An Alternate Interpretation of The Most Sexist Ad of All Time

Because uuugh for the thousandth time I have to get mad about this exact same thing that hasn't really changed but just gotten more subtle over the past 60 years. But I mean listen to the music cues: sure she ended up at the airport, but on her way there she was clearly foiling a Soviet plot to take over America, and they can't show that because of national security etc, but obviously this woman is A BADASS SECRET SPY. And when she slides over so that her misogynist (cover!) husband can drive, she's all, "HA! You're WELCOME. Sucker."

Day 4: Can't Stop the Signal

Day 4 of The 30-Day Yoga Challenge

Today I did something I do maybe twice a year, tops.  I left work to go to the gym on my lunch break.  Actually, you could take out the "to the gym" part and be just as correct. It's true, I'm a shameful lunch-at-one's-desk-eater.  For some reason I always felt like telling us we have an hour where we can stop working and do whatever we want is a trap they set so they can see who's not busy enough to merit their position being eliminated. But not today! Today I encountered a rare moment where I had not a stitch to do, and also the person who writes up the orders was leaving at the same time so there would be nothing more until he came back anyway. Goodbye desk! Goodbye studio! Wave to the Western Culture of Workaholism on your way out! Oh no, did it see us leaving?

Day 3: I Strap On Some Cojones and Find Out If I'm "Intermediate"

Day 3 of the 30-Day Yoga Challenge

boom.

Even after Sunday's Adventures In Feeling Inadequate, I was surprised at how much I really wanted to go to yoga again. I was actually bummed about "having to" go to kickboxing instead. Is my spirit animal changing already? But, bummer: the only class I could make was a level 2:

Intense & renewing flow practice to enliven the body and balance the mind. Int/Adv. Heated.

And girl, you are not intermediate-slash-advanced! Remember the shame spiral! The falling! Your arms don't straighten! Your biceps are apparently fake! I told all this to my Favorite Boss Rodney, who is my favorite because he lets me talk crazy nonsense and then tells me exactly what I need to hear (he once threatened to turn off the internet in my studio after: "she weighs that? but HOW TALL IS SHE and does that mean I'm fat!?!?!" People, the Internet is a terrible place). And the best part is, he's always, always right: "well, you already cried once, what else worse could happen to you?" Every living creature needs its own Rodney.

Day 2: I Throw Some Money At The Situation

Day 2 of the 30-Day Yoga Challenge

Salvation?

Had to do the laundry today--it takes me about three hours to do since I hate the laundromat and leave it for the last possible day, so I couldn't make the 6p "Realign to Refine" class at my gym:

Focus on your breath while flowing through postures. Develop awareness of your mind, body & spirit. Be adjusted by an additional Jivala teacher during this class to help refine your flow. All levels Heated.

Constant adjustment! Which would have been buckets of fun, right? To have the very thing that was spazzing me on Sunday be happening all the damn time? I guess the point of the class is that the other instructor is nit-picky so maybe I wouldn't have felt bad about it.  Things to be found-out-about next week.

Day 1: In Which I Am Shamed By Hot Yoga

Girl you do not need those legwarmers

Day 1 of the 30-Day Yoga Challenge

After reading Anne Helen Peterson's love letter to hot yoga over at The Hairpin, I became obsessed with trying it out.  Maybe it's a Saturn-return thing, but starting on New Year's Day I've had the nagging desire to just blow everything up and make my life look different, so I was eager to try anything that would "change my life, body, and spirit animal." I've been doing yoga on and off for over ten years, so I know my way around a tadasana like nobody's business. Or I thought I did!

Whale Is Indifferent To Random Mariachis

As are we all, generally.

So, this video went viral today and the Official Internet Response is "wow, cool, the Beluga is dancing to/lurves the mariachi's!" But I'm preeeeety sure the whale is just like WTF.  Or am I just watching it wrong?

Or maybe the whale is a hipster, and was over mariachi bands before being over them was cool?  But secretly is digging it and can't say anything because the other hipster whales will be all "sellout!"..? I don't actually know how hipsterism expresses itself outside of homo-sapiens in No-Libs.

A Roundabout Way to Justify Eating Snack Foods For Dinner

1. Watch this video from Fitperez.com and learn how to make your own guacamole.

2. Buy all of the ingredients for like $3 (for some reason this has only ever worked with Haas Avocados, btw).

3. Make guacamole--which, being homemade, will have zero scary chemical preservatives, and no added fat/sugar, etc.  And so therefore counts as a vegetable instead of a dip! And is delicious on tortilla chips.  Bravo.

4. Use leftover lime half as garnish in gin & tonic.  Feel good about wasting absolutely nothing--so green! like a lime--and count each drink as a serving of fruit.

5.  Eat a well-balanced meal of fruits and vegetables.  Michelle Obama would be so proud!

Ever Think You'd Get Nostalgic For The Uncanny Valley?

Between this (which is NOT AT ALL a person FYI), and Olivia Wilde's nipples in The Change-Up being CGI-painted-on later, I would trade technological advancement for the return of Beyowulf and the terror that was The Polar Express. Somehow those cold, dead eyes, were our Good Old Days....Avatar, what have you wrought?

Why I Don't Lie About Being Single

Last week, after an appearance, I found myself asking the question I'm sure women whose jobs entail meeting lots of strangers ask themselves at some point:  should I just wear a fake engagement ring already?  99 percent of the guys who were at the place were nice and fun and etc, but it was a singles mixer so of course it brought out the Predators. The ones who just won't take no. The ones who can't comprehend that a woman who is there working is not there to meet singles. Which would have been the antithesis of my actual function at said mixer, which was to facilitate the hooking-up of other singles. That would have been like a waiter taking a bite of the cheesecake before taking it out to the table (I mean, there was a cover charge. I can't swoop in for free and take all the men.  Plus I ate the free buffet, so I had already stolen enough for one night).

I Went To Bible Camp!

future atheist slept here!

My family is Catholic. My dad, very much so. My mom once wrote a college paper on how Eve reaching for the apple/knowledge/empowerment was a profoundly feminist act, so, probably less so. We were at St Mary's Church every Sunday and her Catholic gradeschool every weekday. But for one week out of the summer, I ended up at fundamentalist Protestant Bible camp.

And I luuuuuuuuuurved it.

Is It Okay That I Don't Really Care About Kate Middleton Anymore?

Chris Pizzello/AP Photo via ABC News

Wils and Kate have completed their tour of The Colonies, and are back in England by now, so, confession: after all of it; the dresses! the funny hats with Canada leaves! the inevitable upskirt wardrobe malfunction!  the only thing I can think of is...ugh, still?

The Weekday Afternoon Date: WTF How Is This A Thing

You look so beautiful at 2p on a Wednesday.

Is the unemployment crisis so bad that nobody has a job? Instead of going to work we go on dates?

Beats That Deserve Better 070711: Swagger Jagger

It's so hard to be a sweet hook: everybody wants you, so they'll whisper things like "X-Factor sensation" in your ear, and before you know it you've fallen in with the wrong crowd and you don't even recognize your life anymore and you wonder how it went oh so wrong:


Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger from JayGaga on Vimeo.

I'm pretty sure there's a good song somewhere in there, at least there deserves to be.

Your move, Ke$ha.

AC-Induced Existential Crises and the Self-Sufficient Single Lady: A Beginner's Guide

Pictured: Malevolence

Congratulations!  You're an Independent Single Lady!  You take care of business when there is such which has needs of which to be taken care!  Throw your hat up in the air.

At some point in your success-twirling dance, you will become very sweaty, and notice that your AC is broken.  Probably your first tip-off will be the screeching death throes of the motor.  So you set to cycling through fan speeds at different tempos to trick it, doing the turn-on-turn-off dance to see if maybe it's just exhausted? And then resort to violence, but only as a last resort because you want your security deposit back some day.

This Is Not A Picture Of Me

Although seriously don't I look good?  Wait, no.

All My Lady Prods Put Your Hands Up!

...No one?  Seriously I'm having a Wilson Phillips Moment and I need a friggin high five over here.

source: TheaterVIP

A Round of Applause For The Rapturers

source: familyradio.com

[Please read before 6pm on Saturday.]

Diagnosis: Bitchface

image credit Michal Marcol via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

OMG you guys, I have Bitchface.

For most of my adult life, complete strangers have been coming up to me and telling me I should be smiling. Always men. Always significantly older. "You should smile, darlin'!"  As if the thought would never occur to me otherwise.

5 Reasons It's Better to Meet Someone in a Bar Than Online

So I've gone and quit eHarmony.  Done.  Finito.  Hundreds of dollars and only one (bad) date later, and I've finally caught on to the fact that taking my money and giving me no matches is a scam.  I only did it, and for as long as I did, because I fell for the argument used by every online dating service, ever:  "who are you ever going to meet in a bar?!?!"  The horror.  "How can you be sure you're compatible with a random stranger who just happens to be in the same place as you on the same day?"  As though choosing the same website--or any at all for that matter--is any different.  But actually, there are lots of things that I can figure out about a guy just by being in the same room as him, that I'd never be able to find out online until it's that point in the awkward first meeting where he says something like, "tell me more about your mischievous and fun personality" and I'm wondering how long I have to sit there before bolting for the door to not come across as too mean.  Behold:

Find Another Reason To Hate Gisele

You mortals with your sunburns and your skin cancer.

She's right about the sunscreen thing. Kinda.