A picture worth exactly 371 words

It was two years ago this week that I made the conscious decision to move to Los Angeles. I wrote most of the dirty details last year at this time, so now I thought I'd let the picture below speak for me.

This is me and one of my very best friends in the entire world, Kristin. The picture was taken at our shore house over Labor Day weekend in 2004, and I love this picture for so many reasons.

At first glance, the two of us look so happy, so carefree, but inside, we were both totally miserable. She had just the day before gotten into a fight with her boyfriend, a fight so serious and deeply personal that I was surprised she even made it down that weekend. She was crying for most of that day, and despite the fact that we had lived together and pledged together and shared most of our adult lives together, it was one of the very few times I've ever seen her do that.

I was miserable because I had just come back from my third trip to LA in seven months, and just had this feeling that I needed to move there. I didn't know why, or how, or any of the details, I just knew in my heart that things were different than they had been only the week before.

We were both somewhat annoyed because while we had had a great summer together, we knew we had been in a house with people we had very little in common with. It was one of those things we had just come to expect, though - at 28, not everybody was going to be as cool or as fun as some of the people we had known in college and our early 20's. We were getting used to settling. And we were annoyed at ourselves for doing that.

Notice that there is literally a shadow hanging over us. Only my feet are in the clear, ready to walk - no, RUN - away from the metaphorical darkness.

The picture shows two close friends hugging each other out of love. What I see, though, are two close friends holding on for dear life.

Clearly colorblind

A few months ago I mentioned that I maybe just might be a little bit tanorexic. Well, today I learned that just as I consistently think my skin is paler than it is, I apparently also think my teeth are less white, less bright, than they actually are. Is there a term for that? Other than, say, Body Dysmorphic Disorder?

I have thought about getting my teeth professionally whitened for a while. I don't smoke, but I do drink plenty of coffee and red wine, and well, there's always room for improvement. I haven't used anything but whitening toothepaste since it came on the market a few years ago, and I've done the White Strips, the Rembrant Trays, the Night Polish, and probably a few other things in between. They all worked fine, but like I said, room for improvement.

So last week I heard on the radio that Brite Smile was offering their treatment for a third off the regular price if you booked through the end of the month. Recognizing the opportunity, I promptly scheduled my appointment for first thing this morning. I arrived at the office, sat down in the chair, and let the dentist poke around in my mouth for a bit. Then he brought out the clay model of teeth, ascending in shades of yellow-to-whiteness, in order to show me where my teeth fell in the spectrum and what shade I could expect them to be after the procedure. And what do you know? My teeth were already whiter than the whitest option. There was virtually no room for improvement after all.

Somewhat sheepishly, I left the office, procedure-free and payment-free, thinking that now I had just a bit more money to spend on some other foolish, vanity-driven treatment down the road. By the time I got into work, however, I decided to take this as a sign that maybe I should just put the unspent money toward a well-needed vacation, as clearly, my reality is blurred.

From the "What was I thinking?" pile

I'm really having a hard time with this idea that tapered jeans (now so romantically referred to as "cigarrette jeans" or "stovepipe pants" or "slim-fit jeans" - please, I don't care what you call them, they're still tapered) and leggings are the biggest new trend for fall. I don't care how "fresh" Vogue says this look is, or how surprisingly cute some of the girls look wearing them, I have a mental block around the idea that what was popular in seventh grade is coming back now. Seventh grade was probably the worst year of my life, and I have no interest in re-doing any of it, least of all the clothes. (Although I am dying - dying! - with anticipation of the release of the 20th anniversary Dirty Dancing DVD and accompanying T-shirt collection).

They say (I don't know who "they" are, but I believe them) that if you were around for a trend's first incarnation, you're too old to wear it a second time. So that gives me good support for skipping the looks above, except then I'm afraid I'm going to be that out-of-touch old woman wearing "mom jeans." I don't know what's worse: looking like you're trying too hard, or not trying at all.

In part to protest the return of leggings, and in part to join the Bershon picture-posting trend seen round the internet (or maybe just the "mommy blogs"- see, I'm halfway there already), I present you with the one good reason I'll be staying away from leggings, at least until it becomes okay to tease my bangs again:

I mean, today it's demure black leggings peeking out from under a skirt, tomorrow, it's head-to-toe sartorial anarchy.

Computer nerd needed, remedial blogger at large

Can someone please explain to me the difference between Firefox and Internet Explorer?

I used to use Explorer exclusively, until it seemed that every other blog bragged that it was better viewed with Firefox. That is actually true of my own blog. If you view it in Firefox, you'll see that the bullet points in the sidebar are actually cute little flowers; Internet Explorer doesn't show any bullets at all. But other than that, I've never noticed a real difference between the two browsers.

Nevertheless, I decided to download Firefox to my work computer yesterday. (Previously, I used Explorer at work and Firefox at home, in an admittedly unscientific comparison). Now I can look at my little flower bullets all day if I want! But then I went to use my online media listserve, and it told me that it would only open in Explorer. Annoyed, but unfazed, I went to open the Explorer button on my desktop. Which had inexplicably disappeared.

When I downloaded Firefox to my home computer months ago, it didn't erase Explorer. I can choose between the two every time I start up. But for some reason, my download yesterday magically erased any memory my computer ever had of its former internet host. I spent about a half hour searching, convinced it must be hiding somewhere, then gave up and spent another half an hour downloading Explorer 7.0.

And now nothing seems to work.

I've seen my future, and hoped I'd at least be better dressed

The woman in this picture could, in many ways, be me in 50 years:

After all, I like beer. A lot. Enough that I might consider drinking a keg or two.

And then there's that fact that I am gym-obsessed, and raising a keg over my head seems like a fairly reasonable method of warding off the dreaded "bat wings", especially as I round my eighth decade.

But the outfit, though? I think I'd rather be dead.

Better than blogging

Top 10 things that kept me from blogging this weekend:

10. Two parties, too many people to catch up with
9. Alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.
8. Searching for the mildew smell in the bathroom that only appeared after I spent an hour scrubbing every tiled surface in there
7. Must. Download. Justin. Timberlake.
6. Chauffering a recent transplant around the city to look at potential apartments
5. Back-to-back episodes of Mediums: We See Dead People on A&E
4. Wondering, why can't I think of anything to blog about? Fear, am I boring? Is my life boring? Oh my God, I'm 30 and my life is boring! Oh well, TV's on, gotta go.
3. Attempting to recreate the perfect arch given to me by our $65-per-session eyebrow guru. Without said guru.
2. Checking Match.com to see if I'm ready to subject myself to the torture of online dating again. I'm not.
1. 754 pages and 4 pounds of Vogue

Is it possible HE's stalking ME?

A few weeks ago I wrote about how my mom wants to set me up with Food Network cutie/ex-boyfriend look-alike Dave Lieberman. Not that she knows him or anything.

Well, you may also recall that last Thursday, I worked a promotional event in New York. The night was billed as a beauty event, and basically what happens is that 2,000 women pay a nominal fee for a night of shopping and sampling among different brands while sipping cocktails and awaiting the coveted goodie bag, which is typically worth a few hundred dollars. (My personal opinion is that it's a few hundred dollars worth of crap that the beauty companies can't otherwise get rid of, but, like I said, that's just IMO.)

So, ANYWAY, I just received pictures from the event staff, and lo and behold, who was at the event autographing copies of his new book, but Mr. Lieberman himself! Um, excuse me, how did I not know this? And how did I not see him? He was at the Amstel Light table, after all, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't make a stop or two there during the night. (What? They weren't giving away water for free, and I needed to hydrate.)

In any case, I'm sorry I missed the opportunity to get up close and personal (and I'm sure my mom will be, too), but after looking at the pictures, I've decided that the look-alike ex is a lot cuter.

And here I thought I only had to worry about the mice

One of the first things I did after coming back to the office on Monday was file my expense report. Among two weeks worth of receipts, more than a quarter of those were from the Starbucks situated next door to my hotel. Like clockwork, I'd get my coffee there every morning, sometimes lunch in the afternoon, and often, a second cup of something during the day.

So it made my stomach turn just a tiny little bit to see the address of this particular Starbucks identified in this new infestation story. Even if you don't play the video, the address is frozen right there on the screen. Kind of like the way the rats look lying motionless on the floor of said establishment.

Happy Belated Birthday, Gram!

While lazing in the Central Park sun on Saturday, I turned to my friend Heather and sighed, "Can you believe it's already August 12th?" And as soon as the date came out of my mouth, I remembered: it was my paternal Grandmother's birthday.

August 12th is, coincidentally, the date that both my grandmothers were born, so I've never had trouble remembering. My mom's mom passed away eight years ago, though, so I don't buy birthday cards in pairs anymore. Let's be honest - I didn't buy a birthday card at all this year, which I really have to apologize for, because in 30 years I don't think that Grammy and Papa have ever missed one of mine. And I love receiving their cards because so often they are handwritten in better penmanship than my own, colorfully articulating everything from the flowers in bloom to the birds at the feeder to the blueberry pie they ate for dessert. Because my Grammy is a genius with both blueberries and pies, you can be assured there is always plenty to read about.

Growing up, I spent a week every summer at their house in Prince Edward Island, Canada. It was - and still is - a beautiful old house situated on sprawling lakefront property, but I dreaded the trips. For one, it took about 14 hours just to get there, and once I got there, I was convinced that the house was haunted. I haven't been back since I was 12, in part because I'm still not convinced that it isn't.

For every night that I would lay awake, gripped by my fear of the dark, though, I would wake in the morning to the brightest, most cheerful breakfast. Among her other specialties, Grammy has been known for making homemade doughnuts - the naturally-sweet, old-fashioned kind that don't need any frosting or Dunkin'-like accoutrements to melt in your mouth. I would wake up to the smell of the doughnuts baking (or frying? maybe...) and think how silly I was to have been scared the night before. Because in that first waking moment of the day, with the morning light shining through the open window and the smell of fresh baked sweetness wafting up from the kitchen, I couldn't have possibly felt any safer.

Here's hoping Gram's 84th birthday is just as sweet and safe.

Love,
Lori

If not my heart, definitely my liver

A year ago I wrote a post that I subsequently titled "A heart that no longer lives in New York". I was flying back for the first time after living here for five months, and my heart really just wasn't in it. As much as I wanted to see my friends, I was just coming into my own here in LA and wasn't quite ready to face the big bad city I had left behind.

Most, if not all, of my visits since then have been taken with the same dose of ambivalence. Great to be back, better to leave. But this last trip, this final marathon trip that I had been dreading for most of the summer, turned out to be really, really good. Or at least, it ended on a high note.

For one thing, the event that I had been dreading turned out great. I spent all day Thursday setting up, and didn't get home (er, back to my hotel room) until 11 PM. After not eating a meal all day, I ordered food and wine from room service and slept like a baby until nearly 9 AM the next morning. And what a glorious morning it was.

I woke up to the New York I had moved to eight years ago, warm-bordering-on-hot-days but with none of the humidity; when the sunlight seemed to simply dance off the metal skyscrapers rather than burn a hole through the sidewalks. To be honest, the day reminded me a lot of 9/11, how the sky was cloudless and blue, the temperature was perfect, and, for me, at least, promise just hung in the air as tangible as the acrid smoke that would later take its place. I was feeling good about work as well as the night ahead, when we'd celebrate my friend Cara's 30th birthday with a party filled with old school friends.

I didn't have to do much work until later that afternoon, so I went for a run mid-day through Central Park. I forgot how much I used to love doing that. When I lived on 86th Street, I ran through the park at least once a week in nice weather, sometimes quite often, making my own courses through the various loops and reservoir paths that were available. After I moved to midtown, I had a much farther walk just to get to the park, and then I'd be stuck ambling through the least palateable part - the lower loop, which was always filled with too many kids screaming, too many carriage horses crapping, and too many hills, period. By the time I had moved to Murray Hill, I think I just stopped going at all.

The rest of Friday was spent working at the spa, and finally, primping for the birthday party, which was a blast. I spent the night in the company of some of my closest friends, and then woke up on Saturday and did practically the same thing all over. Only, minus the work part. Another sunshine-and-promise-filled day, I sat in Central Park basking in both the sun and the aimless idleness only a day on vacation can inspire.

Again, when I lived on 86th Street, I hung out in the Park all the time. I'd go by myself or with friends, and would inevitably run into more friends - innocuous tanning sessions regularly turning into impromtu parties. I stopped frequenting the Park once I started the Jersey Shore houses, but truthfully, I started the Jersey Shore houses because the park stopped being fun. Friends started to have other plans, and conspicuous fun-loving couples seemed to take over the landscape as far as my embittered, nearsighted eyes could see. At some point, sitting in the park started to feel pathetic.

This weekend, though, I saw the park and the city itself through the optomistic, anything-can-happen eyes I had five years ago. Or maybe they were just rose-colored lenses. Either way, it's a much more pleaseant outlook.

While I was running on Friday, the song, appropriately enough, came onto my iPod. I let it play as I ran, and thought that maybe, for the first time in a number of years, at least a small part of it just might.

What's in the air up there?

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that this British-terrorism-no-liquids-on-a-plane thing is nothing more than the latest marketing strategy from the brilliant team behind Snakes on a Plane? It's just too good.

And, yes, I am flying on Sunday. Thank God the good drugs come in solids.

Pouring myself a cup of ambition

It's not often that I brag about my work or the fact that, sometimes, I can be completely and totally awesome at my job (at least when I'm not making people cry). But today I can't help but tell you that my company got FULL PAGE COVERAGE in the new issue of Time Out New York.

Okay, so I didn't actually finagle the size of the coverage - a full page versus, say, a quarter page like some of the other items they highlighted. I can only pitch the story and hope for the best. But after three marathon trips to New York and a summer spent stressed out and spinning my wheels, something like this is extremely gratifying.

Gratification was actually the very first thing I realized I liked about PR. After graduating college with a degree in advertising, I spent a year in the creative department of an ad agency. My job, as a glorified secretary, was easy, and I even got to do some copywriting; but, I quickly realized that I abhorred the snails pace at which a campaign took shape. Months would pass between the first pitch meeting and the execution of a concept, and in the meantime, nothing seemed to happen. The creatives complained about the account side, the copywriters complained about the art directors, everyone complained about the creative director, and the final product was never an accurate reflection of the ideas that inspired it.

A few days after my start in PR, I sent a beauty editor some product from Burt's Bees. Two weeks later, a fact checker called to confirm that the product - that I had just sent! - would be in an upcoming issue. Three months later, there it was. Sales increased, money was made. This happened every day, for more clients than any singular ad team could ever take on.

Granted, it's not always so easy. But with PR, I've always felt a sense of control. If you can come up with a pitch, know who to pitch it to, and know how to pitch it, you can make money for your client. Get a hit in People, watch online sales spike. New York magazine, they walk through the door with the torn-out page in-hand. It's all a direct result of the work you did.

Of course, if the press don't bite, that's not your fault at all, but that of a faulty product or service. That's the magic of PR. A good publicist always knows how to spin things to her favor.

Don't you (forget about me)

Hi! It's me!

Remember me? The one who used to blog all the time about things usually more interesting than the weather? I know, I know, it has been a while but I am still in New York and in between spa appointments I am trying to ward off potential love handles with infrequent and often unsatisfying trips to the gym, so that has left me little time to do actual work for my job that sent me here, let alone do something so frivolous like, oh, I don't know, blog.

I have a lot on my mind and a lot of potential post material. If I can ever stay in for an evening, maybe I will find time to write about it. Otherwise, please bear with me and pray that my next post doesn't include a mouse sighting.

In the meantime, I will leave you with the one celebrity sighting I've had this week: at dinner on Friday night we saw Julianna Margulies. She was with two men and, while they were all stunning, she looked absolutely amazing. Dark lipstick, pale skin, flowing hair - she looked younger and more beautiful than I remember her on ER.

Hot town, summer in the city

In case you haven't heard, there is a heat wave in New York. Yesterday hit in the high 90's but the heat index made it feel more like in the 100's. I stay at the hotel directly across the street from the spa, and both have air conditioning, but even the 60 second walk across the street is unbearable; I can't imagine having a real commute like most of the people who live here.

I've stayed at this hotel so often that I am officially a VIP; it said so on my profile. The only benefit I've really seen from that, though, is two trips in a row now I have finally gotten a room with a closet. I'm just glad I haven't seen any mice yet. But it's only day three, so I shouldn't be that excited.

Other than the heat, the trip has been good. The last two days were super busy, but today was much more low key and I even got to go to the gym. No matter how busy we are during the day, however, we always seem to find the energy to go out at night and party it up like we've just turned 21. And every morning I wake up and say to myself, this is exactly why I had to leave New York.