Leandra Medine's Blog, page 719

What To Do When You’re Bored

1) Play hide-and-seek with your boss, but don’t tell her/him you guys are playing.

2) Pretend to steal things from a nearby store, get caught, then tell them you were just pretending! This will add a little bit of excitement to everyone’s day.

3) Put on all your winter gear and sit in the sun with a friend to see who can last the longest. (But make sure to stay hydrated.)

4) Tell everyone you just got acid in your eyes and see how they react.

5) Tell your mom you’re pregnant. (If you are pregnant, tell your mom you’re in love with a cat. If you are in love with a cat then #1, me too and hopefully it’s not the same one because, awkward, and #2 — hope you don’t have allergies!)

6) Go to a playground. Get on the swings. When children approach the swing next to you shout: “YOU WANT THE SWING? YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE SWING.”

8) See how many people on the subway or bus you can get to sing along to a Bruno Mars song. Now is not the time to be a music elitist, by the way. Pick one everyone knows.

9) Pick your eyebrow until it is completely eliminated from your face. This is good for extended non-boredom: afterwards you’ll either be busy explaining that you’re promoting the beauty of asymmetry, or, you’ll be figuring out a source of fiber that is most similar to hair so you can glue it over your now-bald spot. If you’re still bored after this, try plucking the opposite eye’s lashes.

Ed note: Instead of gluing, sewing said fibrous materials will take a lot more time.

10) Stand in your lobby and tell everyone you’re lobbying for lobbyists.

11) Help us figure out the missing number, where it went, and what it possibly could have suggested to eliminate boredom.

12) BONUS ROUND! Count the number of toe hairs on the man to your left. Guess what, this is super fun to do if you followed #1 and you’re hiding under your boss’s desk.

You guys are weird. Bye!

What to Wear When You Want to Get Fired from Your Office Job

I did this weird thing yesterday where after I got dressed, while still in my apartment, I looked into a mirror and said to myself, “Self, this looks fine.” The proclamation was followed by my walking out the door. Important to note is that this is something I do on a near daily basis, but on the particular morning that found my ass reverse-camel toeing, it was slightly if not entirely unusual that when I looked into the mirror I didn’t so much as consider how destructive it might be for me to wear denim underwear out publicly.

Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, I’ve tangoed in the public domain while pantsless de facto at least as many times as I can count on one finger, but when you’re going into an office and that attendance record is being met with at least a handful of additional office visits across the island of Manhattan, how short is too short when it comes to your, you know, shorts? This question arises at a particularly sensitive time because in spite of it being July, it is cold. So the excuse I love to use — that it’s too hot for clothes – doesn’t quite work when boots (not to be confused with boobs!) seem vaguely applicable.

But that’s not all. Here are three other things that are wrong with this outfit and my having worn it on a day I was specifically asked to appear presentable:

1. I have not shaved my lower legs in at least ten days because they’re far away from my hands and I don’t like bending down. I have not shaved my upper legs ever.

2. From certain angles, you can see my nipples — which are not concealed by a bra — through my shirt. I know this deficiency can be repaired with the mere buttoning of a button but drama is my middle name and also, I one time had my hair done at a salon called Dramatics NYC. I still carry the torch of that blow dry with me everywhere I go.

3. You can see my buttcheek through your rearview mirror which is extravagantly silhouetted in part due to my skin bulging out of the rigid denim.

Conclusion: wear this! You have nothing to lose.

Madewell blouse, Levi’s shorts, Charlotte Olympia shoes. Jewelry by Sylvia Toledano and Shashi.

The Lost Art of the E-mail Reply

Good afternoon, moonshine. It is 3PM if you are reading this story at its time of publish and I have accrued 43 e-mails in the time it has taken me to hit publish. About half of those e-mails will be going directly to trash (that there are still e-mails populating my inbox referencing Sochi seems like both a digital marvel and catastrophe). The other half will require responses that will consume the next 25 minutes, at least. Many of these responses will simply indicate my need to provide a simple yes or no answer while the remaining handful, the real chunk of time-consumption guised as typing, will require a bit more, let’s say, mental finesse.

To be clear, I am not the reply button whisperer.

I have convinced myself that 30% of the food I consume is food I consume in order to procrastinate hitting the reply button. I have also been told on a number of occasions, mostly from relatives, that I am atrociously bad at responding to e-mails. One time, my mom wrote to ask me if I wanted to have lunch on the day her e-mail was sent, and while I did reply yes, it was two weeks later. Just two months ago, the, how you say, situation got so bad that my dad cc’d my husband on an e-mail, subject title “Shame on Your Wife” about the four e-mails he’d just urgently sent me, which I didn’t answer, to which I wanted to respond: I have a phone number, dad. Instead I cried but that is neither here nor there.

I want to say it’s not my fault but of course, I know that it is. And I’m working on it –really, I am. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail about attending an event for a new pacifier brand (yes, as in the baby prop) to which the old me would have never responded. But the new me politely declined the invitation and that was it. No harm, no foul. It was much easier than I anticipated it would be and frankly speaking, sure beat ducking my head every time a follow up e-mail hit my inbox as though the sender could see me and I was Carrie Bradshaw in that ridiculous(ly telling) episode of Sex and the City when she thought Aidan could see her through AOL. It got me on a reply-roll.

See, but once I got better at answering e-mails, I realized how terrible the rest of humanity — or at least the fraction of it with which I liaise — is at answering e-mails, which leads me to ask the question: when did it become okay to stop answering e-mails? You wouldn’t ignore a text, would you? Much the same way that if an interlocutor were to look directly at you and ask you a question, I’d put good money on the possibility that you wouldn’t ignore his or her face either. So what makes leaving an e-mail, in this digitally golden age of communication, seem okay?

Of course, I understand that there are exceptions. Press releases don’t often require answers. Neither do, I suppose, rent payment reminders. But if e-mailing has become, as several pundits of expression have put it, the most efficient form of correspondence (speculation), what does that mean about our ability to successfully and perhaps more importantly, respectfully transmit information?

Allude to Snapchat’s escalating pervasiveness and I will definitely ignore your e-mail.

Getting Old

A toddler who is about to turn four can announce that he is old. His statement will be met with complimentary applause and the resounding agreement that yes, he is old.

“Such a big boy” may also be cooed.

Yet for some reason my announcements of early aging at 26 and the continual complaint that I feel “so old” are countered with harsh glares and eye rolls and, “Just wait until you’re my age.”

“Such a big girl!” is typically not added.

…But maybe that’s because I’m shrinking in height, which is a tell-tale sign of aging that comes after grey hair and early dinners.

The grey hairs started when I was 12. I remember sitting in the car while my parents went on a hike and I found my first grey strand that would eventually turn into approximately 8 billion. If you don’t believe me ask my colorist who covers the now-white stripe on the left side of my head every two months even though she’d prefer it if I came more frequently. It is not chic. I do not look like Stacy Clinton.

I also cannot hear. The realization of this came about three months ago when I lost my left contact in a public situation. If you wear contacts and are as blind as I am short, then you know that losing one contact is worse than losing two and so, I took both out and had to ask my seeing-eye-friend to more or less guide me home.

“But Amelia,” you’re probably beginning, “being near-sighted isn’t a sign of old age. It’s when your close-up vision goes away that you know you’re gaining years. And what does this have to do with hearing?”

Because, you see — and please embrace your youthful vision! — as soon as I couldn’t see, I suddenly couldn’t hear; the volume got turned down to the level typically reserved for annoying commercials and important phone calls. I was “What? What?” city bitch, and my friends eventually gave up repeating themselves. The only logical conclusion to this phenomenon (shouldn’t my hearing having gotten stronger?) is that this whole time I have been reading lips and didn’t know it. Like a spy.

An old, senile spy.

Gravity is also working against me. Not in a John Mayer kind of way, but in a when-did-I-get-this-much-elbow-skin kind of way. I’ve been watching the growth of my earlobes like a weather tracker on New York 1 and speaking of the news, I’ve taken to arguing at the news anchors who grace my screen each night. In fact, I talk to them more than my very own friends, because all my friends do is remind me with frustration of all the names of those people I forgot we went to college with.

I have foot problems. I have back problems. My physical therapist is now also my go-to for restaurant recommendations which — per the stereotype touched on earlier — I will only approve of if they can seat me before 9. An 8 PM meal is hardly the early-bird supper special, but it’s a far cry from my days of 24 when “dinner” meant 10 PM and heart burn wasn’t a legitimate concern.

“Why are you telling me this,” I bet you are wondering. Because you asked me how I was doing, of course. And one of the most glaring, cliché signs of getting old is losing your filter and responding with a novel (presumably on your health) when all someone asked was, “What’s up?”

Oh you didn’t ask? You see. I’ve lost my memory too. That proves it. I’m old. Let’s party.

Five Ride or Die Rules to Summer PDA

The setting could have very well been painted by Sofia Coppola herself. It was dreamy and ethereal and scored to a B-side of my favorite song by The Strokes. I was sprawled out on the grass in Prospect Park, clad in hand-me-down florals, feeling like a manic pixie dream girl when suddenly, the urge to touch my husband’s left butt cheek overcame my right arm. And why not? The sun was setting, the PBR was setting in, and our favorite band had just started strumming the opening verse of our wedding song.

I looked up at the sky and asked if Nicholas Sparks was authoring my life.

But a page was tragically turned when upon noticing my hand inch closer and closer, my husband shifted his stance so as to disconnect half his butt from my palm. Here I was, leaning in and practically begging for a kiss or at the very least some arm chills and my advances were being rejected. Subtly, yes, but rejected nonetheless.

I was momentarily offended before looking to my left, then right, when I realized that there were at least eight couples who decided that this, too, was the right moment to seize the PDA.

The thing about a public display of affection is that there is this glaring double-standard. When you and your partner-in-crime are rough and tumbling in the grass, it’s sexy. When buzzcut Bob and his blonde babe are grinding and groping to Flo Rida, it’s gross. Similarly, when you lip-lock at sunset, it’s romantic and bohemian. But when Timmy and Sarah Beth interrupt their picnic by the Central Park lake for some kisses and cuddles, it’s like, YEAH, call me in two years when the baby is crying all night and your mortgage payment’s due! 

Perfecting PDA requires your performing that delicate dance between public and private and I will be the first to attest that it is not easy. As a result of this, and as the woman whose significant other’s left butt cheek is averse to her touch, I have taken it upon myself to compile a short list detailing the do’s and don’ts of summer PDA. Because, yeah, I get it, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and you just want to suck face.

1. PDA finds solace in the company of disconnected strangers, not in front of friends.

2. In my experience, shit has gotten weird when hands get involved. Keep those critters in  your pocket and save them for a rainy day.

3. Trap me in a sterile pod and call me Bubble Boy, but the idea of swapping spit amidst bites of turkey tea sandwiches gives me the skivvies. If the tonsil-hockey urge strikes during meal time, be it at a restaurant or picnic, eat and then play, or play and then eat. Just remember that the sunset is going somewhere.

4. Know the difference between a peck versus a balls-to-the-walls make out session. The former shouldn’t last more than five seconds while the latter has been known to stand the test of at least a handful of 7 minute rendezvous in a broom closet heaven. And for Yeezus’ sake, keep your pants on.

Later. Definitely, later.

5. Sorry I’m not sorry that you fell so deep into the abyss of your partner’s blue eyes, the fire hydrant caught your big toe. PDA in motion disrupts the flow of the ocean. Keep it at a stand-still. Your mom may not have been talking about deflowering your tongue but she was right when she said: have fun, be safe.

Oh! And you should know that I grabbed his ass again yesterday. He complied. Success.

Visit Esther’s blog, The Philosophy of Windex here and follow her ass on Instagram here.

Feature image shot by Alfred Eisenstaed for LIFE Magazine, 1945

When Hemlines Rise

You might remember a story titled A Wedding Outfit that Doesn’t Suck which ran at the beginning of the unofficial wedding season a.k.a. the artist formerly known as Summer, and suggested that you pair your longest gingham (optional) organza (optional) skirt with a white button down blouse.

Whether or not you took that advice (which also included sunglasses no matter the time of day/state of circumstance and a marigold lunchbox) is irrelevant so long as you could empathize with owning a really long skirt. One, ideally, that you like a great deal but also understand serves a fairy futile function, which is to sit in your closet and collect dust 364 days a year (65 on a leap year!), save for the one day it is being worn, when there is also an understanding that for the duration of that wear, the skirt will moonlight as a broom and sweep floors so efficiently that you might actually question your de facto cleaning supplies.

What a shame, right? To love a garment so much but find that you can barely wear it? Don’t be a victim of mendable circumstance. Here’s what I suggest. Either hightail it da fuq over to a tailor (Hong Kong Jack in the West Village is practically my dad away from dad) or trust yourself enough to exercise a fairly simple DIY and snip, sew and wear. As you can see in the images chronicled above, the long gingham organza skirt is now a duty-length gingham organza skirt and provides the appropriate ratio of cloak to bikini top and panama hat. (As, yes, worn in New York City.)

Because you know what they say, right? If you can’t get to the beach, don’t fall victim to idiocy and try to prove that “the beach will come to you.” That’s geographically impossible. Do, however, dress like you’re going to the beach and play a fun dislocation game we will henceforth call Continental (or in this case, is it Coastal?) Confusion. You won’t be sorry, unless you will be, in which case, we’re sorry.

What?

Kiini bikini top, CH Carolina Herrera skirt, Proenza Schouler sandals, Olympia Le-Tan handbag, Steven Alan hat, Karen Walker sunglasses.

Fruit Salad

Fruits are part of a balanced diet. They are right up there, I suppose, with yogurt and candy. But it wasn’t until Prada put bananas on a button down that we realized — or at least truly believed — that they were part of a balanced wardrobe.

Suddenly it felt like clothes weren’t complete without Dolce & Gabbana’s ripe eggplants, peppers and ready-to-burst tomatoes. Onions technically aren’t a fruit but the designers threw giant red ones in their produce collection too and said, “Let’s make this runway a ceviche, baby!”

Stella McCartney made chests everywhere feel like they were inferior (regardless of size) if they weren’t stamped with lemons or limes. Or grapefruits. And I don’t even like grapefruits — they’re sour and gross — but I’m telling you, a dress just wasn’t a dress without one.

In 2011, Moschino did strawberries. For Spring 14, Stella Jean threw a passionfruit into the mix. And now, if you search, fruits are everywhere — so much so, in fact, that you don’t actually have to search:

There’s this citrus skirt from Isolda, and this dress from Motel Rocks, and this clutch covered in cherries from Edie Parker. If you live in a pineapple under the sea then this dress, these bottoms, and this bag (which is on sale) will feel like home. And if you’re like, “Well I just want to be covered in seafruit,” then you, my friend, are more niche than an Etsy shop that specializes in glass wigs. But I’m not gonna fault you for that — there’s market for glass wigs, and there’s a seafruit shirt somewhere out in the shopperverse.

I tried, by the way, to find a song for this post that pertained to fruit that wasn’t suggestively sexual. Innuendos are funny, but at 9 AM it’s like, no. Apparently peaches are code for uh…you know. And bananas are obvious, and lemons mean “nuts.” Don’t even get me started on watermelon, because I’d prefer to eat this fruit salad with innocent intentions.

So with that, I leave you this, should you want to wear your colorful produce in peace…

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And if you still need something to dance to, there’s always, always this:

Put some fruit in your wardrobe and call me in the morning.

Market by Charlotte Fassler, Slideshow by Krista Lewis

Strange Fruit

Fruits are part of a balanced diet. They are right up there, I suppose, with yogurt and candy. But it wasn’t until Prada put bananas on a button down that we realized — or at least truly believed — that they were part of a balanced wardrobe.

Suddenly it felt like clothes weren’t complete without Dolce & Gabbana’s ripe eggplants, peppers and ready-to-burst tomatoes. Onions technically aren’t a fruit but the designers threw giant red ones in their produce collection too and said, “Let’s make this runway a ceviche, baby!”

Stella McCartney made chests everywhere feel like they were inferior (regardless of size) if they weren’t stamped with lemons or limes. Or grapefruits. And I don’t even like grapefruits — they’re sour and gross — but I’m telling you, a dress just wasn’t a dress without one.

In 2011, Moschino did strawberries. For Spring 14, Stella Jean threw a passionfruit into the mix. And now, if you search, fruits are everywhere — so much so, in fact, that you don’t actually have to search:

There’s this citrus skirt from Isolda, and this dress from Motel Rocks, and this clutch covered in cherries from Edie Parker. If you live in a pineapple under the sea then this dress, these bottoms, and this bag (which is on sale) will feel like home. And if you’re like, “Well I just want to be covered in seafruit,” then you, my friend, are more niche than an Etsy shop that specializes in glass wigs. But I’m not gonna fault you for that — there’s market for glass wigs, and there’s a seafruit shirt somewhere out in the shopperverse.

I tried, by the way, to find a song for this post that pertained to fruit that wasn’t suggestively sexual. Innuendos are funny, but at 9 AM it’s like, no. Apparently peaches are code for uh…you know. And bananas are obvious, and lemons mean “nuts.” Don’t even get me started on watermelon, because I’d prefer to eat this fruit salad with innocent intentions.

So with that, I leave you this, should you want to wear your colorful produce in peace…

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And if you still need something to dance to, there’s always, always this:

Put some fruit in your wardrobe and call me in the morning.

Market by Charlotte Fassler, Slideshow by Krista Lewis

Teaser for New Beyoncé Music Video!!!

Beyoncé is super nutty. She is always going rogue. Sometimes I think it’s part of her act to be all mysterious. Other times I think she’s one of those people who never reads the itinerary or just skims her emails without actually absorbing the contents of what it says and so she “drops albums” on the wrong dates, but because she’s Beyoncé everyone’s just like, “She meant to do that.”

Well who’s to say whether this is one of those times, and who CARES, because Beyoncé has leaked a teaser for an upcoming music video for her new version of “Crazy in Love”!

I have so many questions. Why is the Stanford French major who slept with (but didn’t “sleep with”) Justin Timberlake from The Social Network starring in this video instead of Beyoncé herself?

Why is she dressed like Anne Hathaway pre-makeover in the Devil Wears Prada? Where is Beyoncés stylist?! Maybe this is symbolism but I’m used to Bey’s hidden meanings being a little bit more bedazzled.

Why is that young and hotter Matthew Morrison with a pointier chin wearing a long-sleeved muscle tee a la 1990?

Is Jay Z mad that the teacher from Glee was Beyoncé’s inspiration for the male lead?

What joke was told at the 1:44 mark that’s so damn funny?

Beyoncé can play the piano? Not that surprising, actually, but what a fun fact!

More importantly, why is the song called “50 Shades of Grey” when it very clearly is just a sexed-up remix of her 2003 hit?

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

Only time will tell.

[Fifty Shades of Grey is Here to Tease You via Vulture]

Screen grab from the trailer, Beyonce Image Courtesy of her 2010 C&A Ad Campaign, photoshopped by Krista Lewis

One More Way to Use Your Neck Scarves

Remember when Andy Milonakis sang “I rock peas on my head, but don’t call me a pea-head?” In the event that you don’t, here is a refresher.

In the event you’ve never heard the theme song of the latter’s eponymous MTV2 show, aren’t you glad I showed it to you?

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not you should feel comfortable calling me scarf head because as fate and my terrible mental bank of pop culture references would have it, I’ve been rocking scarves on my head a lot lately. And as far as my personal knowledge can tell, this is the primordial fault of both the late Tupac Shakur, who tied bandanas around his always-freshly-shaven scalp with the swagger of Vidal Sassoon, and the most recent miscue (hold the mis-) of one Giambattista Valli.

He showed a pastel array of volcanically large tulle skirts with polos and seemingly prosaic white head scarves, which in spite of the aforementioned volcanoes and polos became the singular image, coupled with cool sunglasses, worth writing home about.

It was so cool and I think I can say that with conviction because it incited that reaction of I want to/can be that girl which is what brings us here where you will find at least five photos of me wearing the same outfit (a top from Vika Gazinskaya‘s awesome ass collaboration with & Other Stories, Miu Miu red jeans and Isabel Marant sandals), playing the Go Big or Go Home game as evidenced by a banana clutch and green headscarf wrapped into my hair. Consider me the most flamboyant extra among a group of Fiddlers that dance on Roofs and Broadway.

But that’s not all: wearing it has given at least ten more dollars to the cost-per-wear jar because my neck scarves and arm scarves are head bandages, too! If you remember just one thing, though, let it be that beating summer’s heat or at the very least, the sweat pool that develops at the back of a woman’s neck, is as simple as a roll and tie.

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K, bye!

Feature Image: Tupac Shakur & Giambattista Valli Spring 2015 Couture courtesy of The Cut