To the wonderful people who have visited this blog, near and far, I must bid you farewell on the Blogger platform. I have decided to embark on a more concentrated and dubious route, haphazard cooking, and you can certainly follow and visit me at Wordpress: thechanghustle.wordpress.com

This blog served as a wonderful outlet for the past five+ years, and I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing my streams of thought with everyone who has paid a visit.

XOXO
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Michelle Phillips

Michelle Phillips...  A timeless beauty.  Not a huge Mama/Papa fan, but Michelle was a looker.

One look at the doe eyes, center part/natural ombré color, and high cheekbones and...it's not hard to see why.

MP represented the unfettered, un-contrived beauty sought yesterday, today and undoubtedly, tomorrow.

Diggin' e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g- about this flawless look.

Chris Pardino

Cafe Wyrd, Mpls

Chris Pardino and I met when I was eighteen. I was working part-time while attending college in a caged hat kiosk within the center of the downtown Minneapolis Gaviidae Common Mall. The job afforded me ample time to make personal phone calls and wear $300 Eric Javitz hats.

Chris was the all-American and blonde front desk concierge.  Everyday he would flash me his perfect toothpaste commercial smile as I would duck hurriedly in the mall -- hoping my tardiness blended itself unnoticed within the muffled waterfalls and expansive marble. One day, Chris gleefully bounded toward my kiosk with unusual purpose, smiling his smile and wearing the navy blue “GC” uniform blazer awkwardly on his wiry frame:

“Hi-eye! I'm Chris!"
Instantly, I was blinded by red lips, white teeth, and electricity-charged blue eyes -- a human canvas of the all-American flag.

"Patrick called the front desk again. I told him you were in the bathroom…"
(High-pitched, goose giggles ensue)

"You’re always late!" This was our very first exchange.

“Well, don’t worry - if he calls looking for you, I’ll just say you’re in the bathroom.”

With a wink and a sort-of skip, Chris was gone and we were instant-friends. I can't believe this happened almost 20 years ago.

Shortly after we met, Chris and I crossed the line to best-friends-friends. I remember his cramped, eclectic and comfortable studio apartment in Loring Park, complete with piles of Details and Esquire magazines, cheap drugstore make-up (“Just in case”), eighties New Age dance music and random ladies high heels, size eleven. Out of nowhere, he would ebulliently jump up from his seat and dance around maniacally and make me underage cocktails, while I chain-smoked his Camel lights at the fold-up card table by the window. To me, Chris was exoticism exemplified: he was The Cure! Duran Duran! Boy George/Culture-Club-cool! He ran rampant in a world that my comfortably-middle-class and suburban, Caucasian-homogeneous upbringing could never offer. I followed him to gay night clubs and gay coffee houses (Cafe Wyrd) where he would disdainfully point out the dirty-old men circling the young, newly-out, boys.  I would sit in his apartment and drink his homemade more-vodka-than-cranberry juices and eat his spaghetti-from-a-can with gusto. It was all blissful and fun.

Chris was my first friend of adulthood and in retrospect and pride, I was the only girl allowed in his gay-boy Brat Pack. Sure, there were other girls he preened and chummed with, but none of them were one-of-the-boys or insider-insiders. I remember vividly...Chris, Jason, Sage and I: meticulously under-dressed in flattering white tanks and baseball caps; flush with suntans, cocktails and gaiety in the back of a taxi cab, heading toward the blinking theater lights on Hennipen Avenue. "We are thin and gorrrr-geous!" was our spontaneous, ever-obnoxious rant. 

 Our cab driver glared at us in the rear-view mirror, clearly disturbed and miserable. 

We didn't have a care in the world.

Years later, we would laugh about how I naively thought he was into me when we first met as I would console him on his abusive and married on/off boyfriend, Jim, and he'd put make-up on my unsuspecting, sleeping, and in Chris’ words, “beefcake” ex-boyfriend-almost-husband, Andrew, as I placidly watched, eating Doritos. We were inseparable for seven years.

As all loved ones of addicts do, I struggle to put together the pieces and the dates. When the hell did my friend, the humanitarian, effervescent and caring person who rode his bike religiously and performed yoga headstands in the living room begin to fall apart and mold into the red-eyed, nasty, mood-swinging, mad man who would not get out of bed? When do socializing and drinks and friends and fun morph into the lonely and alienating ill abuse of alcoholism/addiction? When, oh when, did he ever have the chance to sneak the vodka bottle out to spike his morning coffee, as I sat beside him, wearily eating egg whites?  And since when did booze and drugs make him hate/throw away a corporate insurance career that he so pridefully got licensed for?

 I was blind to it all, apparently. There were destructive patterns, of course: The taste for unattainable, inexcusable men; the high/low energetic spurts with no follow-through or in-between; the family who could provide an endless supply of six-packs and not much more. The utter loneliness masked with countless friends and going-outs...

But Chris was gone before he was gone.  Years later, I discovered beloved CDs missing: desperately and numbly sold for crack, cocaine, whatever. I saved the handwritten note over-pouring on the errant envelope, haphazardly explaining his utter contempt for our friendship due to his addiction, and his unrelenting pain in feeling it so helplessly. 

Chris left The Loft, our last apartment, together, in the first of many treatment attempts. His belongings were moved out by unseen hands and his phone was turned off. I was forced to give up our once-in-a-lifetime, inexpensive luxury apartment with exposed brick and whirlpool (!) in the pre-bustling Minneapolis warehouse district. It was the beginning of the end of things and our friendship.

A couple of months later, there was the one and long-awaited call made from a pay phone: The hour-long confessional complete with tears, recounting the good times and bad; the "I’m sorries" - thorough and clear.

Chris then again, disappeared, and that time, I erased him completely.  We had our closure and frankly, he had put me through the ringer.  I had nothing left to give: I couldn't be anxious or disappointed each and every time I heard from him in a good moment; he refused to be medicated or finish a treatment program, so bad things inevitably followed.

A couple of years later, I ran into Chris on a downtown Minneapolis street, exactly two weeks prior to my New York departure. I remember being irritated by his airy nonchalance of what was to be the biggest step ever made in my life; no more run-ins, no more nothings.  I was moving... and he just breezed by. Eye-level, one could see the red eyes, mottled skin. He was just high.

My biggest regret is that I didn't get to see the original face I remembered when we parted. Or the bounce in his step.  Nor hear the goose laugh that made all laugh.

I never saw him again.

Modern style

I love to study an interesting woman's style:  I adore the good, the bad, and the ugly, but eff the banal.  Banal to me would be the ultra-polished/finished, impeccably manicured woman whose life is ruled by her lipstick, nails, or shoe polish; although the discipline required to remain that coiffed no-matter-what is noteworthy, it isn't captivating, or at least not to me.  Banal is also the woman who dresses exclusively for men; the women who forcefully jettisons her assets and attitude and sensuality with too much calculation. To me, banal style is stiff and/or vulgar style(s) simply because the real woman and spirit disappear.

That said, there is no formula or prototype for je ne sais quoi: I mean, look at Nan Kempner; of course she was the UES clothes-horse who wore looks a little too literally (for my taste), but hey, she smoked like a chimney, danced on tables, wore Le Smoking sans Le Pants to dinner, and wore white bikinis with heels on holiday...my type of girl... There's regal-icy Cate Blanchett in copacetic Givenchy:  unusual, unexpected and dramatic clothes for a same actress...there is Amanda Brooks with her waspy air, extreme-sport alter-ego, and unabashed love of fur and Celine; I can see her with a fresh-scrubbed face and an over-the-top Fendi stole...  And we have to note that beauty habits integrate/influence:  I love how Lauren Santo Domingo is perfectly polished and yet, skips the ubiquitous manicure/trendy nail polish; I think her Into the Gloss interview started a boycott of pointless manicures by chic women everywhere. There are so many others:  my dear friend Bisi, an exotically gorge model/stylist in her skinny jeans/Comme de Garcon kimono/kitten heels/afro waiting in line for Tom Thumb fried chicken, circa 2000, Minneapolis:  crazy, funny and chic...just like the woman herself.

So there you have it:  female mystique is an odd and fickle blend.

Katharine, Phoebe, and Carolyn:  My go-tos for style-and-otherwise inspiration:

Time and Flying

I adore Fall; in its early stages:  the melancholy of a renegade beach day; the first day one wears wool or tall boots; the crisp and clean scent of a cool evening after 8 p.m....  I love everything that Fall has ever given me:  my first marathon, my first love, my first foray into adulthood, my first fancy party, my first job in NYC, my first of many heartbreaks and discoveries: slips/trips/falls...

And speaking of Fall's merits, Fall 2013 has reminded me that it's been awhile since I have written for this blog:  over a year, in fact. The truth is that I had given up on The Blog...

The past two years have had a full-on gamut of challenges:  and instead of dealing with all of my forks in the road, I was running on empty and in denial; as a result, it felt as if every glass ceiling splintered the top of my head, and every crack in the ground swallowed me up whole.  Yeah, that made me pretty grumpy, and I got into a wallowing, Eeyore zone of sorts -- a perpetual bad mood for two years is not fun or pretty to witness or experience.  I decided to cheer up/chin-up simply because unrest and unhappiness doesn't meant a thing in any grand scheme:  life moves on, with or without us...it simply moves forward....for better or worse, I could stay married/get divorced, be a good/drift-away parent, be financially reckless/responsible, be creatively driven/stagnant, or be caught up in any general nonsense, but either way, The Universe could care less if I dig my heels into the ground while doing any of it.  It's gonna keep-a-moving.  With or without me.  Or, I could get pancreatic cancer like my mother-in-law and fight to be alive; or to have hairs on my head, taste buds, and a working brain..which I haven't and am grateful I haven't.

So that all said, I chose to deal with the present:  shitty or fabulous.  I decided  to unofficially stay focused and positive because it is far less banal than being a boring and ungrateful ogre, or worse or dead...

Like many, for ten years, I have either been a mother of two, a wife of one, a juggler of many, and a perpetually undecided perfectionist/scatterbrain.  The experiences of such things have been invaluable, but the reality is that I tend to tread water in the same bay of thoughts while going nowhere but to the peripheral edges of my brain when I am stuck in a rut.  Challenge doesn't have to freeze-dry.  But it somehow, someway, has to change you, me, all of us... 

My message:  Think, but don't get too lost in thought...there aren't as many free passes and moments as they say there are.  Thank you, Mary Jo, my mother-in-law, for that dear and clear reminder.

Without further adieu,

I AM BACK.:)

I Heart NY

I heart New York.  I heart it, because every neighborhood diner, bus ride, deplorable and or fabulous block is like a small-town cesspool of mostly-well-dressed/well-educated, sort-of sociopaths.  I may sound like I am being sarcastic, but I am not.  New Yorkers have personalities - crazy and colorful personalities.  And craziness and color give us the license to be our own version of crazy, or have our own colorful take. 

I love the Too Cool act.  I love how the Everyday-Joe morning runners pretend to not give a damn while passing Carolina Herrera in her crisp white shirt and red lipstick on a ninety degree day at 8:45 am as they huff and pant (run) around the reservoir. I love how everyone pretends that Matt Damon and his wife and his daughter are not really playing in the sandbox @ 83 and CPW.  Leo and his latest supermodel squeeze just breezed past on their bikes all Hollywood-grungy and non-chalant and no one "notices"; Barney's (commission-based) sales clerks snub Fargo actress Frances Mc-? as she browses the sunglasses...  The truth is that everyone is looking back in the wakes, and grabbing their i-Phones...but as mentioned, no one gives a damn.  Not in New York.  We have reputations to uphold.

I heart it, here.

I love how everybody whispers their dramatic or dirty secrets in their apartments (for the most part), but while out on the street or in public or in any vast or significantly large (or larger than a 2-bedroom) space, these same people say things like,  "I get swamp ass when I do that, dude" (two seemingly-normal good-looking guys on bikes) or "Let me give you the rundown on my eviction notice research" -- this latter phrase was quoted by a disheveled-via-beach girl who voraciously licked the melted M&M chocolate off the wrapper for several minutes after finishing the M&Ms.  Mid-sentence, she began to accost the geriatric merry drunkards at the back of the train (on the LIRR en route to Penn Station):  "Hey!  Everybody come to my house for free driiiiiiinks!", which was met by silence because M&M girl was a)  Ugly, b) had Aboriginal-esque hair, a dangerously-drooping bandeau top and was using a dirty napkin to wipe off last night's eyeliner, or c)  Everyone on the train heard her talk about being evicted, so everyone knew that there was no house/drinks/money to buy drinks.

No matter.  A little humanity and indecency on a train ride or in a grocery store or on a street at the right moment is all fine and good:  we're not robots.  And in New York, you're allowed an anonymous crazy/embarrassing or bad moment - most likely, no one you care about will ever know or see it -- or not.

In either case, no one gives a damn in two minutes, or in a worse-case scenario, twenty-four hours, as the best thing about being a put-together asshole, rager or sociopath is complete and utter self-absorption.

Flamig Farm

Every year, pretty much without fail, we head out to Simsbury, CT (my husband's hometown) to chill at his mother's, be overall lazy, and take the kids every day to a place called Flamig Farm.  This year was no different, but some of the same old things appeared to be different...  My girls are not super-young anymore, and although everything in CT and at "THE FARM!!!!!!!" was still magical and fantastic, nothing was out of their world, realm or grasp as things once were not so long ago:  Englebert the alpha goat has been MIA for the second year in a row (goat stew, anyone?).  The kids could swim in the deep-end of the town pool  unsupervised (save for the five or so life guards).  My husband and I weren't fighting like a street gang over petty things due to novelty or sleep deprivation (and we even managed to go for a late night ice cream walk, hand-in-hand.)  My mother-in-law was noticeably a few years older than a just couple of years ago, and the kids didn't whine, not once, due to sugar or toddlerdom (Is there any possibility that is a word?) mainly because they are seven and not two-year-old toddlers. Seriously...where the hell does Time go?

Nothing and everything remains the same, and for some reason, I sort of got it this same-and-yet-very-different run-of-the-mill/extraordinary summer.

Crisis

The Chinese characters for crisis =

A little tidbit that made my day.

The Best Bday Gift

It was my non-ecstatic mid-thirties birthday.  Yes, I have my health, my beautiful children and many wonderful people in my life.  But, I had a crick in my neck that was agonizing.  I went out to lunch, and saw the MoMA Cindy Sherman exhibit with my beautiful whiny children and agonizing cricked-out neck; I'll have you all know that neither were cutting me any slack:  Not even on my birthday, a "non-ecstatic" event.  To top things off, for the 100th time, I heard:  "Mama, come look!"  In a whiny albeit sing-song, nonetheless whiny, voice. 
And then I  saw this on my pillow:   

"Sorry this is all I had.  Happy Birthday". 
As is she needed anything else.  
The best Birthday gift, ever.

Mitt Romney, Bully for Prez

Just as the teenager who painfully realizes he won't ever (want to) get laid with a girl comes into his gay identity, so does the ultra-conservative, anti-gay, moneyed, religious-hypocrite prick:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_print.html

Romney for President:  A bit incongruous with the country's Anti-Bullying campaign.

Unhappy Mothers and Crappy Days

Mother's Day has a bit more pressure to it than Valentine's Day or Christmas:  we mothers are supposed to relish in the fact that we are moms, and our precious, impressionable kids expect no less of us.  We are supposed to embrace and be embraced for the everyday, all-the-time, all-inclusive aspects of our lives and everything that we do.  Well, guess what?  I didn't do that today.  I don't know why I couldn't will it to happen.

For starters, my kids were fighting.  All day.  Whining, demanding.  All day.  It was hot out, and I didn't feel like going to the park and watching my kids on the monkey bars; I wanted to get some errands done and have some "me" time, which frankly, I get more than many I know as I work from home.  I awoke to find my favorite flowers, pink peonies, gasping in the paper packaging without water as they "stored" overnight in my husband's front hall closet (purchased last night in an effort to surprise me upon waking this morning as he is an inveterate late sleeper).  I know, I should be happy I got flowers, and flowers I actually like, but I didn't feel like scurrying for a vase half-asleep.

My house was a Red Cross level disastrous mess due to a messy husband, messier kids, and a scattered and hectic me.  I seethed and hissed throughout the day.  I threw a puzzle on the floor that keeps spilling allover my supposedly organized bookshelf (simply because my kids are normal and do not perfectly position it each and every time they play with it), and threatened to throw it away -- I then got tears in response and felt terrible and guilty for inducing such things on such a day.

 

 The above picture is after cleanup.  Notice the brush with the purse, with the vase, with the iPod, with the...

It gets worse.  I threatened to throw away a handmade card (how asshole-ish and Amy Chua-like, I know) citing that "words not actions mean the most".  Of course, I kept the card.  Of course, I reassured the child that I would do so.  Of course, I never intended to throw it out; I was speechless by how thoughtful and expressive the card was.  I told my kids the truth:  they were irritating me and "ruining" my day due to their incessant squabbling (did I mention that already?  Oh, I did.)  My husband "borrowed" some cash out of my purse unexpectedly and when out and about and discovered to be cash-less, I threw a text fit and sent him a mean, mean message.  How lovely. How spousal abusive-ish.  He even "paid me back" when I got home, and still, I was feeling slightly homicidal.

But, here it gets better:  I was about to throw in the towel and resign to being a bitter and unhappy mom-wife-woman.  I was about to give my husband the boot today finally and for real:  I was done with the mess, the sloppy parenting antics, the everything.  And then my husband did what he always does:  just when I was about to break, to really lose it, he made me laugh, as he is many things, but mostly, he is buoyant.  So, I did the thing I needed to do the most:  I relaxed.  I laughed and cried and stopped feeling sorry for myself --  I was a jerk today, and unfortunately, it happens to be Mother's Day.  I am not a jerk every day, but I was today, and there's no way around it.  My kids were irritating as hell, my husband is infuriating, and there's no way around those facts, either.  It is what it is.  We are who we are.

I am sharing this all for two reasons:  One, I am hoping that the facts written down will not appear as vile as they feel, and two, Mother's Day or not, it was a shitty day, and I am human.  Now, on to those gin-and-tonics...f-ck the green juice!  (Today.)

Healthy Roots

For all of the red wine, margaritas, French fries, calamari and gummy bears I eat, the above (tempeh on multigrain with organic veggie burger and raw fruit/veggies) coupled with a seventeen-years-long exercise regimen is the norm and staple; junk is only an accent.  I never really give credit to the healthy or good stuff, but I have to say that when I look at my life and lifestyle it is more healthy than not-healthy.  Genetics only plays a small part!

Gemini Shoes

The perfect tactile solution for cosmic karma issues or bad energy?  Jeremy Scott for Adidas winged ballerina flats.  White light for positive energy, and wings for those ruled by mercury such as myself, a Gemini.

urbandictionary.com

For a good time and an undignified, real laugh, log onto:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dookie

Just looked up the word 'dookie' as I thought I may have been mistaken on the meaning: I wasn't.

Girl Crushes

I was on the subway today, and an obnoxious guy in his twenties was up in arms over "girls who want to look like boys", meaning girls who wear "those oxford flats" and "loose" clothing.  I'm assuming he didn't get why all girls do not aspire to look like Kim Kardashian oozing out of a neon bandaid dress; or why ubiquitous amounts of girls don't wear false eyelashes and buy $600 six-inch Louboutins and toddle in them on unevenly paved NYC streets during daylight hours...  I'm assuming that he probably doesn't understand or doesn't want to know that "real" girls like KK don't really (off-camera) either...  :)

The thing is, women are beautiful creatures (especially without all of those things) and we're lucky:  Sure, the icons speak for themselves:  Audrey was elfin, Marilyn was sexy, Jackie elegant,Grace:  cold and symmetrical and crisp...but I could literally spend hours looking at Francoise and Katharine simply because they were the one thing that many fail to be:  they're interesting.  Perhaps it's the good looks that are both angular and classic, boyish and feminine, crass and class...the je ne sais quoi juxtaposition that every girl out there tries to achieve..

Hot-Hot-Hot Doctor

Crushes (while married) make life interesting; it's sort of treacherous and fun to be pushed to the edge of wrong and right, like my most recent one to date:

I recently went to an urgent care clinic; I have acute bronchitis. The doctor who treated me was probably twenty years older (I am 35) and damn hot: the kind of doctor, despite fever and sore throat and sputum, who makes you sit up a little straighter and suck in your stomach in the waiting room chair. So, there I was: sweaty, feverish, sallow, hacking up a lung, with this ruggedly handsome (the most incredible and steady hazel eyes, ever), silken-voiced doctor peering into my ringing ears (I hope they were clean) and flashing lights down my phlegm-coated throat. I felt an attraction, and what made it even more uncomfortable and exciting, was that I felt a sense of mutual attraction?! When the clinic called to follow up on my progress, the nurse immediately turned my antibiotic questions to the same doctor, who made matters worse and better by giving a slightly awkward phone consultation, which proceeded with him saying, "Feel free to call and check in anytime", which ultimately ended after a few awkward attempts (on my behalf).

I'll just put it out there and say that I have a very difficult and complex marriage: we've been through pretty much, everything, and have since retreated to the plateaus and plains of neutrality and banality, which is where we are safe and yet, stagnant.

Regardless of my own circumstances, I have always questioned marriage and monogamy, and I come from parents who have been together almost forty years. I think it's common and quite natural for many of us to start getting winded after 7, 8, and 9 years; some of us sooner, and the lucky of us, later.

While children and responsibility keeps me (and like others) pragmatic and grounded, I often wonder if all that trumps the consuming flush one gets from the pursuit of a new love, or the inspiration one draws from the anticipation of the firsts of many things...if I knew the answer, this question would not keep reappearing in literal and figurative type across my mind's sky.

So, I guess the options are to divorce; to wholeheartedly risk all for the pursuit (without promise) of wanton happiness, or to lock-in to life commitments and crush like crazy...

The answer for me always vacillates.

I recently went back to the 'burbs for the holidays; we spent nine days there. The first three days were great: the over-sized grocer, The Healthy Bagel that served unhealthy asiago cheese bagels the size of a face, the mass-market madness strip malls, the privacy of staying in a home and being transported in a car...nice. But of course, boredom set in; I am a New Yorker. By day four, I was starting to hear horror movie soundtracks and see double while trying to find creative ways to walk around my sister-in-law's cul-de-sac.

You're either a city person or you are not, which seems straightforward enough, but really, that's a lie. On paper, I am a city rat, not a country mouse: I have lived in Urbanity since the age of eighteen because I like the way that a major city sounds, looks and smells at all hours of the day and night. I can get lost without ever really being lost, and am a natural speed-walking pedestrian: cars, bicycles, and city buses have nothing on me, and I have the nine lives to prove it. Of course, I have been mugged; I shrugged my shoulders, don't condemn all short Latino men in leather jackets (my mugger), and I still forget to zip my purse up. I hate chain restaurants, like seeing more than one shade of person, and I get bored where there are not five things going on at once; if there is not imminent mischief (and/or danger), I am not all that interested.

So, I guess that this all means that I may be deviant, or quite simply, not a "suburbs girl" -- and I emphasize the word think.

What I know, is that at times, I am not a city rat; I hate holding onto a greasy subway rail still warm and slick from the last hand that held it. I hate old and pushy hags with brassy accents in my cramped and yet exotic grocer. I hate slow-walking crowds and not knowing where one hundred bucks went at the end of any given day. There really are times that I hate New York - and I know that I am not ever supposed to utter those words...but, alas, they are true.

This city definitely has an energy to it; one of many trite and yet honest statements that makes New York City what it is. I have always, no matter what, embraced this manic energy upon return, however, this time, I was different: I found myself unable to breathe in a not-choppy way. I wanted to smack an entitled mom-jeans-wearing scarecrow with broom hair (but did not) who would not stop talking in my ear and reaching over my shoulder as I was paying for my T-shirt... My average thirty-five-block-per-day hustle began to feel like it would to other parts of the country -- exhausting.

Although I will never move to the south, much less a suburb within the south, there was something nice about having some arm-swing space. There was something serene about not being proudly or ingratiatingly pushy or rude on a daily basis. There was something appealing about doing jack shit except stuff my face and drink in front of a television set for a couple of days.

I guess this means I am need a country house, which means that I need a lot more money, the common consensus, which explains the craziness of many of us New Yorkers approaching a certain age past those still drunk and "hooking up" in Murray Hill or the LES.

I guess this means that New York and I are going to have to once again, reinvent our relationship.

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Crime and Punishment

Minimal Mania

I have to say that I have never been one of those people who has Russian Egg closets, piles of treasures and knick-knacks, or finds long-lost government documents, etc. behind my toaster. I'm the type who knows where everything is (or where everything should be) mainly because I don't have a lot of stuff to keep track of. Narrow and deep is my motto: few but good friends where time has indeed, stopped; a bright and chic lip for some make-up, but not a whole lot else; a pair of good, real, earrings without all of the other costume extravaganza, and instead of an over-stuffed, mass-market closet, I will just wear my one-of-a-kind Karl Lagerfeld or vintage Moschino, thank you very much.

Yeah. I have always been adamantly, eccentrically minimal: almost sterile-sparse, definitely picky and sure, maybe even a little snobby.  In all aspects of life, I like quality over quantity, so despite being "fashionable", I certainly don't have a lot of clothing and in list format it actually looks pretty bleak:

3 dresses
1 jumpsuit
4 pairs of pants (only one of them black)
4 pairs of jeans
3 sweaters
5 blazers/jackets
4 overcoats
4 blouses
3 button-downs
3 pairs of shorts
4 skirts
4 pairs of boots (1 thigh-high, 1 over-knee flat, 1 ankle heel, 1 ankle flat)
(No pairs of dress heels!)
1 pair driving mocs
2 sneakers
1 pairs of sandals

(Of course, being the minimalist I am composing this list, I already see some things that will begin to make their way to the thrift store...)

I was once enlightened about the "pure" and minimalistic "Japanese way" of ownership: fitting an entire wardrobe on one rolling rack, and having it all be the best that one can afford. I must say, it was a game-changing moment; my anomalies and Spartan ways were finally given street cred! (Tellingly, the streamlined aesthetic resonated.)

While my closet is fairly middle-tier in the world of decadence and designer clothing due to my middle-tier (at least by Manhattan standards) resources, I have made some tight purchases that are willed to last throughout the years; I easily see the majority of my closet lasting decades with careful care and yet, with regular wear. While I have some mass-market T-shirts and tanks, and some Lululemon tucked away in my drawers, I'd like to think that I have a "respectable" closet: not a lot, but nice, but of course, maximalists like Anna Della Russo, would be mortified.

People ask if this is too limiting or boring:  it's not.  Limiting and boring is making monthly stops to Zara, Macy's, Aldo, Nine West, et al. (replacing cheap-but-not-cheap-enough things over and over) or washing something more than two times and having it look like something that's been rumpled under your bed for six months... (Don't get me wrong, cheap definitely has its place, especially if it's done right: take Target, aka Retail Crack, for instance.)

Just thinking that a pair of black Walter Stieger curved-heel pumps would fill my dress heel void pretty darn nicely. I dare say that these shoes are decades-long-in-the-closet material.


I think that a "well-edited" closet (and everything) could certainly be bleak in the wrong hands, but isn't having quality and control over one's life a little bit chic? In a world where more is often merrier, sometimes, less is just a little bit more. So, consider savings those pennies into dollars, as literally and figuratively, one "Chanel" sure as hell trumps twenty-five+ "Zara(s)"...

Dumb as a Fox News

Please check out the below:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/02/dont-let-your-kids-watch-chaz-bono-on-dancing-with-stars/

Then, please tell me that I am not crazy for thinking this psychiatrist is indeed, crazy; Dr. Keith Ablow proclaims on foxnews.com,

"If you care about your children, don't allow them to watch Dancing with the Stars" (Starring Chaz Bono) This was posted on September 2nd.

Really? Watching a portly, sort-of clumsy, baby-faced son (once daughter) of Cher bumble around on TV is going to bring Armegeddon upon us?

Chaz Bono is dancing and starring on Dancing with the Stars; some say he is on an unofficial tour championing GLBT rights; rights that in his case, are quite extreme and controversial; admittedly, some of the extremes don't appeal...If I was a man, I would not in any circumstance hack my penis and split it into a vagina, or vice versa. But to tell people not to watch Dancing with the Stars just because a transsexual is dancing on TV?? And to put that under the guise of protecting our children's sense of self-respect and identity? Uh, no.