I Want

I'm on a shopping bender. But I'm OK with it; I deserve stuff this summer. I'm sorry, but.

My head almost exploded at the Marc Jacobs in the Forum Shops last week in Vegas when I had to choose between the three color combinations in which the most perfect snakeskin clutch on earth has been made. I picked the one with the blues and greens and browns, although I liked the '80s-inspired neon one too, of course, and I would have bought the one that the store clerk described as "Afrocentric," but she seemed so self-loathingly disparaging when she said it. Actually, first she said I should buy all three, but I was like, "Look lady, it's 3 in the afternoon. I know this is Vegas, but how drunk do you think I am?"

Yesterday I bought new bedding—a sheet set and a duvet set—as well as a new gold necklace (I need a chain worthy of my California pendant, hello), and a tablecloth. A tablecloth? Random, maybe, but I'm in spend mode.

What else can I buy now? Gimme.

Update: It's a 70-percent-off bonanza at BCBG. I picked out a slouchy, comfy little lavender-ish dress (deal sealer: "machine wash cold") and was telling the clerk, "Yeah, I thought it would be great into autumn with some leggings..." And he said, "Did you know we have leggings at 70 percent off?" So I got those too.

Update part deux: Today I am wearing the little Marc Jacobs cotton romper that I bought on Saturday, which is an extra small, but 80 percent off is 80 percent off. I can be an extra small for 80 percent off. I also scooped up some royal purple MJ shorts with gold hardware, even though it's late in the season, but they were 65 percent off, and I got an extra discount because of my birthday month, even though it isn't event technically my birthday month anymore. Then there's the matter of a new army green swimsuit. And that's it for a while, I think.

Stuff About Being Jewish I Have Heard Lately That Has Tickled Me

"I think being a New Yorker is probably like being Jewish: You're either born that way or you aren't, and while you can convert, nobody will make it easy for you and nobody thinks it's the same."
—From Capella's blog, on her impending move

"You've heard the saying: Gentiles leave and don't say goodbye. Jews say goodbye and don't leave."
—From a guest at a Shabbat dinner in Venice earlier this month, as we all edged ever closer to the door and never quite got there

"When you get back from Vegas, let's go for drinks. Or Jewish drinks: food."
—From another AD with very good hair, by way of Facebook email

Also, at the end of a craps table at Mandalay Bay last week, I was positioned next to some guys who kept saying, "Easy money, all day, every day! Easy money!" They said this before each shooter rolled the dice. And I'm like, hello, Jewish much? No, not. We don't say that stuff on account of we're superstitious, even if we're just rolling dice, and not even naming babies before they are born or wishing somebody a safe flight. (Maybe we could say "easy money" and then also say kein ahora each time too, but that would get cumbersome and also kind of embarrassing.)

He's The One I Blame For My Treo Dependency

me: covering gq's vma party @ the mirage. soo wish u were here. smooch times infinity squared. luv u like soja luvs freedom.

CJ: no justice no peace. i'm sitting on the floor at anna sui taking polaroids of my shoe. isn't fashion so glamorous?

me: wait wish u were here 2 c this 1 lothlorien girl in a hemp anklet doing the robot w/her casa z man on the dance floor. like 1 of these kids is not like the others.

CJ: BIG THANGS POPPIN IN 5768. SHOFAR SO GOOD. APPLES AND HONIES. CHALLAH BACK.


**
L'shana tova tikatevu, homies.

State of Self on Waning Days of Twenties

Spazzy, blessed, awesome. Not sure. Changeable.

Sometime early this week, I changed the course of my spazz attack (which was the standard no-baby-plans-yet boilerplate) to the wait, I'm too young to grow up, look how young I am, woooo!-variety spazz. Didn't see that coming.

In addition to my girls-only Jamaica trip at the end of the month, the blue-eyed boy had made plans for my upcoming birthday weekend involving sea kayaking in the Channel Islands near Ventura (an idea which, if I recall, I might have instigated after we watched a California's Gold episode about it, and, basically, if Huell Howser jumped off a cliff, I would do it too). But then I decided that sea kayaking seems like something staid that families do, and we're not a family, we're crazy fun young people, woooo, and we should go to Vegas instead and wear tiny, besequined dresses and bikinis with gold hardware (at least I should), and throw dice and be rowdy, and shop shop shop indiscriminately, and let it ride on red number 30, woooo! Because that's what the kids do! And that's essentially what I've wanted to do for most birthdays since I turned 21 (19).

Well, what happens when you think you might want to change plans a scant few days before your existing plans, is that airfare goes up so high that it's prohibitive, and who wants to drive into the desert during Friday rush hour, and then back all day Sunday when it's your birthday and you're sitting in the car with a hangover getting blasted in the face by the AC, eating Gardetto's party mix and Crystal Light Slurpees from the 7-11 on the interstate? So driving and flying are both out, which means Vegas is out for my 30th birthday this weekend.

So that locks us into our original kayaking plans, which I think will be awesome after all (if it had been viable to go to Vegas, I probably would have freaked out and insisted on reinstating the kayaking based on some impromptu consciousness shift) (hey, at least I know myself), and it will be good to feel healthy and alive out there on the pacific Pacific. I'm back on my eat-right/work-out kick (after a dastardly post-Half Dome June) and I've been all kinds of sore this week thanks to serious gym commitment. And I like the idea of feeling healthy and strong as I kiss 29 goodbye. (Sea kayaking Saturday + bowling birthday party Sunday clearly = monastically disciplined fitness regime, non?)

Today, I am wearing tiny shorts and sky-high sandals, and I got a few whistles from passing cars on my way to and fro Subway (veggie delight on wheat, bag of apples, Diet Coke) down Sunset Boulevard. Whether or not I am still wild at 30, apparently my legs still look good. (Actually, note to self: legs are bona fide asset. Why have never noticed?)

Last night at the after-party for the Espy awards, I told the blue-eyed boy I would not be morally averse to any procedure that would perk up my eye area a bit. It took him like four minutes too long, but he got around to saying, "You're perfect!" I think he's onto something.

...best and most supportive friends and fam ever, a job that is fun and challenging and full of perks and never boring, great condo with a separate walk-in closet just for shoes and accessories...

So, au revoir, twenties. I will miss the halcyon Berkeley years, and the New York years (although they were not hardly halcyon), but thank heaven I will not have to miss my woooo! wild friends, because I've still got em. See ya in sequins, girls...*


*Somebody please take me to Vegas in August, though, for real.

Put Some Records on While I Pour

The blue-eyed guy keeps asking me what I want for Hanukkah, and I was just simply not raised that you tell someone what you want for Hanukkah! What am I going to say? "I want this thing from this catalogue, which I've highlighted for your ease of buying it for me." That seems so tacky, not to mention totally unromantic. So I always just tell him, "I just want your affection." (He'd said, "What if your girls ask you what I got you for Hanukkah and you say, 'his affection.' How would that go over?" Touche.) But the joke of it all is that when we were in Las Vegas together, browsing the Forum Shops after dinner (God. I love. Vegas.), we were both picking things up and admiring them, and describing out loud what we liked about them and why. After a while, I felt a little cheap, because I thought it was so obvious that we were each earmarking stuff for the other to buy as a gift for the holidays. The next day, I went back through the Forum Shops while he was at his conference, and wrote down all the stuff he'd wanted on a yellow Post It so I wouldn't forget. And then he said, "Baby, I need you to tell me what you want for Hanukkah! I gave you plenty of hints, and you didn't give me any!" Ahem, what was that whole exercise about then? Like, when we stopped in every jewelry store on the Strip, and I fingered every two-tone ring and necklace or earrings would be great too? Dang. Fortunately, I'm gainfully employed and can buy my own stuff like Destiny's Child, because my guy seems to be nuance impaired.