Rant

What’s up Miranda.
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Miranda. Being her obviously sexy self.

I used to watch Sex and the City as a high schooler and college student. In fact, there was one summer my younger (and of course wiser) brother and I had season-long marathons of the show to make sure we did not miss a single episode. Those were the days of Blockbuster movie rentals. When life was simpler, jobs nonexistent, and groceries were never-ending…name brand always.

Apparently those were also the days where people dressed like Miranda and got cat-called by every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street. Literally. I think there was an episode and all those bros were in it. But I’m here to ask the hard question, that I, at 30, cannot seem to get over. What the fuck Miranda?

The hair, the glasses, the clothes, the makeup, the sweaters, the green, the style, the constantly distasteful faces, the braces* (starred because as a keen observer will recall after one particularly embarrassing run-in with some high school girls she made the decision to switch to invisalign). I mean seriously. What the fuck. This woman was getting getting asked on a legitimate date every goddamn episode. She’s at the gym, sweating up a storm, face matching hair, and some hot-muscled bro approaches her all “yo girl, you look fine, let’s go get some drinks.” Now, we are already suspending reality to believe that this intelligent Harvard-educated high-pressured lifestyle attorney falls for this, but NOW you’re asking me to believe that this shit happens?? No.

Here I am, going about my life, looking like a fucking delight. I match, my hair is normal, face is fierce, wine in hand, and you know who asks me out? No one. You know who asks out my hot friends? No one. I mean sure, there are some flirtatious exchanges and “how you doing”s – but this is at 2 a.m., at a bar, closing, and everyone has secured a hefty bar tab. Yeah, let’s date. You’re so hot right now. Is that a polo and a dashing green checkered blazer? Oh, I love when your pants are skinnier than mine. Please, take me home. I totally see a sustainable winning and intelligent conversation with you over oysters and a bottle of pinot noir next Wednesday at 8. Oh, sorry, Let’s make it 7, Modern Family’s at 9. No, It doesn’t fucking happen. At no point that I am carrying on in a normal day am I EVER approached by a decent (looking) fella because he just thought I looked swell and wanted to actually get to know me at some later event, to be determined.

Now this has nothing to do with Cynthia Nixon (a doll, really), but about the fact that the same person tasked with dressing and styling Carrie, dressed and styled Miranda. Miranda. If she’s going to wear overalls and a sunflower jean bucket hat – treat her like she’s wearing overalls and a sunflower jean bucket hat!!! She already acts like it.

My nights end in cheese, boxed wine and some Chrisley Knows Best on demand (wondering when everyone is going to realize this is actually a mockumentary where the father is a sassy gay man and everyone but the family realizes it – you know, a la Ja’mie). I don’t need a woman who should, for all valid reasons, be the one shining example of female empowerment on that show to make me question my life choices. Miranda should be able to get any guy she wants. But she doesn’t. She gets asked out, all the fucking time, by these hot-ass mindless buttheads who are more in to how hot she is than who she is. What??!! She dresses like a 7th grader in 1997 and has the self-confidence of a gawky Niles Crane. You’re better than that Miranda. And this shit does not happen.

It’s all Relative. Because. Living.

How are we not having a more substantial dialogue about Willow and Jaden Smith. And that interview. Yes, I know they are still children in the most real sense of the word. But they are also dressing like sassy adults and giving (what I’m sure to be) parental-approved public interviews, all while writing their own books, nay, novels, and evading some time-space continuum. So, children? The point of childhood is to be stupid and bask in that stupidity. Once you become responsible that shit goes right out the window and all of a sudden eating Taco Bell at 3 a.m. is no longer socially acceptable, and sadly, in most places, judged. Oh my god – is that the point they are making? Oh my god – did I just try to validate this interview? Fuck. No, because they are clearly not children nor do they want to be considered children.

Maybe the problem is that we don’t don’t even know where to begin. I don’t even know where to begin. Is this something to tear apart as an exercise in celebrity (scientology?) gone to the head, or is the sheer ridiculousness so maddening that there is nothing left to say? Perhaps the interview is enough. I don’t know, but I just can’t get my head around it. But then again, I can’t write my own novels, and I sure as hell don’t have the creativity (balls?) to wear a white batman suit to a wedding. Kanye can’t even. And this is why I will be drinking wine later.

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Fighting crime. And time.

I take that back, Kanye could even. He’s just jealous a 16-year old beat him to it.

http://entertainthis.usatoday.com/2014/11/18/huh-willow-and-jaden-smiths-nyt-interview-is-the-weirdest-thing-youll-read-today/  (hope this one works…)

Grow Up. And Phone Home.
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Michael, ever distraught, phoning for confirmation

Michael, my younger but infinitely wiser brother, often discusses with me the need to grow up and start being myself. I don’t take this advice lightly. He’s right. Aside from being right, however, he also likes to lead by example. Our dear friends Alice and Matt were hosting a party this past weekend. After a prior invitation gone awry or, “the debacle” (Michael received his invite through a third party, me, so as to invalidate said invite), Michael was given a direct and emailed invite. This invite included a place to respond, inform the hosts whether you were bringing guests, when you might want to show up, etc. Over the course of three weeks I was asked not once, twice or three times, but 13 times whether or not his girlfriend could attend. Yes, reply with a +one. In fact, I’ll text Alice. Look at that, such dear friends we have their phone numbers. We don’t just have them, we text frequently with them. Confirmed. Come, bring your girlfriend, kegs and wine and merriment for all!

Fast forward to the day prior to the event. “Listen, I replied ‘maybe’. I’m coming. I’m bringing my girlfriend. I texted Matt, it’s been 3 minutes. I haven’t heard anything. You must call Alice. You need to confirm I can still come, with girlfriend, because I only replied ‘maybe’”. Now when I call them our “dear friends” I do not mean in some distant way that we have memories past but don’t socialize too often these days as to create some sense of self-doubt or restraint. It’s the type of closeness I imagine Ina has with her sassiest of gay friends from the Hamptons where a simple “Gary, I’m using good ingredients, bring wine” sends Gary on the swiftest of missions to pick the sassiest of wines to pair with a yet unknown meal of food Ina is surely making. No questions, no hesitation, just shit tons of classy wine, because you better bet there will be a lot of wine to be had later and Gary is definitely passing out on Ina’s basement floor mid “Pillow Talk” (a rising tale of the old party line system in New York where Doris Day is a delight and Rock Hudson is as captivating as ever and my the antics they get into…but I digress), only to have Jeffrey arrive some time later and give him a blanket, turn off the tv and the lights, and start prepping the scones Ina had made earlier for breakfast. Actually, this is not too dissimilar to a night Michael had at Matt’s. Where Pillow Talk was replaced by Sunday Night Football, wine with Loose Cannon and “good ingredients” with delivery pizza. So yes, Michael, it would be the highest disregard to their hospitality to show up, with girlfriend, after you so selfishly blew them off with a “maybe”. I had better call Alice most promptly and confirm that you are still allowed on their premises. A call was made without haste to Alice, to which she replied “I’m sorry, what? Do I need to call Michael? I will have Matt text him. Better yet, shall I send word by way of my carrier pigeon?”

As Alice and I laughed over said ridiculousness, I continued to receive multiple texts. From Michael. About attendance. Luckily, Matt texted Michael, Alice confirmed, and Michael was able to arrive without scorn or embarrassment, with girlfriend, for party.

And in case you were curious – the party was a sheer delight. Everyone drank too much, ate too much and overall enjoyed themselves too much. Alice prepared the most amazing Ina-inspired pulled pork and an onion dip. I ate most of the onion dip. I followed it with a bottle and a half of Pinot Noir. The fancy kind.

So as I continue through life, learning how to be myself; each day striving to become self-aware and self-possessed, I think fondly of my brother, Michael, whose sage words started me on this path, and his ever-shining example of comfort, friendship, and most importantly, how much more grown up he is.  This is a man that does not let anything get him down. And like him, I must carry on. I’ll start by having some wine later tonight.

You’re in for a Rant.

Is it not like the most downer part of your day when you find what you think to be a cool blog on pinterest about diy ways to organize and be shabby chic with awesome ideas…and then you go to it and you slowly recall that you’ve been there before and that their ideas really aren’t all that good, or practical, or shabby chic, or appropriate to your lifestyle??

That just happened. Talk about an immediate high to slow low. I saw it earlier and was looking forward to lunch so I could peruse it. Now I have time to write you this diatribe instead. It’s almost like a read-along to the site.

Here is the web site in question:

http://www.harvardhomemaker.com/over-100-ideas-to-help-you-organize-your-home-and-your-life/

And here’s the pin that made it seem like this was gonna be “my” site:

http://pinterest.com/pin/254946028878379322/

I mean the first one – separate laundry in these bins. Fuck, separating my laundry just adds to my day. I do laundry in the organization style of “what fits, goes in – anything pricey to the cleaners”.

Don’t give your child a hamper – so they have a cleaner room! Lady, that shit has got to go somewhere. And I’ll be damned if they’re going to walk it to the laundry room on their own. No one’s got time for that. I’ll be picking up laundry all fucking day.

Nail polish on socks? wtf? You just showed me how to hang loners so they can find a mate, now I’ve also got to ruin them? Why do I need sock tip 1 if sock tip 2 solves all those problems?? Don’t try to reason with me woman!

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Picking up all this laundry. And one fucking sock…

I love her creative suggestion of using over-the-door racks. Like I haven’t been doing that since I was a college kid with 400 pounds of clothes and one square inch of storage.

Labels!  Label things! why? Because you’ll be able to find things easily. Genius.

Building shelves between your studs for cool knick-knack storage. How the hell am I going to do that? How long does this take? How do I find the space? How do I know how big it is? How do I know how secure the shelving will be? What is the pound limitation on this set up? How do I re-tile that shit? This seems much more complicated than some casual Saturday afternoon fun wine time craft.

I do like the toilet paper basket holder. Not the most ingenious thing but I like the look.

While she’s right that the hook looks nicer than the rack, it’s like those infomercials where the woman just makes a fucking mess using any regular blender. But never with this super special blender. Like couldn’t the kids still not hang their stuff properly and it will still fall to the floor?

Again, more ingenious hook ideas….

Glass jars – fine for the cotton balls but lady your makeup brushes are none too pretty to be displaying like art.

Online grocery shopping???!!  1. You’re a stay at home mom. Really? Going to the grocery store is just “too much”? 2. I freaking love grocery shopping. How dare you try to take that away from me.

List! Use lists – perhaps with a pen!!! I’m not even going to get in to this one.

Cabinets! Much like pantries, only slightly different. Oh, and it will require you to construct a cabinet because you’ll probably have a pantry….that also stores similarly to cabinets

Remove snacks from boxes and put in an open, separated free-for-all drawer. Yeah, I’d eat through about 10 packs of those keebler elves before I knew what hit me.

Always double recipes….I triple recipes and that barely covers dinner for one night.

Put appliances in cupboards – 1. don’t people already do that with appliances that are not used regularly. 2. How fucking annoying would it be to have to retrieve and put back your coffee maker every. damn. day. I mean when you’re a stay at home mom I guess you have that time, unless of course it’s grocery shopping. Then again, ain’t nobody got time for that.

A refrigerator drawer??? I would love that. Can someone please install it and then not charge me what I am sure would be $1000.00+ for it?

I actually do keep recipes in a binder. I approve.

Keep bags handy…..

Organize by color….

Ah, more hooks. You can use hooks for all kinds of things apparently.

Oh. My. God. More hooks. For more things.

More hooks. More things.

Use shower clips to hang bags – while in the picture it seems to make a lot of sense and gives you a shelf below that the bags were originally on, it’s making a lot of assumptions about that fact that I wasn’t already using the rod for clothes prior and need that shelf space to now put things, like bags, on. Or you know…a seat, to put shoes on. Because I don’t already have a bed, chair, couch, etc. And I need to sit to put on my shoes.

Again, label shit. It’s helpful.

Shoes stored in drawers – ew! That would smell awful. Maybe that’s just my shoes.

Again with the laundry – now we’re sorting by person and then by color. Oh my god, the time. I’d enforce the “kids do your own laundry and good luck policy”. One shrunk pair of pants – they’ll learn.

This woman must have about 500 doors and 600 blank walls.

Let your kids dress themselves – builds confidence. That girl is at least 7. If she’s not dressing herself you have issues other than just confidence. And you can let kids make their own bed (if you have the patience to deal with a somewhat messily made bed for 6 months, whew, tough).  I feel that this would pair well with my have your kids do their own laundry plan. But I guess we can only trust kids with minimal stuff right now. And we can only deal with the stress of their poor choices one chore at a time.

Put your backpacks somewhere….

I can’t even get in to keepsakes and memories. I don’t even take pictures these days. But that baby teeth thing grossed me out.

Journal what your kids do and say. I am sorry, but what? Now I’ve got to follow my kid around with a pen and paper like they’re fucking Bill Cosby, Churchill and George Carlin all rolled in to one???

Pregnancy book? Yeah let’s monitor how fat and bloated I can look over the course of 9 months.

This woman thinks you have time and space for a book on fucking everything.

Her 2012 gift list seems both sad and upsetting. I feel a lot of people were disappointed that year.

Install outlets in handy places. Yes, would love to – but then I’d have to call, pay and take time off to have an electrician do that shit for me.

Again with the labels.

All right, I’m done for now and lunch is over. Looking forward to wine later. Enjoy!