Leandra Medine's Blog, page 744

Why Not Turn Every Day into a Game Show?

Sometimes I say things and then forget I said them and when I am prompted to remember that I did, in fact, say them, I am just like: what?

The reason I’m bringing this up is because in one of the above video’s penultimate moments, I am talking about style and furthermore its dexterity to let us to assume different identities which I realize I talk about too frequently at this point, but then I mention electively opting to turn every day into a game show and, what does that mean?

Maybe you know.

Do you?

See more stuff contingent on this stuff right over here.

[Fashion Creatives: Leandra Medine via Mercedes-Benz]

Me and My Red Sweater

You know how I know I am living a dismal existence at the hand of a city I have spent my life defending but am now beginning to question rather solemnly? Because last Monday, when it was 39 degrees, I practically farted glitter. No, really, my ass turned into an incredibly lucrative medical anomaly that I am pretty sure I can take on the road and make good money with. The reason I can fart glitter, though, is far more grave.

At the mere suggestion of a temperature not grazing the 10 degree mark, I become so excited that you might be forced to think I am a junior at Syracuse, readying for Spring Break in Acapulco. (I am sorry if you went to Syracuse or live in Acapulco — no judgement.) The fact of the matter is, though, 39 DEGREES DOES NOT A SPRING BREAK MAKE.

So what did I do?

I put on an orange-ish red sweater with really large trouser jeans (Charlotte very astutely pointed out that I look like Fat Albert which was the only ray of sunshine this day has offered) and a pair of white pumps that I have wanted to wear since that week of 50-degree weather in December but have not been able to wear because it has been so damn cold I am afraid that my toes will begrudgingly disengage themselves from the chunk of foot that is connected to my ankles and I might never be able to wear shoes again.

Then I wore sunglasses and did the sun equivalent of a rain dance which I suppose is actually the opposite of a rain dance but it was in reaction to a plethora of undesired snow and this guy (see below) didn’t even care:

What a difference a week makes, right? Because currently, I am knee deep in a sea of new snow, which will indubitably become the city’s largest dog piss flavored snow cone in no time and all I can think is: how is it even possible that there is any more crystalline water ice left in the dag nab clouds?

Oh, the fuckin’ dag nab clouds.

Thakoon sweater, Chloe jeans, Valentino pumps, Vint and York clubmaster sunglasses.

Happy Horoscope Day!

I approach horoscopes like a fair weather fan. When negative things are forecast for my sign — bye! Zero loyalty. But man oh man, when things are coming up roses for the Taurus, I’m all about my team. I am wearing the jersey. I’m letting the universe know that I’m associating myself with a constellation of stars that in no way resembles a bull and I am proud of it. This is one of those months.

In other news, Venus is back so you all should be feeling fine as hell. Now let’s dig in to the delights of one Susan Miller.

Happy birthday Aqua babies! Your gift from me to you is that I will not, for once, type the lyrics to that song. Your gift from Susan to you is this: your ruler, Uranus, will send a golden vibration to the new moon from your house of communication and travel. Cool. You’ll be more sentimental and mushy than usual this month, so try not to annoy your friends by making out with your significant other at dinner. If you’re single, mingle. Other than that, eat crab cake and celebrate — the end of the month brings $$$.

It’s an introspective month for you, Pisces. You’re going to look at the world and your part in it as if you were watching scenes in a movie. How very underwater Truman Show of you! Your intuition will be strong and you’ll crave alone time. Life will feel “quite glorious” in all areas of love and creativity — use that information as you see fit but it sounds like a sex swing may be in your future. Or you’ll paint something. Either/or, really.

Aziz AnsAries, old friends are coming back into your life, and friends in general will be “important players” for you in February. Mercury’s kind of being an asshole this month, so you’re likely to lose things. Don’t sign papers, and do not buy a refrigerator. I hope that didn’t just ruin your week right there — new fridges rule — but the good news is that it’s a great time for sweet lovin’, so get out there and kiss a stranger.

This will be a very exciting month for us Tauruses regarding career, home, and social life. I like to call this: Having a Beyoncé. It’s much needed after Venus’s long ass nap (must be nice), because the snoozing planet slowed down our progress. Susan wants us to throw a Valentine’s Day party for singles, to which I’m just like, Hang on, let me round up my cats. In other newz by Suz, it’s a good time to buy furniture, and a heavenly event is coming our way ’round Feb 28. We win!

Geminguys, I’d want to be you if my horoscope wasn’t so non-lame for once. Susan says that a beautiful new moon appeared on Jan 30 for you, which is causing opportunity rain down in ways you’ve not seen in months. You’re straight shining. You’ll be imaginative, creative, and your horizons are opening up. Also, you may become famous. “This sounds like a great month,” writes Suz, “and one you will find as delicious as ice cream. Eat it all up with a spoon!” I just hope none of you are lactose intolerant.

I’m gonna be real with you Cancers, your horoscope opens up like Zzzzzz with talk of taxes so I fell asleep for about four of Susan’s paragraphs. But I did pay attention to the part where she more or less said Uranus is going to bring you a literal buttload of cash, just out of the blue, so check your mail with fervor. Possibly anticipating your new influx of money, our girl wants you to celebrate Valentine’s day with casual caviar and champagne. As we say in the old country: Carpe diem! That’s Latin for YOLO.

Leos, I bet your ears have been burning because Susan keeps talking about you to the other signs. In a good way. Valentine’s Day falls “precisely on a full moon in Leo” so not only does your sign make February 14th fancy all around (see: Cancers having a very P. Diddy V-Day), but this holiday actually belongs to you this year. “You must promise me to celebrate,” says Party Suz. Go out no matter what — single, taken, catted up — doesn’t matter. Just get out there and flaunt your Versace.

Suzaloo says that you Virgos will be working on a new assignment this month as a result of the fresh moon that occurred Jan 30 in your solar house of day-to-day projects — aka the Martha Stuart Stars. Maybe you like to craft! Maybe you like to bedazzle! Who cares because this project will give you some much needed money. Mercury is in retrograde which is kind of boring to talk about, and since Venus is having a full blown cotillion to announce her return, you’re in luck regarding love.

Libras!! Susan begins your horoscope as if you had a rough couple of weeks. I had no idea! Why didn’t you text me? Never mind that because February is going to be good to you, and a shimmering new moon has lit your house of true love on fiya. If you’re single, you won’t be for long. If it sounds like I’m hitting on you, then maybe I am. Showering a lot is important this February because you just might meet the person of your dreams when you least expect it, and we all know the worst thing would be to smell. On a work-related note, you’ll be given interesting assignments and you will make. them. sparkle.

Scorpios, a new moon is going to bring luck to your side and push life in your favor. However, because of this stupid retrograding Mercury (there’s always one, isn’t there?) beware of “sure things” falling through. “Cast a wide net,” says our fisherwoman of the stars. But get this: “Scorpios working in creative fields will also do exceptionally well…all sorts of ideas will fall from your mind all around you, and when they do, [they] will shine more brilliantly than diamonds.” (Suz loves a Rhianna reference.)

The first sentence into Susan’s prediction for Capricorns said that you’re going to end the month richer than you started. Venus is also favoring your sign this month so a) you’re probably feeling like a full dime piece and b) love is going to flow into your life. It’s a great time for traveling short distances. Suz went slightly delirious and suggested you go somewhere with snow, but she also suggests somewhere with water. So, FIJI IT IS, TITO!

Leandra (a Sagittarius) has gotten so superstitious about her horoscopes that I get nervous telling the truth. Luckily, Suzaroo said good if not weird things this go-around: “You are about to spread your wings this month and fly away, dear Sagittarius, thanks to a new moon that will seem like a fairy godmother, who will make sure you go and have plenty of fun while there.” WHAT? Who cares, let’s dance. Be deliberate about communication this month, otherwise you might send an awkward email to the wrong person. Maybe this is why she wants you to travel. On the bright side, Internet media will shine for you. (Cough*read Man Repeller*cough)

A final note for all of us: Mercury is going into retrograde, which means it’s a good time to do anything with the pre-fix “re.” Susan actually said that. If this were an 8th grade classroom you know there’d be some boy who raises his hand and goes, “What about RE-fart?” But seriously, it’s a time to revisit, reexamine, rediscover, etc.

The retrograde will make February a slow month, so enjoy the sloth and put the re in Rihanna.

Image via British Vogue, shot by Tim Gutt

Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?

On the heels of Karen Walker’s most recent look book release, which included a selection of Kenyan artists posing in her frames, it occurred to me that sunglasses may or may not be the unsung hero of winter accessorizing.

If you think about it, the tools we use to cloak our heads and wrap our necks and force our fingers into fractured knit compartments for the sake of maintaining our warmth aren’t a group of particularly thrilling accessories to indulge in. They’re much more a necessity. But where sunglasses are concerned – and make no mistake, they are – there’s a unique thrill that comes with their decorated anonymity and a viable scope of fashion-elicited escapism.

Remember that scene in the critically acclaimed film Big Daddy when Adam Sandler is trying to help his effectively kidnapped son, Julian, overcome his reticence? Like a kid trapped in the body of an unfledged grown-up, Sandler tells Julian that if he puts on his sunglasses every time the plague of timidity strikes, no one will be able to see him, thus cutting his fear and presenting a much larger takeaway for us.

You see, sunglasses can be your mask. They can embolden you behind bug-eyed lenses, making you the Anna Wintour (Costume Institute) of your local supermarket. Whose that mystery woman buying a rotisserie chicken and toilet paper?, people might wonder. With sunglasses, you’re instantly always possibly a celebrity.

But they also have some magical ability to make every outfit exponentially better. Picture yourself in a burlap snooze sack — now add a pair of sunglasses. Excuse me, I think you just became Madame Prada on her most chic day.

See, who you are is who your sunglasses want you to be. But the beauty is, you’re the one buying the shades.

Maybe yesterday you were an alien, and today you are a model. Tomorrow you might be an editor and on hump day you’re a goddamn princess with sunglasses shaped like starfish.

So without further ado, here’s your Saturday slideshow served chilled with a side of shopping on Friday. Play this song, fuck the week, and buy some sunglasses because as Amelia said earlier today in bullshit regard to the cold uniting us all, it may just get you through February.

The iPhone Cleanse

It always boils back down to Paris.

Last Fashion Week, I was seated at Café de Flore in St. Germain de Pres while I embarked on a solitary game of Guess Which Tables House Americans. As is always the case when the contingency of Americans in Paris outweighs that of the Parisians in Paris, Flore becomes the centriole that shelters the misplaced. This particular round was almost too easy to plausibly call a game (which infers challenge) because there was one salient indication that demarcated the Americans from the French: the former – all of them – had their phones out. The latter did not.

The distinction should have seemed innocuous, but the moment I looked down to my right and saw my phone, lit up, sitting next to a side order of haricot verts, I felt ashamed. Here I was, dining among hundreds, in Paris, and I still needed the safety portal that keeps me perennially connected at a short arm’s length.

When I got back to New York I conducted a marginal social experiment. For one week, between the hours of 6PM and bedtime — I would abandon my cell phone.

On Monday night I was supposed to meet my friend Jessica for dinner at 6:30. I got there to the restaurant at 6:25, waited for her until 7:15, then ate alone and left. When I got home at 8PM, I had a text message postmarked 6:15 that read, “Not sure I can make it! Can we push to 9?”

This was infuriating not because I had to eat alone (that part was delightful — I was forced to entertain myself using only a glass of wine and my own mind) but because in the age of constant communication, the sanctity and art of a platonic date is lost. You don’t have plans anymore until they’re seated across from you, communicating putatively face to screen.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights I went home straight from work which left me with approximately four recreational hours to talk to my roommate, who also happens to be the man I one time solemnly swore to have sex with exclusively for the rest of my life. The exercise reminded me how boring he truly is and that was awkward. (Lol, JK.)

Interestingly, I was not picking my eyebrows as frequently — purportedly because I was not focusing razor sharp on the tiny little screen impairing my vision with each squint that obliterated the skin on my nose.

And any time I spent in the public domain between Monday and Friday was time ripe with opportunity to trip the plethora of face-down passersby, focused so intently on the small devices they held, if, as the aphorism suggests, the cows were to come home, they’d have no damn clue. I knew that just a week earlier, I had been one of them and immediately understood exactly why my dad hates walking around with me.

On Thursday, I met a work acquaintance-cum-friend for a drink. The deal was similar to Monday’s in that we’d set a time to meet (7PM) and when I left my office at 6:45, I didn’t take my phone. She was there when I arrived and we co-drank a bottle of red wine which is an important detail to share, because just around the glass that would conclusively polish the bottle off — maybe this was an omniscient revelation, maybe it was the Malbec — I decisively recognized what the warnings always mandate: that my interdependence had heretofore impaired my ability to thoughtfully socialize.

Prior to the cleanse of sorts, I’d earnestly begun believing that I was either spending time with people who are not interesting at all (encouraged by an ardent and enduring desire to check my phone) or that I, myself, was losing the social curt and savvy that matters (turns out answering a text message with impressive immediacy is not as impressive as maintaining engagement — real engagement — in the conversation looking at you).

Without wondering whether anyone was e-mailing, or texting, or calling, or @-ing me, I had nothing to do but be where I was. Which is exactly where I’d like to remain.

Of course, the moment the exercise ended, my phone and I were more or less married again. That hasn’t since changed but the good news is, I’m headed back to Paris later this month.

Pictured iPhone cases available here.

Snip/Tuck

There are a certain names that salons know well. Gisele and Brigitte are perennial favorites. “The Rachel” is an old friend. In some parts of the country, “Karlie” is frequently pronounced. In retrospect, I would have been wise to invoke any one of those familiar faces, but instead, I reached into the LeSportsac tote I had received as a Bat Mitzvah gift and withdrew a folded photo of Hayden Panettiere. That was probably my first mistake. My failure to notice my hairdresser’s stricken expression was my second.

“Are you sure?” Angelo asked, meeting my gaze in an illuminated mirror.

“I’m sure.”

At the time, I was barely a teenager and looked even younger. Desperate for some version of “grown-up hair,” I’d come across Hayden’s luminous visage and bouncy, blonde bob in a Neutrogena commercial and immediately decided that my own needed to be styled to similar effect. The only obstacle standing in my way was about eight inches of hair and the fact that we look nothing alike.

I should have known better than to imitate someone with whom I have literally nothing in common. I had a subscription to CosmoGirl, after all. Month after month, the magazine forced me to consider such tough questions as: “Who is Your Celebrity Doppelganger?” As a nice, Jewish girl from New York, I was not meant to emulate Hayden Panettiere. She has a heart-shaped face, pixie features, and the kind of wide, toothy smile that America falls in love with. At fourteen, I had brown hair that bordered on anarchic and braces. Of course, I ignored these red flags. A sophisticated bob would be just the thing to counteract the brackets then affixed to my teeth. I was sure of it.

In the end, I believe Angelo made the best of my determined instruction, but not even such concerted effort could change the fact that I spent three months looking like a human yield sign.

“I think you look elegant,” my father nicely assured me. “Like Hillary Clinton.” I burst into tears.

When my hair finally grew out, I vowed I would never again subject myself to such poorly executed mimicry. And I haven’t. Mostly. Except, you know, for the months I’ve spent trying to approximate Diane Kruger’s style or the special occasions on which I’ve attempted Emma Watson’s sultry, smoky eye makeup.

Surely, I’m not the only person to quote celebrity example. The habit is what mood boards and Pinterest pages and aspirational magazine spreads are made of. We all do it.

Last week, however, the New York Times investigated a more radical take on the practice. Dr. Sam Lam, a facial plastic surgeon, estimated that “about once a month, someone comes in who wants to look like a family member, friend or celebrity.” Patients interviewed for the piece include a woman who declared she’d be happier were she to more closely resemble Heather Locklear and another who “shaved cartilage from her nose, injected the dermal filler Sculptra to plump out her cheeks and squirted a little Botox into her forehead” to look more like Kate Winslet. Dr. Amy Wechsler, a Manhattan dermatologist, recalled a man who “went from doctor to doctor trying to get surgery to look like Brad Pitt.”

Obviously, there’s a Grand Canyon of difference citing a hairstyle — however ill advised — and seeking out a scalpel. The bob may have been a questionable choice, but it wasn’t grounds for mental care. At least I hope not. Still, the article does call the line between inspiration and imitation into question. Where do we draw it? Where should doctors and even hairdressers draw it?

Today, when personal style is at such a premium, how should one take cues from off-duty models and Academy-Award winners and Kim Kardashian and make those looks her own? Have you ever managed it? Better yet: have you ever failed as miserably as I did? If so, do tell!

Step away from the scissors. Let’s talk about it.

I Could Be That Girl

Have you ever been walking down the street, or sitting at a coffee shop, or standing at a platform, waiting for any form of mass transit to collect you when suddenly, she walks by? In one poised glide, no matter what you’re wearing — it could have been the outfit equivalent of a Michelin star as far as you were concerned — it falls ineffaceably flat.

You now feel vulnerable — favorite shoes no longer prized, swing coat instantly defiled. But you don’t even know her. And she doesn’t know you, thus making it reasonable to assume that she absolutely did not want to make you feel like sartorial pond scum. So what did she do?

Put simply, she wore her personal style. And see, once the vulnerability begins to fade, a different feeling consumes the afflicted. It becomes far less about what you’ve done wrong and much more about what she did right. Slowly but surely, maybe unwittingly, you start to chant intrinsically, favorite shoes retaking their throne, coat swinging convivially: I can do that. I could be that girl.

I’ve been thinking a lot again lately about what constitutes good style and bad style and though I completely understand that the most accurate metric to gauge the two is actually just a deeply subjective and often inexplicable affinity or aversion, that doesn’t quite cut it for me.

One possible line of demarcation, which I really want to run with, might be in understanding the visceral reaction that a woman has to another person’s style or a specific object. In the case of the above-photographed outfit, I strategically combined items that I bought, well-knowing they weren’t “me” so to speak, but that my wanting to have them meant something good.

First, there was the tweed Marc Jacobs jacket, which I found on Yoox for $300 and bought because one time I saw Lauren Hutton wearing a Chanel version with a white t-shirt and jeans and thigh high boots and I really wanted to approximate at least one element of that look. Then there was the leather, full mini skirt which I frankly only really wanted to pair over a pair of leather pants which aren’t inherently me for the same reason that tweed isn’t: because they’re not denim. They were motivated by a combination of Barbara Martelo and France at large.

As for the shoes, which I bought with a gift card two summers before The Blogger Renaissance, I think I was trying to dip my toes into the beginning of what’s now the exhausted 90s redux but wanted to do it as modernly and therefore ironically as possible. (Because, really, what kind of Doc Marten wearing citizen of the expired era would spend upward of $1k on seemingly tantamount boots?)

Polygamously married to one another and conveyed using my body as the tarp, of course, I like to think I look so very me and maybe, too, that you could be this girl.

Marc Jacobs jacket, Rxmance t-shirt, Opening Ceremony skirt, Helmut Lang leather pants, Balenciaga boots and Vint & York sunglasses

I Am Still Not Over Kim K’s Style

I was on a Parkchester-bound 6 train and halted at the Astor Place stop, which was theoretically fine because there is 4G service underground at that station, scrolling through Instagram when one photo of Kim Kardashian led to a pantheon of photos of Kim Kardashian, which prompted me to ask the passenger to my right reading a book of poetry I now can’t recall if he thinks I would look good with blonde hair.

(Fine, full disclosure. What I said was, “Shy I go blonde?” in that annoying way New York girls speak, pointing at my face and squinting my nose in seemingly utter confusion even though I was well aware what I wanted the answer to be: Duh.)

That I asked a male stranger whose exterior connotations did not at all allude to interest in a woman’s volatile hair color isn’t what confounded me so much as why I asked does. See, I was inquiring based on the pretense that I was so intrinsically and positively affected by Kim Kardashian’s aesthetic that my impulse left me no choice but to wonder out loud, with the possibility of reinforcement from any member of the general public, about the state of my hair.

In my October 4 story, Is It Just Us, Or Has Kim Kardashian Been Killing It?, I posited a new truth — that the antecedent’s style was becoming a force unto itself. Nearly four months later, it’s been confirmed that just like her actual style, the conversion wasn’t just a passing trend. With her full white ensembles and beige coats and nude patent leather pencil skirts and unassuming t-shirts and Alaïa sandals, she’s successfully convinced America — or me — with equal parts metaphor and reality, that she’s well on a road to recovery. Bygone bandages and all.

Of course, her significant other, better known as father to North West, ineffable Margiela mask wearer and sometimes, too, Kanye West, has held a paramount position in the transformation much the same way Whoopi Goldberg’s character helped Lauryn Hill’s in Sister Act II. But where my first report may have been assessing a relatively new condition, this one is much more a celebration of the longevity Kardashian has demonstrated.

I had one of those lightbulb moments people are always talking about over coffee on Sunday with a close friend of mine. We were discussing the ancient Jewish exodus from Egypt and the modern, social implications tethered to the mythic splitting of the Red Sea when– just kidding, we were talking about style. And it occurred to me that the fundamental difference between no style and good style is that the former, no matter how beautiful the wearer who functions as a canvas may be, doesn’t make you want to think I can do that. Where good style meets triumph is in the vulnerable moments that have you question what makes you wear what you wear and why not what she wears.

I have, for example, thought about the photographed black Céline leather trench coat and yellow Max Mara topper more times than I should feel comfortable admitting and not because they’re independently spectacular (which they are) but because they’re brought to life when Kardashian wears them. She doesn’t look off-putting or out of place, and really eloquently confronts the stereotype that to be en vogue is to be 60 pounds — then obliterates it.

So I’m going to say it one more time. Should I (shy?) go blonde?

Soul Cycle Versus the Brazilian Wax

It always begins at 12:00 PM on a Monday. Or 12:05, rather.

I’m usually anxious because I’ve missed the deadline to sign up for the Soul Cycle class that my friends are taking (we have to get Parker or else the world allegedly ends). The reason I’m late is because I’d probably just been on the phone with a receptionist at Benefit, nervously biting my nails, waiting to hear if Nicky will be available for a Brazilian wax on Friday. Same rule applies: get Nicky or else.

As is the case with both, I always secretly hope all of Parker’s spots will fill and that Nicky will be booked. But despite my consistent tardiness and the subsequent good karma, today I have booked both spots. For the same day. This has shed light on a crude, new reality: Soul Cycle and Brazilian waxes are alarmingly, if not conspiratorially, alike.

I’ve never walked into either scenario and felt at ease. Which isn’t to the fault of Soul Cycle or Benefit — I am chronically late and a woman of many, many totes. Because I’m late, I don’t take a storage locker at Soul Cycle and allow for my belongings to languish in a corner. When I’m getting waxed, I leave my coat plus tote and pack of mules carrying who knows what to sit unceremoniously next to me while I apologize profusely, already sweating three minutes too soon.

The instructor or waxer — effectively one and the same —  then patiently waits as you get yourself situated. Both instances are awkward, because one requires that you straddle a tiny seat while adjusting your handle bars (try not to fall face forward and die!), simultaneously “clipping in” to your stirrups (try not to fall face forward and die!). The other, reversely, requires that you take off your pants and lay on your back. The latter is physically simpler in practice but as awkward in theory, and both beg the very same question: do I keep my socks on or what?

At Soul Cycle, the class has begun and we’re starting to pedal. There’s no mercy. No gentle warm up, no easing into the swing of maniacally moving legs, just full force ahead, chants of positivity — one minute in and I’m ready to die.

Drip, pat, rip, scream.

Guess what muchacho, that was strip number one, song number two and you still have a whole ladyhood to cover.

The instructor has the tempo up. Left, right, left, right, and stupid Jenny in front of you is messing up your groove. You’re trying to keep your pedaling in sync with your inhaling and exhaling but it’s hard task when Missy Elliott’s “Pass The Dutch” is already too fast for your breathing. “Inhale,” shouts your instructor, “Here comes the hill!”

And just as you were preparing to catch your breath another glob of intolerably hot wax tears hair from its follicles, abs crunched, back flat, just like the instructor wanted. The hill is always the worst.

With the most grisly portion of the activity behind me, I’m finally able to get in the grove, chugging mantras like The Little Engine That Could. I think I can, I think I can — OUCH! SHIT! I know I can!

Towards the end of the class, I’m seated but still pedaling with weights in both hands. I’m exhausted but feeling triumphant because I’ve made it this far, though thoroughly confused because — shouldn’t my butt hurt more?

Keep pedaling, keep breathing, it’s not over ’til the bald lady sings.

And just when I think that this must be the end, the instructor tricks my relaxed state of mind into handling one more lap that spans the world’s longest song. I’m encouraged by the reminder, “You’ve made it this far!” And I push through the final minute, teeth clenched. Almost done.

Then finally, it’s over. I’ve never been so happy. I feel strong and jovial, ripe with a sense of accomplishment and overcome with pride. I’m a warrior. I’m fit. I am sexy. Why don’t I do this more often? I vow to drink green juice exclusively and wax every third week on the dot. I say I’ll go to classes at least eight times a month and that I’ll stop eating fries. I’ll reserve my razor for my legs only and remember to take an Advil 30 minutes before the next session. “I promise,” I vow. I promise.

But a week goes, two weeks go by and just as fast as waxed hair grows, it’s 12:00 PM on a distant Monday.

Or 12:05, rather.

-Edited by Leandra Medine

The Things They Carry: Lessons by Jay Z and Beyoncé

When I saw Beyoncé chair-humping on Sunday night during her opening number at The Grammys, I felt 50% better about my short hair. This, even in spite of how much I like my short hair.

When Jay Z came out, knees bending, hands jiving, microphone held so close to his lips one was left to wonder where his mouth began and the mega speaker ended, I felt 60% better about having married a man who can not only rhythmically bop his knees as well as the former but who I really, really love. This, even in spite of how good I feel about what is indubitably the best decision I have made.

But when the patriarch of hip hop and the empress of everything else exited stage left, the former’s arm over the latter’s shoulder, a piece of me shriveled and putatively died.

And I could tell that I wasn’t alone. America was left to question its capacity to love — scrutinizing what we’d done wrong and they’ve done right, own personal romantic championships notwithstanding.

I watched that close-up Grammy-cam hone in on the spectators’ reactions as evidenced by their facial expressions, which, in line with mine, said it all: How the fuck did Beyoncé and Jay Z manage to pull this off? The this in question, of course, is everything — the empires and camraderie and family they’ve built in tandem. That they are not just, as the title of their collaborative track would suggest, “Drunk in Love,” but are also sober in love, spectacularly in love, so selflessly and selfishly and unilaterally in love that they actually have the ability to make perfectly happy couples in their unwitting peripheral feel like they’re missing the secret sauce is a point of their victory that I am determined to wrap my head around.

Which is precisely why, by gleaning the information Amelia and I have culled from observing the two and asking anyone who is willing to answer what they believe might be a paramount blueprint of their universal success, we have made it our business to understand how Jay Z and Beyoncé have seemingly become the sole benefactors of that early 2k zeitgeist-y book, which neither of us have read, The Secret.

So without further ado, a list:

1. Don’t throw all your eggs into the Susan Miller basket. I know it’s tempting but if they’d have listened to her theory on why Saggitarians (Mr. Z) and Virgos (Beyoncé) are an unfortunate match, they’d have probably had to settle for lesser versions of one another. I am now feeling really conflicted about having agreed to stay home on New Years Eve like she told me to.

2. The anonymous albeit extremely wise and opinionated “they” say that once you get married you should never stop dating. Well, remember that time Jay and Bey were not only on a date, but sat on the same side of the table and then sang Coldplay’s “Yellow” to each other? That’s exactly what “They” are talking about.

3. Try to get Oprah to council you on your relationship. Oprah gave Beyoncé great advice to never talk about a relationship (just like Fight Club!), B took it to heart, and it worked. This is Oprah’s phone number, good luck: 1-888-943-8696.

4. Put meaning behind the word “lover” and have sex. (Safely!) If you’re wondering how we inferred this from Beyoncé and Jay Z’s notoriously private marriage then I encourage you to re-listen to her newest album and revisit this here point.

5. You and your partner may just need nicknames. Sometimes he’s Hova and she’s Sasha Fierce. Sometimes he’s that double hand diamond symbol for short, and she’s Bey. Nicknames become especially handy when considering role playing for tip #4. We would also like to point out that nicknames make life more fun, not just relationships.

6. The conspiracy theorists in us needs to point out that they can’t really trust anyone else except for each other at this point, but trust is important in any relationship. If you trust someone so much that you’re willing to fall blindly into the unknown, that’s love, man.

7. They are immune to jealousy. If you were Beyoncé, who would you be jealous of? No one. Same goes for Jay Z. This is harder for regular humans, so pretend you’re one of them and let your self-esteem rise. (This works great at job interviews to. Walk in there like Hi, I’m Jay Z, and I rule at literally EVERYTHING. Bam, you just got a job.)

8. Jay Z doesn’t awkwardly try to belt notes that he couldn’t reach and likewise, Bey isn’t freestyling over sampled tracks. They let each other do what they do best, allowing their drinking partner in love to shine.

9. They’re role models and they understand that. This keeps both of them on the straight and narrow — no drugs, no prostitutes, no public drama, which, if you ask us, sound like three pretty solid things to avoid in relationships and daily life no matter what letter your name starts with.

10. Somehow they are completely and utterly grounded. Considering they’re the celebrity equivalents of high school sweethearts, a lot of their deep roots can probably be attributed to growing up in the spotlight together. They’ve been able to keep each other tapped into what’s most important, which is, at the end of the day, a record deal. Just kidding. It’s love. EL OH VEE EE, love.

It’s important to remember though, you don’t need to be in a relationship to apply these tenets. Amelia, for one, is quote single as fuck unquote. Run the world because you can.