Consumption

Panasonic Viera PZ85U

So we actually got married last weekend (hold for applause).

After you have declared your intention to wed your life ceases to be a series of random interactions and occurrences and the curtain opens on one of the most bizarre and lengthy pieces of theatre you will ever star in.  It's a little like The Truman Show, suddenly people you've never met seem to know you, and there are scripts everyone you meet follows.  Once you have accepted the starring role there are two main choruses, Those Who Have Had A Wedding of Their Own and Those Who Have Not.  The Those Who Haves mainly communicate by projecting their own experience on yours and aren't really speaking to you so much as reminiscing.  It's the Have Nots that are really disturbing, with their bank of appropriately timed throwaway questions.

One of my favorites kicked in about a month before the "big day."  So many people asked me if I was getting nervous I began to get nervous that there was something huge I had forgotten to be nervous about.  I haven't been to many weddings, are there usually firepits and endurance tests?  Did I slipup and invite Malcom McDowell's Caligula to the ceremony?  Am I fresh off boat from Ukraine to meet new American husband?

In the week plus since we've been married it's been, "So, do you feel any different?" and "How's Married Life?"  I have several quippy comebacks for this one such as "It's a lot like shackin' up only with more matching dishes," (for the latter) and "Well, my left hand is a bit heavier now that you mention it," (for the former).

But my favorite comeback is the one in response to "Where did you go for your honeymoon?"  I reply "HH Gregg to buy a giant plasma TV."   The way I see it, you go to the beach and get drunk and sexy for a week and that's it, but with a giant Teevee the honeymoon doesn't have to end anytime soon. 

As with every new relationship there are ups and downs.  We unwrapped the first one we brought home to discover the screen was entirely busted.  After fretting for a night about having signed the receipt that we had inspected it and found it to be in good condition, we returned it to HH Gregg with ease, so thumbs up to them.  Once we got it home, the Husband (no it is not the first time I have said that and it does not freak me out stop asking) hopped on the ol' forums and discovered the "break-in period" of 100-200 hours, which we are still in, so we've got the color settings a little wonky and the contrast all low, but overall it still kicks the ass of anything I've ever had in my home before, especially when we crank up the PS3. 

My only regret is that we discovered ABC has a separate HD channel only moments AFTER the season premiere of Pushing Daisies was over, but marriage is all about sharing sorrows AND joys right?

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day

I'm a pretty big fan of the environment but these days I'm generally wary of any product that claims to be green. I think people so desperately want to feel good about themselves without actually doing any work that we've come to the point where there is bottled water that claims to be greener than other brands. It's WATER in a DISPOSABLE BOTTLE, ain't nothing green about it folks. So while Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day products are purported to be green, I don't know the science, and I don't care to. To me the fact that they may or may not be better for the environment snoozes in the back seat of a Hummer driven by Works Great that is zooming down the Smells Amazing highway. I discovered this stuff while housesitting for a particularly neat freaky friend. I must have scrubbed his sink every day during the two weeks I was there just because I wanted to use the surface scrub that much. It's like Comet without the Listerine and vomit references. I love love love the Lemon Verbena, but the other scents are awesome too. I'm currently doing laundry with the Lavender and it induces the happy just as effectively.

Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day

Sensual Amber by Bath and Body Works

I blame strippers.

I should elaborate, yeah? I enjoy the occasional outing to the strip club (strictly sociological curiosity of course), but the law in Tennessee strictly dictates there be no fun actually had in such establishments (hint: no booze). So when I found out that a) my future husband had never experienced the wonder of strange women disrobing to terrible music and b) there is a place near Atlanta that features both strange men and women disrobing to terrible music, I knew there was a road trip in our near future. A friend tipped me off to a Priceline trick that reliably yielded a luxury suite downtown at a ridiculously low price and it was, as the kids say, on.

I usually find myself in the sliver-of-dial-soap-type establishment when sojourning at hotels. This one, however, had an adorable little set of Bath and Body Works aromatherapy products in their shockingly delicious Orange Ginger scent. It served as a refreshing antithesis to that “strip club smell” (Equate baby oil, smoke, drugstore cologne, desperation) and I decided it might be time to lift my personal ban on Bath and Body Works that had been in place since what I like to call the “Sun-ripened Raspberry Incident” (more commonly known as ages 11-13). Unlike some of our OTHER contributors, my hair is so lame that pretty much all I can do is dye it intense colors and make it smell nice so I went in for a bottle of the shampoo. They were giving away a lotion with purchase so I hastily grabbed the one with the fewest flowers or fruits on the label. It smelled pretty okay in the bottle and I thought I could put it in my locker in the studio or something.

Then, I put it on.

This stuff was apparently created for my body chemistry because WOW. Every single person I walked by commented that I smelled amazing. I kept bringing my arm to my nose, inhaling deeply and feeling like I’d just done something incredibly naughty. Soon I owned the handsoap, the creamy bodywash, the shower gel, the body cream, the glittery lotion and body spray, and the regular body spray. I acquired the body scrub this afternoon. Somehow there are still several products I do not own but I’m working to correct this.

How to describe the smell? The packaging says Pink Lotus petals enveloped by a golden piece of precious amber. Seductive. Rich. Beautiful. Whatevs, I like to think of it as the way a strip club would smell if it were in heaven by way of Marrakesh. Unfortunately during my trip to the B&BW today the salesclerk noted that if I liked Sensual Amber I should try their new scent, Black Amethyst, so I dabbed on some lotion. I have been smelling my hands for the last few hours and I have to say, there may be some competition here.....

Bath and Body Works Sensual Amber $3.50-$18.50 Currently buy 1 get one 50% off.

Smashbox Cream Eyeliner

Last week I got a MacBook Pro, and mentioned that this week I’d write about it for my post. Look at that, I just did. I’m ecstatic, let’s move on.

On the first day of my Intro to Drawing class my professor made us draw straight lines freehand for the entire class period. As she looked over my shoulder she remarked “well, it’s all uphill from here for you, isn’t it?” I somehow made it out of art school without being able to draw a straight line on a page.

Imagine, then, my difficulty with the base of my eyelashes. My eyes are nicely shaped, but they are a little small and squinty for my taste. From a distance, without eyeliner and mascara, I look like pair of lips on a blank face. I am a master at the application of mascara, but I have been searching for an eyeliner I couldn’t screw up since I was fifteen. For a long time I went with a subtle brown, smudged all to hell to conceal my inability to apply it correctly. Later, envious of my friend Heidi’s perfect, thin black lines with the slight cat-eye flick at the corners that made her look demure but saucy, I picked up some liquid black. Determined that practice makes perfect, I went around looking like Amy Winehouse for longer than I should have. She, at least, has the excuse of crack addiction.

Long story short, I recently found Smashbox, a cosmetics company that makes many fine products and the most amazing eyeliner I have ever used. It’s a cream, which would normally scare the bejeezus out of someone with my oily skin. It’s all about the brush, wide and flat. Load it up with a touch of your favorite color and (to use Smashbox’s terminology) “walk” it across the base of your lashes. Flawless! You can smudge it or let it set in a line. Defying all makeup logic it stays! The flat little brush makes it simple to do the little corner flick I’ve sought in vain all this time. I can do both eyes in seconds.

It’s pricey, sure, but I’ll be using the same $20 brush as long as they keep making this stuff (and they’d better), and I can’t see running through this generous pot anytime soon. For the commitment wary, they even make tiny sampler palettes. I can have my everyday brown and bust out the sparkly green when the mood is right. Worth absolutely every penny.

Smashbox Cream Eyeliner
Smashbox Cream Eyeliner Brush #9

Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture

First, a little about me.
I was an unapologetic tomboy who played in the dirt until it was time for ballet. My mother rolled my hair every day before school and I shopped in the men's department. At the thrift store. I read IT by Stephen King during church choir rehearsal. I love kittens. And snakes. And zombies. I like my classical music from the romantic period, my hip-hop from the underground. I have a very limited list of which beverages deserve the suffix -tini.
I got engaged a little over two years ago in a hole-in-the-wall Middle Eastern restaurant with disco balls and singing deer head on the wall. No on went down on any knees and I'm pretty sure I asked first. Since then I've been trying to plan a wedding that stays true to my wacky nature.

I'd like to claim I'm entirely off the wedding industrial complex grid, but even I am not immune to the call of the finely crafted designer gown. With that in mind, the mere idea of shopping for a wedding dress was giving me nightmares. I heard horror stories near and far about bridal salons with their snotty saleswomen and size 2 samples. Then you have to order the gown and they get it wrong and the headache grows from there. I anticipated using the sheer expense of most dresses as an excuse for just hitting up Target's Isaac Mizrahi Bridal Collection and calling it a day, but then my mother (a United Methodist minister) announced she'd performed two months of extra wedding ceremonies solely to buy me THE dress. I defy even the most hardened heart to deny their momma buying her firstborn's wedding dress.

Now, I'm fairly certain that as some point in my life I begged a close friend to shoot me if I ever considered setting foot in an establishment that would be so uppity as to call itself Wedding Wonderland. In the course of my research, however, I discovered that very place carried several of the designers I found most appealing. Getting married changes you, man.

I marched into the place, determined to get it over with. I felt that if I could make it through the next few hours without crying about being fat or punching a snide salesclerk in the face I could claim success. What happened next is the stuff of legend. The salesclerk was supportive and sweet, and not at all fake or annoying. She quickly walked me around the store and left me to my own devices. I grabbed a few token try-ons that my mother seemed to like. Then, I got to the sale rack. There, in my size, and my wedding colors, and for 75% off, was a Justina McCaffrey floor sample.

Modified A-line, delicate beading, unbelievable fabric. Secretly, in the deep and dark recesses of my heart, I had been lusting after a Justina McCaffrey gown. They are ludicrously expensive and I didn't harbor the thought for one second I'd ever even see one in person. It was the first of seven gowns I tried on. And I walked out with it less than an hour later. I proceeded to tell everyone I saw, and e-mail everyone I didn't, about it.

I've never felt like such a girl.

Justina McCaffrey Haute Couture

In my defense, they just added that ridiculous video to the homepage.