My Life in the Closet

Random thoughts about women and their clothes

I've been at this a long time, friends, and every time I am in a closet, I learn a new insight or some piece of knowledge I already have is reinforced. Here are some of my observations and several truths about women, closets and shopping. You just might see yourself somewhere in here...

A woman's closet is a glimpse into her psyche. Cluttered closet, cluttered mind.

Receiving clothing as gifts is not a gift at all if you don't like them and won't wear them.

I don't know any woman who doesn't rely too much on black.

Buying the best quality you can afford beats out a bunch of cheap items any day.

A good tailor is your wardrobe's best friend. Also know how to sew a hem and do emergency repairs - I'm working on this myself.

The shades of watermelon, mint and teal blue look great on pretty much anyone.

Never underestimate wearing the right underwear - every outfit you own may require a different strategy!

Do you want people to compliment you or your outfit? There's a huge difference!

Fashion and style are contradictory terms.

Understanding what colors and contrast levels work for you is the first step in controlling your closet.

Dress appropriately for your climate. I am asked about turtlenecks all the time. Yes, they are okay if you live in Cleveland, ladies!

Most women want to look younger and hipper, but all say they don't want to look too young, trendy or silly (of course!).

So many women are challenged by shopping for jeans. If you can't find the right pair, set aside a couple of hours to shop only for denim. Odds are, you will find a great pair or two.

Every woman can wear red and yellow. The shade is all that matters.

Try on designer clothing (including jeans) and items that are out of your budget. Understanding how well-made clothes feel and fit will help you make better purchases in your price range.

Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week*

Yay! It's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel! I'm tired of writing today and I'm in serious vegging out mode. I should close up my laptop and do something - anything! - besides stare at the screen.

I used to collect sharks. Stuffed ones. I still kinda do whenever I see one I don't already have. I know volumes of useless shark information (and not just because I was a biology minor).

I think it first started when my brother saw Jaws and was terrified of sharks. He was about 4 and was even afraid of pictures of sharks. So naturally, to antagonize him, I developed an affinity for sharks. Nice big sis, huh?

The worst headache of my life occurred on my birthday the year the Shark Encounter opened at our Sea World. Called my legendary "shark headache" because I was so super excited to see the sharks (I was like 20 at the time - not a little kid, mind you), I actually thought I was having a brain aneurysm and was ready to go to the E/R until I bought 2 Advil and then I was miraculously fine.

Anyway, where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, sharks are cool.

Wherever I travel, I check to see if there's an aquarium there. Some of them I've been to include the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, and the aquarium in Boston.

I was doing some reading on shark conservation and then I realized I can do something cool right here.

A group has been trying to build a new aquarium here in Cleveland for some time now. That would be a phenomenal addition to the lakefront as well as an awesome compliment to the Science Center.

I am just old enough to remember the old Cleveland Aquarium (and I still have the little abalone and rhinestone turtle earrings my parents bought me. I was maybe 3 or 4. Am I giving away my age?).

Anyway, I'm reserving my best writing for my book right now, so please excuse my blog if I ramble or if I'm super boring right now.


* A line from my fave show 30 Rock

An Interesting Week

Interesting...not in the good sense.

Wednesday PM - my 2 year old laptop died. The motherboard went - better to buy a new one than replace - I am in mourning for my pretty laptop :(

Thursday morning 4:00am - tree fell due to high winds - hit the house and nearly demolished the deck


Friday - Booked my shortest trip to NYC ever - a little over 24 hours - just how I like it! Taking a class from the great Brenda Kinsel, author of 5 books, including the recently released Fashion Makeover: 30 Days to Diva Style. (I want Brenda to be my mom!!) Staying right outside the city with a client/friend of mine. That should be so much more peaceful. I just can't get into the New York City life - and I've tried. Give me L.A. any day over New York. Give me 5 years and I will be at least a part-time West Coast girl, although my heart is in Cleveland, my body would prefer to be in Santa Monica or Palm Springs!

Saturday - purchased my new laptop, tree almost 100% cleared away by the contractor people, lunched with about 16 aerobics instructors from my gym (I know, huh?), discovered that my big toenail on my right foot is coming off very close to the base - SCARY - both my mom and grandma have big toe toenail issues, so I guess I am the third generation. I am so vapid - all I can do is put a big band aid on it (so I don't think about it - it HURTS!) and be thankful it isn't sandal season.

Sunday will include helping train my friend's new 1-1/2 year old dog Biscuit (Maltese/Poodle mix), who is having some behavioral issues. Not that I'm Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, but Bailey had issues we had to work on with her and I can give some insight to my friend (and treats to Biscuit). I'm also working on a branding project with another friend and fellow entrepreneur. And Monday is stacked with meetings. Busy, busy, busy. I need another vacation!

Other not-so-interesting stuff - I also did a lot of working out this week (feel my quads, dammit!) and business dining (so glad to have a respite from writing!) and saw Sweeney Todd. Couldn't believe the gallons and gallons of blood spilled.

We haven't seen this much hemoglobin in a Johnny Depp film since the infamous blood geyser in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

- Pete Vonder Haar
Film Threat

via
RottenTomatoes.com

I would also like to add that Johnny Depp is a genius (but everyone already knows that) and Helena Bonham Carter deserves an Oscar nomination for this role. And they both can sing pretty well - although I did notice that "Mr. Depp" had his own vocals producer and technician.

Still, it was very effective.

Oh, and Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat!) stole the movie. His part was way too small - much like in Talladega Nights. He is one of the great movie stealers of the moment.

Felt the need to explain what I know about Stephen Sondheim - a self-loathing gay man, whose mother told him daily that she wished he was never born. Wouldn't that cause YOU to write dark musicals too? Just look at Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music. Awfully depressing. Although the amount of gore in Burton's Sweeney was so ridiculous that all we could do was chuckle nervously as the super-fake looking blood poured (and gushed) and bodies dropped - usually on their heads. With a few gasps and eeews thrown in for good measure. We ARE girls, of course!

A band I completely forgot about

I bought INXS' Greatest Hits the other night. I certainly wasn't looking for it, but I happened to see it and grabbed it.

Well, I either completely forgot how good they were or I didn't quite appreciate them when they were around. Probably a little of both.

Listening to this CD, I realized that for several years of my life - mostly the early nineties - their music strongly tied into a lot of my memories. What a fun surprise as I'm listening to this.

They were pretty prolific hitmakers. What ever happened with their reformed band from that show?

I know I didn't appreciate this years ago....but their music was pretty damn sexy! It was as if INXS only had one thing on their minds. Well, it was sexy and fun. Great combination.

(IMO, the quintessential INXS songs are is New Sensation and I Need You Tonight. My fave is Never Tear Us Apart. Just a beautiful song...reminds me of high school dances! In case you're wondering, that makes me officially old!)

Holiday Lbs.

You know how they say that the average American gains 5-7 pounds around the holidays? Well, I am afraid I am going to drink (not eat) on the pounds. Too many holiday gatherings and too much making merry - already - and it's only 12/7. Time to shut it down.

To make you think (and to embed it in my own brain), here are the highest calorie drinks according to Forbes:

#10 Cosmopolitan (150 cal)
# 9 Mojito (160 cal)
# 8 Gin or Vodka & Tonic (200 cal)
# 7 Fog Cutter (225 cal)
# 6 Champagne Cocktail (250 cal)
# 5 Mai Tai (350 cal)
# 4 White Russian (425 cal)
# 3 Pina Colada (644 cal)
# 2 Margarita (740 cal)
# 1 Long Island Iced Tea (780 cal!!!)

I'm just wondering how many extra calories I drank this week in a bunch of Voodoo Martinis (Stoli Bluberi - YUM) at Bar Louie and my Starbucks Chai. Oh boy....seriously, no more drinking just for the sake of drinking. Unless it's Diet Coke and flavored vodka.

(The Forbes article has good suggestions for replacements for the high cal ingredients in some of the drinks - and in other cases, they suggest completely different alternatives where you get the alcohol and some of the same flavors, but without the ridiculous amount of calories.)

Lip Gloss, Brit-Brit & Bridget

With my lunch meeting canceled today, I went to some lame, but really close by places - Sally's, Kohl's and my old standby Target.

I've been using hot rollers lately, and with my thick-but-thin hair (meaning I have lots and lots of hair, but each individual strand is very fine), I have a hard time maintaining my curls. So I went to Sally's to see what kind of potion I don't yet have to help my curls. I found some kind of gel - which I haven't used yet. We shall see.

But the real find was LIP GLOSS. The Savvy label has some decent stuff that I've used before. But this gloss is unbelievable. It stays, first of all!! That's hard to find. Second, it is super-iridescent. It's Savvy Diamonds Sparkling Lip Gloss. I bought Peach Diamond (peachy-pink) and Rouge Diamond (looks kind of wine-y, but is very sheer). Good stuff. And trust me, I am a lip gloss maniac. I try every kind I see and I have a huge bin of it. This is very good stuff.

After Sally's, I went to Kohl's. I never buy anything there, besides the infrequent pair of earrings. I hate their clothes. The Vera Wang collection (Simply Vera) is especially U-G-L-Y. Today I was scrounging around in the jewelry section, which is right next to the fine fragrances. I saw a cool dark bottle, that looked like Britney's Fantasy bottle. It was Midnight Fantasy, by Brit-Brit.

Let me first tell you that I am super specific about perfumes. I don't usually wear any, but when I do, it's Cashmere Mist or Victoria's Secret's Love Spell or Dior Addict. I DO NOT buy celebrity scents. No, no, no. But I tried this and LOVED IT. It's light and fruity with a little vanilla. Or, as the Macy's site states:

MIDNIGHT fantasy BRITNEY SPEARS™ seduces you when the clock strikes twelve. An intoxicating elixir of luscious fruits invites you into a mysterious realm of temptation and intrigue. A seductive floral bouquet mingles with sensuous musks and dark amber to create an unforgettable MIDNIGHT fantasy.

Well now my conundrum is whether to spend $55 on a bottle of it and fuel her drugged out lifestyle and poor mothering of her (really cute) kids, and hence lie to people when they compliment it and I ask what perfume I am wearing. Or not. I think the answer is obvious, but it REALLY smells wonderful!!

Darn you Britney!!!! Because you're stupid, I can't buy your perfume that I would wear every day in a heartbeat.

And finally, I was driving the 5 minutes home and heard Eric Carmen's All By Myself. Made me realize I need to watch Bridget Jones's Diary. That song plays during the movie's opening credits. Plus it's topical - it happens at Christmas time. And Colin Firth. Yummy....


[Bridget glimpses Mark for the first time]

Bridget: Perhaps this is the mysterious Mr. Right I have been waiting my whole life to meet.

[sees reindeer sweater]

Bridget: Maybe not.

I love my job....

My plans to go out were canceled tonight, and I was just fine with that. I drank a lot of sangria yesterday and probably didn't need to do any social drinking tonight.

No doubt the pilgrims and Indians drank too much sangria for the first Thanksgiving, and I am merely following tradition :P

So I stayed in tonight and "worked." Work for me can mean looking at celebrity hairstyles for a couple of hours. Seriously.

That's why I love what I do :)

http://www.thehairstyler.com/celebrity_events.asp

So much for questioning myself for writing a fluff blog earlier today.

Is this fluff?

I read a lot of blogs. Some are politically aware, some are socially-conscious, some are pure fluff. I fear that my blog falls into the latter category, although it was really never what I intended. Once in a while, I go into some kind of a social rant, but mostly I just talk about stupid stuff. Is it too stupid and inconsequential, or is it good to have a diversion from all the more serious stuff out there?

I do have something to say in the world (and it's not just about shoes and clothes), but I sort of wonder why my blog doesn't reflect it. Hmmm....should I work on that or just maintain the status quo?

Why am I even worried about this? I don't know. It just popped into my mind. By reading my blog, one might think that I am superficial and vapid. Well, yes and no. But mostly no. There is so much in the world that I could complain about, but I would prefer to focus on levity and fluff. Most of the time, my silly little blog provides it.

Just a little deep thinking on the day after Thanksgiving. Must be the sangria.

Shampoo

I have no idea why I equate the smell of a shampoo with its effectiveness on my hair. This dawned on me in the shower today. How wacky is that?

What shampoos work the best?
coconut and bubble gum, of course!

Migraine & Mean Monkeys

I was sick in bed with a migraine today. Thankfully, I take it pretty easy on Mondays, so I was able to attempt to sleep it off. I needed to go out for Excedrin Migraine since the Advil Migraine fast-acting liquid caps don't work nearly as well. I am feeling better, except for the light sensitivity. Ugh!

I want to attribute this to the Indians imploding over the weekend. But it's probably really from my dream early this morning about not having enough credits to graduate from college. This has been a recurring theme in dreams ever since I graduated from college many years ago.

***

God (or someone equally powerful) will probably smite me for laughing at this, but sorry, I have monkey problems too. They just haven't killed me yet.

NEW DELHI (Oct. 21) - Wild monkeys attacked a senior government official who then fell from a balcony at his home and died Sunday, media reported.

The funniest part? I don't know if it's the fact that there are "monkey catchers" who use bigger, meaner monkeys to scare away or catch the bad monkeys or that devout Hindus believe monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god Hanuman and feed them bananas and peanuts — encouraging them to frequent public places.

Really, it isn't funny - someone died. But if anyone's death could ever be humorous, this would be it. It's almost like a Monty Python sketch.

BTW, a bunch of people emailed me versions of that article today. I fear that I have been pegged as the patron saint (?) of bad monkeys. Great. Just great. I think I've been asking for it.

***

I've started putting my newsletter articles up here. The previous three posts are some of my favorites recently. I'm still trying to figure out what to write about this month and the deadline for submission (self-imposed - I also edit Kelly's and Wendy's articles) is today. The idea is always - what utter lunacy-masquerading-as-style-advice can I get away with? Monkeys in the Closet was immensely popular, as was Wardrobe Mixology (so-named because I wanted to have a cocktail party).

Okay, staring at the monitor is killing my light-sensitive eyes. Time for more Excedrin Migraine.

I am almost tempted to blame the head pain on the monkeys in my brain.....monkeys are a great scapegoat for anything! Try it sometime!!

I'm in LOVE....

....is something I never, ever say.

Except about 30 Rock. I am in love with 30 Rock.

Love, love, love, love, love.

I would write poems about it - if I actually could write poems.

I wait every week for Thursday. I wake up every Thursday morning excited, and I wait all day until THAT time - 8:30pm ET.

Tina, Tracy, Alec, et al. are the only thing taking me away from watching the Tribe right now.

I don't know why it's perpetually so low in the ratings. It's up against Ugly Betty and Survivor, but there have to be more people out there like me - who like their comedy shows more highbrow. I love satire and absurdity, and 30 Rock definitely delivers.

And it won the Best Comedy Emmy!!! That should count for something!!!!!

So watch 30 Rock, people. Every episode is better than the last.

Funniest line this season:

From the season premiere "Seinfeld Vision"

Jerry Seinfeld: How about I buy NBC and turn it into the biggest Lane Bryant in Midtown!
Jack Donaghy: (laughs) Right. Like you've got four million dollars just lying around-

Celebrity Name Dropper

Having nothing better to do (besides about a thousand things), I took an online quiz about celebs and their stage names. I scored a semi-impressive 16/26.

(The not-so-nice side of me also loves knowing that not everyone was born with a name that slips off the tongue -- see Goldie Hawn -- I also had a last name I didn’t like and couldn’t wait to change it!)

Did YOU know these real names?
(* means the ones I knew – I actually made a few good guesses too)

Jodie Foster........................................ Alicia Christian Foster

Natalie Portman................................... Natalie Herschlag

*Nicolas Cage..................................... Nicolas Coppola

*Jennifer Aniston ............................... Jennifer Anastassakis

*Tom Cruise...................................... Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

*Demi Moore..................................... Demetria Guynes

Jamie Foxx........................................ Eric Bishop

Phoebe Cates.................................... Phoebe Katz

*Carmen Elektra ............................... Tara Leigh Patrick

*Elle MacPherson.............................. Eleanor Gow

*Ashley Judd .................................. Ashley Ciminella

Chuck Norris ................................... Carlos Ray Norris

Jennifer Jason Leigh.......................... Jennifer Lee Morrow

Tea Leoni....................................... Elizabeth Tea Panteleoni

Kal Penn........................................ Kalpen Suresh Modi

Winona Ryder................................. Winona Laura Horowitz

Charlie Sheen................................. Carlos Irwin Sheen

Christian Slater ............................. Christian Michael Hawkins

Joan Rivers.................................... Joan Molinsky

*Jane Seymour.............................. Joyce Frankenburg

Goldie Hawn.................................. Goldie Jean Studlendegehawn (yikes!)

*Whoopi Goldberg.......................... Caryn Johnson

*Diane Keaton.............................. Diane Hall

Audrey Hepburn............................ Audrey Kathleen Ruston

Ben Kingsley................................ Krishna Banji

*Woody Allen.............................. Allen Konigsberg

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....

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!

On the Loose

I am pleased to say that blaming monkeys for messy spaces
is catching on!

Debbie the Professional Organizer:
I met with a client in Rocky River this am....she was telling me about her piles of papers...and I said "Oh, you must have MONKEYS!!!! I told her about your monkey problems and she laughed.

LisaMarie:
The monkeys are in operation at my house too.

Pretty soon the monkeys will start taking over everyone's homes and offices and making everything a big mess. We may need to start a monkey sterilization project.

I think Bob Barker needs a job:
"Don't forget to spay or neuter your monkeys."

I think it's a fantastic idea!

Got Monkeys?

I am going to let you in on an embarrassing secret that only my closest friends know.

Are you ready? Good.

I am not a slob. Oh no. I do not mess things up wherever I go. I don’t leave piles of papers, books, clothes, makeup and accessories all over the place. And I do not, I repeat, DO NOT throw my shoes all around the house.

It’s the monkeys, people.

Yes, I’m afraid to admit that I am followed around by a gang of very bad monkeys. I will leave a room in perfectly neat condition. But as soon as I leave the area, the monkeys spring into action, causing chaos and mayhem in their wake.

Okay, maybe that’s just a clever (crazy?) excuse to make people laugh because I truly can’t stand that I am this way. It’s even worse since I’ve been writing so much. An enormous amount of my mental energy goes into my writing, and there just isn’t enough left behind for cleaning, which I find to be even more of a mental chore.

I was with my friend, Certified Professional Organizer Debbie Carney, today and she made me feel a lot better about my messy primate, um, “friends”.

She pegged me correctly – I am an Innovator personality. And while I love to have things around me organized, I don’t take the time to do it because I am always moving forward. I never look back, and I never really lose sight of where I’m going, which leaves my whole environment open to rampaging, shoe-flinging monkeys.

It's not a character flaw. It's just how I am. If everyone was made to be super organized, the world would be a boring place, and Deb would be out of work!

For me, I think that what my life really needs is a zookeeper.

Or maybe I just need a professional organizer with a tranquilizer gun to thwart any future monkey attacks.

Orange Crush

I don’t quite know what has gotten into me lately. All I want to wear is ORANGE. I seriously have never been attracted to said color in my entire life. I don’t quite know when this started or why. Maybe it happened once spring hit.

Last year, two of the items I particularly loved were my floral purse with teal, orange, and brown (which I dragged out again this year – it just speaks to me) and my white jacket with orange-red, lime and gold flowers (it is really more subdued than it sounds – it is just joyful).

So perhaps those two favorites have inspired me. I want to wear bright, clear oranges. Red-oranges. Anything that is vibrant and orange will do.

In fact, I just bought a red-orange outfit today. Just a skirt and a tank – a base outfit that may look good with a black jacket and some zebra print shoes. (Ha! Thought I was gonna say leopard, didn't you?)

I also bought the brightest orange peasant-style top I have ever seen today. It is so bright I almost can’t stand it.

But I will wear it. Oh yes I will.

And next summer, I will probably look back at this year's purchases and wonder what the heck I was thinking.

But right now, at least, I feel orange.

Very Random Thoughts on a Saturday

I've been writing and watching Shear Genius all day today on Bravo. I was inspired to trim my bangs. I cut them a little short, but they look ok. Did a sort of a 70's inspired 'do.

Wearing my new black track suit with white trim. Underneath is a powder blue tank that has been in with my workout clothes but I never wore before. It has skulls and crossbones with little bows. I've had it for about 4 years. Way before the skull and crossbones fad we're seeing. See? I've wanted to be a girly pirate for years now.

Drinking my new favorite beverage - caffeine free Diet Coke with Torani sugar-free coconut syrup from World Market. It's like drinking coconut rum & Coke, but without the eventual impairment. I can't drink and write. The two just don't go together.

Which reminds me, I'm very annoyed with Ty Pennington. No, I do not know the guy, although he did work on my mom's hairstylist's inlaws' house with Trading Spaces years ago. Now, not only is he overexposed and of questionable talent, he had that arrest for DUI last week. Last evening I saw the premiere issue of his magazine on the newsstand. And I got really mad. Never really noticed anything the guy did before, but last night I was truly mad! Why? I think it's because now that he is a brand - the Ty Pennington BRAND - there are a lot of people with faith in him (although I personally don't understand his allure - the goofy hair?) and more importantly there is a ton of money behind him.

One who is in the public eye should be on his/her best behavior at all times anyway (unless attempting to gain attention through bad behavior), but when so much is riding on one to build a brand, don't mess it up. Use your brain a little, Ty.

Martha has had to fight to rebuild her brand after her very public missteps, and Ty is only in the infancy of his brand. So he better be good from now on....

As Austin Powers would say,

Random Thoughts on May Day

I just opened the envelope Coach Joelle gave me yesterday, which was supposed to contain a parking permit for Friday's can't-wait-for-it meeting downtown. I was pleasantly surprised at the card and little KK-specific inspirational messages inside. Thanks, Joelle! You made my day! I especially loved:

Lead me not into temptation;
I can find the way myself.

(oh yes, there was also a parking permit in there)

I changed the desktop on my laptop on Saturday from spaz hot pink to Kermit the Frog and a green background. It's amazing how it has changed my mood and intention - already. Whenever my eyes are strained or my book project gets overwhelming, I flip to my desktop, which is all green and in the center is my friend Kermie:This is a subject for a different blog, but it's my opinion that Kermit is the perfect symbol for all that is good and right and optimistic in the world. When I see him (and I suspect this is the same for a lot of people out there, whether they realize it or not), I feel very centered. He's a very pure character.

Maybe I'm crazy. But I've always had an affection for Kermit.

I am - still - just a huge fan of the Muppets. In addition to my green friend, I especially love the grumpy characters (as I always do) Statler and Waldorf - and Oscar, although technically not a Muppet -

he's still a Henson character.

I was eagerly paying attention to the NFL draft on Saturday and to a lesser extent on Sunday. I don't pay as much attention to other sports as I do to football. I was hopefully looking at some future clients! The Browns were the talk of the sports world. They had an unfathomably good draft. How exciting to think about the seasons down the road. That's all we keep hearing about around here (well, that and the darn Fulton Road Bridge still standing - blow up already!) and it's really exciting.

I remember in about 1985 seeing a bumper sticker that cracked me up. It said

GO BROWNS
and take the Indians with you

We have a tragic sports history here in Cleveland. Heartbreaking. But now with the Cavaliers being awesome (sweeping the first round of the playoffs) and the Browns' draft day coup, things are definitely looking up!

I miss LisaMarie. Although, I suspect that if we lived in the same town, neither of us would get anything accomplished because we'd always be hanging out together!! It's better for us to keep a safe distance! Cincy to Cleveland - too far but just far enough!!