How to dye your hair (red, no less) for the first time ever, in only 16 simple steps!

 

 

 

 

Confessions.

It's, like, a minute to Christmas, and I feel like there are proverbial tumbleweeds blowing across the internet,what with all my non-Jewish friends running around, cooking and traveling and wrapping presents and (possibly?) drinking heavily at the impending familial onslaught. Basically, it's the PERFECT time to confess a bunch of random things that are currently rattling around my head:

1. I know they're two very different, very talented actresses, but I constantly mix up Glenn Close and Meryl Streep. See also: Alligators and crocodiles.

2. I occasionally put soy sauce on macaroni and cheese. I have no idea where I picked this up. College? I'm going to assume college.

3. I hate The Colbert Report.

4. Despite my best efforts, I don't full grasp all the facets of the Health Care Reform debate, because IT KEEPS CHANGING EVERY DAY, MY GOD, and I will pay someone 50 Schrute Bucks to explain it to me as you would to a small child. I'm kind of betting (hoping?) no one completely understands it.

5. I--ugh, GROSS--totally have a secret and disturbing crush on The Situation after seeing him in this video.

The REAL Situation (Feat. MTV Jersey Shore's The Situation, Snooki, and Pauly D) - watch more funny videos

6. I do not fully hate the "Gilly" sketches on SNL.

7. I am in a feud with a crazy old bat at the train, and I have to tell you, I kind of like it. I've always wanted a nemesis! It makes things interesting, you know?

8. "Eight, eight, I forget what eight is for."

9. I devoted 15 minutes last night to reminiscing about, researching and singing the "Because I Got High" song that was popular for 12 seconds in 2001 after poring through one of my many Old Embarrassing Journals wherein I mentioned said song. (Note: I was in no way high.) (Additional note: I'm pretty sure J wants to kill me, seeing as the song has been lodged in both of our brains now for over 24 hours.)

10. Seriously, HCR. Someone help me. I'm tired of fake-knowingly nodding my head like Joey Tribbiani before he bought that letter "V" encyclopedia volume. You know, at all of the many philosophical and intellectual salons I host. It's a tiring life I lead, you see.

What about you? Confess away!

Why I Love Winter, Why I Hate Winter, and My Vendetta Against One Mr. Shart Enamorado

As I recently mentioned, my nice camera just up and died on me. I'd been researching/pricing out a new model, but figured we'd deal with it after the holidays. My husband and I had agreed not to exchange gifts during Chanukah this year, and focus only on stuff for the kids, but as it turned out, he interpreted that agreement as "okay, no gifts, except for this fancy new camera. Here." SON OF A BITCH, man. Remind me to tell you (if I haven't already...eh, who can remember?) about the time we were exchanging gifts early on in our relationship, and I got him a toothbrush, and he got me a diamond necklace. He is so lucky to have me!

The camera is the Canon Digital Rebel XSi, which is a step up from my last one, and I've been playing with it ever since it came into my life last night. And here's where it gets embarrassing, because I was almost weeping with joy at this sweet gesture, and having a good camera again, so I felt this, like, Strong Photographic Responsibility, one that compelled me to take Noteworthy Artistic Photographs of Depth and Meaning. Which is hilarious, because I am in no way a photographer and perhaps more importantly, don't really know how a camera works. But still! I persevered, and FORCED MYSELF TO ACTUALLY START TAKING NOTEWORTHY ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHS OF DEPTH AND MEANING. you know, for the sake of my craft. Because I'm nothing if not a giant douche.

~These wee teacups represent man's inhumanity to man, and also the fleeting nature of childhood in a postmodern world. Yes.~

Fortunately, I quickly gave up on this endeavor, because a shitton of snow fell upon our fair city, and the kids did that charming thing where they beg to go play in it, and we spend 27 minutes bundling them up, only to spend four actual minutes outdoors. Like I said, charming. We did, however, manage to capture this:

~The hats, puffy coats, snow, and gloves represent that it's really quite effing cold.~

I'm still feeling all sweet towards the pretty, pretty snow, but I should point out that I have snow-related amnesia, wherein I initially get all giddy about it, like that dog from that commercial with the bacon! BACON!!!! (only I'm all "Snow! SNOW! SNOWWWWWW!"), only to remember the next day that I hate snow and it sucks and one time a few winters ago, I lost my shoe in a deceptively deep slushpuddle coming home from work the day after a snow storm, and a bunch of servers at a restaurant adjacent to the slushpuddle pointed and laughed at me until one of them came out to retrieve my shoe using a broomhandle and I tried to TIP HIM A DOLLAR for his trouble, like, I don't know, it seemed like a good idea, and he got insulted and then I hobbled-- along with my shoe squelch, squelch, squelching dirty frozen water, giving me probable frostbite and DEFINITE FOOT DISEASES-- right into a conveniently-located Nine West, and then I came home with my new shoes, and J was all, "ENOUGH WITH THE RIDICULOUS EXCUSES. FIRST YOUR SHOE FELL IN THE TOILET WHILE YOU WERE FLUSHING IT WITH YOUR FOOT, NOW ANOTHER ONE FELL IN A PUDDLE? STOP COMING UP WITH REASONS TO BUY SHOES, MY GOD," and I was like, "no! This time I actually DID need the shoes!" and I still haven't forgiven the season of Winter, basically.

Finally, you'll notice that I have enabled word verification in my comments. I did this because I'm getting slammed with random Japanese mystery comment spam. Perhaps they learned about my love of sushi, karaoke, and Kasugai gummi candy? I do not know. And while I cannot deny the hilarity of comment spam coming from someone with the email address "Shart Enamorado"...



...it's annoying, is what it is. I'm hoping I'll only need to keep this up for a brief while, and I'm sorry, because who wants to type EXTRA WORDS? Pleh. Sorry. DAMN YOU TO HELL, SHART ENAMORADO.

No Raindrops on Roses, I Swear.

Every now and then, it's a good idea to pull out the Crayolas, and remind yourself why you're having a good week.

Jersey Girl

As I've mentioned in the past, I was born and raised in New Jersey, and while I no longer live there, I still feel a connection to it. My home state is currently enjoying a cultural renaissance, of sorts, by which I mean "yes, a renaissance, if you consider a renaissance watching people representing your state flipping tables over and calling another woman a 'prostitution whore,' a la Real Housewives of New Jersey, and/or assessing a girl's behavior by saying 'she just doesn't want to feel like a trashbag because she has a boyfriend and she kissed me. With her tongue.' a la Jersey Shore."

It's a proud day for the Garden State.

Rather than dwell on the horrorshow of how my state is being represented, I've chosen instead to focus my attention on the horrorshow that is my shameful love for Jersey Shore. It's appalling and embarrassing, and I was going to speak in detail about my feelings, but honestly, I feel like devoting actual paragraphs to that would be worse than the crime itself, so to speak. And so, I decided to recap for you some highlights of the season so far, utilizing (what else?) my son's anthropomorphic Handy Manny tools:



Okay. So, I tend to get them confused, but I DO know that Mike, aka, "The Situation," is "27," by which I mean, "may or may not have an artificial hip," Ronnie and Sammi are Totally Doing It, J-Woww has two "w"s in her self-selected nickname which tells me pretty much everything I need to know about her, Snooki is pretty much my favorite unintentionally hilarious character in the rich and storied history of reality television, Angelina is crazy, and packed her clothing for her stay at the shorehouse in two large black garbage bags, and also (SPOILER ALERT) she left the show already because of her boyfriend but not really but yes really, and I don't really know what Vinnie is or does, which is why he's Diego instead of a Handy Manny Tool. Well, and also because there are only seven tools in the box. Whatever, Vinnie! You brought this upon yourself! Oh! Also, they all work in a --wait for it--touristy shirt shop on the boardwalk. That is their actual job. Here they are, the Jersey Shore tools:

Here they are, checking out their awesomely shittastic house. I daresay the one shown below is actually a touch nicer:



I basically spend much of my time watching the show going "oh, SNOOKI," like she's a lovable but wildly dumb housepet that keeps pissing on my shoes. The first night--nay, AFTERNOON, mere moments after arriving--she got incredibly drunk and physically passed out in a hammock, where she was quickly abandoned by the rest of the group:



Obviously, there is a hot tub, and accordingly, numerous sexy hot tub parties. This shot is blurry on purpose. Because: drunk hot tub. No, YOU shut up! It was wholly intentional:





Naturally, there are also Love Situations in the house, and things are really heating up between Ronnie and Sammi:



Mike, however, is being a total The Situation about it:



Ronnie is displeased, as one would expect:



And Snooki, meanwhile, has--I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP--taken on the classy and not-at-all suggestive hobby of sucking on pickles in front of the dudes. But it's innocent, you guys! She really just likes pickles, okay? It's totally fine, and not at all something that I shall file that under "The Shit That Scares Me About Having A Daughter."



The show is ridiculous and trashy, and the best-worst type of guilty pleasure. I'm not saying the anecdote set forth in the below photo essay WILL happen to Snooki, but if it does, I won't be surprised, is all:



Now, can you all PLEASE start watching this show so I don't feel so bad about this?

What, Like You DON'T Want to Win $500 Worth of Makeup?

I'm running a kick-ass and easy peasy contest over on my review blog. The prize? Oh, just $500 worth of makeup and products from L'Bel. Check it out!

On Notice: That American Express Commercial, and also, DJ Lance Rock.

I recently hit upon some odd cluster of household failures, not unlike that American Express commercial where all the broken inanimate objects make sad faces. But damn you, American Express commercial, because everything just seems to work out for the owners of Edgar Allen Pocketbook, Grumpy the Vacuum, and Eeyore the Clinically Depressed Couch, doesn't it? WHAT ABOUT ME?

My friends, in the past few weeks, I’ve watched my Canon Digital Rebel inexplicably die (I tried a new battery. No dice.) and my MacBook present me with a delightful gray screen/blinky file folder-with-question-mark combo.( We do have a point-and-shoot camera and another laptop, but I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I express my desire to have these relatively young and not cheap technological devices to, you know, work.)

The camera will need to be replaced entirely, it seems, and the MacBook—which will be undergoing its second repair in a year—can likely be salvaged, but not without a trip to the Genius Bar, and then I'll have to deal with the geniuses and their hair product and witty t-shirts and rare sneakers that are only sold by one guy named, like, Pauly J., out of a hidden telephone booth in the East Village, and you just know they're gonna do that thing where they judge me for having a messy-looking desktop, only they won't SAY it, they'll just communicate it with their eyebrows. And possibly, hair product. Which--who knows?--they could have ALSO applied to their eyebrows. And then--adding insult to injury, they'll charge me $400 and possibly, one kidney, whilst judging me. SUCK.

Then there was The Thing With The Bed.

Our bedframe collapsed, and let me just tell you, if you’d like to have all manner of people make inappropriate comments to you? Tell them that. Tell them your bed broke, and YOUR OWN VERY PIOUS MOTHER, for instance-- that same, sweet mother who prays daily, and sends you superhelpful advice about how maybe you shouldn’t curse on your blog because then Oprah and/or Ellen won’t discover you, but also, then she can’t show your “blogs” to her friends-- will say something AWFUL involving a lot of snickering and the word “adventurous,” and then you’ll probably want to die, but also, throw up, and you won’t be able to make a decision between the two, as you try to tell her—and other, snickering people, such as the jerks selling you a new bedframe, curious neighbors, and your handyman who's assisting in the assembly of Bed #2,-- that no, NO, you weren’t Doing It Cullen-Style, but really just sitting there reading TO AND WITH THE CHILDREN, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD—when the bed suddenly broke. We’re now the proud owners of a new bedframe, but sadly, our dignity was lost along with the splintered shards of Bed #1.

Obviously, our ghost has a hand in all three events, and I’m trying to figure out what we’ve done to anger it.

Since I’m clearly crotchety right now, let me also direct a brief message to the folks over at Yo Gabba Gabba: The show generally has a creepy Poltergeist-like hold on my children's attention spans, but they've become particularly obsessed with the food episode featuring "Party in my Tummy," a song wherein (I can't even believe I'm talking about this) various foods come alive and want to be ingested, so as to...go to the party in the tummy. Some of the foods cry, specifically because they haven't yet been eaten, and WANT to be, so as to attend the apparently wiiiiild Tummy Party.

My son has since taken to wandering over to J and I with lollipops/cookies/M&Ms, and telling us in the gravest of tones that the treat in question is sad because it wants to go to the party in his tummy. THANKS A BUNCH, DJ LANCE ROCK. YOU JERK.

To market, to market...

Whenever there’s an article in a prominent news source (by which I mean Us Weekly) about celebrities “partying” too much, I never understand what it means. Or, to put a finer point on it, why that specific term is used. I mean, you want to say “coking it up, Requiem for a Dream-style,” okay, but I hear partying, and I literally picture Lindsay Lohan and Adam Levine wearing little party hats and glow necklaces, laughingly doing the Electric Slide, and yes, maybe this is all culled directly from my Bat Mitzvah memories, but regardless, IT’S WHAT I SEE.

And perhaps, now that I think about it, this is all a function of how unspeakably lame I’ve become in recent years. Exhibit A: We spent the weekend at my parents’ house, and given the gift of free babysitting on Saturday night (thanks, Mom and Dad!), we took the opportunity to…go food shopping.

(College Me is SOOOO disappointed in Modern Day Me right now. Why, she even put down the Irish Car Bomb she was drinking to mock me. WITHERINGLY. Fortunately, she is wearing her stupid newsboy cap so it’s hard to take her seriously.)



ANYway, off we we went to the supermarket at nearly midnight, and the night out, plus the emptiness of the store conspired to make the supermarket The Official Place Where I Do Dumb Things. Let me lay it out for you in quiz form:

~SUPERMARKET SWEEP!~

1. You’re in the spice aisle. Getting spices and whatnot. Your husband approaches with the cart. What do you do?

(a) Calmly place the two glass jars in the cart.
(b) Toss the glass jars at him, shrieking “THINK FAST!”
(c) Commence shaking the jars like maracas, growling “oh, yeahhhhh! Let’s get this party STARTED,” in what you think is a fairly good impression of Gloria Estefan, but in all likelihood just makes you sound like you have a speech impediment.
(d) Dance-chase said husband into the next aisle, still shaking the spice jars, stage whispering that the rhythm is going to get him.
(e) Both (c) and (d).

2. You and your husband are purchasing fruit when some big band Muzak comes over the loudspeaker. What do you do?

(a) There IS only one real option here: West Side Story rumble walk.

3. You are in the dairy aisle, and spot an aerosol can filed with waffle batter. Let me clarify: SPRAY WAFFLES, Y’ALL. You then notice it has the following name:
What do you do?

(a) Whuh? Why is this funny?
(b) Dissolve into a GIGGLE EXPLOSION BECAUSE (ORGANIC!) BATTER BLASTER HAHAAAA.
(c) Tweet about Batter Blaster, and the humor inherent therein.
(d) Both (b) and (c).

4. You have recently learned a few basic moves from the Thriller dance. Your husband –a much better dancer than you BY FAR—locks eyes with you and commences a dance-off at the other end of the otherwise-empty dairy aisle, all the way down by the yogurt. “Weird!” you think, “So uncharacteristic of him!” What do you do?

(a) Figure it has to be a trick, ignore his Mr. Schuester-like moves, and continue perusing your Coffee Mate options.
(b) Naïvely assume that he has embraced the art of the dance-off, and is conveying this message to you through (what else?) dance.
(c) Commence excuting the few Thriller moves you have mastered with great fervor.
(d) Notice said husband has stopped dancing and is standing there, holding back laughter, as the purpose of his move bustin’ was NOT, in fact, to engage you in a dance-off out of the goodness of his heart, but rather, because a burly gentleman had, unbeknownst to you, rounded the corner of the dairy aisle and your husband KNEW you'd not be able to resist the lure of a dance-off. Aaaaand, now there's a large man standing there, arms crossed, smiling. On the bright side: he applauds.
(e) GAHHH, (b) through (d).

5. A bit wounded after the Great Dance-Off Debacle, you find yourselves in the baked goods section, square in front of a blank giant birthday cupcake-cake. What do you do?

(a) Duh, keep walking. It’s after midnight and you guys don’t need a damn cupcake-cake.
(b) Stand there for a full three minutes, debating the pros and cons of the cupcake-cake and why it should come home with you.
(c) Miraculously resist temptation.


Eyes on your own paper.