Monday, June 23, 2003

5.98

It’s official.  I am 15 years old again. 

I know this because I bought Tiger Beat yesterday.  Fricking Tiger Beat magazine.

Why, you wonder, would I do such a thing?  I am a grown woman.  Chronologically, anyway…

Because there was a picture of Clay Aiken in it, of course.  One picture.  I spent 3 dollars and 99 cents on a crappy teen periodical just for a picture I could have downloaded from the internet for free.  But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to examine it REALLY UP CLOSE for freckles and what not. 

Then, of course, because I found one magazine with a picture of Clay in it, my extremely AGILE mind deduced that there might even be more such publications!  So I stood in the aisle at Target scouring every page of every magazine with a celebrity edge just for a glimpse of The Buttercup himself.  And guess what...

I FOUND ONE MORE!  It made that 20 minutes of my life I will never get back TOTALLY WORTH IT.  I proceeded to spend another 1 dollar and 99 cents on THE BIGGEST PIECE OF GARBAGE WEEKLY GOSSIP MAGAZINE (which shall remain nameless).  At least this one had an article.  A totally bogus article, but words nonetheless.  I felt like I was really getting my money’s worth with this one.

My collection is up to 6.  Six magazines purchased solely for pictures of Clay Aiken.  I mean, I haven’t done this since I was 15 and I bought magazines like Creem and Rolling Stone just because there was a 1x1 inch black and white picture of the back of Sting’s head in it.  It’s just that I HAVE TO HAVE IT.

Isn’t my happiness worth $5.98?

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Swimming in the shallow end

I am hyper-aware of my obsessive-compulsive nature.  Mostly because everyone I know reminds me of it every chance they get.  So all these gentle reminders got me obsessing about my obsessions.  This is the most current list, categorized, of course, but in no particular order.

POP CULTURE AND CELEBRITIES

-American Idol (Clay Aiken in particular)

-Donny and Marie

-Shaun Cassidy

-Rad Daly (obscure teen idol)

-THE POLICE (Andy Summers, baby)

-Emeril Lagasse

-Howard Stern

-Howard Jones

-South Park

-Trey Parker

-Waiting for Guffman

-Rocky Horror Picture Show-Harry Potter

-Bobcat Goldthwait

-Barry Sobel

-Grease

-An American Werewolf in London

-MTV

-Saturday Night Live

-Concerts in the 80s

STYLE AND FASHION

-Magnetic earrings

-Stick pins

-Velvet blazers

-Gauchos

-The Preppy Handbook (all clothing listed within)

-Bonne Bell Lipgloss (remember that girl in grammar school who used to EAT the big fat ones???!!!)

-Pseudo-punk-new-wave look (lopsided haircuts, Sun-In, Madonna jewelry and clothes)

-Cher perfume

-Hair crimping iron (how big can my hair get)

-Flatiron

-Black suede boots

-Black suede fringe jacket

-Button-cover purses

-Clinique makeup

-Osh Kosh and Dickies Chinos in every fricking color

-Red leather jacket

ACTIVITIES

-Cheerleading (for about a week)

-Synchronized swimming

-Dancing

-Gymnastics

-Playing the flute

-Shoplifting

-Renovating houses

-Building a house

-Karaoke

-Thursday night bowling

-Musical theater

-Trips to New York City

-Gay bars and drag shows

-Rescuing animals

-The Wedding

-Online shopping

-Online anything

-Painting

BIGGEST NON-CELEBRITY CRUSHES ON GUYS THAT I DIDN’T MARRY

-Andy - the very first - I remember crying in my bed just thinking about him

-Brian - who lived in the neighborhood - I used to sit on the corner and watch him play hockey and spit - spitting was cool then

_________ - fill in the blank with the name of any tall, thin, funny teenage Catholic school boy

-Fran - now my best boy friend

-Father “DeBricassar” - a priest I actually had a crush on while making my confirmation - how creepy!

I just love reading this over and noticing that there is absolutely nothing on this list with any intellectual value whatsoever. 

Yep, I’m shallow.

Saturday, June 21, 2003

Little Lord Fauntleroy

My new haircut is so fabulous, I can’t even stand myself. Amy told me it’s really 80s, which is why I think I like it so fricking much.

I haven’t spent more than 10 dollars on a haircut in years.  However, my newly acquired bout of vanity sent me searching for a “salon”.  I recalled going out for dinner one night and asking the server where she got her hair cut (she had REALLY good hair).  True to my impulsive nature, I called and made my appointment.

Well, I’m no idiot.  I don’t know these stylists from Adam, and I’m not showing up and turning my tresses over to them without an insurance policy.  So I brought a picture.  You know the ones from those hairstyle magazines with photos of women wearing too much blue eyeliner and tilting their heads “just so” to accentuate their trendy cut.  The ones where you go, “I want my hair to look like THAT,” even though you have wavy hair and the model’s hair is naturally poker straight.  “Do it.  Make me look JUST like that.” I mean, I’m not the type to cry over a bad haircut but at least if it turns out badly, I brought a fricking picture, so it can’t be MY FAULT. 

So I turn over the picture and my locks to a complete stranger.  She’s cutting and we’re chatting and I’m not really paying attention to what she’s doing because there are two little kids causing havoc all over the salon and chasing the owner’s dog while their mom gets her hair highlighted and screams at them to STOP IT every three seconds.  The stylist starts drying my hair, and that’s when I started to freak out just a little bit.

Like I said, I’m not really the type to cry over a bad haircut, but I was starting to look like Little Lord Fauntleroy.She cut my hair EXACTLY as I asked her to, but man, this was not turning out right.  Basically my hair was shorter and slightly layered in the back, angling forward to about chin length in the front.  Which is where the problem was.  It was all curled under and looking fricking ridiculous. 

AND THEN SHE BROUGHT OUT THE FLATIRON.

“I saw that on American Idol,” I shrieked, realizing after the words came out of my mouth that she might not share my love of the aforementioned show, nor was she aware of the level of my obsession with it.  She commented that she saw them using it on Clay and Ryan, and immediately she was my stylist for life.  I wanna look like Little Lord Fauntleroy FOREVER if it means having my hair done by someone with such good taste in television!

I was in a bit of a trance at this point, so I didn’t notice what this thing was doing to my hair.  IT WAS MAKING IT LOOK LIKE THE PICTURE!  I LOOKED LIKE THE PICTURE, ONLY BETTER EVEN!  I was falling in love with myself all over the fricking place.  My hair had never been so straight in my life.  As a child, my hair had always been really thick and dark, but a little wave here and there kept me from getting that great Cher look I so loved.  My hair is nowhere near as thick as it was back in the day, but it’s not horrible.  I just never knew it could look like THIS.

I was especially excited because I had just attempted to highlight my own hair with one of those new kits where you just “comb” the strands you want lightened.  It was B.S., people, total B.S.!  The “highlighting cream” was just that powdered peroxide women used to use to bleach their upper lip hairs.  I ended up looking like I did in 1984 when my friends and I thought it would be cool to put Sun-In in our bangs, because we were so punk.  Two hours after my botched highlighting job I colored my hair dark brown in an attempt to get my natural color back and vowing for the millionth time that I would never color my hair again.  Yeah right.

So here I was sitting in the chair of a REAL SALON watching my hair turn HOLLYWOOD.  I called everyone I knew and told them I was Jennifer Aniston or Courteney Cox.I ran right out and bought me one of those flatirons. I bought every hair product made for “straight hair” I could find.  I came home and flipped my hair around in the mirror for an hour.  I was vanity personified.

The stylist told me not to use the flatiron every day because it would fry my hair if I did.  Works for me. 

Hey, Little Lord Fauntleroy, nice knowin’ ya.

Friday, June 20, 2003

Baby book

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what if I just wrote a diary entry?  I’m completely in love with this diary thing, so deal with it.

Here’s how it all went down:

“What the frick are you reading?”

“Harry Potter.”

“Oh, you’re reading a BABY book, huh?  How is your BABY book, anyway?  What is your BABY book all about?”

Cut to...

June 2002

It’s 3am and my heart is palpitating while I read through Book Four with sickening fervor.

“Did you get to the part yet where Ron dies?”

(Ron, of course, does not die, but I don’t know this.)

“Shut up.  Just shut the frick up.  Don’t even tell me that Ron dies because if he does, I am going to have a heart attack.  Does he die?  Does he?  Come on, the truth!  Does he die?  Really?  COME ON!”

Cut to...

HARRY POTTER BOOK 5 IS BEING SHIPPED TO MY HOUSE TOMORROW. 

I can’t wait to read that baby book.

I’m so vain

“Vanity is the quicksand of reason.” -George Sand

I have no humility.  None.  I am completely vain.  I can prove it.

I have a close relationship with the mirror.  I examine my skin, looking for signs that I won’t age as beautifully as my grandmother has.  I’ve started buying jars of overpriced eye cream to ward off puffiness.  I stare, checking to see if one of my eyes really is just a smidge higher than the other.  I fastidiously pluck stray eyebrow hairs just as they peek through the follicle.  And, yes, I sing.  I sing and wonder how I would look in my American-Idol-Top-Ten-Close-Up-Shot-On-Carpenters-Songs-Night-When-Richard-Carpenter-Is-The-Guest-Judge-But-No-One-Really-Wants-To-Hear-What-He-Has-To-Say.

I buy makeup.  No, not just a tube of lipstick. I am talking LOOKS, baby, LOOKS.  Whole collections of makeup based on a theme.  The Neutral Look is so I can leave the house, secure in the thought that I look so natural, even though I have 7 layers of gunk on my face.  The Pink Look is so I can leave the house thinking I look like Kimberley Locke on Top Three Night. 

My feet are starting to intrigue me.  I’ve never had a pedicure, and I usually only wear shoes with closed toes, but lately, I’ve become quite the exhibitionist by buying two pairs of open-toed shoes.  I’ve got this red nailpolish for my toenails and I’m gonna put it on, I swear.  And because in my mind I am 18 all over again, I got myself a toe ring.  Who do I think I am?????

I’m addicted to jackets.  Usually that addiction is coupled with an unhealthy obsession for some celebrity, but the jacket-love is true, so true.  It all started in 1986 with that pink suede number I draped myself in until the sleeves were shiny from wear and raindrops had permanently stained the fabric.  Then it was the black suede Barry Sobel blazer with the fringe under the arms.  Now I’m on the hunt for a red leather jacket with a mandarin collar a la Clay Aiken singing Grease. I almost peed myself when I saw that one.  Amy said that jacket is SO EIGHTIES and SO ME and I better not settle for some crappy substitute. I won’t settle, I promise.

Yeah, I’m losing it.

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Joe Paradox

1984: A Conversation Among Five Catholic High School Girls

“Sting is so hot.”

“No, Andy Summers is hotter.”

“Are you kidding? Stewart Copeland is the hottest.”

“Yeah but Sting’s songs have, like, The Odyssey in them and stuff.  He talks about paradox and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s like Joe Paradox.”

“Let’s start a band and call ourselves Joe Paradox.”

“Totally.”