Not Constantinople

I speak Italian, so do they. Anyone want to go to Istanbul with me?

Google wishes and Blogger dreams....

Mags: the other problem with blogger
Mags: and most blogs, as far as I can tell
Mags: is that it's not well searchable
Cred: very true
Mags: so I have like 6 years worth of content on this blog, and I can never find anything
Cred: I am surprised that people haven't all realized this now, but Google and Yahoo have done more than replace the dewy decimal system.. they have conditioned people to be able to find what they are looking for without a lot of wasted time/effort
Cred: newspapers, digital media, tv media... all of them should be Lexus-Nexus like searchable
Cred: and of course freaking blogs
Mags: I was never very good at lexis-nexis searching
Mags: I'm a bad searcher in general
Mags: Google saves me
Cred: google is so much better than everything, except:
Cred: 1) rear-wheel drive, manual tranmission, convertibles
Mags: 2. single-payer medical care
Cred: 2) midget KISS tribute bands
Cred: ooo your 2 is better than mine
Mags: sorry
Cred: no worries
Mags: but that's all I got. I was trying to come up with a good 3
Mags: but your 2 floored me!
Cred: well i was going to say coffee, but why take a good run and exaggerate too much right
Mags: hahahaa!
Mags: I'm posting this converation
Mags: just so you know
Mags: what do you want me to call you?
Cred: lol... it is yours as much as mine, just be sure to give me a cool screename that preserves my street cred
Cred: I leave that to your considerable creative prowess
Mags: fine, I'm calling you cred
Mags: for street cred
Cred: lol
Mags: and for your credulity in thiking I have any kind of prowess
Cred: perfect

Product Whore no more...

It all started out so simple. I was a poor grad student, and I was in love with this skin serum that cost about $50 a bottle (sounds almost cheap now!). When I realized that Prescriptives gave away nice-sized samples at every department store counter, I hit the malls. Around Christmas, I could get a year's supply of samples in half an hour -- three or four counters per mall, two or three people working each counter, and huge crowds meant no one noticed if I hit the same counter more than once. I would decant them into a clean glass bottle, and voilá -- full-sized serum for free.

I graduated and moved to New York, the nexus of both cosmetics counters and parties with gift bags. As an editor with an office in a hot downtown zipcode (marketers didn't know I ran a university computing mag) I soon found myself on the mailing and invite list for lots of beauty industry parties and give-aways. I was lucky, I always had larger apartments and more closet space than your average New Yorker, so I built up a fabulous stash. Ricky's was having a sale on Philip B hair products? Stock up! Bliss having an end-of-year clearance to make way for a new product line? Stock up! Bendel's invitation to a Christmas party with cocktails, snacks, and deluxe samples at every counter? I'm there!

Free stuff and great deals are addictive, of course. Say it with me girls -- Gift With Purchase. But once I started advancing in my career, I had more discretionary beauty funds, so I could actually pay for what I wanted. Anyway, the go-go 90's were over and there were fewer freebies and mini-burgers being passed around on silver trays in Bergdorf's basement. The quest for a deal may have passed, but the chase after new and high-end products continued. Bigelow's has a new product line? And it's half-price at Bath & Body Works? I'll take one of each, please!

When I moved into the new house, I refused to actually start sleeping there until the bathroom was fully set up and unpacked. I wanted supreme order in this new life. The products alone filled up an entire floor-to-ceiling cabinet, and the actual first-aid and medical items have been banished to the medicine cabinet in the guest bathroom. I was kind of ashamed (glass doors!), but my real estate agent, accustomed to his clients in the South End, said I had nothing to worry about.

And then the rash hit.

As skin peeled and flaked off my face, as the red itchiness spread across my neck, the nice allergist restricted me to nothing but plain Dove soap and baby shampoo for two weeks.

No moisturizer in the dead of winter? No conditioner, when my hairdresser just told me that my hair was severely crunchy, even though I just cut off six inches? No makeup for Christmas and New Years?!?!?!

No, no, no! Dove, baby shampoo, and a little hydrocortisone cream until the inflamation went down.

Cruel? Surprisingly not. My hair has never looked better -- soft, silky, shiny. My skin has almost totally normalized. Oh, the irony!

My dad fears that I've developed a chemical sensitivity. I don't know about that, but I think it's probably a good idea for me to dial it down, before I turn into one of those bubble-living freaks.

I'm in the midst of allergy testing right now, and we already know that I'm reacting to the hair conditioner I've been loyal to for years. Funny thing is, I don't use much on a daily basis. But when I gathered everything I'd used at least once in the past month, it was over 20 products!

So I'm going to change myself from a Product Whore into a pure, sensitive soul. Once the allergy testing is done, I'm packing up the bulk of my magnificent stash and dropping it off at a local women's shelter.

But before that happens, you, my beloved friends and loyal readers, get first dibs. Drop me a line and let me know when you want to stop by to rifle through the archives to my beautiful past.

PS: I just noticed that the rash is flaring up again on my face. Could it be possible that I'm allergic to cashmere, too? Oh, the injustice!

Crimefighters

They didn't list my favorite euphemism, "fighting crime," so I submitted it.

I gotta say, though, "playing cars and garages" is pretty brilliant too. Why do the best ones always sound British? Are there any good cockney rhyming euphemisms?

Weapons of egg destruction

So, folks are, understandably, a bit concerned about my plans to go off and get pregnant half-cocked (pardon the pun, it wasn't even mine!). They remind me that random sperm can have legal consequences down the road, and I should tread cautiously.

Well, according to Slate, I'd have better chances of a successful non-traditonal parenthood if I were a lesbian. And it's not the first time that's seemed liek the solution to all my problems, either, alas!

Pachelbel in hell

All pop music is the same, and a cello will never make you cool (though playing guitar is no guarantee either).

Who you calling "Ho ho ho"? (and stop stuttering)

Merry Christmas, my babies!

First Christmas in the new house was pretty easy, since my guests did all the cooking and cleaning, and all I did was decorate and serve drinks! But man, does this house look good with its halls decked.

Spent much of Christmas Eve teary-eyed, because I was trying to decide if I should marry the hippy and let him make me happy and secure, or if I should hold out for true love. Having run away from, or otherwise sabotaged, every chance at true love I've ever had, I maybe should not be trusted to make this decision for myself (though yes, Manda, I'm still heeding your advice and not dating by committee, so have no fear that I'll be putting up another Pick Maggie's Husband website!). Also, to be honest, hearing that Will rescinded his aversion to tradition and actually made it legal probably increased the sense of urgency for me. But the Mystical Smoking Head of Bob thinks that L will give me another chance, and I should try for real. Now I just need to figure out how to do that.

And for those of you keeping track, I finally paid my electric bill, and signed my Brooklyn renewal lease. Painless, in the end, and nice to start 2007 with a clean slate.

Gifted

Gave out gifts to the PubNight folks last night. It was fun. Von loved her dress, and Catmandoo was engrossed in the book on Banksy, who he had surprisingly never heard of. Y got nothing, which is actually an improvement over the coal he deserved for trying to sabotage the Holiday PN.

Lumberjack seemed pretty happy with the sweater, even though it wasn't the kind I really wanted to get him. Maybe I'll knit one for next year, as long as I finish the rest of the knitting queue first.

Monkey, monkey, fritos!

The results of the Code Monkey Remix Contest are in, and they are fabulous!

Because, of course, everything's better with monkeys.

Oldplay

SpinozaNY sent me this deeply touching video yesterday, as he remembered his mom on her birthday. I'll let him tell you about it:

A choral group of very senior citizens, called Young@Heart, sing pop songs. When a very heavy man, on an oxygen tank, sings with a backup group about how you can't go back, and you can't replace what you lost, it completely changes the meaning of Coldplay's "Fix You."

Women Unafraid of Condo Commitment

At least there's one kind of Commitment I don't run screaming from. Though considering how long I waited, and how much I feared getting a bad deal, I'm kind of a guy, too.

Shades of Bull Durham

Looks like Don Carman took some advice from Crash Davis, and prepped himself with some advance work.

Crash Davis: It's time to work on your interviews.
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My interviews? What do I gotta do?
Crash Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down: "We gotta play it one day at a time."
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring.
Crash Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.

Now I'd say that was my favorite scene, but who are we kidding? They're all my favorite scene.
Sigh, remember when Kostner was good?

Carman and Crash had something else in common, too. They respected the game and the fans.