hart.beats

How To Make a GIF the BuzzFeed Way

stopbeingsuchaturd — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:54:09 -0400

So I finally learned how to make a GIF!

If you want to try, here are the steps I learned from BuzzFeed social media editor Mike Hayes.

Here’s me celebrating my first GIF:

I even taught my husband how to make one!

And I made a GIF that lived on the top of nydailynews.com, our first-ever on the site:

It was a pretty exciting day, y’all.

The Sweetest Cab Driver in New York City

stopbeingsuchaturd — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 11:42:58 -0400

When a friend told me he’d landed in a Candy Cab and that it might make a great story, I was skeptical - who wants to eat candy that’s lying around in a taxi? But then I got on the phone with the driver, Mansoor Khalid, and his story just about broke my heart.

His 2-year-old son died in April after a long battle with heart disease (he had two heart transplants and lost a kidney before he passed away), and he got the idea to spread a little happiness in the world by handing out free candy in his cab.

Here’s the Daily News story I wrote about him: http://nydn.us/PX8aTu — just a really sweet man, doing a small, nice thing for strangers. This is why I love New York.

A Tale of Two "Meena & Adam"s (Or, How Our Canadian Doppelgangers Are Beating Us At Life)

stopbeingsuchaturd — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 10:12:00 -0400

A few weeks ago, right before my husband (Adam) and I (Meena) celebrated our first wedding anniversary on September 18^th, I called up another couple to see how their first year of marriage was going. The phone rang across the Canadian border, and The Other Adam and Meena picked up - they were getting ready to celebrate too since they also tied the knot last year, on September 17^th. This was the first time I’d actually talked to my Wedding Doppelgangers, even though I’ve known about them now for over a year. Most of the time we go about our nearly twin lives fully unaware of each other, but on our double anniversary, I wanted to reach through the fun house mirror and find out what exactly life was like in our parallel, identically-named alternate universe.

(the Other Adam & Meena on their wedding day)

THE BACKSTORY: Last year, as our friends dutifully looked up our registry to buy us serving trays and hand towels, they went to Google and typed in “Meena and Adam wedding.” It turns out The Other Meena and Adam’s friends were doing this too, over in Canada. Sure enough, both sets of friends soon discovered there were dueling Meena and Adam weddings, just 24 hours apart. As it turns out, they had a better URL but we have better SEO – our wedding page still comes up first in search, though it’s quickly followed by a string of hits about the Canadians. (American Adam points out the obvious: This whole situation is markedly weirder because it’s not exactly a common name pairing.)

Canadian Adam was first to reach through the hole in the time-space continuum, and sent me an email titled “Weird, another Adam and Meena.” “You guys have officially become known as the hipster American version of us,” he said, a pronouncement we cringingly accepted (in our Ray-Bans). We traded a few jokey messages, I wrote a blog post about the small-world-ness of the Internet, and we went our separate ways.

But here I am a year later, dialing their number on a sunny afternoon (after rejecting the idea of Skype — it would just be too weird, I thought, to come face-to-pixelated-face with our Bizarro Selves). On the phone, their voices sound just like ours. On paper, the similarities continued. Canadian Adam is 28, I’m 27. He owns a business that operates newspapers, I write for a newspaper. Canadian Meena is 31 and works for the government, in air transport security. My Adam is 33 and a master at sneaking his array of (totally masculine) beauty products past airport security. (us)

So, what’s married life like, I ask the Canadians. We get asked this all the time, which is tough to answer since not too much is different. We live in the same apartment, have the same jobs, and wear (mostly) the same clothes we did before. “Babies” and “buying a house” are cute phrases that live somewhere in fantasy land.

But across the border, EVERYTHING has changed. Well, all the big stuff, anyway. Canadian Adam ditched his “swinging bachelor pad” and moved into Meena’s house, and from there they started ticking off the Big Life Stuff list. “We’ve bought a car we’re renovating our house, and we’re having a baby!” they tell me. “Buying a car is a big deal!” Canadian Meena says, before she adds, “I guess having a baby is kind of a big deal.”

(Them)

So, I ask, how do you handle fights? “We really don’t fight,” Adam says. “It’s very, very rare,” says Meena. I roll my American eyes. But the Canadians are totally sincere about how genuinely they like each other; you can feel it through the phone. “We just work very well together. It’s easy for us to get along,” Meena says. “Even if there are big disagreements, we try not to go to bed angry,” says Adam. “We try to talk it through.”

I start to feel like we aren’t measuring up against the Meena and Adam we could be, and that the clock is ticking fast on our plans. I mean, these guys sound like real adults. Hearing how relaxed our Canadian counterparts sound about parenthood also makes me nervous – though maybe they’re mellowed out by the fact that Canada’s health care and benefits system is so non-fucked up that Meena will get twelve months of paid leave when she gives birth. “We’re thinking about going to Bali for a month,” she muses. “All we need is breast milk and diapers.” Sitting here in our New York apartment where rent is probably double their mortgage, the whole thing just seems so far away and unattainable.

But marriage advice isn’t one-size-fits-all, no matter how similar you are, and comparing yourself to other relationships will only make you miserable. My Adam and I, for example, tried the whole don’t-go-to-bed-angry thing, and ] it totally backfired on us. We’d just stay up late, getting more and more tired and frustrated, until we went to bed madder than ever. Now when we disagree at night, we just hit the hay and skip the fight. We wake up having forgotten what we were once angry about.

And though they may have given me underachieving anxiety in the moment, I got off the phone with Canadian Meena and Adam feeling inspired to do better by channeling their relaxed attitude and overflowing love for each other, even when life gets stressful. It’s a good push to get, one year in, when things were starting to feel settled. “Choose wisely,” Canadian Adam offers as his big piece of marriage advice as he gets off the phone with me. Luckily for this Meena, I already did.

Oh, P.S. - All amazing photos of our wedding were shot by the ridiculously talented Steph Goralnick.

How to do stuff: GANGNAM STYLE

stopbeingsuchaturd — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 08:16:26 -0400

Korean pop superstar PSY taught me how to roll, GANGNAM STYLE.

On 9/11, a love letter to New York -- and to marriage

stopbeingsuchaturd — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:49:00 -0400

Last year on this day, I was a week away from getting married. I was full of hope and optimism and excitement, but I was also filled with sadness and reflection on the tenth anniversary of what some have called “the day that never stopped.”

Here’s the post I wrote that day, on falling in love with New York - and, with love.

Originally posted on the New York Daily News, here.

On September 11th, 2001, I hadn’t yet moved to New York. I hadn’t yet fallen in love with this city, with its streets, with its skyline, with its strange array of smells, with the people who would come to be my family and shape my life.

On that day I was still in California, a senior in high school, speeding along on my normal route from home to my first morning class. I was late, as always, and didn’t waste any time cueing up my favorite music to blast on the 20-minute drive. In the split second before I hit play I heard a snippet from the radio, something about the World Trade Center. Assuming they were talking about the 1993 attacks - maybe it was the anniversary? - I shrugged it off and pushed in my mix tape, cranking the volume as I cruised along blissfully to school.

Everyone has their own story of where they were when and how they learned and how they felt and what it meant to them. For me, 3000 miles away from where it all happened, it was an abstract and bizarre day filled with confusion and trepidation, not only of what it meant for America but of what it meant for the world when we retaliated, as we all knew we would. There weren’t many tears in the halls of our high school, only faces filled with shock and incomprehension. Later, at the youth radio program where I worked, we would look at the front pages of New York City’s papers, analyzing the emotion and the style of their headlines in a scholarly, removed way. In a particularly tone-deaf instant, my college counselor would look me in the eye unflinchingly and suggest the attacks might improve my chances of getting into college in New York, as others might be afraid to apply.

Nine years later on this day, passing through the streets of lower Manhattan, watching the memorials and the family members read the names of those they lost, I feel like a stranger here again. This is my home, but today I feel like a tourist, a visitor, only able to observe those who were here then and listen to their stories. It meant something so different to them, something I will never fully be able to understand.

What I do know is how lucky I feel to live in New York City today, how thrilling it felt to ride my bicycle over the Brooklyn Bridge this morning on this beautiful clear day, surrounded by New Yorkers so eager to live and be seen living - running, biking, standing in the streets, holding each other, remembering. How excited I am to be marrying the love of my life in just seven days, and how scared I felt this morning at the possibility that anything could happen to us at any moment.

We live in cynical times in what can often be a very cynical city, but it can also be the most sentimental, spine-tinglingly life-affirming place in the world. On Friday I went to the Marriage Bureau in lower Manhattan with my friend to get his officiant license so he can perform our marriage ceremony. We were tired and frustrated and prepared for a hassle, but walking in was like being transported to the Twilight Zone, a corner of New York where unbridled optimism reigned supreme.

My friend Henry signs his name in The Big Book of registered marriage officiants in New York.

Staffers beamed at us, offering kind words and assistance. Everywhere around us, a rag-tag assortment of couples lined up in their versions of wedding attire to tie the knot. A middle-aged woman with a mohawk and a vaguely European accent, tattoos peeking out all over her body from beneath her strapless sundress, clutched a bouquet of flowers as she and her new husband posed in front of the photographic wall inside the bureau made to look like a street scene on a sunny Manhattan day. A curvaceous African-American bride decked out in a glittery white floor-length dress, hair curled and sprayed, sashayed down the hall arm in arm with her groom in a dashing pin-striped suit, surrounded by their army of family and friends. As I walked out I even passed a girl I went to college with, beautiful in a retro-style yellow dress and perfect make-up. It was so beautiful and strange, this surprising embrace of tradition here in the most unromantic of settings - a cold government building that might as well be the DMV.

The moment was especially touching because, in many ways, marriage no longer matters. You don’t need to be married to have children, to live together, to love each other. You don’t need to be married to take advantage of each other’s health care, tax breaks, retirement funds. But here we all are, lining up one after the other to repeat this ritual - because marriage still means something. You may not believe in it personally, but for so many it undoubtedly continues to hold weight. We do it because we want to know we’ll have that bond of love for life, we want that promise that someone will be there by our sides to walk through the difficult times, to share the good times, because we don’t want to go through these journeys alone.

In the wake of the September 11^th attacks, in which families lost their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, people reaffirmed their will to live with love, sparking countless proposals and wedding stories, as if there was nothing stronger to prove our strength and indestructible nature as a human race than to get married. Love is an age-old response to tragedy, and even though so many traditions have been diluted, these paces we go through still seem to mean as much today as ever. Our marriage is even a response to tragedy in its own way - having lost both of our fathers, my fiance and I chose to push forward with happiness in our own life through this expression of love.

Ten years after the attacks and nine years after moving here, I’m thankful for the strength and resilience of New York City, for its unwillingness to become a bitter and angry place and its unending capability to surprise with beauty in unexpected places, becoming ever more vibrant, electric and unique. New York, for being a place where love shines so bright, thank you for making me feel so excited to be alive and to be getting married. You deserve the biggest love letter of all.

Color Running

stopbeingsuchaturd — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:42:18 -0400

I’m not a good runner.

I just want to get that out there, since this is a run recap and all. I’m not very fast. I’ll probably never do a marathon. Right now, I’m lucky if I can finish a 10K. In fact, during a game of “True Colors” a few years ago, my friends revealed they think I’m the biggest couch potato of the group.

But lately I’ve been trying to get more active, challenging myself to sign up for more events since I’ve found I can go a lot further when I’m in a group. Plus, running with friends is enough to motivate me to cross the finish line. So when a friend heard about the Color Run 5K and sent a fun-looking video around, I was intrigued …Who doesn’t love getting a little dirty and having a dance party?

(Before the run, with my friend Shannan who suckered me into doing it)

Unfortunately I missed the sign-up: Note to wannabe Color Runners, this thing sells out fast!! But just days before the run another friend found out she couldn’t make it, and handed over her registration to me. I printed out and downloaded the NINE PAGE instruction packet, complete with detailed instructions on what to wear and directions to the boonies of Brooklyn where the race would take place. The Color Run is no joke - this thing has serious infrastructure. I went to pick up our bibs and shirts the day before at the Marriot in Brooklyn and stood in line as hundreds of people cycled through the hotel ballroom to get their materials. (Picking up in advance, if you can do it, makes things much smoother on race day - you don’t even have to check in if you already have all your stuff and you can go straight to the starting line.)

This was a good clue that the event itself was going to be crowded - apparently 24,000 people do the run in a weekend (it is held on both Saturday and Sunday), and reassuringly for those of us who don’t run regularly, they come in all shapes and sizes.

Color Run 101: Wear a white shirt. Your race registration gets you a Color Run-branded tee, or you could bring your own, but the goal is to show off the color you get sprayed with as much as possible, and it shows up best on white cotton as it’s a kind of loose powder that sticks to you. I paired my shirt with a ratty pair of my husband’s white gym shorts to maximize the color effect.

Run organizers also recommend you wear a bandanna and protective eye wear so the color powder doesn’t get in your eyes. Sufficiently paranoid about temporary blindness, I brought a pair of cheap sunglasses and cut up an old t-shirt to tie around my mouth. (This proved unnecessary - they were handing out cheap bandannas at the starting line. I’m glad I didn’t shell out $5 for one in the Color Store!) But I will tell you this having been through it: The bandanna is totally unnecessary. I was sweating through mine and clawed it off about halfway through the run, and then I was stuck holding it because I didn’t want to trip anybody. I think the sunglasses are probably a good idea if they don’t inhibit your running - I didn’t mind wearing mine and was glad to not having dust in my eyes.

The runkicked off with blaring music and several rounds of “the wave” as we waited in a pen for our turn to start. When we finally got going, it was a little anti-climatic. The stops for music were few and far between, and the run staffers who threw different hues of powder on us - felt very sporadic. I made it through the first station with my white clothes still completely pristine, and had to make a serious effort to run and spin and twirl through the next stations to get decorated. The run itself also felt harder than many other 5Ks I’ve done in the past, as a lot of the runners around me seemed to be there just to hang out and huge groups of them stopped to walk. For someone like me who hates running when I have to think about it, it was a little demoralizing to chug along in the heat while so many people were quitting.

But after I crossed the finish, the fun really started! Every runner gets a packet of color which you save for the end, where the music is blasting and all the runners collect into a dance party. The jams are good (I’m a huge Top 40 fan) and everyone is a combination of exhausted and elated. We clumped together, bounced up and down to the beats of Britney Spears and Rihanna, and poured our color powder on each other, watching ourselves transform into colorful canvases. It was so much fun I forgot how boring the race itself had been and thought I would sign up again in a heart(hart?)beat.

(The beach at Jacob Riis, just minutes from the run.)

And the best part was the race was just minutes from the beach! Where better to wash off than the ocean? And yes, for those wondering, the color washes out pretty easily - though the purple and blue stain the longest - and after I shower I was back to looking like normal. Rumor has it the dye will wash out of our stuff, too.

Ok, so you think you know how to ride the subway. But are you...

stopbeingsuchaturd — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 08:48:00 -0400

Ok, so you think you know how to ride the subway. But are you doing it as well as you could be - or are you committing some serious straphanger violations? NY1’s (adorable) Rail & Road reporter Jamie Shupak breaks it down: What to wear, what not to wear, if it’s ever acceptable to eat underground, how you should be holding that pole, and even how to pick up a cute girl. Check it out!

There are a lot of skills I wish I had, but one thing...

stopbeingsuchaturd — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:37:02 -0400

There are a lot of skills I wish I had, but one thing that’s always seemed totally out of my reach is how to blow dry my hair like an adult, instead of looking like I stuck my finger in a socket.

If you’re like me you’re usually better off paying a professional than trying to do your own hair - so I got a pro to spill his secrets. The result: Check out how to get a perfect salon blowout yourself!

More tips, here.

How To Eat a Hot Dog (like Kobayashi)

stopbeingsuchaturd — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 09:05:51 -0400

I know what you’re thinking - you already know how to eat a hot dog. How hard could it be?

But this isn’t just any old way to eat a hot dog - it’s the KOBAYASHI way. I sat down with the competitive eating legend to learn his method and try it out for myself. (Spoiler alert: It’s pretty gross.)

How to fake a tan (without looking like the Tan Mom)

stopbeingsuchaturd — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:45:25 -0400

Have you been stuck inside under the fluorescent lights for too long? Even if you haven’t been able to get to the beach yet, Chelsa Skees has all the tricks for how to fake a tan (without turning into the Tan Mom.)

We did this video for the Daily News…check that link out here.

Teach me how to karaoke

stopbeingsuchaturd — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 10:35:00 -0400

I am fully terrified of karaoke and usually try to avoid it, but word on the street is it’s actually an amazing time if you can get over yourself.

Tony Bacigalupo, who won himself a 2009 karaoke title at SXSW, walked us through how to kick ass at karaoke, even if you can’t sing.

You’re going to want to turn up the volume on this one.

How To Shop at Sephora (without panicking)

stopbeingsuchaturd — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:53:00 -0400

I suck at buying makeup. If left to my own devices I would buy everything at Rite-Aid and none of it would match my face. I’m still coasting off the makeup my friend Lauren bought me for my wedding, when she held my hand and steered me through Sephora, plucking all kinds of products off the shelf that I’d never even heard of. In my day-to-day life I do my makeup on the subway, and I still stick to the basics I taught myself in high school: concealer, eye liner, mascara, and a little bronzer to hide the fact that I spend most of my days indoors, chained to the Internet.

Don’t get me wrong - I’d love to be good at it. The problem is just that buying makeup seems SO overwhelming. When I walk into a Sephora, the aisles and aisles of options are enough to make me turn around and run. So I end up putting off buying make-up for as long as possible until I’m literally using Q-tips to scrape out the bottom of the bottle.

Since I know I’m not alone, I figured it was time to call in an expert who could help: Stylist and blogger Chelsa Skees, who also happens to be one of the prettiest (and nicest) people around. This quick how-to video will teach you once and for all: How To Shop at Sephora (without having a panic attack).

The Loneliness

stopbeingsuchaturd — Sun, 27 May 2012 23:19:00 -0400

In my line of work, bad news is good news. When terrible things happen to people – a naked man chews another man’s face off or a woman is ripped in half by an elevator on her way to work – a different energy starts to course through the air: this is going to be a good day, we say to ourselves. We feel relief, excitement, we breathe a little easier. Other people’s tragedies are our good fortune. It’s sick, it’s disgusting - it’s our norm.

Desensitization happens quickly. First it’s shocking, then it’s funny, and quickly it becomes boring. It’s not important enough if a woman is found dead – is she hot? Did she die in a quirky or horrific fashion? That changes everything. Life at a tabloid means I spend my days trolling doom and gloom, guts and gore to find stories that will rake in traffic and page views.

So when an editor sent me this link today, the story of a 22-year-old Yale graduate’s inspiring words to her classmates just days before she was killed in a car accident, my initial reaction was: Gold Mine. It had all the right elements. Beautiful girl + tragic death + emotional quotes = blockbuster web story. File that under “hot but dead,” I thought (using my inner, horrifying shorthand for a category of stories I know our readers will eat up — Similar tags include “Awesome if True,” “Dead Babies” and “Domestic Disputes Involving Samurai Swords”).

I quickly typed her name into Facebook - Marina Keegan - to see what else I could find.

And then, there she was, standing tall in a yellow coat, her eyes meeting mine. Yes, she was pretty, young, and it was tragic - but I no longer felt the thrill of page views, no longer wanted to joke around. My detachment fell away, my stomach started slip-sliding. She was too real, too confident, too poised, too smart. How could she be gone?

I turned to the essay she left her fellow graduates, the kind of thoughtful, beautiful musings of a young woman on the verge of everything.

“The opposite of loneliness,” she writes.

It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team. When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. The hats.

But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old.

Marina Keegan, 22. Writer, actress, daughter, friend. She could be any of us. I try to put her together in my mind.

Worked at the New Yorker (Intern), her Facebook profile says. Someone in our cop shack says she was set to take a job there as an editorial assistant. Her Facebook page is full of carefree albums – kissing her boyfriend at prom, playing with her dog. A quick Google search shows she wrote for the New York Times. She was passionate about liberal politics and the importance of not selling out, it seems. There she is in a YouTube video, performing at a campus spoken word event - cute, composed, smart, stylish. Anyone can tell, this was a girl with a dazzling future. The kind of person people wanted to be friends with, wanted to be like. What could have happened?

The crash occurred at about 2:20 p.m. when the car carrying Keegan and [the driver] was traveling eastbound on Route 6 in Dennis when it drifted off the road and into the right-side guardrail. The car then swerved back across the road and crashed into the left-side guardrail before rolling over at least twice and coming to rest in the road. — Patch.com

I have learned over and over that there is no such thing as fair. There are only random acts and the frenzy of those left behind to try to fashion them into a cohesive narrative to dull the pain. But there is no sense to be made out of the loss of someone so young, so bright, so vibrant. My heart sped up as I read the words she left her classmates - her voice is so clear, real, optimistic; so confident in herself and what lies ahead. There is no room for doubt or tragedy. She is sensible, rational, modest, brilliant. How many parents have said goodbye to their daughters, still so full of promise?

We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time.

When the woman was cut in half by the elevator in midtown last year, a neighbor was asked to describe her. “She always wanted to quit smoking and lose ten pounds,” the neighbor said. We are all the things we’ve done, but are we even more so the things we haven’t done and want to do and assume we’ll get to? What would my neighbors say about me if I was gone tomorrow? Would they even know my name?

And then I can’t look through any more of her photos – I have to stop. There is a new, fresh quality to the guilt I feel from peeking into her life, like these pictures are too personal, too normal, too familiar. There are only her words, sparkling with the enthusiasm and hope of being 22 and on the edge of life, which will ring in my ears for a long time to come.

We’re in this together, 2012. Let’s make something happen to this world.

Judging By Its Cover

stopbeingsuchaturd — Thu, 10 May 2012 10:58:00 -0400

So Time Magazine really went there. Posted online today, this is the magazine cover that hits stands on Friday, and it’s the kind of thing that people CAN’T STOP LOOKING AT.

The Q&A with this 26-year-old mom (her child is 3) reveals she was breast-fed until she was 6-years-old herself:

They are people who tell me they’re going to call social services on me or that it’s child molestation. I really don’t think I can reason with those people. But as far as someone who says they’re uncomfortable with this, I don’t think it’s wrong to admit this. But people have to realize this is biologically normal. It’s not socially normal. The more people see it, the more it’ll become normal in our culture. That’s what I’m hoping. I want people to see it.

I don’t think I’m the only one who’s totally turned off by this cover, but then again New York Magazine just won an ASME for best cover of the year with this:

In some ways these covers are totally genius because they get shared like crazy and people talk about them for a long time and remember them - “Time Magazine” was already trending on Twitter by 11am on Thursday. But most people are talking about it because of the ick factor - as one coworker put it, “I want to think it’s okay…but it’s hard to look at.”

Just because something is a conversation starter, does it make it a good cover?

(photo from Texts From Hillary). Well, that was fast. This...

stopbeingsuchaturd — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:27:00 -0400

(photo from Texts From Hillary).

Well, that was fast. This awesome meme of Hillary Clinton texting and being a badass has now gone full circle. Today, Hillary got together with the guys who created the Texts From Hillary blog and texted with them and giggled and posted photos of themselves texting and giggling. And Hillary proved how funny she is by totally getting the joke and signing it “Hillz” and putting lots of “LOLZ” in for good measure.

In case you’re wondering, yes, it’s totally real. We even got the State Department to say so.

And guess what else: her favorite post was the one with RYAN GOSLING. Love her even more.

This made actual tears come out of my eyes. Small tears, but...

stopbeingsuchaturd — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:16:00 -0400

This made actual tears come out of my eyes. Small tears, but real, physical, laugh tears all the same. Highly recommended for anyone looking to kill a few minutes.

Woof.

How To Sharpen Pencils

stopbeingsuchaturd — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 09:35:00 -0400

In which David Rees teaches me a thing or two about the art of artisanal pencil sharpening. (photo by Meredith Heuer)

David came to the Daily News to give me a tutorial on pencil sharpening in person:

(Hillary Clinton on board a C-17 to meet rebel leaders in...

stopbeingsuchaturd — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:26:00 -0400

(Hillary Clinton on board a C-17 to meet rebel leaders in Tripoli, November 2011. Photo: Diana Walker for TIME - this vintage link popped up in my news feed this AM.)

Hillary Clinton: How To Be a Badass*

*Is this how you spell badass? One word? Two? Hyphen? Capitalize the A? So many questions.

Not so therapeutic

stopbeingsuchaturd — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:50:04 -0400

(Photo from the New York Times.)

Well, file this under Things That Make Me Sad. The Post has a story today that the married couple behind the design and decor blog Apartment Therapy are getting a divorce after 10 years and a baby (the family was profiled in the Times twice, the photo above is from 2006 when they welcomed their daughter Ursula into their 265-square-foot apartment).

Of course I don’t actually know these people, and honestly I don’t even read Apartment Therapy that often, but when writers turn their personal lives into their businesses (and seem likeable enough), I find it’s hard not to feel empathetic when they then go through hard times. I mean they’ve quite literally - albeit virtually - let me into their home. Granted the blog is so big now that the aspirational postings profile tons of other people’s covet-worthy apartments and DIY projects (HOME PORN), the premise of the site is that it was born of personal experience. And maybe that’s the problem - if you found a business on the story of your family and then sell your customers on how happy you are and how enviable your lifestyle is, there’s an awful lot of pressure to perform.

A lovely home library, featured on Apartment Therapy. I want all those windows.

Call me gullible, but the news of their split got me down because I love stories of husband-and-wife teams. Being newly married I find myself collecting Couple Idols - power duos who’ve managed to achieve success on all fronts: business, family, adorable kids. These kinds of people are particularly inspiring in New York, where everything feels a little more expensive, a little more stressful, and yet somehow like it should be more attainable since there is so much success all around you.

Plus, as someone who defaults to being a mess and can’t do crafts to save my life, I also idealize people who have achieved Organization (capital letter needed) and lust after photographs of tidy, well-decorated homes and creative home projects I could never dream up myself or execute. All this adds up to the fact that I feel a little sadder today about the durability of marriage and a little more skeptical of all my other Couple Idols who project these shiny, happy, put-together lives. I know it’s silly to try to extrapolate life lessons from tabloid stories about strangers, but it’s hard not to wonder, can anyone really make it? How?

9 Reasons to love Katie Couric

stopbeingsuchaturd — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:45:00 -0400

So today’s life crush is Katie Couric, who came back to the morning news anchor chair for the first time since leaving the Today Show, guest hosting Good Morning America for Robin Roberts (who is on vacation and undoubtedly hoping she still has a job when she returns). And everyone was so happy about it! (I mean, except everyone who works at NBC.)

Look, look how happy they are! Granted this is a promo shot from last week and Katie wore a red shirt this morning instead of this lovely hot pink Michael Kors dress she’d already really made the rounds in, but this shot pretty much nails all there is to be said about the general vibe surrounding her cameo. Katie’s being doing a pretty great job lately of reminding me why I love her - in fact I’m going to go ahead and count the photo of her & George as #1 on the list - but in case you need some more convincing, here’s a recent round-up of what makes her Life Crush-worthy.

#2: Her Humblebrags

Here’s her Twitter caption on this one:

At lunch with my pal @cindi_leive @glamourmag. We both heard brights were in for spring! Thanks @michaelkors

In other words, I’m just hanging out with the Editor in Chief of Glamour and looking radiant. We’re just talking about power stuff and making decisions to inspire lots of ladies. We both threw on these $1600 dresses that we probably got for free - don’t I look breezy and casual and like I would be a blast to have a drink with in the afternoon? Probably a white wine, but who knows, I look like I like margaritas! Sounds fun right?

Why YES, Katie, yes it does.

#3: Her Instagrams

Here she is with Pauly D last week, proving she’s not afraid to get a little down & dirty. (Why are you putting that in your mouth, Katie!? And why did you just set America up to shout “That’s what she said?”) But her friendly tweets and silly photos make her fun and relatable, like anyone could fall into her awesome life of chatting with celebrities, learning vocab with Word-of-the-Day, lunching with VIPs, and just sharing the latest health article she stumbled across. You know, normal stuff. She’s JUST LIKE US!

#4: Lest you think her Instagram photos are all taken by a dutiful assistant, she also proves she likes snapping her own iPhone pics.

Yep, here she is at the Michael Kors show, (probably) Instagramming away while checking out the fashion from the front row. She’s classy, well-accessorized, has perfect, shiny hair, tasteful jewelry and a bold but classic clutch.

Plus, #5, look how much fun she’s having!!

Tee-hee!

#6: She brought us this dance move:

#7 & #8: And these ones:

And then she didn’t even try to pretend they were fake or Photoshopped or throw a stink about being “hacked” - she just straight up owned them. In fact her rep said,

“Katie had a good time dancing with her daughters—they choreographed the dance and had fun doing it.”

Boom.

And #9: Last but not least, even when she’s busting your balls, you’ve gotta love her. Just ask Matt Lauer!

Her tweet with this one, posted after her first day on GMA, reads:

@Joshelliottabc and @katiecouric post @gma getting cozy with Matt in Time Square!

BURN! Not only does Matt get teased by his ex-cohost who stole all his thunder, but his unflattering wax figure is broadcast to the world. That’s gotta sting.

Well that’s all the life crushing I can handle for the day. ‘Til next time,

MHD