Leandra Medine's Blog, page 748

How Early is Too Early to Start Using Anti-Aging Cream?

I electively spent a lot of time at a dentist’s office in midtown during the former half of my freshman year in college. I was eighteen and recently broken up with and therefore insufferable but with a lot of recreational time to allocate toward doing the things the rest of the population puts off. Like taking care of a receding gum line.

It took a consecutive six Fridays to eradicate the oral damage I would have otherwise ignored and in that time, my dentist became my therapist. While probing at my gums with her instruments, she would explain that her best friend Cathy, or her Uncle Mark and even her own sister had been broken up with a significant other for [insert large time frame here] before one day, poof! They got back together.

I cherished the happily-ever-afters she told, hoping that one day she might be able to share mine, and on the last of my six visits (we were replacing a crown on one of my molars), I was sad to say goodbye. She told me I was wise beyond my years in spite of my tender age and I loved that.

As I waited for her to fix the final tooth, I thought that our journey together had been profound. It had now been six weeks since my heart and gums were first broken and I was beginning to feel alive, like an adult with a repertoire of manageable despair beneath her belt. But when a nurse walked into my room at the dentist office to verify my information and giggled as I confirmed that yes, I was born in 1988, she ruined everything.

“Honey, I thought you were 13! You can’t be really be turning 19 in a week? You look sooooooooooooo young!” Unwittingly, she devalued all the adult anguish I’d experienced. Mouth fixed, I never went back. Partly because my dentist was clearly an evil oligarch to have employed such a monster but also because she kindly requested I not return. You see, I less-than-gently informed the nurse her English — and eyesight — were [expletive] [expletive] [expletive].

Who wants to hear that they look 13? Especially before the ripening that comes with a 21st birthday, fresh wounds from failed love still irritating battered skin? But this was not a new qualm for me. I faced the majority of the first quarter of my life being told I looked much younger than my age.

When I was in 8th grade, my own school nurse thought I was in 5th. At my Bat Mitzvah, an old friend of my father’s thought I was the Bat Mitzvah girl’s younger sister. (I don’t have a sister). And when I had a fake ID, it never ever worked.

My mom used to caution that the time would come when I’d long for those days. I’m annoyed that she was right. At some point after my 21st birthday, the underestimations became overestimations; Twitter and its publishers aged me 20 years, commenters gaped at my eye bags and forehead wrinkles when held against the years my life boasted and then, one day last summer, a waiter at Le Pain Quotidien asked me in earnest if I was treating my daughter to lunch.

On that day, I was dining with my mother who, don’t get me wrong, is beautiful, but is also currently the inverse of my age.

I ransacked a beauty counter at a pharmacy in midtown that afternoon to find a seemingly reliable anti-aging cream plus supplementary serum. As a self-proscribed low maintenance individual, I hated the idea of skincare. Shouldn’t it care for itself? Look like a baby’s ass until I’m at least 65? Still, I bought both products and have been using them ever since. The result has left a lot of people asking me why I look a. sun-kissed b. well-rested (under eye bags be damned but not injected), and c. baby-ass chic.

The way I have come to see it is like this: if we’re consciously eating healthier and engaging in activities that are meant to support life-longevity and to preventatively protect us from the complications that make growing old seem so shitty, why not, too, protect our skin from being mistaken for a 50-year-old’s?

But the title question still remains. How early is too early to start using anti-aging cream? Or more ominously…how late is too late?

Ironically enough, I have three appointments set up with my dentist through the course of the next three weeks — she’s taking me back. There are like four cavities in my mouth and I pray that her nurse is still there to tell me I look 13.

[Drops mic]

All That Glitters is Wardrobe Gold

I fear that if I mention New Year’s Eve one more time you all might come forth as a stampeding, angry mob holding pitchforks intended for my jugular, so before we begin let it be known that NYE shall henceforth be called Zoo Year’s Steve.

That said, my Zoo Year’s Steve was spent lollygagging around my apartment and eating things until a friend sent me the text I’d been dreading all week: “What are you going to wear tonight?”

I had no idea. I never have any idea because despite my hyper-propensity for planning my future in a ten-year trajectory, I cannot for the life of me pre-plan an outfit. Instead, what I like to do — especially before nights that require a Look — is procrastinate until the final hour and then run to SoHo in a sweaty panic to find something to wear. It’s an awful tactic that typically causes me to spend more money than I wanted to on a stupid embellished skirt all because I needed something festive, new, and NOW, as was the case with this particular Zoo Years Steve.

With the night behind me and The Holidays officially over, this skirt began to haunt my conscience, mostly because of the two-hundred-plus dollars that I was one-hundred-percent-plus not supposed to spend. It threatened to fester and de-bead, taunting me with the fact that I’d never use it again and there was no way I could return it post-wear (NOT THAT I DO THAT! ONLY SOMETIMES! JK I REALLY DO NOT DO THAT. I DON’T). But then, mid-fetal position, I realized that I was being an idiot.

The skirt is really pretty. It’s pink and silvery and intricate and patterned, a cry from anything else that permeates my daily wardrobe but not so outrageous that I can’t make it work. So now I’m going to project a here’s how and make you think it’s for you even though I really need to advice too.

First, we’re going to need some basic t-shirts and oxfords. Keep them on the baggy side to avoid looking contrived. (If you bought a dress or jumper, just layer over. If your sequined item-o-choice was a pair of pants or a skirt, wear the shirt like a normal human. If that’s hard for you, yell YOLO. If your Steve-a-thon-jawn was a blazer, HANG ON.)

Next, let’s add a sweater. Keep it chunky, funky and textured to cut the saccharine. A crew neck sweatshirt will also rule. Layer over your shirt. Blazer kids, now you can add the blazer on over. (If you bought a tiny blazer fit for a baby, go for a paper-thin layering knit. Reconsider buying one-size up next time in case you’re not an actual baby, but no worries, we’re here to learn.)

For the skirt and dressed-to-kill club, just add black tights and ankle boots then shine on sweet Lindsays. If you went the sparkly pantaloons route, simple black pumps will do. And, let’s none of us forget the sweet pairing perfection of sneakers.

Remember, it’s not our sparkly dresses’ and glimmering blazers’ fault that the party said “Pants Optional, Sequins Mandatory.” It is, however, our duty to, a la Tim Gunn, Make. It. Werq.

Honey.

Lesson in Layering: Hot, er, Cold Damn

And we’re back.

After a grueling, near Arctic week-and-end and the subsequent, seedless, unwarranted assurance from the dream shatterers that are weather forecasters that this cold front is setting up steady shop, it is time to suggest — nay demand — that you forfeit your sweatpants, boots and your multiple, fecklessly 5-syllabled ‘But It’s Coo-oooll-dddd’ attitude to show the atmospheric conditions what you’re really made of: a selection of theatrical layers.

I’ll help get you started — one does not expect a hibernating automobile to operate on demand — with a Lesson in Layering that will build itself by breaking down the sheets of cloth ye shall use to cloak your glacial limbs.

You’ll start with a thin turtleneck – ribbing optional — that will allow for multiple over-layers. Because I’ve been on a neckerchief kick, this is an especially timely layer as it will create the illusion-plus-body that I am in fact still working to become Katharine Hepburn. Which I am. Add a pair of leather or not (synthethic fiber, shmynthetic shmiber) pants that will forbid your legs from catching wind (get it?) of the true clime but that will also make half-tucking easy (drop crotch: 1, Fupa: 2).

Foundation blocks on, the building starts.

Add a plaid shirt. It can be flannel if you’d like but mine is cotton. I’d suggest a white base because you don’t know this yet but you’re about to cloak said flannel with a solid grey sweater. Not before adding a pair of ankle socks, though. So, add a black pair of ankle socks. (We’re now at Step 4.)

While you may have believed the socks to be a sensible layer, they are actually that which will help your starkest white (or brightest! Favorite? Whatever!) pumps create an ocularly blaring contrast. And isn’t it great that the slightest sliver of your leg still shows?

Once you’ve done that, you can start playing the festoon game. In lieu of a neck scarf, I suggest a choker to wear over the turtleneck portion of your outfit and because you are not a gladiator but really want to be one, you should think about wearing gold cuffs (TomTom, Alexis Bittar) on both yours wrists.

Tell people that Russell Crowe is your dad.

Once you’ve done that, it’s time to add a coat because even though I don’t like pouring superfluous dressing over my salad, much worse than an accidental cruciferous vegetable-flavored soup is the hypothetical sequence where I get sick and can’t breathe and sleeping becomes a chore, etc, etc. (That was a metaphor, text me if you’re confused.)

I like to think we are a camp of good compromisers, though, so only button that top button of your coat, pop your collar like you’re a kid from Maine who just moved to the Big Apple and let humanity marvel in the demiurgic masterstroke that is your guise.

Turtleneck by Vanessa Bruno, pants by Helmut Lang, plaid shirt by Club Monaco, sweater by Uniqlo, socks by Falke, pumps by Manolo Blahnik, choker by Monica Sordo, coat by Acne.

Noah’s Ark

*The hottest nightclub is Noah’s Ark. This place has got everything: yellow-chested parrots inside platinum-headed human bird cages, a topless centaur with the legs of a zebra, baby chickens, and a woman who gives birth to a kangaroo every time you blink.

When you get there, check your coat and receive a monkey who will hang out on your back all night. Giant snails climb up on walls and you can ride them around like you’re in a trolly in the belly of Gringotts, and instead of getting an umbrella in your drink you’re handed a live tortoise with turtles on their back, but careful, they bite worse than the sneetahs. A sneetah is that thing where a sand cheetah pops out of random doors and the sand pours out and the cheetah tries to rip your face off.

There’s also a horse with a conjoined human twin in a floral dress, and everyone wears lemurs on their heads. Life is the dance floor, dog is the deejay, and last but not least, you can get a lap dance from an alligator named Patricia for a million dollars.

Play the song below, put on your favorite pair of sunglasses made from live butterflies, and get ready because it’s almost Saturday night.

*Inspired by SNL’s Stefon

15 Places Where You Will Need the 15 Things Every Woman Should Have

Exactly one month and a technical year ago, Leandra listed for Harper’s Bazooka the 15 Things Every Woman Should Have. If you, like me, immediately rushed to the supermarket to gather everything she listed then you might still be standing in aisle 9 next to an armful of crap that in theory sounded great but now you have absolutely no clue what to do with, like a dog who actually gets hold of his own tail.

When Leandra finally called to see where the hell I’d been for one month and a technical year, I cried my predicament into the phone. Like the good friend and walrus she is, she rented a Zipcar, hightailed it to Whole Foods and picked me up in the parking lot. Then, as we drove home, balls and all in hand, we discussed exactly when and where I’d need those 15 fucking items.

BRB, Leandra’s logging on.

Hi, it’s me. Leandra. The woman who told you what all other women should have not knowing that you’d take me literally and head over to a supermarket that found you paralyzed for one month’s time, asking for a price check on humility and sincerity (#10) only to learn that neither of those items are actually for sale! Much less, I might add, at a supermarket that genetically modifies your lemons. Super sized lemons? Really?

But I digress. Amelia thought it might be a good idea for me to breakdown the previously cited 15 things and explain where you could use them so that you never fall victim to the fruitless pursuit of fruit again.

#1 was a Beyonce CD, which you will need when driving across Mexico to visit Mayaan ruins. Are you out of aisle 9 yet?

#2 was a good white cotton blouse (might I suggest Mugler’s poplin?), which, like #3, the power to say no, #4, the confidence to say yes, #9, a piece of sentimental jewelry, and #10, sincerity, you need on a near daily basis just to help you get through the humdrum of a quotidian Tuesday (or Wednesday, or Thursday). One where your hairdresser might suggest that you really ought to go for the perm, bangs and the salon’s new turtle-ass scented shampoo (just say no), or your courter asks whether you find him shady as ass, with toupee-looking hair (the confidence to say yes). You’ll need sincerity in both instances because irony is neither concerned nor accounted for when wo-maning up.

#5 was red lipstick, which you shall wear when you feel like poop. The color will mirror 99% of the instances that make you feel like poop because it is red like the blood that flows out of your Nile River. Pumps, (necessity #6) will be useful under parallel circumstances though their spectrum-of-utility is wider in that you might just wear them because why not.

#7, a pair of bought-on-the-whim, completely frivolous shoes, have no purpose or place quite like the present but sure do making conceding to bite the bullet on a pair of these much more digestible.

I was lying about #8. I don’t think every woman needs a pair of chandelier earrings. Can I replace it with a sense of humor, which will be best put to use in the company of misogynistic idiots? Or your drunk relatives? How about the time you will accidentally-but-inevitably walk in on your parents having $$$ex? Ha ha ha.

#11 is a trench coat which you could arguably wear every day too but certainly won’t find at a supermarket. It’s most urgent when you’re streaking, though. So figure tomorrow at midnight. That’s when you’ll need it most.

#12 is a good blow dryer AND diffuser because without one of the latter, you will spend your days looking like this. Of course, if you have your sense of humor on you during the days you don’t have your blow dryer or diffuser, at least you know it will make for spectacular memories.

#13, which is a place to store your dreams (a Smythson notebook? Your iPhone memo app?), is most useful in the first 30 minutes that you’ve been up in the morning — 50 if you spend any of those precious moments getting coffee — and the last 20 that you’ll be up at night. Some of the richest thoughts occur when interlaced between here and there.

#14, a reliable mascara, like numbers 2, 3, 4, 9 and 10, are applicable for use anywhere and on a near daily basis except in the case of your stye. I’m sorry that you have a stye. I’ve been there.

And finally, #15 — the only item you probably can find at a supermarket in the frozen food section: a pair of balls that once belonged to a man who didn’t deserve to keep them. You will need these to tell the cautionary tale of what happened to the last one if and when any rising hot dog tries to manipulate your finely seasoned buns.

Beauty for Dummies: Eyeshadow as Liner

Strategic problem solving is a character trait, I am told, that most employers look for in their employees. If you’re in a two-seater car, for example, and see your best friend and an old lady at a bus stop urgently waiting for a communal, never coming automobile to collect them, what do you do? Help the lady or your friend?

Apparently — and if you’re good at unlocking the Da Vinci code-esque proverbial puzzles of business acumen, you also know this — you do neither. Or both, rather, and get out of your car, give your keys to your friend to take the old lady home and then drop himself off.

I never quite understood why forfeiting your car was a solution that rendered all parties involved winners but maybe that’s because I’m too narrow-thinking. Alter the variables (eyeliner and eyeshadow over friend and old lady) and augment the scenario slightly so that you’re playing the Have Your Cake and Eat it Too game (you can only take one, so which do you take?) and I think I come out a true champion. Why? Because I abandon the eyeliner and rescue the eyeshadow in anticipation that the filmy, colored powder could at best moonlight as one, and naturally function successfully as both.

It’s not that I have an aversion toward eyeliner (though I do second guess this sentiment when it is being applied and at first tickles my eyelid in an endearing oh, baby kittens kind of way but then becomes a full-blown case paws-scratching-chalkboard, paltry-skin-over-cornea irritation), so much as I do a proclivity for eyeshadow (like I said, it marvels in cake-and-eat-it-too syndrome) but in the matter of beauty and my face, I am not a woman of many products. Anything that could be deemed extraneous must go.

Today that means eyeliner.

After all, if you’ve got a big, fancy (or not) case of myriad colors and a mouth that produces a decent amount of spit, you’ve essentially also got every liner under-da-sun in just one compact case. As for the actual application, I do not expect you to believe that I am “good” at makeup but like I said, spit, color, brush and boom: your lids shine bright like diamonds.

What’s so great about the eyeshadow thing is that once you’re done applying the liner (I used the so-dark-it’s-basically-black brown,) you can add the smoke effect using the very same substance, hold the oral liquid. Then your lids will look smokier than processed turkey from Katz’s Deli and like in the rectified case of the bus stop, the woman, the friend and your car, everyone comes out a winner.

Wearing a Paula Mendoza choker, Made her Think cuff, plaid shirt from Club Monaco. Eyeshadow compacts by Bobbi Brown.

Little Shop of Horoscopes

Juliet Capulet was not a fan of horoscopes: “O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable,” she asked of her dear Romeo. But maybe if Romeo had been allowed to swear his love to the moon, the two of them could have checked their Astrology Zone and seen that Susan Miller specifically said to not make giant declarations of love atop balconies that month. Because spoiler alert — they both die.

So let’s avoid death this month and get on with our horoscopes, shall we?

Happy birthday Capricorn. Sometimes I’m jealous about the name of your sign because it’s similar to the word “unicorn.” I’m also jealous of your horoscope this month because your planets are killing it. You have Venus, Mercury, Pluto, the Sun, and a new moon at 11 degrees, meaning you’ve got the power right now to maneuver things in your favor. In other words, this song is your anthem this month.

Will it get old if I make the “Age of Aquarius” joke every time I see you, Aqua-ladies? Probably not, so let’s talk stars. Suz wants you to center yourself and get your meditation on. It’s going to be a very creative month for you — something about planets in the twelfth house representing birth placenta (?!?). However, your judgement in love will be off, so avoid reckless swiping on Tinder.

Pisces, I hope you like saying “hi” because you’re going to make some new friends this month. The Suzinator also wants you to join a club and get on social media. Maybe you’re about to become famous on Vine. You’re also set to get “swept away in love” on January 15th and any financial troubles will be smoothed over. Mo’ money, less problems, that’s what I always say.

Mama Miller talked a lot about your career this month, Aries. It’s a great time for a major change, but apparently the moon is going to be a big cranky baby so you’ll have to be very organized and carry around a proverbial diaper bag in order to make The Big Career Shift happen. She seems to want you to wait until the end of the month for any dating, pampering or general fun-having which is annoying, but just remember that Romeo and Juliet were a cautionary tale!

Who’s with me in Club Taurus? A new moon of January 1 will allegedly light our house of travel. Unless someone’s surprising me with a romantic trip to Bermuda, this is clearly false. Apprently Uranus is going to be a literal ass and send in challenges at work, and if you’re a man reading this, do not grow a beard. She did not specify if it was an okay time for women to grow beards but I probably won’t just to be safe.

Susan Miller is essentially my grandmother this month regarding all Geminis. She is concerned about your state of affairs regarding money (“watch for identity theft!”), she’s worried about your health and slippery sidewalks (“protect your bones!”), and visiting the dentist. She didn’t mention anything about freezing to death in this cold but I’m sure she meant to. Unlike my grandmother, however, Suz says that when it comes to your love life, “you have time.”

Good Lorde Cancer, your horoscope was so long it’s a wonder I didn’t actually grow that beard Susan just advised me against. Good news first: money will come in at the end of the month. Yay!$!$! It sounds like a bit of a tumultuous start to the month, with crazy work life possibly interfering with close relationships and potential plumbing issues or something, but Susan feels confident you can get through them. So do I. Get in there like a wrecking ball, girl.

“Shake the confetti out of your hair, dear Leo,” wrote Suz. “You’ve got to buckle down to work the minute you hit the office.” Don’t mind her…I think she’s just annoyed you went out on New Years Eve without her. You have a new moon in your fitness sector so if you did make resolutions regarding lunges and what not, now’s the time. Important to note is that January 29 is going to be a very lucky day for you, so buy me us a lottery ticket and let’s dance!

Speaking of dance, this month is Disco In-Virgo if you know what I mean. If you don’t, Pluto will be friendly with the sun and new moon, making you confident, which, writes Susan, “as everyone knows, is the greatest aphrodisiac.” (Second best are oysters.) She encourages you go looking for love. Or, per the old rumored-about Jersey Shore spinoff, go Snookin for love.

Libras, you’re having a Martha Stewart moment this month — painting rooms, “perking up your basement,” tying bathroom linens with superfluous pieces of twine, etc. January 29 is your sparkling day for love, so go in search of a new ottoman at Ikea — maybe you’ll meet a fellow Libra by the couch section then share a plate of their Swedish meatballs.

If Libras are having an MS month, Scorpios are channeling their inner Bon Iver. Susan wants you to take hikes in the mountains, go antiquing, visit flea markets, make friends with artists and writers and she keeps referring to your cup of tea. She was one step away from encouraging you to join a vegetable co-op. Your career looks good but extremely busy, which may be tricky to balance with all of these crunchy new activities you’re about to try.

Hey Sagittaritootles. This month your horoscope is pretty money heavy, but it seems like where minor issues arise, you’ll be able to work through them calmly. Here’s the good news: come January 29 (this seems to be a fancy day for everyone), the Sun and Uranus will be sweetly angled to each other. To me, this sounds like a Sun’s Out Buns Out occasion, so maybe you’ll be on a last minute trip (with me!) to Bermuda to get a little bronze on before fashion week come Feb. Or you’ll get a spray tan, tomato tomahto.

Finally, a general note to everyone on behalf of Susan Miller which she insists on stressing and repeating: since Venus the beauty planet is stillll in retrograde, now’s not a good time for the plastic surgery. Got it?

Other than that, welcome to the New Year, hot chips.

Image via Vogue UK

The Goal for January 1, 2014

I know, I know, we’re boycotting resolutions this year as demanded by the very people behind this computer screen, but now that we’ve let 2014 in to see how beautiful we look when the clock strikes 12, how do you feel about setting short term goals? They don’t have to be grandiose and dramatic, they can just be what they are. We can strip our lives of irony and exist like earnest humans again!

Figure one goal every two weeks, yeah? I’ll go first.

If I can premeditatively do just one thing in the forthcoming fourteen days — fine, two things — the first is to make up and use the fictitious word ‘premeditatively’ which I just did so, check, this is the best year already — it is to locate a pair of suspenders so I can approximate the above look.

Why Leandra, have you never thought about wearing a white undershirt devoid of any caustic implications, to exist beneath a button up blouse that will unwittingly look cool but also just keep you warm. Why?

K, your turn.

Image via Stockholm Streetstyle

Resolutions

Consider New Year’s Resolutions as though they were giant mylar balloons filled with fresh morning helium. We blow them up with great expectations — or rather, someone else blows them up for us right after we pick out their empty, wrinkled shells based off pictures on packaging or samples floating around the party store. “That one looks fantastic,” we say, pointing to a giant silver star filled with hover-inducing chemicals, suspended on a perforated indoor ceiling like a spaceship might out in actual star-covered space, artificial like drugstore bought ice-cream yet no less delicious.

If we’re lucky we are asked to choose the color ribbon which will then tether the vapid entertainment to our wrist, or our palm, or perhaps the champagne bottle we also happen to be holding in our right hand and then — “Do you mind curling the ends a bit?,” we’ll ask the salesperson who would probably rather not.

Out the door we’ll go holding this gigantic prize, smiling sheepishly as we bang it into each and ever passerby. “Sorry!,” we offer while glancing upward as though this balloon were a bothersome child in a movie theater. But we’re not actually sorry. We’re proud of this extremely light, temporary and universally jovial burden. “One-man constellation coming through!”

This gigantic mylar star will coast over our heads, bouncing light off its metallic film and puffing out its chest with pride (or gas, if we’re being more scientific than poetic). People who haven’t yet been whacked in the face by it will smile, as will those who sit far enough away so that they can admire and not necessarily touch, enjoying without the imminent danger of static cling — because a balloon is perhaps one of the greatest tangible things we have to demonstrate the feeling of elation.

But what happens to balloons, of course, is that they deflate. Some diminish less slowly than others. It may take one very large foil elephant at least a week to meet its shriveled end; the nose going first as it crinkles and crumples in warning that this too shall pass. Others just burst. Maybe they were filled to excess or hit a sharp corner or a child with a pin and a hypothesis let the air out in one fell poke.

For a while I hated making real resolutions. They seemed like an arbitrary set of goals just hovering over my head that I was expected to decide upon, feel proud about and flaunt before the next year’s clock ran out, all because society demanded a call to action on January First. They’re just tasks we assign ourselves in order to make us feel better, to re-inflate our human ego, give us a sense of purpose as we walk (or jog, maybe in our newly purchased sneakers for our newly purchased gym membership), smiling sheepishly if we hit shoulders with a walking passerby. “Sorry!,” we offer while continuing on our run. Can’t that be done on any day of the year?

My friend Katy once gave up sharing as her New Year’s Resolution. Our mutual friends found this horrifying and rude; I found it kind of hilarious. “I know I’ll be good at it,” she said. “It will make me happy. If I’m tactful about it, it won’t offend others.” It was a non-resolution — a way of having fun with a tradition that she too felt stifled by, or poking fun at those who inquire about one another’s upcoming resolves as though entering the new year is impossible without one.

There’s still something to be said for that shiny, puffy balloon though…sort of the manifestation of New Years Eve itself in all of its expectational glory and what it represents. But maybe our resolutions don’t have to be floating vessels waiting for the air to be let out. Maybe they can be one step above not sharing but not quite so high that if you let go accidentally the balloon will float away.

– Photo by Tim Walker

The Very Best of 2013

I had only one resolution for 2014 and it was to find out what Nicky and Alex Katsapoulis (of Full House fame) are doing now. But with the trusty aid of a very reliable search engine, I have already accomplished that resolution and in case you’re wondering, they’re both taking myriad selfies using what I imagine to be the most basic version of Photobooth on the market.

That leaves me with nothing else to do in preparation for 2014 (I might resolve to take more selfies on treadmills but use the athletic machinery less) so let me ask you a question. How many Best of ’13 stories have you read since Christmas came, went and left just the faint smell of pine to show for its fleeting omnipresence? How many of the anterior stories have looked back and in bidding farewell to the departing year, chosen to omit Miley Cyrus’ hanging from a wrecking ball? Or that big-ass foam finger? The verb twerk?

None, huh.

Have any of the stories pointed out that the heavy metal ball she notoriously swung from resembles the black minesweeping bomb that most of us spent the latter half of the 90s avoiding while seated across our desktop PCs?

None, huh.

Do what you want with that.

In reviewing last year’s version of what this post wants to be and noting the exorbitant number of 2013 recapitulations that have already started to surface, I was wickedly surprised to find that many of the superlatives handed out in the name of 2012 seem to fare just as well right now, a proper 367 days later.

Kale is still being consumed. A conversation continues to circumvent The Westashians (it was almost the year of North West but just as she was about to drop her mic, ye royal George picked it up), and, frankly, I haven’t kicked my trichotillomania farther than a baby can throw its pacifier. This, of course, presents another recurring issue: that resolving to resolve anything in the name of just our calendar’s flipping sheet is a futile but earnest effort at best, the most public form of lying to oneself at worst.

But we’ll get there — right now, we summate. In hyperbole.

If last year’s “it animal” was the panda (see again: Rob Pruitt, Jimmy Choo, thick black eye makeup), this year, in a capacity even more powerful than the time T.S Eliot wrote about them or subsequently when Broadway gave them an eight-year-headline, cats have ambled back into their throne — wagging tails, starburst asses — with the help of the automotive wizards at Uber, who handed out kittens earlier this year in celebration of a holiday I, for one, did not know exists.

While we’re continuing to compare and contrast, where last year may have been “all about” a wedge sneaker (and, I suppose, saying “all about”), Wendy Davis publicly announced with not words but a pair of pink and yellow cross-trainers that proper sneakers are not inappropriate outside exercise environs. As a matter of fact, refute a bill in them while addressing an entire political party! Why not! Yolo. Following Davis’ shining moment, Saint Laurent was all, yeah! And now, for $238 (on sale) you can look like the illegitimate offspring of Wendy Davis, Diane Keaton and let’s say Gene Simmons because why not.

You can also locate a new genre of “it shoe” wherever pumps are sold, pinky toes are numb, and ankles are cracking faster than middle-aged female backs do, which brings me to the next 2013 hit, an “it gesture” called Lean-ing In-ward.

For this, we have only one Sheryl Sandberg to either thank or blame depending on your frame of reference but potentially more interesting than her motion is the dissident leaning out that has come care of the iconoclasts unmarried to Yahoo wizards. The ones who don’t know Larry Page. Not well enough, at least, to call him “Lair” or expect that he will babysit.

The most compelling-to-observe game of musical chairs could have belonged to Alexander Wang when news initially broke that he would be Nicolas Ghesquière’s successor but in true champion style, the latter closed out the last fashion week season of 2013 announcing that in the wake of Marc Jacobs’ departure from Louis Vuitton, the French enormity would assume his position. And then we all cried joyous tears of Cristobal feather.

On the topic of shouts, murmurs, inflections and projections, “millennials are lazy” was probably said more frequently than any other three-word sentence but if anyone could prove the naysayers wrong it was Miley Cyrus, a technical member of the Gen. Y party, who can’t possibly be rendered lazy considering how popular her mere tongue became in the span of just the last eight months.

The most used e-acute (é) was the one that came at the end of Beyoncé’s name.

The year’s it-genital was the vagina once again. Proof of concept? The manifold bushes of Petra Collins, Gabby Hoffman, Lovelace and Gwyneth Paltrow’s spoken word.

Swiss chard may or may not be competing with kale on the superfood scale (which just goes to show that even the most powerful of behemoths can fall from grace) and ketchup lost many of its accoutrement lovers to Sriracha.

Now, I understand this nugget of information might appear irrelevant when discussing the year in review but consider this: that mere election, spicy over sweet — the arguably more difficult option over the layman confectionery we’re grown indelibly used to — indicates prolific change and advancement elsewhere. Only, though, where 2014 can tell.