video tutorials!

I recently became aware that there are like, 17 bazillion beauty tutorials online and have since then wasted many an hour watching tutorials of things I will never do to my face, nails or hair.  But, I have gotten a few good ideas, I guess.  I found a really good tutorial on how to apply false eyelashes...


It appears the key is waiting for the glue to get a bit tacky.

Speaking of tacky, I also saw a video on how to make your eyelashes ridick "massive". It turns out you just continuously apply mascara for 4.53 minutes!

seemed like a good idea at the time

 The first thing I ate when I got to New Orleans was this catfish po-boy.  It was crazy-delicious, but little did I know that basically every meal I ate would be comprised of fried things.  

It seems that no visit to New Orleans would be complete without a trip to Cafe du Monde, which basically has two items on the menu, beignets and cafe au latte.  A general good rule of thumb is, The Less Things On the Menu The More Likey Each Item Will be Amazing.  In this case, it applied.

The streets had these fantastic gas lights.  Why do we find outdated technology charming?  I don't know, but it was charming as hell. 

I thought the (non-fried!) shrimp below would be my last meal in New Orleans, but the joke was on me when my flight was cancelled and I ended up ordering a meal of desperation in my airport La Quinta - wait for it...  a bunch of fried food! Ugh.  I like pub food as much of the next person.  Possibly more, actually.  But I felt my arteries hardening by the moment.

I'm going to miss being called Sugar-baby by strangers.  

More New Orleans

Here are a few gorgeous pictures from my trip.  I loved all the beautiful balconies in the French Quarter, why aren't ALL balconies like that? 

I like run-down buildings too - this was a fabulous little stretch.  Tomorrow: a bunch of ill-advised fried food I ate...

New Orleans

Well, I'm in new Orleans this week for a conference, and aside from missing a ctain husband I'm having a pretty good time. My hotel is on canal stret so I've been exploring the French quarter when I can. Wow, so beautiful, romantic, dirty, and mildly terrifying. At envy moment I'm afraid someone is going to dump a bucket of filthy water on my head.I think this is probably what ancient Rome felt like. When I first arrived, I kind of went overboard on fried fish, which, yes, in retrospect was a big mistake. I think I ate three meals in a row with nothing but fried food culminating in woe beignets from cafe du monde that were really spectacular. But after that I had to find a nice salad. I'm having trouble adding my pics from my phone to my iPad to blogger (oh, technology!)but I'll post them pretty soon.

Gallantly streaming

Did you have a nice Fourth of July?  It was literally 110 degrees in Chicago, so we tried hard to stay inside most of the day. We went down to the Art Institute, where, I hate to say, I haven't been for quite a while - there's a Lichtenstein retrospective there.  I really like Lichtenstein, but I realized he's better in small portions.  Seeing all these pieces together was sort of cynical and cold.   I was dying for some more heartfelt artwork after it was over.

This period was great, though.  There were two rooms that just knocked our socks off.

After the museum, we found a shaded spot in Millenium Park for a patriot concert.  No one can here resist being a conductor when they drop a little Phillip Sousa - it was funny to look around and seeing everyone directing the orchestra.  After that, we hit our favorite Italian Ice shop - really just a window out of which a dude sells fresh, homemade, delish ice in a cup as large as you can handle.  Then, back home where we jumped on our bikes, headed over to the beach and saw the fireworks show.  There was a little boy sitting next to us who kept saying, with increasing alarm, "They're coming right towards us!  They're coming right towards us!"  That's a boy after my own heart.

I'm off to New Orleans this week for a conference.  I'm presenting a topic, the breadth and width of which would no doubt impress you.  ha.  It's gunna be a barn burner, folks.

Spiderman, Spiderman, something something spiderman

We saw Spiderman on opening night - it was pretty fun and I mostly liked it.  The following things were cool:

1. When Peter Parker turns into a spiderman, he's crazy strong and breaks his doorhandles and whatnot.  I'm a real sucker for that kind of Jason-Bourne-y-OMG-how-am-I-doing-this? stuff.
2. Emma Stone as whoever this Gwen person is?  

and these things were dumb:

1. The fact that it was made
2. This armless scientist had supposedly been working for decades on an arm-growing serum and one day Peter Parker's like, try this, and he grows a damn arm?  And also turns into a lizard?
3. Lizard villan.  Amirite?
4. The actor who plays spiderman is too skinny, but he has a cute tuchus.  

But, I mean, honestly, I really liked it.  Do you know I used to be a real movie snob back when we lived in San Francisco, and I only wanted to see Indie-art-house films all the time.  Now I hate that stuff and I only want to see silly things on opening weekends.  There was even this scene, which felt very calculated, it was like, you could picture the flow-charts that guaranteed it would stir emotions in people aged 29-45, when Spiderman needs help and all these blue-color guys in NY help him.  And even though it was so cheesy and calculated, I still found it quite stirring.  What is wrong with me?

Oh!  As promised, here is a short list of actors I cannot tell apart:

• Jodie Foster and Holly Hunter
• The Rock and Vin Diesel
• Erika Christensen and Julia Stiles