Hey kids,

So about two-thirds of you poetry entrants have sent in your addresses so we can send over chapter samplers, lipglosses, etc. But fully one-third of you have not! One hundred poets have not sent in their addresses! If you wrote a poem for the contest and received an email from me asking for your address, please send your mailing address to me ASAP. The deadline for sending in your address is FRIDAY, AUGUST 8TH.

Also: I have 35 extra chapter samplers! If you would like one, just email me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), subject line: EXTRA SAMPLER PLEASE! and include your mailing address. Anyone who would like one should email me by AUGUST 8TH also.

Why August 8th? Because my fulfillment center (ie, little brother) is going back to New York the week after that, and after he leaves, it’s going to be slow as molasses getting these mailers out. So I’m jus’ sayin…

I had a bit of a sick-cation, as both me and Mike caught the kid’s stomach bug. So I spent the week holed up in bed watching Living Lohan, Denise Richards ‘It’s Complicated!!!’, Flipping Out, and Date my Ex: Jo and Slade. Good times. Living Lohan is kind of like watching a car wreck slowly… although I hate to be too mean because really, what do you expect? But I like Ali’s new single (I had to go allllll arounddddd agaaaaiiinnn…) and I think she’s really cute and if Ashlee Simpson is a star then I can’t see why Ali can’t be one. I liked the Denise Richards show, although it somehow reminded me of Kathy Griffin’s show, except not funny. Still, I kind of dug the white-trash pride she displayed. And I’m OBSESSED with Flipping Out.

Do you watch this show? It has this perfect-looking well-groomed super-OCD real estate guy and he berates his assistant in one episode because the assistant has forgotten something VERY important for his lunch:

“We ALWAYS get GUACAMOLE when we go to El Pollo Loco”.

Say it with an eye roll and an eyebrow raise.

And say El Pollo Loco as if you are saying “Le Bernardin”.

That guy is HILARIOUS! 

So now all week I’ve been saying to Mike, “We allllwayss get guah-camole when we go to Elll Poyo Low-co!”

I have forced the husband to watch my shows with me while he’s sick too. That’s what you get when you don’t program YOUR shows into the DVR. And really, we have watched all those episodes of Voyager way too many times.

What else? Oh the Jo and Slade show. I also got mildly obsessed with the Real Housewives of the O.C. show because it was just a window into what a different family is like. And what different values are like. I always knew (even when I complained about them in my super-secret diary) that I was really lucky because my family is very functional: supportive, smart, funny, close. I mean, we have our problems, like everyone else, and we’re not perfect (even though we were constantly accused of being so, especially when my brother was 8th grade valedictorian and his so-called “friends” egged our house graduation night. I mean, HONESTLY) but the people on that show are just…I mean, the boob jobs, the mom-holding-on-to-her-twenties-as-hard-as-she-can… My mom was a supercalifashionista and always looks fabulous, but she stressed education and academic achievement above everything, but not in the super-pressure-Asian-cooker household-way either, where the nerdy Asian kids offed themselves if they didn’t get A’s. We were never like that. We only got beaten when we got B’s. SNARF!! What I mean to say is: in my family, we learned to want to succeed for our own sakes, and not to please our parents. And I’m probably the nerdiest kid in my family. I came to my social graces way late. My sister can WORK a room man, and my brother enters every party with his hands up in the air, to celebrate that he has ARRIVED.

Anyway, that was a big tangent from what I really wanted to blog about: Slade’s LA hipster wardrobe. On the Real Housewives show, he was this regular real estate guy, just wearing suburban-dad clothes. But now on this show, he’s morphed into the actor-moron-wardrobe. The one with the wool newsboy caps and the studded t-shirts and the five o’clock shadow. What is this look??? Why do all these cheesy Hollywood guys adopt it??? It’s soooo puke-alicious. They all look like wannabe Brad Pitts…who BARELY gets away with it. I guess they all want to look like celebrities? Like it’s the male celebrity “uniform” even? Sigh. I guess. I understand about the uniform. I had to wear the fashion uniform when I was a fashion editor. (But hey, it’s a good one.) The LA one is just…I think the male celeb outfit takes ten points off your I.Q.

In other fun news: First pass proofs of THE ASHLEYS: LIPGLOSS JUNGLE came in! Yay! And I’m almost done with the first draft of GIRL STAYS IN THE PICTURE. And working on all this fun new stuff I can’t wait to share…

Have a great weekend everyone. And get those addresses in!!!

xoxo
Mel