Current obsessions

My New Hats. These actually aren't that new (I bought them in February), but I haven't worn them out yet and so they're new to me. This first one makes me feel like I'm a character from a Fellini film wearing a dainty lilypad on my head:

This second one is a blatant Pucci knockoff, but I needed something to wear when I'm shopping at some exotic outdoor market in the Rio de Janiero sun laying out next to my apartment complex's peanut-shaped pool:


Mid-Century Modern. People, I cannot get enough of mid-century modern everything. Living rooms, homes, books, clothing, decor. I want it all, and have lately found myself staying up much later than I should googling the fine art of credenzas and coffee tables, wooden wall art and floating nightstands from the Eisenhower/Kennedy era. You know you're obsessed when finding a genuine set of Danish Modern drinking coasters makes your afternoon. Or when you're thisclose to ordering a boomerang-shaped red glass ashtray from 1961 -- and you don't even smoke. (Yes, this actually almost happened). One of my secret favorite things to do is scour the back area of my grandma's house in Walnut Creek where no one ever goes anymore to look through all her old books and decor from that period. By myself in that empty wing of the house I pull out old books about dining room etiquette printed entirely in Futura font, the binding yawning with loud pops and cracks after years of being unopened as I scan the text inside and bring the pages to my nose, close my eyes and deeply inhale that old, musty smell of "the past" from their surfaces. It's so...well...satisfying.

Once we have the means I can't wait to go antiquing and pick up pieces I can see in person, versus what I find on eBay. There's something fascinating to me about the potential stories behind authentic pieces of a certain time period (especially during my favorite period: 1950 to 1970). But even the brand new pieces that mimic the design aesthetic of yore intrigue me; the lines and simplicity of the furniture and decor speak to me, as weird as that sounds. Maybe in a past life I was this woman:

It looks like both she and he are totally appreciating that credenza. Check out my favorite tribute site to the period: The Mid-Century Modernist.

Simon's Cat. Since we gave our cat Moneypenny to my BFF in California to take care of until we move back next month, I've been missing her like crazy. (Who'd have thought that me, the hater of all cats, would eventually find myself missing one?) Fortunately I've found a cartoon version of her, otherwise known as "Simon's Cat". Apparently this guy in Britain began animating his cat in hilarious short sketches and they gained such popularity that now he's got a book deal and millions of YouTube subscribers (including yours truly). This video is older, but is still one of my favorites:

Jonathan Adler stuff. I never would have guessed I'd be pining over a ceramic dachshund, but I am:

Jonathan Adler is a genius when it comes to the art of mid-century modern. His sculptures and other design accoutrements encapsulate retro aesthetics with a contemporary twist. Adler's goods are definitely not cheap (the dachshund in question is $88), but a girl can dream -- and eBay.

Breaking Bad. While I wait for Mad Men Season 4 to premiere in July, I've found a new show to obsess over:

Breaking Bad is about a high school chemistry teacher named Walt White who finds out he has lung cancer and a couple years left to live. After coming to grips with his imminent death, he resolves to set up his family (a pregnant wife and teenage son) financially once he passes on, and so he begins using his talent at chemistry to cook crystal meth with an ex-student-turned-drug-dealer. The premise is what initially drew me in -- how desperate does a guy need to be to make and sell drugs to secure his family's financial future? -- but it was the theme of moral ambiguity that's kept me hooked. Walt is not a bad guy -- he's dying and looking out for his family -- and yet he becomes the "villain" when viewed through a social and legal lens. Fascinating stuff, reader-friends, especially when he gets mired in the dark underbelly of the drug world -- a world he as a straight-laced science teacher was never prepared to deal with. Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) does an AMAZING job as Walt White, and the story arc is incredible (major props to the writers on staff). Behind Mad Men, Breaking Bad is one of the best shows on television.

Tom Ford Sunglasses. So maybe they look a little costume-y, but I don't care. I'd love to own a pair, they're so Mrs.-Robsinson-meets-vintage-Catwoman:

With Carolyn Murphy's tousled locks, '60s tan lines and black liquid eyeliner, this is an Anne Bancroft-esque look I'd love to rock every single day.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches. Does this even need an explanation? Oh all right, fine. There was a span of a few years where I absolutely abhorred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I know, I'm crazy. But it hadn't always been that way. In fact they were all I ate in elementary school, but by the time I reached 6th grade I was burnt out. I told my parents I would only eat turkey sandwiches from there on out. Fast forward to last week. I was in the throes of a Breaking Bad catch-up marathon when I witnessed Walt eat a PB&J sandwich at the beginning of an episode and suddenly found myself craving one. Badly. To the point of where I walked across the street to the supermarket that evening to buy the essential ingredients, and spent the next four days making PB&J sandwiches for dinner. (If you can't tell already marketing works horrifically easily on me.)

Now I wonder how I could have ever gotten sick of the things. If my kids ever complain that they're tired of PB&J sandwiches I'll tell them they don't know what they're talking about, that their "liege" -- which is what they'll call me -- once said that too, and that the subsequent 16 years were barren and could never be taken back. "I won't let you do that to yourselves," I'll tell them.

This T-Shirt:

Confession: I'm a total nerd when it comes to puns. (Favorite joke: What did the mother tomato say to the baby tomato as they were crossing the street? "Ketchup!" Terrible, I know.) I can't help but crack up at the cheesiest, worst puns, and feel the one above definitely deserves to be worn in some capacity. I'm not a t-shirt kind of girl, but this would be perfect as one of my workout shirts.

I refuse to be flabby, and in other news: Lauren Bacall is on Twitter

So the other night I was wasting precious hours of my life sifting through reams of "interesting links" recommended by those I follow on the Twitter-sphere when I came across one called The Waistline Test, which assesses whether your writing is ‘flabby’ or ‘fit’:

The test works by counting percentages of words in five categories commonly associated with stodgy sentences: weak verbs, abstract nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs and 'waste words' (it, this, that, there). For every writing sample you submit, you will receive an overall fitness rating ranging from lean to heart attack territory:

Lean	Fat-free
Fit and trim	In excellent condition
Needs toning	Would benefit from a light workout
Flabby	Judicious editing required
Heart attack territory	May call for editorial liposuction!

My initial thought? Brills!

But then fear set in.

What if I took the test and it spat back horrific results to me? Like that my writing was morbidly obese and destined for a life lived on treadmills and jogging trails in the backwoods of scary places, where scary people hang out cooking meth and living out of trash bag tents? If that was the truth, did I really want to know? Or was I better off blissfully oblivious and semi-delusional about my writing abilities?

Then again, now that I'd seen this Waistline Test how could I not take it? It would be like not pushing the button on that Mr. Bubbles contraption filled with bleach in my friend's shower back when it was a new product and I figured it was filled with body wash, thus giving the whole shower experience as we know it a contemporary, car wash-esque feel. "How modern!" I thought in glee, after pushing the button and allowing "body wash" to whir past me, till I screamed out in realization that it wasn't actually a Jetsons shower machine but rather a cleaning device that was shooting bleach into my face and mouth. Yeah, seeing the Waistline Test was kind of like that, except now I tread with minor trepidation when I'm about to push any buttons.

Was my ego writing checks my body couldn't cash? I needed to know, so I took the test, shielded my face with my hands and peered through my fingers at the results and ... I passed!!! Quite nicely, I should add. I pasted in the first couple paragraphs from my book and got back:

fit and trim.

For whatever this particular writing test is worth, all I have to say is PHEW. At this point in the month I don't think I have the emotional stamina to endure a reading of "flabby", much less anything that would call for editorial liposuction.

Now for all I know this test could be a crock of monkey poop, and I know there are other things that matter in good writing (i.e., expression, fluidity, clarity, etc.) but I do think it's an interesting way to assess overuse of adverbs and other evils that tend to weigh writing down like an anchor. See how your writing measures up, if you're curious.

In other news: Lauren Bacall is on Twitter(!), which is basically just as amazing as hearing someone like Grace Kelly or Joan Crawford pontificate on how tacky Hollywood (and the world in general) has become and how much better it was "back then", when everyone beat their kids with wire hangers chain-smoked and men wore suits and women wore heels and tattoos and cleavage weren't the norm but the exception, reserved only for seedy characters in seedy "B" flicks.

Here are my fave LB tweets:

"Yes I saw Twilight my granddaughter made me watch it, she said it was the greatest vampire film ever. After the "film" was over I wanted to smack her across her head with my shoe, but I do not want a book called Grannie Dearest written on me when I die, so instead I gave her a DVD of Murnau's 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu and told her, now that's a vampire film! and that goes for all of you! watch Nosferatu instead!"

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"Enough of me being a negative Nancy, its just that I am glad I got to see the Oscars of the 40s & 50s. Grace Kelly would have died if she saw what I did at the red carpet (a tattooed gum chewing woman with too much cleavage and a man in sneakers)."

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"I'm so sorry you guys didn't like my Studio 54 image simply because I was smoking, believe me there was far more worse things going on there then smoking! I was not expecting such negative feedback, ugh all this stress has made me want to light up and relax with a cigarette. The good thing about being 84 is that I can smoke as much as I want."

Lauren Bacall is the woman I want to grow up to be. "Literate and tart" were the words Roger Ebert recently used to describe her. She's a beautiful, no-nonsense woman who's been around long enough to know what timeless chic really is and could care less about what you and I think of her musings because she's right, after all. I can just imagine her lazing in some huge claw-footed bathtub in one of the many master bathrooms of her gigantic estate, tapping away with manicured red fingernails on a laptop picked out for her by some tech-savvy personal assistant. Like a modern-day Norma Desmond with a platform to reach the masses she lazes beneath her blanket of white bubbles, plumes of cigarette smoke curling around her head, as she tweets about the good old days when film meant something. When fashion mean something.

When a good vampire movie meant something...

Current obsessions

Claudia Cardinale


That profile. That hair. That obnoxiously fabulous eyeliner. Along with Marilyn (who I also adore) she's one of the undisputed sex kittens of the last century and I'm not going to lie: She makes me want to move to Italy, do away with my car, buy a Vespa and take up chain-smoking cigarettes as though they were going out of fashion. (Did I just admit that out loud? Cigarettes are BAD, people. Terrible. But it's people like her and Draper that make it look so sexy.) Love her in the original Pink Panther and as Marcello Mastroianni's muse in 8 1/2. They just don't make women like her anymore.

Case Study Houses. Remember that scene from Charlie's Angels where Drew Barrymore goes over to that young millionaire's house and ends up dangling from a bed sheet out his giant shattered picture window over the Los Angeles skyline? (Don't lie, you know exactly what I'm talking about.) Well that to-die-for house was one of the original Case Study Houses, which were experiments in American residential architecture between 1945 and 1966. These houses are so yummy to look at, I can spend hours staring at pictures of these pieces of art:


These coffee mugs:


Designed by Peter Ibruegger.

Goat cheese. Nothing makes me feel more like a beret-ed farmer living in a country cottage in the vineyards of France quite like a good ol' log of herb de Provence goat cheese. Or like a goat-herding Spaniard in the foothills of the Castilian region. Not that I want to be a goat-herding Spaniard, but if it landed me in Spain for at least one summer I would not rule it out. It can come plain, on eggs, on Sour Patch Kids -- I don't care. Give me goat cheese and I'm a happy girl.

The Oatmeal. The Internet begins and ends with this website. It's like someone scraped some of the most un-PC humor I have hidden away in my brain and jotted it down, with illustrations. The creator, who writes and illustrates everything on the site, is a genius. My favorites are "How Twilight Works" and "The 9 Types of Crappy Handshakes."

The amahzing typewriter J bought me as a late xmas present. I say "late" because there was no way he was going to lug 30 pounds of heavy steel to California and back, so he just had it delivered in late January when we were back on native soil. I love this little machine; it's captured a piece of my retro-obsessed heart:


Best of all? It's 100% Internet-free. No distractions, no low battery. If I could I'd cuddle with my 1958 Royal Futura 800 on the couch every night and laugh at Leno and take it for long drives by the beach in my non-existent sporty convertible, top down of course.

Valentine's Day. Ugh, no words. It's fantastic, it's extraordinary, it's a brilliant way to celebrate any kind of love, in all its hybrid forms. Contrary to popular belief one doesn't NEED to be in a relationship to make the most out of this holiday -- in fact I've had some great Valentine's Days where I was completely single. Those were the days when I could eat a whole tube of raw chocolate chip cookie dough without a.) gaining any weight thanks to my now-faltering metabolism, and b.) did not have to endure any mockery or criticism of my peculiar raw cookie dough slash brownie batter habit. (Ahem, J).

Anyway, I will vomit in my mouth a little if one more person rolls their eyes at the mention of Valentine's Day being a "holiday created by Hallmark" that feeds purely off consumers pressured to show their loved ones how much they care. No one says Valentine's Day HAS to be that way (besides, isn't that what Christmas is for?). If you feed into all that tripe that's your problem. What's wrong with a day to remind yourself that love is all around? Insert the cliche retort, (in my mind most often said in an acerbic British accent): "Well, you shouldn't need a day for that. You should remember that all year 'round." That's a given, honey child. Why don't you sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here.

I swear, the vehement hatred toward Valentine's Day usually comes coupled with some subconscious shortcoming slash insecurity on the part of the perpetrator. Perhaps they just need a hug? *Chases them down if necessary and forces bear-hug on to them.*

It doesn't take a lot to make V Day fabulous for me -- throw me some spicy cinnamon hearts, swath me in red and pink, let me watch Casablanca and I'm set. This year, like the past few years, J and I plan to have a special, but low-key, V Day. On the docket are heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast, Swiss fondue for dinner, cheap champagne (taking it back to the pre-J days of 2003 with the Andre Brut, people) and an in casa screening of Paris Je'taime. If I wasn't so lazy I would attempt to make this cake:


...but I don't have the energy (at least this year) to undertake such an endeavor. If any of you dolls do, let me know. Here's the recipe.

V Day is what you make of it. So instead of knocking it, try to make it great. You'd be surprised at how great it -- or most things -- could be with this method.