanies. (There appear to be several.) Kelly's former assistant—now in the midst of a trial promotion—is a pretty young girl who looks like she hasn't had a wink of sleep or full meal in about a year. I've never seen a non terminally ill person look so peaked. Shouldn't Earth Mama Kelly step in and send her home for some much-needed shuteye? I have the maternal instincts of a river rock and I wanted to bring her a warm bowl of soup. 

As I work at home and don't have any office interactions, I'm the ideal Kell on Earth viewer. I thought I could live vicariously through other people's power-broking and office intrigue. I fully believed it would make me miss working around other humans—interacting, having lunch, taking meetings. . . but no. Instead it showed the fashion biz to be approximately as scintillating as a mid-level insurance company and made me happy I don't have any yappy coworkers shooting me the stinkeye over paperjams. And I'll take actual felines over a gaggle of catty dames any day.

OMG, I Could Totally Write for Vogue! (Well, for free, anyway.)

Vogue's creative director, Grace Coddington, sent me an email this morning.

Jealous?

Thought so. You probably didn't even realize Grace and I were besties, and while technically we never met, my friend did take a spin class with her once, so whatever. Details.

Anyhoo, Grace's email told an engaging little tale about what made her first fall in love with Vogue. Here's a snippet of Grace's heartwarming story:

Vogue also got me dreaming of becoming a model. There was one issue, in 1958, that announced a model contest, with a picture of a beautiful model, Nena von Schlebrugge (Uma Thurman's mother) who was photographer Norman Parkinson's favorite. On the strength of that, I decided to go to London and take a chance. I entered the competition and won, and, well, the rest is history. 

After sharing her story, Grace asked me (me!!!) to share my story of falling in love with Anna Wintour's shiny fashion bible. She wonders how Vogue became "apart [sic] of your life." Meaning a part of MY—not YOUR—life. She said if they like my story enough they'll even print it in the pages of the fashion bible! No mention of any payment, but money is so last year anyway. It got me to thinking about what my Vogue story might be . . . .

Funny Hate Mail of the Day

Subject: idiot alert: bad advice at least uses truth in advertising.

bullsheep. This never works. any quick perusal of the thousands of dating sites, self help dating books, and most psychiatric advice proves that this advice is indeed "bad advice."

John Holmes is a porn star, not a psychiatrist or scientist. Ms. Bad Advice is equally unintelligent, and unfairly benefits from a position of undeserved power that is unearned and unwarranted.

Take advice from science, not from quacks and fakes.

Just yesterday, I was telling my friend John about all the funny hate mail I get, and then lo and behold, I come home to this one. Unfortunately, for the point I was making to John, this email doesn't contain the usual trifecta of insults—fat, ugly, and slutty—that the majority of hate-mailers include when dissing the ladies. Instead, this dude (and I don't know for sure it's a guy, but it seems likely) chooses to rip apart the fact that I agreed that treating a woman like a human being and being respectful and kind is the quickest way into her pants.

Now I've given out some cockamamie advice in my day, but this is actually good advice. So it's curious that one of the few times I'm not talking out of my ass I get called a moh-ron. 

Oh, and that's me pulling a frowny face in my kitchen. I had a cuter pic, but I wanted to give him ammo for the inevitable ugly. 

Also, in case you're feeling like a smartypants this Sunday afternoon, go over to Jen Dziura's blog and test yourself on the word of the day. Oy vey. I used to think I was a good speller!

UPDATE: Though I don't care if I look like a 'tard, I must point out that it's not my fab hairdresser's fault that my hair is a godawful mess. I don't know what the hell craziness I was doing to it. It hasn't been brushed or washed in days, so blame me.

It's so easy!

I have been giving men this advice for years, yet somehow it seems more legit coming from a mega-schlonged porn star (via Molly Lambert, via the rich girls are weeping take notes):

"You don’t have to be overly macho. You don’t have to be over-complimentary. Gain her respect. And that’s treating her as an equal. Don’t bullshit her. Treat her as a human being. Treat her as you would treat yourself. As soon as you have that respect from her, she’ll treat you with the same respect that you show. Then you fuck the shit out of her." - John Curtis Holmes

Liz Jones is a Sorry Old Twat

I realize that the Daily Fail's Liz Jones is nothing more than their brittle, humorless version of the Weekly World News' bright star, Ed Anger, but even knowing this, I still get riled reading her foul output. Which, I suppose, is why the Mail keeps printing her.

If you're not familiar with her oeuvre (love that word, though I always misspell it), Ms. Jones hates everyone and everything. Her neighbors, "friends," tattoos, fat, (proudly proclaiming herself "anorexic"), and this week she hates the fact that 43-year-old artist/filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood got knocked up by her 19-year-old boyfriend. (She's also pissed about this hateful old Irish broad who lost her mind over a different teen, but I'm not going to get into that one—read her column if you care.)

Never mind that Taylor-Wood's ex-husband spent most of last summer cavorting with 22-year-old Lilly Allen. What's good for the goose, is apparently not good for the gander. This is because:

. . . to be honest I don’t think the majority of women, once they are past the teenage crush period, even think about sex that much.

Apparently Liz and I don't run in the same circles, because my friends seem rather preoccupied by it. But no, according to Liz and her withered clitoral nub:

They put up with it, with the repetitiveness, the ridiculousness, the inconvenience and the inevitable disappointment, because it gets them to where they want to be: married, with children and someone to help shoulder the bills and dig the garden.

Sure we do, Liz. Or then again, maybe we just like the orgasms, cameraderie and occasional compliment.

Not a good start to my day.

Without getting into too much bloody detail, last night/this morning around 4am, I discovered I had my period. At the same time I discovered that I'd used up all my tampons making prom queen ornaments. Sigh.

Where did it go?

I used to be kind of funny. I know a lot of people think they're funny, but I actually was. No, seriously.

But lately, I'm not. I'm just kind of eh, all the time and it's really bugging me because I get paid to write funny and if I can't produce, I don't get paid. So I was trying to figure out why this is and I came up with a bunch of possibilities—which one seems the most likely to you?

• My dental situation. I've documented it here extensively, but it's expensive, painful, and humiliating and not going to end anytime soon. Normally when bad things happen to me, I can laugh at them. But I can't seem to find much humor in this. I guess I didn't find anything ha-ha funny about my mom dying either, but I don't really think having a mouth full of problems is up there with that. 

• Wellbutrin. I found myself sinking into a deep depression over my dental situation, so I decided to go on anti-depressants. I am definitely more productive, and no longer want to spend all day in bed with the covers pulled up over my head, but I'm always kind of cranky. Imagine your default setting being "slightly irritated," and that's where I'm at. Kind of like having a pebble jammed in your mental shoe. 

• Money. Also tied in with the teeth situation, the fact that my income dropped to new lows in 2009 wouldn't have been that big a deal if my medical expenses hadn't gone through the roof. I have a fairly no-frills standard of living (due to rent stabilization and having never gained an appreciation for designer goods), so I would've been fine without the staggering bills. (Even so, I'm not so head-up-ass to realize I'm far better off than most of my fellow humans.)

• Friend crap. One of my best friends decided I was a traitorous bitch and cut off all contact with me. I think the underlying reason is because I know her too well and when you're trying to remake yourself into someone fabulous, it's hard to have reminders of your less-than-glam past around. I'm sure she'd disagree, but that's the kindest reason I could come up with. Besides, it doesn't matter. She's gone and regardless of the why's, it hurt me profoundly.

So maybe it was one of these reasons, maybe it was the cumulative result of the pile-on. But I'm hoping that 2010 brings more yucks my way. Until then, I thank the lawd above for this and this.

This is not a year-end list!

I don't know about you, but I'm really sick of reading charticles and listicles detailing the best and worst of the last decade. I think it's safe to say that the last ten years just sucked. Do we really need to go over that again? I'd just as soon kick the door closed on it.

Yes, some good things happened, but we also had 9/11, a recession/depression, two wars, and my mouth melted down. I realize that last one is a tragedy for nobody but me and my bank account, but still. (Also, I'm not in any way comparing my dental dilemma to thousands of people getting horribly murdered—it's just always on my mind.) So like I said, this isn't a year-end list, but more of a disjointed bunch of things that I've been thinking about and/or reading. . . .

Because I've been such a cranky whiner and seem to be losing my sense of humor, I started another blog called Judy Likey, which I use to only highlight things and people I like(y). I'm trying to be positive!

I want to become best friends with Wanda James. I've always dreamed of having a storefront window to decorate any way I saw fit, but Wanda is making it a reality. She's awesome and you should read the Times story about her. 

In my Seattle column this week, I hear from a woman who thinks it's really funny that she mangled a guy friend's testicles. Hopefully my defense of ballsacs will quiet the chorus of "Judy is a manhater." (No, Judy is a stupidhater.)

My Frisky column details all the valuable lessons we can learn from celebrity breakups. 

Karl Rove got divorced—I call dibs on the Turdblossom!

I have several new house crushes. 

Though I haven't been reading nearly enough books, I found the time to fall deeply in love with both Joe Queenan's autobiography, Closing Time, and Stephen Elliott's The Adderall Diaries. 

Now I'm going to go run some errands in the beautiful layer of snow out there. Happy new year!