Busy Bee

MUSE

Well, things have been hoppin' around here. Sho' nuff, after writing the post below I felt compelled to go and visit my aspirational arm ornament in person. Now, in fourteen years of New York City living I've never been inside a designer store. Not once. But I actually broke the fourth wall for the Gucci. She'd been replaced on the pedestal by a hot little purple number so I had to seek her out. This gave a sexy, black-clad store clerk the opportunity to ask what he could do for me. I described the bag in question and he led me right to her.

"This one's special. We don't have another one like her", he said. Of course not. "She's got a real unique edge. She's sophisticated without being dated. She's playful." 'My God, they get right inside of you', I thought. He put her in my hands and I ran my index finger over each of her weighted, pristine details. The gentleman behind the counter described the features that made her uniquely a Gucci. The zipper pull, lining and structure. The irridescent metallic fabric. I slipped her over my shoulder and strode to the mirror. I watched her dangle from every angle. I was wearing jeans and a pair of black Chuck Taylors, but I coulda been in a Mugler bandage dress and a pair of Fendi booties. She transformed me. I brought her back to the counter, traced the stitching on her underbelly and stepped back to take her in. She was mine.

And then I walked away.

I got myself a little gig this week. I'll be writing about beauty trends for Examiner.com , a culture site with readership in 109 cities. This means great exposure and maybe a little ca-ching, but mostly the opportunity to report publicly on my product fetish and tell you all about critically important things like how to wear the half-black, half-white manicure in real life. You know, world news and matters of national security. Hey, at least you'll be outfitted in the event of another financial crisis. Don't say I didn't warn you that the strong brow was back for fall!

I saw U2 at Giants Stadium with my husband, who is their fan. But before that, I saw Muse open for U2. Muse is my new muse. I can't stop listening to them now, despite having had them on my ipod for 3 years and being pretty into their huge, dramatic sound. Think Queen in a mash-up with Metallica and Radiohead. Throw in a frontman in a pair of really tiny red jeans and a huge white piano and you'll have Muse. Fist-pumping and showstopping. Made up entirely for the fact that a huge Jersey gorilla of a man asked me to move out of his way during the first song in U2's set, which froze me self-consciously in place and kept me from moving for the duration of their show. "Stuck in a moment and you can't get out of it"? Bono didn't know the half of it.

Better than all of that, I saw Fanfarlo at the Bowery. Beautiful and strange and Swedish. Trumpets and saws and fiddles and guitars. A small, buttoned-up frontman with a butterfly vocal that flew out and soared above all of our funky, stoic heads. Such romantic lyrics for such a young gent. I feel so lucky to live in New York, to be able to stand on two legs at midnight and listen to six strangers play me music I can sway to.

Life is good in the electric city.

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

All I can say is, never underestimate the power of a glossy patent handbag.

This slick sack? We've begun seeing each other. Well, it's not formal, actually. I see her and she just sorta stares back, invitingly. I haven't introduced myself yet. She's kind of a loner, actually. People tend to put her on a pedestal. She sits astride one just so in the gleaming Gucci ghetto on on Fifth Avenue and 54th Street. She's worth two paychecks at least, maybe three, and I usually find those kinda girls pretty intimidating.

I'm afraid that if I brought her home I'd have to stop wearing mom jeans. Girls like these usually demand a certain garment-related savoir faire, and bare minimum that you can at least stand in heels for longer than fifteen minutes without pulling out your pair of Chucks. There is a school of thought that these kinds of gals encourage your A game. But secretely I wonder if just like the awesome patent ankle boots from Bond Street that seemed so brilliant two years ago, she'd really just spend most of her time at home in curlers waiting for a "special occasion" at which to make an appearance.

Thing is, though, I want her. I know it's cliche but she just gets me. For one, we're both in touch with our dark sides. She loves metal, she's soft-bottomed with all the pinches and tucks you'd expect from a sophisticated woman of a certain season. And the best part? It looks as though after a long, late night she broke her heel and fell into a pool of gasoline. If things were to get too hot she could burst into flames in a second. That's just the way you'd want any good broad to be: nice and shiny but never precious.