Seven Dames A Week

They've done it again

2011-07-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Netflix has made yet another ridiculous policy change, but this time it is sure to lose them customers. You have probably heard by now about the incredible price hike Netflix announced this past week, which will start in September for all customers. By splitting DVD and Watch Instantly subscriptions, making the minimum cost of each service $7.99/mo, Netflix has almost doubled the cost of subscribing to both services. The reason for the change seems to be because Netflix was getting too many streaming customers to maintain certain studio contracts (with Sony and Starz, I think) without renegotiating, a process that could cost them a lot of money, so by splitting the services, they intend to lose streaming customers to prevent having to renegotiate these contracts. Pretty deviously clever, eh?

I can tell you, they have certainly lost a streaming customer in me, but to my chagrin I have been unable to find an alternative to Netflix that will allow me to get my DVD on at a similar cost and scope (Netflix outshines almost every other similar service in terms of number of titles available by thousands upon thousands). It would feel so good to be able to cancel my service outright, but it sounds like that's not going to be possible.

So my question for all you other Netflix users out there is: What do you plan to do as a result of this price hike? Will you cancel one service and keep another? Cancel altogether? Have you found an alternative service? I'd love to hear your ideas.

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MQOTW
Truman: Blocked at every turn...

Reeeed Robin, YUM.

2011-06-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

Today my family and I went to Red Robin for the first time ever. This week marks the very first time a Red Robin has opened its doors in my home state. To celebrate (and advertise, of course), they had a preview event this weekend, offering a free meal for anyone who called up and made a reservation. (First of all, GREAT idea.)

The food was delicious, the service was superb, and the atmosphere was fun and funky, light and airy, which was a welcome change from most American pub food joints, which like to keep their interior lighting dim and moody. I must say, I will be going back there very soon, club card in hand.

P.S. They also have one of the catchiest 'jingles' ever.
P.S.S. Shawn Spencer was right!
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TVQOTW
Shawn: Don't be the American adaptation of the British Gus!

How Netflix is slowly ruining their web site, one deleted feature at a time

2011-06-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Remember lists? I do. I had one that kept track of my queue overflow (I continuously have more than 400 titles on there), and a couple “top ten” style lists, one of which I sort of remember and the other of which is now lost forever.

Lists were removed (I think? They might still be on the site, but if you find ‘em, you’re up there with Indiana Jones…) around the time when the entire “Community” section of the site was destroyed. That means you can no longer connect with friends who also use Netflix to see their reviews, ratings, queue items and/or notes on movies. It’s also much more difficult to find your own movie reviews. I finally did, after some searching. (Click on Your Account & Help; “See your reviews” is listed under “Preferences”) But since the Community section has been obliterated, we are talking needle in a haystack time here.

Then there’s the site redesign. Inexplicably, Netflix is determined to play up their Watch Instantly feature, and has been downplaying the regular DVD rental service, even though a vast majority of films offered on the site are still not offered to watch instantly. The site redesign highlights this, but also does something very detrimental even to the WI feature – they have eliminated the ability to sort titles.

Face palm, my friend. Face effing palm.

Now you can’t sort suggestions or genre titles by year, or potential user rating (the most effective way to sort). You just get a mishmashed (Not even alphabetized! It is truly a random sample.) selection of options, and I can just see a Netflix executive throwing up his hands and mumbling, “Hopefully you’ll find something you like in there somewhere…”

And then today, Netflix decided to no longer associate any user movie reviews with the individuals who wrote them! I’m not sure exactly what that will look like, but from what tey describe it will mean at the very least getting rid of avatars and usernames associated with any (existing?) review. I have no idea what logic (aka complete lack thereof) led to this decision, but it has once again rightly enflamed the Netflix user community.

Probably the most annoying thing about this whole demolition process is the “reason” they give for it:

...by removing these little-used features we are simplifying the review process.

First of all, what does “simplifying” mean? Oh right, that’s just a buzzword. And secondly, simplifying for whom? You?

Honestly I would love to hear an executive explain how removing identifying information from personal reviews counts as “simplifying” anything except maybe the coding of the web site itself, which is a spectacularly shitty reason for getting rid of yet another small piece of what’s left of the user experience on Netflix.com.

Sadly Netflix is the only DVD rental service still intact these days, so we are forced to use it. But man do they make it difficult to recommend their service to anyone. :(

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MQOTW
Derek: Do you understand that the world does not revolve around you and your 'do whatever it takes, ruin as many people's lives', so long as you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way?

Nervous

2011-05-26T12:24:00.000-07:00

I know I've written the last few posts about weddings, and I promise I'll stop soon. But this is on my mind, and I figured now is as good a time as any to dive into this subject. (For the record, this is about marriage, not weddings, which are two entirely different entities.)

Before my wedding, I remember a strikingly large number of people asking me if I was nervous. I'm sure the first few times I was asked this, I just sort of shrugged it off as small talk that people say. ("Oh you're engaged! Exciting! When is your wedding? Are you nervous?") But after hearing it over and over again, it really started to bother me. The time that most disturbed me was just a few days before the wedding when I had to go to a Catholic Church (not the one we got married in, but the one I was baptized in as a baby) to pick up a copy of my baptismal certificate to give to the lady at our church. And while I was there, I told them that I was getting married on Saturday and the church lady asked if I was nervous. I just calmly said (like I did every time), "Nope, not nervous. Just excited." But this really bothered me.

Here's the thing. I wasn't nervous about getting married. Not even a tiny, tiny bit. No small part of me was even slightly nervous. I was, and am, so confident about my relationship and my marriage and I can say with absolute certainty that our marriage will work. I am sure we will have unknown struggles ahead of us, but I have no doubt in my mind that we'll get past them together. So when they asked me if I was nervous, it just threw me off a bit. I see it all the time in movies. Cold feet, last minute freak-outs, etc. But marriage is supposed to be a happy thing, and also a "we are rock solid, confident in our relationship, we are going to be together forever" thing. So I don't get where nervous fits into the equation.

Maybe because I'm a newlywed I'm especially sensitive to the whole thing, but it just seems like not only is the divorce rate astronomically large, but the cultural acceptance of it is growing as well. Not that divorced people should be ostracized, not at all, but I just mean that since divorce is so common, it feels like marriage isn't valued as highly as maybe it used to be. By that I mean that when I talk to my single mom neighbors, they aren't like, "Oh how exciting, you are married!" but more like, "Cool, newlyweds." with a hidden undertone of "I was that once. We'll see how long you last."

I know plenty of people who have gotten divorced, and almost all of them for very, very valid reasons. Women who have found out terrible things about their husbands after marriage, wives or husbands who couldn't break a certain addiction, or returned to the addiction after the wedding, people who were abusive, or deceptive, or didn't have the same ideas about how to raise children. And it's all so sad. No one thinks they're going to get divorced on their wedding day. I'm sure few people say, "Well, if it doesn't work out, we'll just get divorced." Probably most people think like I do, that we're in the percentage of people who will make it.

I'm not trying to be holier than thou here, I mean, what do I know? I've been married a whopping three months. But what I do know is that the man I married has the same values as me. We want roughly the same number of children and with the exception of a certain video-game argument, we are on the same page about how they will be raised. We go to the same church. We vote slightly differently but we understand each others opinions and they don't contradict. We have similar family backgrounds. I know his family well - as well as my own - so there are no hidden surprises.

When people asked me if I was nervous, I think it bothered me because it gave a sense that there was something to be nervous about. When the church lady asked if I was nervous, it just really rubbed me the wrong way. We are all supposed to value marriage and want it to be a lifelong commitment, but especially within the church. Maybe they meant nothing by it, but to me, it carried a lot of weight. It meant that marriage is something to be scared of, not excited about. To me it just seemed odd that for so many people, that was a first reaction.

I'm not trying to come across as preachy and judgmental, maybe I just really lucked out. And I truly have no idea what a marriage heading straight for divorce feels like, so I can't speak on behalf of people who do. I guess all I'm saying is, it is my wish for everyone on their own wedding day to feel so confident in their marriage that their is absolutely nothing to be nervous about.

Am I totally off track here? Were you nervous on your wedding day? I hope I didn't offend anyone, but speak up if you have something to chime in!

Operation Bethenny

2011-05-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

When it comes to water cooler fodder, Bethenny Frankel has sucked up more time at work then I should probably admit on the internet. Everyone (who is female) in my office loves her. But who doesn't these days? As I can ~~shamefully~~ proudly proclaim that I have watched EVERY EPISODE from EVERY Housewives franchise (minus a few from the early OC days...), I can speak with authority on the subject that Bethenny is easily the best one. Plus, her Skinny Girl cocktail is to thank for why I am five pounds lighter then I should be due to my current adult beverage consumption.

Que Monday morning, when I completely outed myself for being on Facebook at work when I shrieked from my office "BETHENNY FRANKEL IS COMING TO DALLAS!" My coworker quickly ran into my office where we absorbed the details: bottle signing, various liquor stores in the Dallas metro area, Friday during the work day.

We let out a collective groan. How were we going to see her? That's where we devised Operation Bethenny, the details of which are, obviously, still classified.

On the day of the signing we executed our mission perfectly with one minor hiccup. Even though we got there over an hour early, we did not get one of the coveted 100 wristbands that guaranteed you to get in. Standing outside, rain clouds looming overhead, we decided we would wait regardless. Assured that she would sign as many bottle as we bought, we stocked up on a bunch of Skinny Girl and waited passionately in line.

Bethenny arrived early (awesome) and started ahead of schedule. My one complaint was that when we got inside the store we were informed she would only sign one item. This isn't really her fault, rather, it was the liquor stores evil plot to get us to buy more bottles. I decided I would rather she signed the book because I didn't know that the bottle would survive in a moment of weakness.

I got to the front of the line within 20 minutes, which is pretty impressive as I was about 200th in line. I quickly realized the the short wait was because you got approximately 5 seconds with Bethenny and a professional took your picture. I didn't mind though, I would rather everybody in line get through as opposed to some people being turned away.

When I go to signings, and I have been to my fair share, I have a bad habit of saying something stupid when I get to the front of the line no matter how much I have thought about what I am going to say. Bethenny was no different. I just yammered on and on, and ended with "Big fan."

BIG FAN? Dear God.

I was even more horrified when I found my picture AND I WAS STILL TALKING WHILE THEY WERE TAKING THE PICTURE.

Not to mention I was the only person in line in a suit. Oh well, it was still fun and I get to add Bethenny's book to my shelf of autographs. Sadly, no sighting of Julie, Jason, or Baby Bryn.

Now I am off to enjoy a cocktail, since I bought 100 bottles for all my friends/coworkers. However, putting all these bottles to good use is a plight I am sure I can handle.

[see more of Melissa over at Duoly Noted}

Book Recommendation, Anyone?

2011-05-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

The last book I read was called Boston Noir, a collection of short stories written by Boston-based authors and edited by Dennis Lehane. When I took it out from the library, I was unaware it was part of a series of noir collections of stories based in several cities around the globe, from Wall Street to Copenhagen. I got so excited about the idea, I immediately reserved a few more of the collections to read when I was done with the Boston book. But to my chagrin, I didn't really like the Boston stories very much, and when I sat down to start the next book, I couldn't get myself interested enough to read anything past the introduction.

Then I realized what I was really in the mood for. Something elusive; something I haven't read in a while... a romance. But a real one, you know? None of this teen angst, fanfiction-style, chick lit, vapid crap. I can't remember the last time I found something like that to read.

So, I'm opening it up to you, dear readers (all two(?) of you)...
What do you consider your favorite and/or the best romance novel ever written?

The next book I pick up depends on you!

(P.S. No Jane Austen, s'il vous plait. ;)

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MQOTW
Roy: You should ask someone else. There's no happy ending with me.
Alexandria: I still want to hear it.

Top ten reasons why our wedding was the same as the Royal Wedding

2011-05-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

I know the royal wedding is so two weeks ago, but I have been thinking up this post since then, so I have decided to share. On the day of the royal wedding I wrote on facebook, "The only difference between our wedding and the royal wedding is about 1700 guests." Ever since then, people have been pointing out similarities and I have since concluded that, basically, our wedding was the same as the royal wedding. A few differences of course... the aforementioned 1700 guests, the queen as a front-seat attendee (and grandma), and the fact that Kate became a princess, but other than that... pretty darn similar. Let's list the top ten reasons why they're basically the same, shall we?

10. Date
We got married two months apart from each other. In a lifetime of possible wedding dates, two months isn't much time. And considering that the majority of people opt for summer weddings, both late winter/early spring weddings counts as an unusual circumstance.
(Difference: February is winter and April is spring)

9. We both carried simple white flowers
In my case, I didn't want a big bouquet because I just simply didn't want to carry anything large, and I chose white because it was winter and we had mostly white and silver as colors, so I went with it. I can't speak to Kate's reasoning, but I assume it was about not detracting from her gorgeous dress and all that.
(Difference: Hers were actually more simple than mine! I win! Oh, wait...)

8. We selected the same reading
When I was watching the wedding, I was like, wait a minute! I recognize this! Her brother read a Bible passage that was the same as the one we selected from Romans.
(Difference: not really any. Theirs was read by her brother and ours was read by my cousin.)

7. Our bridesmaid dresses

Okay so my bridesmaid dresses came from Nordstrom and were nowhere near as fabulous as Pippa's but both were floor length and light-colored. MOST people do not choose light colored bridesmaid dresses, and in fact, most don't choose floor-length anymore either, so I'm counting this.
(Difference: a lot of money)

disregard the purple shawl

6. There were tourists there
We took our wedding photos in a trendy part of town where the reception was, and a tourist approached us and asked to be in our photos.
(Difference: They had millions of tourists, we had one.)

5. Both were streamed live
On that same note, both weddings were streamed live for viewers. Both our wedding and reception were streamed for people who weren't able to attend to tune in online.
(Difference: I think something like 38 computers were tuned in to ours, and lord knows how many people watched theirs live. But! An entire hall of a dorm where Tony's cousin lives did tune in for a bit there. I'm sure that happened for both.)

4. We both rode in a carriage
Well, more like, a bike carriage guy asked if we wanted to hop in and go for a ride down the block and back, and we obviously said yes, but it still counts.
(Difference: Theirs was an actual carriage.)

3. Same first dance song
Our first dance was to Elton John's "Your Song" because Tony sang it to me back when we were friends and he liked me and I didn't see that coming at ALL and he thought he was wooing me and I just thought he liked to sing.
(Difference: Theirs was a cover of the song. Also, Elton John was actually at their wedding.)

2. We both wore furry coats
After the wedding, Princess Catherine the Copycat changed into a different dress accompanied by a furry coat. Um, hello. So did I.
(Difference: Mine was furrier.)

1. The dress
Both dresses had lace on top over a strapless bodice. Considering the millions of wedding gown styles that exist in the entire world, you've gotta admit... they're strikingly similar.
(Difference: Hers was custom designed, had a longer train, was a million times more fabulous, and cost much much more than my off-the-rack gown.)

So as you can see...
it's all basically the same.

Right?

Ointment thief

2011-05-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

I think I have a weird habit of stealing other people's ointments when I'm on a trip. In particular, ointments I already have at home but either forgot to bring or didn't realize I had actually packed.

Years ago, I came home from a youth group trip to Arizona with a friend's hydrocortisone cream (for mosquito bites). I don't actually remember borrowing it on the trip, so it might have just ended up in my bag by mistake since we roomed (and tented) together...

Now, I recently returned from a trip to Virginia to find my friend's antibiotic ointment in my purse. I have two tubes at home, and never meant to take it, but for some reason it ended up there. I feel bad!

Why, I wonder? I must attract those things...

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MQOTW
Brody: That's some bad hat, Harry.

Wedding Recap

2011-04-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

So!
We had a wedding. It was lovely and fun and beautiful and a million other adjectives. We think it was the best wedding we've ever been to, but sure, we're a little biased.

Let's sum up the wedding and its surrounding events, shall we?

We got married in February in Portland, a city notorious for rain and overcast weather. In fact, the Saturday before our wedding weekend is the annual official "worst day of the year". So there's that. But there's also the trend I have noticed over the last several years which is that February is a tease month, sometimes offering blue skies and blooming flowers which make you think spring is coming, (And then it rains for three more months.) So we took our chances. And we lucked out! It rained Friday, was beautiful Saturday, and rained Sunday, Monday... and every day for about 30 or 40 more days.

My brother came home from Guatemala and my sister, bro-in-law and five kids piled in the car and drove up from California which was amazing. We had a full house leading up to the wedding but I wouldn't have had it any other way. I spent all week, including the night before the wedding, sharing a bed with my six year old niece. She had a bed set up for her, but she wanted to share. And it was so cute that I just went with it, even though she was pretty squirmy and stole the blankets.

The rehearsal dinner was just very happy. I just remember going to bed that night (at like 3am) and thinking, wow, my niece is squirmy. And also, wow, I am one lucky girl. People gave speeches, we cried and laughed, and my niece gave us a new catch phrase ("such the bomb").

On the wedding day, we got ready at a super swank hotel downtown. All the girls were in the room and we brought in a hair and makeup lady. Our photographer extraordinaire was there and snapped no less than 500 photos of the morning. I felt calm and relaxed and even though there was a camera in my face, I didn't feel like the center of attention. I just felt like I was hanging out with my girls. It was fun.

I don't think I can really explain what it felt like to get married. I was oddly calm and focused. We had a Catholic wedding, which meant it was about an hour-and-a-half, and contained lots of readings and songs, sitting and standing. I don't think I have ever paid more careful attention in a church before. I mean, seriously! We had picked the readings and songs ourselves, so it was all personal to us. We had all family involved, cousins and aunts and uncles did all the parts of the wedding.

So yeah, we exchanged vows, we were announced as a newly married couple, people cheered, we walked out, we had people ring these little bells, we got on the shuttle bus with the guests (yes!) and we went to the reception. Oh first my friends bustled my dress on the sidewalk in front of the church because we're classy like that.

We took fun photos.

We ate seriously delicious food. It was from a local Cuban restaurant. People drank, but I think I had two sips of wine because I was too distracted to drink and also because my cousin's kid knocked over my glass of wine and I just decided to call it good.

We had around 200 people. One of our biggest goals was "world's most awesome dance party". I think you could find at least a handful of people who would tell you that it was pretty epic.

Almost every bride I have ever talked to has said something along the lines of, "Enjoy it, it goes by so fast." I have to respectfully disagree. Tony and I both think that it went by at the speed of a regular day. We really savored all of the moments and it felt like a 15 hour day, because it was. An awesome 15 hour day.

This is kind of how I felt all day:

Wow! This was a long recap. Maybe next time I'll get into my tips and other expert wedding opinions. We didn't even talk about how we failed at feeding each other cake gracefully because we were super awkward ... and other fun moments!

Anyway the wedding was fun and perfect.
All of these photos are courtesy of our talented photographer!

Thanks for reading!

How lazy are we?

2011-04-02T19:25:00.000-07:00

I was in last-minute need of gift wrapping, so I headed out to my local Wal-Mart only an hour before store closing to grab the essentials: wrapping paper, tissue paper, bow, and gift box.

Well, they had the wrapping paper, and the tissue paper, and the bow... but when I looked for a gift box, there were none to be found. Not even a shrink wrapped 3-pack or something. That's odd, I thought. This is Wal-Mart. And why would any store sell all the gift wrapping essentials except for the box?!

I commented on the phenomenon to my cashier and she responded with, "They don't have those?" and left it at that, as if the conversation was over. So basically she meant, "Too bad for you."

Well darn it, I thought, I need a gift box! It is the most important part of the gift wrapping experience!

So I tried to think of another store close by that might sell gift boxes. I remembered there was a Walgreens in the area, so I headed over there with 30 mins to go.

Still no luck. I asked the cashier, who replied, "No, only the bags."

A ha. Gift bags. That's all these stores sold now. I couldn't help but think of what that says about us as a culture. People don't take the time anymore to wrap up gifts old-school style with paper, tape, ribbon and bows. Now we just stuff it in a bag and call it done. I think it's rather a pity.

Also it's annoying because now I still need a gift box. T_T

(P.S. I don't really understand why stores would sell wrapping paper without selling boxes, too. That, to me, is a conundrum.)

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MQOTW
Mark: As for any charges stemming from the breach of security, I believe I deserve some recognition from this board.
Chairwoman: I-I'm sorry?
Mark: Yes.
Chairwoman: I don't understand.
Mark: Which part?

The One Good Austen

2011-03-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

Those who know me know I quite dislike the works of Jane Austen. I'm pretty sure the main reason for this is that I absolutely abhor Pride & Prejudice, which has the misfortune of being her most popular and well known work. I fervently hate the character of Lizzie Bennett - she is the type of person I would avoid at all costs if she existed in real life. In fact, it is Austen's characters that disaffect me from her works in general. I find most of these personnages to be mere stereotypes: the rich and snotty woman, the meek woman, the arrogant man, the loose woman, the kind and quiet man, etc. Maybe the people who lived in the early 19th century were really that predictable, but I tend to doubt it.

Anyway, enough of that. For there is now one exception to my rule.

Not long ago I discovered that there is one story by Jane Austen and one heroine I find not only palatable but truly romantic and truly likable. The heroine is Anne Elliot, and the story is Persuasion.

I must thank BBC films for their contribution to my discovery. The 2007 BBC adaptation of Persuasion was gloriously filmed in the vast lush green landscapes of Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire and is magnificently acted by Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones.

The tale begins thus: Years ago, Anne Elliot was persuaded by her family and her beloved mentor to reject an offer of marriage from the one man she ever loved. Years later, he returns to her town. The resulting story is about priorities, guilt, and above all, patience.

The thing that grabs me about this narrative is that the main character seems like a genuinely normal human being. A good person who made mistakes and is sorry for them, has fears about the future, and is holding on to a love for which she has long since given up hope of fruition. The story isn't pretty or tidy or wrapped up neatly in a bow. The people involved come across as real people, and not just archetypal sentimental and/or angsty romantics. In fact, Persuasion isn't just a love story at all. There are money troubles and financial intrigue, family struggles and disagreements, secrets kept and not kept, and plenty of misunderstandings to go around (Shakespeare would be proud).

But of course, there's also a highly satisfying romantic grand climax, complete with rain. :)

All in all, I genuinely love the story of Persuasion, and I would highly recommend it to both fans of Austen and non-fans alike.

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MQOTW
Lysander: You have her father's love, Demetrius. Let me have Hermia's.

The Sound of Productivity

2011-02-26T13:31:00.000-08:00

Last spring I had a massive project to complete for a class that I had been procrastinating on for weeks. I had to create an entire advertising campaign from scratch, and a lack of confidence in both my technical abilities and my ideas had led me to (a) panic, (b) put things off as long as physically possible, and (c) panic some more.

It came down to one weekend when I knew I had to bite the bullet and work on this thing even if it killed me, otherwise I would have nothing to present for the class final. (Basically, fear of embarrassment was my deterrent to just not doing the damn thing at all.)

I can't remember what prompted me to put on Kasabian that day... but for some reason, I did. The silence was getting to me and I needed background music for the intricate work I was doing in a design program that required a lot of attention to detail. For some reason (maybe I was digging them more than usual lately?) I put all of the Kasabian tracks in my iTunes (at the time, just the eponymous album and West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum) on repeat...

About six hours and who knows how many album repeats later I had made so much progress on the project, I was almost finished. It was then that I realized I had discovered my perfect productivity music.

From that day on, whenever I have a big project to do, I follow the same procedure: clear off my dining room table, set up my computer, grab some snacks and my water bottle, pull up iTunes, put the volume all the way up, and play Kasabian on repeat, typing and click+dragging feverishly until I start to go cross-eyed from staring at the computer screen.

This week I learned that I had unknowingly missed the deadline for the final project in my winter semester class, on which I had made very little (read: no) headway in the last few weeks, and without which I would have an incomplete on my record (and thus not get reimbursed by tuition assistance) until I finished it.

Bet you can guess what I'm up to right now... and what's currently blasting out of my tiny Macbook speakers!

(For the record, at the moment it's "Running Battle," from the eponymous album.)

So what about you guys? Is there any specific music that helps make you more productive?

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MQOTW
Ferris: I quote John Lennon: 'I don't believe in Beatles; I just believe in me.' A good point there. Of course, he was the Walrus. I could be the Walrus; I'd still have to bum rides off of people.

Heart Truth Red Dress Show

2011-02-20T08:21:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite events during Fashion Week is the Heart Truth Red Dress show. First, because its for a good cause. Second, because ITS ALL RED DRESSES!!! And who doesn't love a good red dress?

Here are my favorites from this year:

Photo: Arun Nevader/FilmMagic

Adrina Patridge in Badgley Mischka

Photo: Jeff Grossman/WENN

Dita Von Teese in Zac Posen

Photo: Jeff Grossman/WENN

Garcelle Beauvais in Monique Lhuillier

Photo: Jeff Grossman/WENN

Ann Curry in Carmen Marc Valvo

To look at all the dresses go HERE

Awkward!

2011-02-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to random dating, but one of my resolutions this year was to more actively "put myself out there" in the dating world.

As a result of this, I recently went on a sort of date with a guy I met online. I ended up in a situation I'd never faced before (due to my aforementioned inexperience).

We had a very pleasant time, talked a lot, and if it had been any situation other than a date I would have thought nothing else of it, and chalked it up to a nice chat. But because there was that sort of elephant in the room I was more analytical than I normally would be just meeting someone. So, one second in I noticed I was not physically attracted to him. 5 minutes in I noticed we had very different interests in terms of hobbies and life experiences. 15 minutes in I noticed we unexpectedly had very different views on relationships and morals. Basically, I had no connection with this guy other than we both knew how to hold a conversation with each other for an hour and not be rude or deeply offend the other.

Problem was, at the end of this 'date' he asked me to hang out again. It was very cleverly threaded into the conversation so that for someone like me who hates conflict and hates hurting people's feelings even more, I agreed to the second date.

On the car ride home, I found myself vaguely panicking. My attitude went from comfortably low key to AHHH what have I done?! I literally had no idea what to do now that I'd already agreed to the date. I just knew I did not want to go on it, period. So the question was, how to extract myself without being mean. I'd never been in that position before, so I had no idea how to deal with it delicately.

Luckily for me, a friend of mine happened to call me to go out with her about not long after I got home. She is much more knowledgeable about these kinds of things, and so I asked for her help. We sat there and crafted the perfect text message for about 5 minutes, and then I sent it. Eeeeek.

Thank God she had been there, because I was completely out of my element. The message turned out to be the perfect mix of straightforward and nice, and his response was not angry or upset at all. He understood, and wished me luck. *whew* Crisis averted.

I learned a lot that night, let me tell you. Although I still don't know how to kindly turn someone down at the end of a date that has gone well with someone who you know you don't want to see again in that way, I did learn how to 'clean up the mess' (so to speak) afterward. And I learned that you cannot force a relationship. I mean, I already knew that, but now I have concrete evidence. lol. I have deleted my online dating accounts. I don't trust them anymore. It's time to just take life as it comes, stop making 'having a boyfriend' a priority and just let things flow the way they are going to flow. Fate accepted. Bring it on.

-----
MQOTW
Francis: I only remember certain details, but from what I've been able to reconstruct, it was raining, I was going about 50 miles an hour as I went into a corner, did some wrong steering, wheels went out from me, and suddenly, WHOO, skidded off the road, slammed into a ditch and got catapulted 50 feet through the air. Little particles of glass and debris were stinging my face as I flew. And for a second, there was just total silence. Just... Then BAM! The bike crashed to the ground, exploded and caught on fire, and then I smashed into the side of a hill with my face. I was driving home. I live alone right now. Anyway, two joggers ran up and started digging out all the dirt that was jammed inside my mouth and my nose and my ears. My brain had stopped, and my heart had stopped, so technically I was dead at this point. They did all the procedures exactly right, as a result of which I'm still alive.

Women and Wikipedia

2011-02-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

I just realized that Wednesday came and went and I didn't post anything. Probably because we're on our third day of being snowed in (er... iced in), and the days are starting to blend together. One can only stay in pajamas and watch movies for so many hours a day before going a little stir crazy. I'm not complaining, except for a few hours yesterday when we didn't have power or heat, I know I'm in the lucky portion of society that isn't struggling to find a warm place to sleep.

Anyway while I'm sitting here thinking of things to do on my computer (taxes- done!), I stumbled upon a NY Times article this morning about how women contribute only 15% of the content to Wikipedia. Fifteen Percent.

Here is the original post. I haven't even finished reading it yet, but in the discussion headlines, it appears that people are going to argue the following:

A Difference Of Communication Styles
The Antisocial Factor
Editing Wars Behind the Scenes
"Open" Doesn't Include Everyone
More About Power Than Gender
Hearing Women's Voices

So far I've only read the first one ("A Difference of Communication Styles") and that seems to be fairly accurate for me personally. She says:

Wikipedia, like the linguist list, is a site where discourse is not infrequently contentious. On ‘talk’ pages, where the process of article creation is hashed out, one’s contributions are often challenged, and some contributors, anonymous and otherwise, use rude and haranguing language. Such environments are — if not outright intimidating — unappealing to many women.

(The linguist list is something she references at the beginning.)

This is probably true for me. I personally just don't like drama, insults, attacks, or very strong unwavering opinions claimed as fact. It's not so much that it offends me, like she says, it's just unappealing.

I am sure I'll probably identify more with the other arguments as I continue reading as well.
My biggest reasons for not contributing to sites like Wikipedia are:
- I go to Wikipedia to find things out. If I see something that seems wrong, I'll just go to another site to confirm it, and I won't bother to update Wikipedia.

- I just assume other people are doing it. There is nothing I feel expert enough on to think that my contributions to that page will make any sort of difference.

- I mostly just don't care. I like Wikipedia for getting basics on things (recently I read up on the lineage of the Royal Family, and this morning the extended details of the murder trial of Amanda Knox... you know, random things like that. I told you I've been snowed in!) but I don't care enough about Wikipedia to engage in editing out pages or being the first to create/edit an entry immediately following some big event.

I have in fact edited Wikipedia before. Nothing big, I've added a sentence or two to pages, and I've changed some grammar where I caught mistakes. But I'm not big on editing, and I'm planning on reading the rest of this NY Times to discussion to see why.

You?

Do you edit Wikipedia, why or why not, and did you read this NY Times article, and what are your thoughts?

Any other suggestions for what to do when stranded at home for three + days?

A period

2011-01-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

I have always loved to write. I have boxes full of journals, hundreds of short stories saved on my computer, and a manuscript that that has been started millions of times (but I have never finished, le sigh). Writing is my creative outlet, even if nobody sees it but me.

However, the one thing I have never been is a technical writer. Case in point, in law school, I was working on a brief for a moot court competition. It was two in the morning and my partners were engaged in an hour long discussion on where to put a period.

A period.

(you should know how long I just sat here wondering if people skimming this post might assume I was talking about menstrual cycles. I decided that would be hysterical and promptly made it the title of this post.)

While they debated, I sat in the corner pretending to look up the rule in question on my computer. I really could have cared less about where the period went, and I couldn't imagine the judges for the competition would care that much either. As the discussion dragged on, I informed my team of my preference for the period (picked at random), and then I left - because my sleep was way more important then a stupid discussion about where to place a period.

In some ways, I think I always held a subconscious belief that if I got too caught up in the technical skill of the writing, that I would somehow lose my substance. That writing would become less intuitive and more critical. That is why I loathed legal writing, despite being such an avid writer. I hated the citations. I hated the Blue Book. I hated the rules.

Now, my entire job revolves around legal writing. My work is compared, analyzed, read by many, and all of a sudden I really care about whether I used that period correctly. For lots of reasons - partly pride - but also because I realized that what you write carries more weight when grammatically correct. I now find myself getting in passionate discussions about whether you can start a sentence with "but" (I still say no, but acknowledge limited exceptions). Whether you should start a new sentence with two spaces or one (two). The undervalue of the Oxford comma (once, I was so angry that what I was quoting didn't use the Oxford comma that I put in "(sic)" just to make a point!)

The summation of this is that I realized that technical writing skills aren't so bad. In fact, they are actually are really fun. So fun that I keep a notebook next to my desk of all the interesting new things I am learning. Like where to put the period.

90's Nostalgia

2011-01-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

Please enjoy a few of the awesomely catchy tunes that defined my middle school years.

Dieting

2011-01-26T12:50:00.000-08:00

I have never been on a diet.

To be honest, I've never really been all that concerned with my body weight and figure. But since I'm getting married next month (!), my darling groom decided he wanted to drop a few pounds before the wedding. I reluctantly agreed to diet with him. (I tried saying, "my dress already fits the size I am now!" but... I was overcome with the guilt of eating greasy fat food while he ate salads, so I caved. Plus, I figured if ever in my entire life I was going to care about my size, it should be now, the month before my wedding.)

So since January 1, we have been on a diet. We haven't done any sort of "official" or formal diet, we just stopped eating unnecessary fats. I haven't had cheese (except very occasionally in a salad or sandwich ordered from a restaurant), no desserts, no white bread. And in fact, I have lost a fair amount of weight. My clothes are loose on me, I feel and look thinner, and my dreaded little love handles have almost disappeared.

I don't know how much I weigh. I don't know how much I weighed going in to it. I actually couldn't tell you within ten pounds how much I've weighed at any point in my life. I am very lucky to be given a slim figure, I'm from a family of tall skinny people so I've never had to worry about it too much. I think I could eat fat foods forever and feel gross and get sick, but probably not become morbidly obese.

I know I've gained weight since college only because I saw some old pictures of me on facebook recently and looked super skinny. And I don't own any of those clothes any more, but I'm sure I wouldn't fit my old college jeans. But my weight isn't something that I think about often, or actually ever. Some days I feel fat, like probably everyone does from time to time, and some days I feel thin, but I think this has more to do with my mood and what outfit I'm trying to wear than my actual physical size.

I have a very carb-heavy diet. (I'm Italian, that's what we do). But I don't think that's what makes me gain weight, because I've always had a carb-heavy diet and so has everyone else in my skinny family. I think I just eat a lot more fats than I thought I did. (Literally, Tony had to tell me at the beginning of the diet that cheese is fatty.)
This is me: (It's a 13 second clip, watch it already.)

So the diet has been a learning experience for me. It's a lot harder than I expected, actually. I know that we are on an extreme version of a diet, and a healthy sustainable one allows you to splurge from time to time in order to avoid burnout, but... um... I miss my regular foods. I actually love salads, I just love pasta and Mexican food more. I have tried making whole grain pasta dishes with no cheese, but it's just not the same. Creating non-fat or low-fat meals is a lot more work than I expected too. I have about five recipes that I'm cycling through, and I'm getting a little bored with them. Turns out, when I'm home alone around dinner time and feeling lazy, my go-to meals are things like quesadillas with extra cheese, and cheesy pasta.

Besides the obvious weight loss, my skin has improved a lot since I began the diet. (Is that related? Probably.) Also when we first started, I was really hungry all the time, and now I'm satisfied with smaller portions, which has always been a problem for me. I cook for a family of ten, and then it's there, so I eat it all.

But what I have found most interesting to think about is how lucky I am that I just don't really even care. Suuuure, I care about being healthy. And I know that exercise and eating vegetables are important, but also... ALSO... I just kind of want to eat good food. My idea of a good meal has never been deep fried greasiness, so as long as I continue to stay away from fast food and bacon cheeseburgers (except sometimes with the bacon cheeseburgers), then I should be fine. Maybe not as thin as I will be at the end of the diet, but fine.

Of all the hundreds of reasons why I cannot weight for my wedding day to finally arrive, among them is the anticipation of finally eating anything I want. I plan on gaining back every pound I lost on my week long honeymoon. I have to! I can't afford a new wardrobe!

Let's just hope this isn't me on my wedding day (from How I Met Your Mother):

all my life i've been good, but now.

2011-01-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

another lifetime ago (known as 2007) in new york city, i was heartbroken and pathetic.

it hadn't been very long since i had dropped out of law school (made far more bearable by the lovely ms. melissa), and although i had scored a fairly interesting internship in the city, i was adrift and disillusioned. when heartbreak came, it slammed me over the head in a way that sent all limbs flying. how does one describe these things? i had broken out into tears at a europa cafe only days before, with a french mother and daughter awkwardly but tenderly pushing paper napkins toward me from one table over.

i'm proud to say that since then, i haven't let heartbreak consume me in such a weepy and public way. (instead, i take it to the bathroom.) but these are the results of running full-force into something we know little to nothing about: sometimes we learn, learn, and learn some more in the most unshakable, incomparable, terrible ways.

but this post isn't about heartbreak: it's about what comes after. it's about the cheesy, syrupy-sweet drag bars that your closest friends take you to on a particularly warm spring night.

somewhere in the middle of this, melissa and my good friend tim picked up my self-pitying mess of a puddle of a self and dumped me into a bar known as "lips". tucked away onto a sidestreet in the east village, it was decked out in fuzzy, bright things. the drag queens were patchworks of patterns doused in red light. we didn't bother with the table service. we headed straight for the bar.

of all the things we could have found at "lips", i don't think we expected to find a best friend in a bartender with a name that has stayed with me as being beyond ridiculous (was it the name of a state, like tennessee? was it the name of a liquor? was it cherry? it might have been cherry).

Ridiculous Bartender Name took some kind of cosmic, weird liking to me and my story of sloppy woe. she made sure that i was having enough tequila shots to drink a yeti under the table, and told me story after story about her own recent heartbreak: her boyfriend was deported and they had no idea what was next. she called me "honey" so many times that i developed this warm, lovely attachment to her that might have also been the tequila.

melissa, tim, and Ridiculous Bartender Name were all so good to me that night. tim overlooked his extreme discomfort with bathrooms labeled "!" and "?" and melissa always knew the right thing to say. they didn't even seem that disgusted when i threw the tequila right back up right outside the bar, hunched over someone's porch.

of course it was actually disgusting, but the whole night was also some kind of ridiculous relief. in being totally, absurdly vulnerably drunk with this sweet drag queen and two good friends, it was like i learned just a little how to open my clenched-up armadillo heart again.

i walked by that porch today, looking at the one and only public spot i have ever thrown up in new york city. it's a concrete porch with a flower planter that lies dormant. "lips", right next to it, is now closed. nothing has replaced it - it still looks all red inside, and the windows are smudged in a way that hints at the hands and heels of drag queens in the window.

looking at it, i thought about all of this - how it has no real meaning, except that it meant everything to me.

let's google destination weddings napa valley

2011-01-21T08:56:00.000-08:00

i am not getting married anytime soon. let's just get this out of the way.

but i do enjoy spending hours listening to others talk about their wedding plans. and daydreaming about my wedding. and omg, did you know they now have an entire tv channel devoted to wedding related programming. for realz guys. i am obsessed.

so the other day, a certain boyfriend looked at me and said that a beach wedding would be really nice. we could order up a couple of deli platters and some kegs.

kegs.

omg. i died. my wedding is going to turn out to be an american eagle commercial.

The cost of being a model

2011-01-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

Everyone knows models have a tough life. Sure there's the glitz and glamour, and in rare cases, stardom, but there's also the eating disorders and constant pressure to be 'perfect'.

You might think being a hand model would be easier, since those issues don't really come into play as much. Well, think again.

I might not mind being barred from cleaning, but to not be able to cook?! Ouch! Imagine having to try to shield your hands - the most used part of the body - from everything, all the time. I wouldn't be able to stand it! There's a shorter list of things you can do than can't. And wearing gloves all the time for protection? Geez louise. I mean, try just going on a summer vacation with that in the way. Honestly, I think this job has so many more down sides than up sides, it's not worth the millions you'd make!

You may have noticed I have been straying from my usual inclusion of a MQOTW lately. It has always been really difficult for me to think of a quote that pertains to each of the topics I write about. So I've decided, instead of getting rid of it altogether, from now on I'll just include a quote that I like that could have nothing to do with the subject of the post. I hope you guys continue to enjoy the quotes and maybe even discover some cool new movies in the process!
-----
MQOTW
Derek: Look lady, you can't just come barging into people's lofts, wanting sex,
then changing your mind, then telling them that they've been in a day spa for a week...

Sheryl Sandberg Talks About Why We Have Too Few Woman Leaders

2011-01-09T12:11:00.000-08:00

(video embedded above)

I stumbled upon this presentation given by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, regarding why we have too few women leaders. It is short, only fifteen minutes long, and well worth a listen.

Two parts of this presentation really hit home with me. First, that women systematically underestimate their own abilities. Sandberg gives an example, a study asking women and men to both guess their GPAs. What it found was that men predict slightly high, women predict slightly low. Additionally, Sandberg cited a study finding that men attribute their success to themselves and women attribute it to external factors. I don't know about you, but I see this on a daily basis, one of the primary offenders being myself. Its a quality that I didn't actual recognize until I watched this video, and now that I am conscious of it I am going to be more diligent about changing it.

The second part was make sure that your partner is your partner. Sandberg cites to a study that states that if a woman and a man work full time and have a baby, the woman does three times the amount of childcare and twice the amount of housework. I am pretty lucky in this regard, because Dan and I definitely split everything 50/50. However, we don't have kid - and I would be lying if I didn't attribute some of my hesitation in delving into parenthood over my concerns regarding what it would do to my career; whether I would be emotionally able to devote the necessary energy into my job when I had a child vying for that energy as well. Its something I think about it, and something I always admire in woman who are able to balance it.

The best part about this presentation is that Sandberg doesn't get into the reasons why things are the way they are, rather she just emphasizes how we need to change them. First, to make sure we sit at the table. Second, to make sure our partner is our partner. Third, don't leave before you leave.

I am really excited about this video and have been passing it along to all my friends and family. WATCH WATCH WATCH! Then tell me what you think.

2011-01-07T13:24:00.000-08:00

you know how sometimes you're just sitting at work. thinking about snacks. because someone decided it would be a good idea to put you in charge of bringing snacks to the weekend ski trip. but you realize you did not buy anything sweet. and what if you want some chocolate in the middle of skiing? and there's none to be found? and then you just decide to sit down and die on the top of the mountain. like all those dead bodies on everest from climbers who have just given up, but no one goes to retrieve their frozen bodies because its too dangergous? all because you had no chocolate. so you run to duane reade on your lunchbreak for a bag of dove chocolates. but then end up eating half of them during your afternoon conference call with your boss. because well. these things happen.

no? that doesn't happen to you all the time? hmmm.

anyway. if i die this weekend. please, someone, for the love of god, rescue my frozen corpse. and take care of my cat, harry.

Moving

2011-01-06T05:04:00.000-08:00

This week we moved in to a new house. It's been a lot of unpacking boxes and rearranging furniture. Let's just say, my arms are tired.
I'm sure once it's all set up I will do a much more exhaustive new house post (we don't even have Internet yet- I'm writing this on my phone!), but in the meantime, here are a fee observations I've made about the moving process.

1) I am so glad that a few years ago, when I had a fairly disposable income, I used my money to buy nice furniture. Even though it was a huge pain to take it all across the country (and we took it ALL), it has paid off. Not only because it looks good but also because it means I don't have to go furniture shopping again any time soon.

2) we don't have a washing machine yet (we will get one this week), but my clothes that have been packed away smell like... clothes that have been packed away. I plan on washing every single item of clothing I own in one marathon laundry session. I already started the very similar marathon dishwashing session.

3) consolidating two homes in to one is tricky for several reasons - blending of furniture, duplicate items, the fact that Tony owns this weird warrior stein and I have framed pictures of me with my friends (for example) that no longer have a place as a focal point in our married home. But I am happy to report that at least the first two of those turned out just fine. Honestly our furniture goes so well together! Even though we bought it seperately, its almost like we knew what we were doing. And the only duplicate item we found was a lone corkscrew (so far). As for the stein and other items, well... we'll figure it out.

4) I can't believe how many boxes I've opened that were full of things I'd forgotten about in the last six months that they've been in storage, or that I didn't even know we had. And then there's the random items that I can't believe I packed- I opened up a little box and there were lightbulbs in it. Really? I brought those? But we've already used one and didn't have to run to the store, so I guess I knew what I was doing.

5) just for the heck of it, I color coordinated my book shelf into a rainbow pattern. I'm not sure I'll keep it (you know, when I'm looking for Shakespeare and it's not in the Shakespeare section and then I either have to remember that othello is blue or just scan all the books. On the other hand, I didn't bring tooooo many, so maybe I will keep it. It looks pretty cool.
It's a subtle thing.

6) yes my closet is color coordinated. It is divided by style (tank tops, blouses, t shirts etc) and then by color within each section. Yes no one will notice this but me, but it still makes me happy.

Pictures coming eventually, we have some painting to do first. This girl does not live in a house with white walls for long.

to say; to not say.

2011-01-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

while it is still fairly close to new year's, i thought i'd share my resolution from the last year that actually, weirdly, unexpectedly went very well. it was: say something when it needs to be said; know when to keep your mouth shut.

it was mostly borne of the fact that i've struggled with this my whole life - not that i identify as someone that talks endlessly, but that when something is bothering me, or i'm hurt, or i'm feeling strangely about something, it's an ongoing struggle: say something? don't say something? i never know.

so, i decided to make a real effort to only say something when i felt like it needed saying (in the sense of trying to remedy/understand/clarify something that felt wrong), and otherwise conclude that it was best to keep my mouth shut. in some ways, i felt like this was the opposite of what a mature adult would do: a mature adult would speak up, solve, get to the bottom of it. i felt that if i didn't get to the bottom of things by talking it out or at least expressing myself, something would be... missed? things would go more awry? i would be blamed for inaction? etc.

but, something fairly amazing happened. i learned to keep my mouth shut in several situations, and things weirdly, wonderfully went back to normal. things that were bothering me or upsetting me or confusing me settled back down. i learned to loosen this tight grip of control i often feel the need to have on situations, and... it just was. it went on. life kept going. and it was weirdly, wonderfully okay.

i know this might sound amiss out of context, because of course we should say something! of course we should express ourselves! but strangely enough, in many of these situations, i found that just letting things take their course and letting them lie not only made ME feel saner, but probably anyone else that was involved, too.

in turn, in learning to trust when i should keep my mouth shut, my confidence grew when it actually came time to say something. the pressure felt... less? in learning to let go of the kind of "control" i wanted over situations, i learned to trust more what i was saying. i became less concerned about controlling the outcome and more concerned about saying my piece.

i found this last point manifesting itself in interesting ways: most recently, when i was in a post office, i overheard a man screaming at a janitor. he was furious because the postal windows were closed early (it was new year's eve) and he had taken a 1/2 day off of work to stop by. the janitor kept trying to explain to him that the windows had closed early for the holiday and there was nothing he could do. the man kept screaming and screaming.

i finally went over and just said, "sir, this man told you everything you need to know. he doesn't work behind the windows, so please stop." and he stopped. and it was quiet.

and it was weird. but it was just what needed to be said at that moment, and it was wonderful.