Brand. Ed a Madwoman.

Recently Laurie posted various product recommendations. She followed up with a disclaimer that beauty product recommendations best be tried at places with no-questions-asked return policies. My immediate reaction? HAHAHA. I have totally made her A LAWYER, adding disclaimers to crap, avoiding liability! HAHAHA. I’m sure she will hate that, as she has no love for lawyers, save me.

p.s. When I tried to paste in the link to Laurie just now, I pasted in “Prior restraints on the freedom of speech require a showing of special societal harm.” Leftover CTRL+X from a practice test. That I failed. F–king bar prep. I CANNOT ESCAPE YOU.

Anyway, the first week of studying for the bar has not been fun. I called my doctor dad yesterday to ask if I was dying because my legs were so swollen. He told me no, it was just because I was sitting down for 10 hours a day. I’m sure this will do nothing but enhance my reputation as the family hypochondriac, but whatever. At least I wasn’t calling him to tell him that a 2-inch quadrangle on my lower left shin seemed numb. Like last month. Jeebus. I swear, I am a GROWN WOMAN (not too grown, 5’2″, but the SundayUndies family bones fuse early), but you wouldn’t know it.

Also, quick aside, related to bones, as part of my undergrad anthro major I took Osteology, which required that I be able to side bones. I got the only B of my college career because my severe challenges in spacial relations prevented me from ascertaining WHICH DAMN SIDE, left or right, a bone fragment belonged to. No degree of squinting and/or contortionism to position fragments along my own body — despite my classmates’ extreme amusement — helped. Nonetheless, to this day, I LOVE to point out your occipital, frontal and parietal protuberances. It brings me no small amount of joy.

Your zygomatic arch is not the point of this story, however. I was going to talk about Brand. Brand loyalty.

I am a sucker for brands, once they work for me. It’s shaming, this lemming loyalty, but Martha Stewart, whatever you will say about her, has never once failed me. My new paint job? Martha at Lowe’s. My favorite magazines? Martha and mini-me Martha, Blueprint. My Mac ‘n Cheese will always be Martha’s, especially after it staved off my sister from suicide after the 2004 elections. And I can’t tell you how many products I have purchased after seeing them in her magazines or shows — she rarely attaches her name to anything not of quality.

There are a few other brands that I hold dear.

Anything by method. Not petroleum-based, unobtrusive packaging, available at Target. The Trifecta of Awesome.

Chronicle Books. Has never done me wrong, bringing me the Bad Girl’s guides, Stuff on My Cat, and the Stich-It Kit, which I will, after the bar is over, complete.

Any alcoholic beverage produced by Francis Ford Coppola. Just last entry, I professed my love for his line. His wines are not always amazing but often are, and are ALWAYS reliable to bring to parties. Not to mention, HELLO!, champagne in cans, the perfect accompaniment to a picnic.

BarKeeper’s Friend. Dude, it cleans my bathtub, my silver (two candlesticks from my mother + one pair earrings = total acquisition of silver to date, I AM SO POSH), my stainless steel sink and pans, my stovetop, EVERYTHING! Delicate yet firm, much like tuna.

Anything from the Alterna Hemp line — for you wavy/curly-haired maidens like me: the texturizing glaze, volumizing spray-in conditioner, and spray shine.

Also, OK this next one is not a brand per se. Much like there are only certain types of slander per se. Did you know that? No? Me neither! This is why I created my own mnemonic device to remember slander per se‘s varietals:

Business or professional experience
STDs and leprosy
Moral turpitude crimes, AND
Fornication by a lady)!
Suck it!

What do you think? No one can fail the bar with a mnemonic device like that, right? The “suck it” is not exactly part of the device, I just add it for emphasis. BS, MoFo, suck it!! Can you tell I hate studying for the bar?

Anyway, I’m not familiar enough to love Orly as a per se rule, but have NEVER EVER EVER received more compliments on my toe color than I have with my current shade — Passion Fruit, part of Orly‘s Hot Neons collection.

Men, women, children, my cats (I can tell, really!), they love it. I would include a pic of what it looks like on my toes, but as I mentioned above, all this sitting has my legs looking like I’m suffering from a mild case of elephantitis, so I’d rather not share a pic of the sausage casings that pass for my toes nowadays.

And oh, what the hell, a couple more:
– Rough Guides
– Touchstone Pictures, 1986-1991

So that’s it! My brands, my loyalty to them, my descent into madness. Courtesy of the California bar. BS, Mofo! Suck it!

p.s. I continue to accidentally delete comments in trying to delete comment spam, I’m sorry. After the bar (my mantram now, apparently), I am going to upgrade and eliminate this problem. I am also going to drink a lot. And go to South America for a month. But that is neither here nor there.

Real Women Have Curves. Or Not.

Well, I finished painting my living room and kitchen:

And I finally feel like a real person again — just in time to start learning THIS:

In the next eight weeks. Crap. Thank you, CA bar examiners! Ack.

I think I’ll be returning to my finals routine, where the only non-studying activity I have to look forward to is watching “The Barefoot Contessa” every night at 11 after I’ve had enough.

What I love about Barefoot Contessa is that she seems like a normal, if slightly uppercrust gal, but kicks ass in the kitchen.

Occasionally, though, I find myself thinking thoughts like, “Oh, yeah, of course her food is awesome! She has her own freaking GARDEN and lives in the HAMPTONS and what does she do all day but cook?”

This is an unattractive part of me. Unfortunately, I have noticed that it’s not a trait I hold alone.

I don’t know what it is, but women just really seem to cut one another’s accomplishments down all the time. Have you noticed this? I don’t know quite what the source is — maybe it’s because we’re told all the time we can’t have it all (professional or personal success: choose one, bitches!). So if someone seems to have it all, it feels like an indictment of ourselves. We have to find the ways in which she DOESN’T have it all to feel better. Whew! She’s just as incomplete as I am!

I don’t think men do this same thing, do they (hello, three male readers, can I get a wutwut?)?

You hear about the Mommy Wars. Either life path or combo you choose, you come up short in someone’s eyes. And this blogger I read, Jonniker, recently posted something about how we look askance at women if they’re too heavy, and accuse them of anorexia if they go on a diet. Again, you’re one or the other, screwed either way. And I’m embarrassed to say that in that very small, mean black place in my heart, when single in the past, I’ve comforted myself with, well, she only has a boyfriend because she settled. Like, she couldn’t have one because, as is more likely, she rocks and happened to find someone who noticed! Because what does that say about me?

But you know what? THANK G-D, unlike the #$$^^% California bar, LIFE is not graded on the curve! Our successes are not diminished by someone else’s! We don’t lose our chance for love because someone else finds it. We aren’t destined to mediocre cooking just because someone else is lucky enough to have an herb garden she can roam around barefoot in. And just because someone else goes on a diet doesn’t mean that we have to get defensive about our own weight and accuse her of anorexia.

This is what I’m trying to remember, in any case. The Barefoot Contessa doesn’t deserve any judgment, any more than I do, or you do.

Some women have curves. Some don’t. But we certainly are not graded on one.

Now What?

You know when something really big ends, and you’re left wondering, “now what?” That’s where I’ve been.

But first, thank you so much for all your congratulations! They made me so happy!

Graduation weekend was amazing. I had an awesome grad night dinner at Luna Park with Laurie, Gloria, Amber, Penny and my parents. There, I requested mayonnaise with my fries, and when the waiter remarked, “How very European of you,” I am totally embarrassed of how secretly pleased I was. Of course, I’m pretty sure I immediately eviscerated any appearance of culture when I started collecting everyone’s plastic monkeys, bulls, giraffes, etc. from their cocktails for my home collection of Plastic Crap I Got For Free In Bars.

I also met all The Boy’s family, who were all wonderful (THANK G-D). And I only managed to horribly embarrass myself once, spilling half-and-half all over his sister while making her, her boyfriend, The Boy and my family a Barefoot Contessa brunch. Luckily, his sister is kind of glamorous and with that comes grace, so she reacted kindly to my gaffe.

But now, now all the stress, fun, and stressful fun is over. And I’m in a holding pattern, waiting to start studying for the California Bar.

And I’m tired. And kind of sick.

BUT, this week hasn’t all been for naught. I did paint my bathroom, woohoo!

And made some roasted tomatoes.

And we attempted asparagus ravioli, one of my worst culinary failures yet. Picture piles of limp, empty ravioli floating in a sea of riccotta and asparagus slivers and you get the idea.

Luckily, we had a bottle of the same wine we ordered for my 30th in Guatemala at Francis Ford Coppola’s La Lancha resort.

Wine makes everything takes better.

Also, I’ve watched a lot of basketball, and I have to say, I love the Suns’ Steve Nash. He makes the game FUN to watch. Also, isn’t it kind of weird that The Jazz are now in Utah? The crowd is composed solely of blonde whiteys! It’s more like, jazz hands there, dude. No offense, if you are from/live in Utah. Or if you are blonde. Or white. Or like jazz hands. Love me some jazz hands, especially when made by some blonde whiteys!

Now I’m working on painting my living room, but I’ll finish that tomorrow morning. And I know it’s a little too late to do find a new hobby in the next three days before studying for the Bar starts for real — but what would you do, if you were me? What movies would you see? Songs would you download? Books would you read? Activities would you engage in?

Gimme some (more) love — now what?

DONE.

1. Papers done! Graduy tomorrow!

2. Paper zits. Much like paper cuts, only more painful and more frustrating when you’re about to meet your boyfriend’s entire family.

3. Finally! My Ralph’s doesn’t carry B&J’s AmeriCone Dream, but finally I found some at another store. I love me some ice cream from the man who brought us this.

4. As a post-paper-#1 splurge, I bought Grain de Folie perfume, based on this review by this food blogger I read, and I am loving it! It’s so funny how you can put on a perfume that you love and stop smelling it within 5 minutes, but a new one haunts you all day long!

It came with some matching moisturizer, with a bizarre disclaimer:

Apparently it moisturizes the upper skin layers only. Um, OK, I assumed all products just moisturized the upper skin layers only. There are products that don’t?? Perhaps the French are smarter than we are?

5. I am done, done, done!!!

The Panic Is Settling in Slowly, Like an Exaggerated Caffeine Headache

Paper due Monday at noon. 10 pages written. 20 to go. Writing about global climate change (I heard something about polar bears the other day?).