Pedophilia as Entertainment?

I have a new unhealthy obsession. I don't quest after Forensic Files and Cold Case Files or the defunct old show "Autopsy" on HBO anymore. Or even faked forensics like CSI or SpikeTV's new (game?) show Murder.

Nope.

Move over Court TV. My new addiction is MSNBC and my new favorite show, To Catch a Predator. From the idiot child predators to the cheesy host, Chris Hansen, I cannot get enough of this stupid show! I used to run across it once in a while but now I am on the prowl, looking for it every time I turn on the TV.

What does it say about our society, when we have turned the creepy and depraved into fodder for our own entertainment? Men lusting after young teenage girls and boys on the net (ewwww), whether one believes they are being trapped or not, should not be what we watch to unwind and enjoy our leisure time. But somehow, I can't take my eyes off it. It's just a trainwreck.

How morally depraved are we as a society? And in the meantime, NBC is cashing in. And I am happily helping them.

And you thought pedophilia wasn't funny!?!

Me & Larry on a Dreary Sunday

I haven't been truly blogging for awhile. I posted an AICI retreat recap, but haven't been sharing my bizarre insights for the last couple of weeks. Was anyone out there actually missing them?

Today's blog entry is going to read like Larry King's column from the Life section of USA Today (famously parodied by Norm MacDonald on SNL many years ago). Just crazy free association. So enjoy! (or something)

1) Hot rollers are back in style!
It's true! Jen Gonzalez, the awesome hair expert from Joey & Me in Amherst, OH (Joey is her mom) told us this at the image retreat last weekend. I remember being 5 years old and my mom running around the house with hot rollers in her hair. I have tried them on and off over the years with varying results. But now that I understand my hair - it's very fine, but there is a ton of it - and how to use products properly (thanks to my stylist Julia at Jenniffer & Co!), I wanted to try hot rollers again on my super straight hair. And you know what? They worked! Since my hair is the longest it has been in years and years, it gives me another styling option. Yay!

2) My new bracelet!
While waiting for Coach Joelle to arrive to do some shopping Thurs night, I spotted a weird bracelet in the jewelry case at TJ Maxx. I had to have it. It was lime green with a black dot in the center - each link almost looks like an eye. And then I realized exactly why this attracted me.

It looks like Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc.


3) Monkey Patrol
I am on serious cleaning duty this week. My stuff - mainly my obscene amount of clothes and shoes - are in my way and getting on my nerves and most importantly are getting in the way of my book writing.

4) Bye Bye Kel :(
As I am typing this, my dear little Kelly is en route to NYC. I know she is not happy about going, but this is her senior year at FIT and she will come back home for good in May. I was so glad that she was able to participate in our retreat this past weekend! Not only did she attend, but she was a SPEAKER as well! I am so proud of that girl!!

5) KK: Techie
I think I am hanging around too much with Dan Hanson, the Great lakes Geek. Instead of me having a positive influence on him (his complete absence of fashion sense - it's very intentional - borders on legendary), I am starting to buy up domain names and build e-commerce sites and web portals. I have several in various stages of development right now, so I won't announce anything until it's time to officially launch. I'm also rebuilding my own site to reflect more of where my business is now and where it is headed (I don't work with personal clients too much anymore - I mainly only take pre-qualified referrals and past clients now. It's a part of my business that never made me happy, so I'm dropping it for the most part.)

6) FUN, FUN and MORE FUN
Speaking of which, I have recently vowed to live my life based on one principle: I will only do things if they are FUN. There you have it - Coach Joelle's influence on my life (and it is quite profound) in a nutshell. I want to have a fun and exciting existence. I thrive on it. Everything I do has to have an element of fun or else it makes me not want to do it, which leads me to be miserable (decidedly NOT fun). I had to figure out how to make monkey control fun. (I put on my favorite Mystery Science Theater movies or episodes of 30 Rock from NBC.com as background noise. I love 30 Rock, btw. I wasn't so sure about it at first, but I totally got it after a couple of episodes. TV for smart people. What a concept! Alec Baldwin is a comedic genius and can someone please explain why Tracy Morgan is so hilarious? I remember seeing Tina Fey at Second City Chicago in 1996! Who knew!)

Okay, have I rambled for long enough? I think I'm finally out of things to talk about. Good. Back to the monkeys....

Image Consultants Invade Cleveland

It was my pleasure to host a 3-day retreat here in Cleveland this weekend as president of the Association of Image Consultants Ohio-Pennsylvania Chapter!

It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime life and business transforming event.

We had people come to town from Cincinnati (Hey Lisa and Jill! So glad you were here!!), Columbus, and even Pittsburgh!

The weekend started with a trip on Lolly the Trolley. As I was getting my hair done earlier that day, my hair stylist Julia told me that Lolly the Trolley was "so retro." It is? Hilarious! I remember taking a trip on it in 6th grade. So I guess it IS retro!

We had the best time on the trolley and it gave the folks from out of town a quick perspective on our host city and gave those of us who were born here a lot of facts we didn't know. (Chef Boyardee is from Cleveland? As is John Heisman, for whom the Heisman Trophy is named.)

My dear friend LisaMarie Luccioni then led us in an etiquette dinner at the Metropolitan Cafe and Kelly and I went to the Velvet Dog afterward. I stayed out a little late, with the full knowledge that Saturday was going to be one long day.

Saturday was amazing. Our day started out with Coach Joelle who had us drawing and dancing and somehow we formed a conga line and were conga-ing around the conference room at the Downtown Marriott. (KK is one girl who hates looking like a dork, so this was an interesting experience!) We then heard from Leslie Carruthers, The Search Guru on search engine optimization. SEO is such a mystery to most of us image people. But I'm learning! (I'm trying to learn HTML with a book whose main character is a 3.5" floppy disk illustration with a face - HTML for kindergartners. I promise not to tell Mr. Floppy that he is obsolete.)

After presentations from Kelly Smith on hearing Martha Stewart speak about business in NYC and Debbie Carney on business organization, I did a program called "Getting to the Next Level Now: Platform Building for Impatient People!"

After our day of learning, we laughed, drank and dined at Ponte Vecchio on the Superior Viaduct and went to Sunset Lounge for salsa dancing! I think I almost broke my ankle twice in my 2" platforms, with Leslie leading and me following - badly.

Sunday, we had hairstylist Jen Gonzalez, who studied with Nick Arrojo, from TLC's What Not to Wear. That was quite eye-opening for me. I admit I know far too little about doing my own hair, let alone someone else's. And YAY! LisaMarie let her own hair down and graciously allowed Jen to play with it - transforming her into LML v.2.0 - hot and gorgeous!

Then we heard from my friend Samuel Hilliard, Jr. from Jos. A Bank Clothiers at Legacy Village, who discussed the importance of building partnerships with clients and vendors and explained the specifics of menswear.

All in all, it was a thoroughly fabulous weekend for all of us who attended and presented and we are looking forward to doing it again next year!

More About Me

As I'm pulling together a new site, we're doing a little introspective exercise about our own style. Here's what's going up on the site along with our bios:

My style mantra:
Always appropriate. Never boring.
My personal style reflects the way I live. Trust me, it’s way more fun this way!

Biggest crime of fashion:
Not having your clothes tailored. Tailoring is relatively inexpensive and takes your clothes the extra mile from looking great on the hanger to looking great on YOU.

My favorite rule to break:
“A little pattern goes a long way.”
I love wearing more than one pattern. I will wear stripes with leopard, polka dots with zebra, and checks with floral. As long as it’s done subtly and isn’t garish, it’s my favorite way to break from the boredom of solids.

One thing I will never wear:
Anything taupe. It’s a difficult color for almost anyone to pull off, but makes me look especially putrid.

Accessory I can’t live without:
Super high heels, of course! The antidote to being short!

I confess:
I once used a glue gun on the sleeves of a designer suit when I didn’t have time to have them altered. Gulp! I can’t believe I admitted that! I think my tailor wanted to kill me.

My favorite style splurge:
When I find something I can’t live without. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I know it will be on my mind until I have it. I have several of these items in my closet, and I still love them as much as the day I bought them.

My favorite cheapie item:
Makeup! I buy cheap-o makeup everywhere I go. Anywhere that sells “drugstore” makeup brands is fair game. I have a giant bin of lip gloss. Sad, I know….I need an intervention.

My favorite fashion quote:
“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”
From my favorite playwright, Oscar Wilde. True in Victorian times. Still just as true today.

The best style advice you ever received:
Love it madly, need it badly, or don’t buy it.
I can’t tell you how much money that has saved me over the years!

The best part of what I do:
It is my privilege to spread a message to the world that is fun and empowering – love yourself no matter what, understand how your image affects your career aspirations, and dress your unique spirit.

And it’s part of my job to look cute every time I leave the house!

Save the Dates

Following on the heels (hehe, SHOES!) of Style & Cocktails are three events I would like to tell you about.

September 27 - Style in the City

Another informal cocktail party - yes, the drink of choice will be cosmopolitans.

Guys are welcome too, of course!

November 3 & 4 - “A Kick in the Closet”

Do you have clothes you want (or in my case, need) to get rid of? This will be a sort of clothing sale and swap. If the styles are current, new or almost-new, you are welcome to sell. If they just need to get out of your basement (like mine), we will create a “give-and-take” opportunity.

Whatever is left can be taken home or will go to charity.

December 11 – Candy Canes & Cocktails

Our holiday get together!

We are still working on all the details, including venues, but please put these dates in your calendar and I will keep you posted!

Connected in Cleveland

I knew I had a fabulous party last week downtown. Style & Cocktails was a great time. I invited my friends, associates, past and current clients, and the readers of my newsletter.

I have had comments rolling in since the day after the event. People want to know when we are going to do it again.

I have found that creating a strong sense of community is important for people - especially women. For those of us in the business community, there are a lot of networking opportunities, but not a lot of chances to build really strong social networks. Networking relies on symbiotic business relationships, whereas social networks needn't be as selective. We just gravitate toward certain people.

I have noticed that all of my friends and those I associate with most all have some key ingredient of their personality or spirit that is similar to mine - whether ambitious, generous, energetic, sympathetic, kind or funloving (those are the ones that spring to mind). I never noticed that I was doing this, but when I look at my social landscape, it is quite evident that this has been happening all along.

I know perhaps a handful of people in Cleveland who feel a strong need to connect people on a social level in the same way I do. To me, that is a little sad. If those precious few of us were not creating opportunities to come together, then no one would.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not patting myself on the back for this. It's an inherent part of my being that I have a strong need to bring people together. It hasn't always been there, but the need is especially strong now.

My next step is to take my career onto the national stage with my book, so business networking locally isn't really necessary these days. I don't have to plan parties, but I feel a certain satisfaction when I see four people who never met before sharing drinks and laughing and enjoying each other's company. Why there isn't more of this in Cleveland, I will never know.

At the party, in addition to the usual suspects (Kel,Wendy, Joelle) there were two other image consultant friends of mine and other beauty industry people, a nurse, lawyers, people in the publishing industry, techies, a radio traffic anchor (Hey, Sandy!), lots of entrepreneurs, etc. An ecclectic bunch, to be sure. And yes, my ego was happy that the common thread for everyone there was me, but to see them finding other common ground and making plans to communicate beyond our little get together was what truly delighted me.

My mom even came all the way from the east side, had two chocolate martinis (got a little tipsy) and a wonderful time that she is still talking about. I think she finally understood what it is that I do (besides my style seminars she has attended). Now she sees the wonderful people I am privileged to call my friends and the marvelous sense of community that is possible when someone takes the initiative to make things happen.

So many of us gripe that there is nothing good happening in Cleveland. Sometimes I'm one of them. Sometimes it's easier to believe the bad stuff. But it's a much more pleasant place when you know that there are good people living here with whom to connect. Grab a cocktail, and share a fun conversation.

I would like to put out the call to everyone in town (and everyone who reads my blog as well). Learn to be a catalyst that brings people together. Whether it's your co-workers, a group of old friends, or your friends who don't know each other who might enjoy each other's company. It's doesn't have to be large scale. It can just be a little gathering of a few.

Other people can add spice and interest to our lives. I realized that in the six short years that I have been back in Cleveland what a lovely and diverse group of friends I have acquired. And I love them all.

Our next "official" opportunity to get together will be ~

on September 27th.

Check back for details!

Fun in the City

I haven't been blogging this past week because I am deeply entrenched in another event I have the privilege of hosting here in Cleveland.

The Association of Image Consultants International OH/PA Chapter (I am the prez!) is having an education retreat here August 17-19. Very exciting for those of us attending and presenting. We've actually opened it up to local business people or anyone interested in image as a profession. This is our first stab at something so ambitious. We have invited the worldwide organization, booked some fabulous speakers (ok, most are my buddies, but fabulous nonetheless), and are just going to have an awesome time. Image consultants can PARTY! And we look really good in our party clothes!!

Here's the link.

I will admit I am the most excited about the stupid Lolly the Trolley sightseeing tour. I haven't a clue why. All this great stuff we have planned and I want to ride around on a trolley in the city I'm in every day.

So anyway, speaking of fabulous times, my party, Style & Cocktails, this past Monday was a big hit. Can't wait till the next one!

Here is a collage of pics from it! For the full event details and to put names with the smiling faces, check out ClevelandWomen.com!