What’s the point of the blog if it has not a theme, is sporadically updated, acts coy and withholding when it comes to intimate details?

I don’t know either. But you care, so I persevere, with vague promises of posting more, and my evident discomfort with really revealing everything is maddening even to me. But I think that anyone who really wants to get to the kernel of what is what with me should read/study/commit to memory the following mundane facts about my week.

1. I have yet another ingrown toenail. I’m suspecting it’s genetic. This one can’t be attributed to running shoes because I haven’t been running because either I’ve been working too much, it’s getting cold, or whenever I’m not working I think “Oh it’s too cold I’d rather crawl under the covers and think about work.” Suspicion: combination of the three.

2. I tore through Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, and now I’m slowly making my way through Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and pretending it’s the book version of Mad Men because I’m sad that the Mad Men season is over.

3. I remain enthralled by the Larry King video podcast and I don’t care who knows it. I watched Kid Rock. I watched Eric Clapton. I watched Jenny McCarthy for chrissakes. I don’t care who it is, if it’s Larry King and it’s on a 2×2″ screen, I am rapt.

4. I started watching The Wire. I never like to admit anything is too hard, but I am having a hard time understanding what the hell.

5. I went to a spelling bee. I felt I could have outspelled the pants off everyone there but that’s an ego thing. I pride myself on being a really good speller. I make typos sometimes and this is painful for me because I kind of think of myself as also a really good typist. And a show-off. I’m braggy.

6. I can’t dress for this shit. I mean, I know: LAYERS. But I hate any season that’s not summer.

7. I felt overwhelmed by malignant envy maybe 2 times this week. This is average for me.

8. I felt sorry for myself maybe 4 times this week. This is a lot for me.

9. I got a new gear shift on my 15-year-old bike that is a non-stop target for neighborhood vandals and man, gear-shift technology has really come a long way since I bought my twice-used Specialized Hard Rock Sport in 1992.

10. My new bike basket is not working out. It’s not attaching properly to the handlebars and it slowly or sometimes quickly starts to dump all my stuff into the street while I’m riding. I get a lot of compliments on it, however, so I’m thinking: who needs stuff? The surly guy at the bike shop even complimented me! Thanks, Jean!

11. I almost missed Halloween because I was holed up at Paragraph and then emerged at 2am and nearly got trampled on 14th Street by drunk revelers and I realized eh, Halloween, not my holiday. My holiday, for those who keep track of these things, is Bastille Day because it’s French and it’s in the summer. And it involves heads on poles. No, not for that reason.

12. I stood behind the so so so pregnant Drea DeMatteo at my pharmacy (or should I say “our pharmacy,” since it’s mine and Drea’s) and eavesdropped on her conversation but held myself back from chuckling along or making a calculatedly clever comment because in spite of the fact that we share a pharmacy and I found her black suede hobo bag with tassels that TOUCHED THE FLOOR remarkable, she is not my friend and I am not a starfucker.

13. Two friends’ bands are playing tonight and I want to go to both. I don’t like going to see bands but I happen to have a minimum of three friends who are in legitimately good bands.

14. I have connected with more random people from my past on Facebook than is healthy or seemingly necessary and it makes me nervous that my policy of being apparently personal but not divulging anything truly personal is going to start getting dicey.

15. I realized that when you interview someone for a story, they Google you. Sometimes you interview like 20 people and you see in your site logs that they all Googled you. I find this creepy and I think this is me just being ridiculous because I mean, everyone GoogleS everyone, and of course I’d Google a reporter who called me. I think Google etiquette involves not admitting you Googled someone, as one of my sources did and I got very “this call is coming from inside the house” scared.

16. I am nursing a very cautious crush.

17. Julie brought me a big bottle of 100% aloe vera and I drank the whole thing as the directions advised me, 2oz. twice a day, and I don’t know what it’s supposed to do but it hasn’t done it yet.

18. Don’t not return an email, especially a business email. Don’t not return a call unless you never want to hear from someone again. Never forget to thank people whom you ask for advice. Don’t take the advice and run. People are busy being important/famous/having ingrown toenails and they took the time to give you, a total stranger, advice via email. Say thanks.

Can I pause here and just say that about 9 months ago, in the throes of doing publicity for my book, a stranger emailed me for advice. I feel no compunction in revealing the details of the scenario because I think she acted abominably. She was trying to decide between the MFA programs at Columbia and NYU, both of which had accepted her, and an old professor of mine suggested she contact me. I gave her a whole boatload of advice, a thorough compare/contrast of NYU/Columbia, based on my experience at NYU and friends’ experiences teaching at/attending Columbia–even though I found her sort of supercilious and full of herself. I was in primo advice-giving mode at the time as I was touring-slash-doing a lot of interviews where I was being asked for my opinion a lot. But I tried to abide by my “all unsolicited advice is self-serving” motto and really help her. We should all be so lucky to have such “problems,” but anyone who ever really wanted to get into one of those programs knows that. Anyway, I never heard from her. And I’m kind of pissed about it. Because if there’s one thing I hate it’s people who don’t express gratitude. I’m old-fashioned: I like to send cards. I like to send gifts. I don’t want to appear entitled, even if I feel entitled. I’m showing off again. Anyway. It’s shitty not to thank someone.

It is also shitty to not RSVP to a party; it is shitty to work very, very closely with someone on their book and then not acknowledge its publication (more common than you’d think!), it’s a good idea to kiss someone’s ass just a tiny bit when you ask them for a big favor, but in a genuine way that shows that you respect them and their time. I’m getting ranty now. I forgive you all. But come on people. Be human. Be nice to each other. Acknowledge people. It’s not a zero-sum game. Even if I am totally winning.

19. I think I should turn this more positive. I like my new shoes. Even if they look a little Wednesday-Addams-ish.

20. I worked hard this week and think I will reward myself this weekend. This means I will go running for pleasure and not beat myself up for only doing half my normal distance because I’ve not been running in weeks. This sounds like a dumb reward but I tend to be extraordinarily hard on myself and I think I will try to give myself this gift. Oh who am I kidding. I’m going to get that Cole Haan bag.

I taped an interview with the lovely Dave and Debbie of the Q102 Breakfast Show in Dublin the other day, and from the location of my visitors indicated by my super-secret site files, it must have aired. So top o’ the mornin’, my Irish friends. Call me psychic (please!), but something tells me you’re wondering which six fashion items every woman must own.

Okay, to be honest, I was surprised to be asked that question, because it’s not actually technically in my book but part of an interview I did with the New York Post which you can read in its entirety here.

But let’s revise for the weather and fashion particularities of Eire, shall we?

Six Things Every Dubliner Must Own
A Throughly Subjective List by Melissa Kirsch, author of The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything

1. A good coat. I stand by this one. it doesn’t have to be black (as most New Yorkers’ coats are) but it does have to be waterproof. You can certainly get yourself a swell, warm raincoat in Dublin and if you don’t have one, I’m not sure how you’re faring, but I’m pretty sure it’s not well.

2. Boots. A good pair of warm boots that you can dress up with a skirt, wear with jeans, slosh through puddles, etc. Let’s make them knee-high. Let’s stop obsessing about the dampness of the UK and move on.

3. A good bra. This is universal. Debbie mentioned in the interview it can make you look thinner. Yes, this is true, but it will also make you feel much better about yourself. Go to the old-lady girdle shop and get yourself measured. Let Marge the Bra Lady go to second base with you and come out a new woman. You’re looking for support, no spillover, and don’t be concerned about what the size is. Chances are you’re wearing the wrong size, and usually but not always this can be remedied by a bigger band size and smaller cup size but that’s not always true. Measure. Go. Now.

4. Your version of the Little Black Dress. Perhaps it isa little black dress. Maybe it’s a slightly less-than-little but still flattering and not at all camping tent-like brown dress. Or a good-fitting pair of jeans that you can dress up or down. I’m into clothes that do Day-to-Night Barbie duty.

5. A sturdy, fashionable bag. Designer bags aren’t all they’re knocked up (or knocked off) to be. A bag you love by an unknown designer is going to last you much longer than a Chanel reproduction or a super-expensivo Marc Jacobs tote that anyone who cares will be able to pinpoint to a particular season. I like sites like Etsy for cool, original, well-made accessories.

6. Sunscreen. I know you think because it’s slightly grey a lot that you aren’t getting sun damage. The sun is still shining and emitting its turn-your-skin-the-consistency-of-an-old-Gucci-bag rays even when it’s cloudy.

I offer you these tips not because I think you are desperate to know them (although you might be) but because people like tips and at 6am EST it was very difficult to remember all the things I’d told the Post months ago or to speak in bullet points at all. Who speaks in bullet points naturally? Not me.

PS The book is available from Amazon.co.uk right this very second. Tarry not, my bonny lasses (and lads).

“A recent Yahoo study indicates that the days in which emoticons were considered as unacceptably casual as flip-flops at work are over.”

From the NYT. Let me be clear here. Flip-flops are still not acceptable in an office. They are even less acceptable now that they are either all jangly-jangly trussed up with rhinestones, or as slappity-slap-slap loud as Havaianas. Beach shoes. Shower shoes. Leave them in Negril.

Just because Havaianas are the “cool” brand of rubber flip-flops now does not make them haute couture or acceptable at work. It also does not make it acceptable for them to cost over $10.

Furthermore, those flip-flops with the inner contour footbed situation are not acceptable either. They’re probably more comfortable than your basic rubber flop, but they are still too devil-may-care for the workplace. Unless the workplace is the pool at the Y.

Confidential to Lisa Belkin: Why wasn’t I interviewed for this article?

[T]his is the first time in history that four generations — those who lived through World War II, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y — are together in the workplace.

Managers tell stories of summer associates who come to meetings with midriffs exposed, baring a belly ring; of interns who walk through the halls engaged with iPods; of new hires who explain they need Fridays off because their boyfriends get Fridays off and they have a share in a beach house. Then there is the tale of the summer hire who sent a text message to a senior partner asking “Are bras required as part of the dress code?”

I’m all over that shit, yo. Just kidding. Kind of.

Which brings me to emoticons. It’s possible I’m coming around. I have long lamented the lack of tone on email, mostly because no one gets my deadpan humor and I’m terrified of insulting people. I don’t know if I could bring myself to “wink” at you after I make some comment, but I do appreciate people smiling to let me know they still like me after they send me something I might construe as mean and/or disappointing.

I have been watching a lot of Kathy Griffin. Who was ROBBED of her rightful seat on The View, PS. (I haven’t dignified yesterday’s announcement of Whoopi and Sherri Who-the-Hell-Are-You-Again-Besides-A-Little-Conservative? as Rosie’s “replacement” because I am now giving The View one year. Those two people are not interesting to me. Nor are they funny. Or provcocative. Or good-looking.)

Anyway, Kathy. I think she’s funny. I saw her on my Larry King Video Podcast (Yes, this is what it has come down to) and found her hilarious. So, inspired by KG, my new excuse for anything I say that is or is not funny is “That’s something I’m working on for my act.” I have decided to have a fictional “act” that I’m working on, as if I were a stand-up comedian. This is not unlike One Woman’s Opinion, the fictional book of everything I think. It is fun to say “Oh, sorry I hurt your feelings, that’s just a bit I’m working on for my act.” Or when someone laughs, “Oh good, I’m thinking about using that in my act.” Or if something falls flat, “I guess I’m going to have to refine that bit before I put it in my act.”

The foundation of my act is a one-liner I came up with at dinner with Leigh & Stefanie the other night. It’s a little dirty and I don’t think I can repeat it here. I think it’s a stellar bit, really a very good joke, but too racy for this family website. Because I don’t want my six-year-old fans, or my sizeable senior citizen readership reading a joke about roofies. Email me if you want to hear it.

Oh dear god that emoticon looks LiveJournal-idiotic up there. It hurts me to leave it. Like I am getting acid stomach just looking at it. I won’t look at it.

PS I have been posting more frequently to my Tumblr blog recently. It’s good for quick inspirations. Also I find myself curiously drawn to Facebook. Who am I to spurn LiveJournal. I’ll be blogging there soon, just watch me. Next stop, Webkins.

Let’s talk about dubious forms of celebrity. I, like, you, want to be recognized for my talents. Like you, I want to be rewarded handsomely and perhaps slightly publicly for these talents in a way that means I may have an article or two written about me and/or my talents, but not so famous that I might be denigrated in a tabloid or someone would consider assasinating me to impress Jodi Foster. Existing outside all this frivolity, there is the twinkling beacon of all that is untainted by the mundane, separate and superior to the meager trappings of fame and strivers and small-time hustlers with Broadway dreams. Yes, friends. I’m talking about Wikipedia.

Now, I know people (I won’t name names, but you know who you are, people) who have entries written on them in Wikipedia. Some because they’re famous or “famous” for deeds such as writing books and pop songs, performing in musical acts, or sundry forms of civil disobedience that renders one suitable for notation in the public record. I have been urged by fellow authors to just go and create an entry on myself — which, evidently anyone can do. But I have decided — in the dignified fashion for which I am known to my large and sophisticated fan base — to wait for greatness to be thrust upon me. One day my works will merit an entry in The World’s Encylopdedia, and not by my own hand.

I have also been curious about the people who write Wikipedia. I ate up that super-fascinating New Yorker article about the guy who founded it, its gatekeeper and writers, those trillions of experts and near-experts who contribute and police each other and make sure that only the most valued, esteemed, and authoritative sources in the land are used to inform Wikipedia entries.

Now, let me not tarry any longer to the point. I may be all but non-existent if you search for my name in Wikipedia. But, my friends, it seems my contribution to The World’s Encylopedia is a far loftier one. I’m not a Wikipedia entry. I’m a Wikipedia source.

Yes, it’s true. The Girl’s Guide to Absolutely Everything — my darling book, my sacred issue — has been consulted on matters large and significant and cited not once but twice in a Wikipedia entry of grave importance. Who needs glowing book reviews, Good Morning, America appearances, or velvet cinch-sacks full of gold coins when they have written the Vulgate from which the Bible was translated, the primary source for the Source? People of the world, I give you…

The truth is, I do get asked all the time about bikini waxes, about the wisdom of the Brazilian, about whether it’s “unfeminist” to wax your bikini line. I’ve interviewed countless women about this, and thanks to “natural women” and pluck-every-last-stray-sters alike, there’s a pretty riveting section of the Chapter 10 devoted to the debate (and there is one, sisters, there is!), the different kinds of hair removal available, and how to prepare for the procedure down to the tiniest detail. Not that I need to establish my bona fides. The World’s Encyclopedia has done that quite well, thank them very much.

In case you can’t read that second citation:

“I think there’s something creepy about this phenomenon: Everyone has hair there, it hurts like hell to have it waxed, it requires near-fanatical upkeep, and the more hair we eliminate from genital areas, the more we resemble little girls and not the hirsute women we’ve (proudly) grown up to be.”

And I stand by it, universe. As I am Wikipedia’s witness, it hurts like hell. And you can quote me on that in your dissertation.

I went to the Bad Place today in a megalithic department store’s ballgown department. It seemed like it would be fun to go try on frocks at a department store. I don’t know who I thought I was, or whose idea of “fun” I thought I was going to encounter.

I had just had a rather discomfiting doctor’s appointment and was in the mood to do something mindless and self-adorning. Oh dear god. It’s like fun, fun, fun, Jessica McClintock Gunne Sax I’m going to the prom how hilarious how fun this all is, I’m trying on a red taffeta dress oh hee heee ho ho I AM GOING TO DIE. I am sweating. I am stuck in a Zum Zum prom dress from Sixteen Candles and I’m not going to be able to get it off without ripping the zipper or pulling it off over my head, oh god I’m stuck deep inside a the Seventh Circle of Flammable Textiles, I can’t breathe, I have to get out of this dress and then I have to get out of this store. Will I live to get out of this dress? Will I make it out of this store alive? I’m thirsty, I’m dehydrated. I need to go take a shower. I need to go frolic in green space. I can’t believe I ever thought I’d find redemption via a prom dress.

Lesson learned. Again.

Maira Kalman brings more wonder to TimesSelect and I have my secret TimesSelect membership supplier to thank for my access. Thank you, Secret TimesSelect ferryman. More Maira, it will be a good day. Have a good day.

Previously:

Remember This (Bougainvillea)
Hopelessly Devoted to Maira Kalman

Okay, exhale: I have news regarding my eyebrows and the cruelty of the aesthetician previously known as Meany Mc-Hates-Me-Pants who Chickarina readers will remember from a long ago post of approximately a week ago. My darling JB, who started me going to Meany in the first place, recently took her to task for her behavior. What follows is JB’s update of her recent visit and confrontation:

Meany McHates-You-Pants mentioned you to me!! She said, “You know who I’ve seen lately a lot is Melissa!” I said, “Oh yeah, she said you were a little mean to her?” She said:

“Yes I was because I was so angry: she has these beeeeaaauuuuuutiful eyebrows, an arch women would kill for, and she screwed it up–they were butchered!”

She went on and on about how mad she was at the person who butchered your beautiful brows, and I told her she shouldn’t be so harsh because you are sensitive and you took it personally and you are my friend and she said, “Oh it wasn’t like that!”

Believe me, millions of Chickarina readers, so many I can’t count: It was like that.

But thank god for good friends, right?

Let it be known that I had my bra size measured in the semi-depressing, saloon-door-cubicled lingerie fitting room of Macy’s on Friday. There were signs everywhere declaring that 7 out of 10 women are wearing the wrong size, and as a tireless proselytizer on the topic, I decided to put my own advice to use.

My first choice for a bra fitting would not, for the record, be a department store. I think the woman who measured me may have been put off by my polite questioning of her methods (she didn’t have me take my shirt off, she did not determine cup size through a complex algorithm of widest-part-around measurement and just-under-the-boobs measurement as I expected), but after all was said and done, I have one thing to say to you.

I’m one of the 3. I am, and have been for the past year and a half, wearing the correct bra size. Please stifle your gasps of jealousy–it’s lonely at the top. I didn’t know whether to be elated or depressed. I am proud of myself for having changed sizes when I felt like my bra wasn’t doing me right and for having determined the correct size on my own, but I’m a little sad because I had visions of getting a new size and getting a new lease on life along with my new bra. I am here to report there will be no new lease for me.

I hesitate to relay this story because I am an exception. I don’t want you to think this means you are one of the other 2 in 10. Because you are still probably wearing the wrong size and I am not going to back off this topic until you go get measured and have the transformational experience that’s inevitably in store for you.

…I need to learn to keep it short. These posts are ridiculously rambly. Blogging about blogging is eye-glazingly boring. Eliminating petite departments from women’s clothing stores seems neither here nor there to this 5′8″ long-limbed lass but I see how the short girls I always wanted to be could be despairing. I believe all clothes should probably be tailored. As a wise image consultant once advised me, NO ONE is built like a fit model. Those jeans that fit in the thighs but are too big in the waist just need to be taken in, cheaply and quickly by a deft tailor. As they tell me on crappy television (oh god here I go again), buy for that widest part of you.

You know as well as I do that your bra is the wrong size. I’m not going to go into the specifics of how to measure yourself for the right size (but I will direct you here, here and definitely here), but I will tell you that chances are you’re wearing too big a band size and too small a cup size (the two measurements are, contrary to popular bra-lief, related). We’ll talk more about this later when I exhort you to get thee to a tape-measure-’round-the-neck lady down at the corset shop and get yerself measured, as I recently did my friend J. She emerges from the trenches with the news that it is not scary nor is it awful to get your bosom measured for new bras. Just as I suspected, J. went down two band sizes and up a cup size and furnished me with this inspiring report:

“One could make a movie in the bra fitting room. It is full of women who don’t feel quite right and these very sweet counselors who lovingly help them get themselves pulled back together. Or just a smooth-fitting bra, but the world seems right coming out of there.  The woman next to me had just had a mastectomy and was very vulnerable and her bra specialist told her that she also had her breasts removed after a lumpectomy.  Can you believe that?  All in the booth next to me.”

I can believe it. Do not underestimate the power of a well-fitting bra.

This illustration is by Juliette Borda.
She’s doing the artwork for my book and I have such a deep crush on her
paintings that I sometimes can’t look at them because I get overwhelmed
by their amazingness that I get vertigo. Or something akin to vertigo. I
get north by northwest. I get notorious.