one more thing for today...check out COOLTURE!

While I'm on the subject of boasting about my talented friends, take a moment to check out this new blog by Coolture USA:

Coolture's Blog

My friend Van DiBernardo was a designer at DKNY before he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Falling back on his design background, he and his sister Luanne (another amazing talent) have just started a company called Coolture, whose signature cooling vest is, as stated in their blog, "the first fashionable solution for improving physical endurance when overheated by exercise, physical therapy, and/or warm environments."

Give them a click when you have a moment, and refer any friends you have who might benefit from Coolture's amazing innovation!

Mara Hoffman Sample Sale Next Weekend!

(Click the above picture for a larger, printable version)

Alright, alright...so I'm a little off-topic here. But this is important, dammit.

My good friend Mara Hoffman is having a HUGE sample sale next weekend, so if you're in or around New York City, or if you feel like hopping a plane for less than an hour to get there...

GET THERE!

Foreals, Mara's designs are off the chain. It's a rare day when I leave the house wearing something this girl didn't design. Her sample sale prices are incredible, so things sell out quickly - Friday morning is the ideal time to show up, but you have all weekend to shop. The sale features current spring, resort, swim, and past collections at up to 80% off retail.

This one's gonna be big, so get over to Mercer & Broome Sts. in SoHo and get your shop on (and bring me coffee throughout the day, if it pleases you)!!!

www.marahoffman.com

Is it an iPod, or is it a time machine?

you should listen to this

So, I got back on the exercise routine gingerly last night (insert 'woot' here), and when I walk/run/whatever outside, I almost always have to set it to music. One thing about me and my music: every single second of every song is associated with some sort of memory, person, event, feeling, era-in-my-life...This is both a blessing and a curse. A song comes on, and I find myself mentally and emotionally submerged - almost completely - in whatever was going on in my life at the time I first heard that song. Sometimes this is fantastic, and sometimes it's a little like drowning...it's like having your insides instantly transported to another time and place while your body is still doing laps around the block. 


For instance: when I listen to Waylon Jennings, I'm back in early 2006, when I first started dating my husband (this time around). When I hear Wings, it's 1975 again and I'm a little girl at my grandparents' house, staying up late to watch Hockey Night in Canada with my Aunt Lynne. OR...it's November of 2000, and I'm trying to drive home in a blizzard that made national news. I got 5 city blocks in FIVE HOURS...and the only CD in my truck was Wings: Greatest Hits. Now, I love Wings. But after 5 hours of one CD, even the truck had had enough: the digital readout on the car radio read "HOT" and spit the CD right out.


Jeff Buckley's Grace generally gets skipped on the iPod because it brings me back to a really dark time, one of the few times in my life I really never enjoy revisiting. Belle & Sebastian's Books EP: the most beautiful boyfriend I had, and also the most disappointing. Any song by my friend Michael Oliver and his band Go, Dog. Go! brings me back to one of the happiest times in my life, and it also makes me a little wistful for those days. The Cardigans' First Band on the Moon is a stay in Los Angeles in the mid-90s, whereas their Long Gone Before Daylight record is a fun time and a really sweet boyfriend in the mid-"aughts."


Anyway, you see where I'm going with this. I could literally go on for hours.


I don't really have a point. It's just that I've noticed something while engaging in this whole exercise thing: it's always like hopping into a time machine, Bill & Ted style: with each song change, I'm back in the time traveling phone booth and whisked off to some different era. One lap around our block and I've already visited several places, spanning a number of years. It's almost a workout in itself.


So now let me leave you with Carol Medina's Secret Fantasy, arguably one of the cheesiest songs ever recorded. I mean, listen to it! But...all I think about when I hear it is being 23, 24 years old, going out at night with my then-boyfriend and - gasp! - dancing. Oh, and it also reminds me of when I first "met" one of my many movie boyfriends - this time, it was Jeremy Northam in The Net. ha! How's that for totally fucking random? 


Anyway, oddly enough, 1995 was one of the absolute darkest years in my life, marked by a descent into the hell of eating disorders and all the stuff that comes with that. But Carol Medina, Heart, "the fuckin' Eagles, man"...all the cornball music I listened to back then only brings me back to the good stuff from those days. And there was quite a lot, when I bothered to open my eyes and check it out. I don't know what the deal is with that, or why that music doesn't bother me the way I think it should. All I know is, I'm happy about that, and when this silly shit came on my iPod last night, I had to listen to it twice.

awwww snap

I've discovered that I get awfully crafty when I'm sick. I've made countless pieces of jewelry and done some rather nifty dyeing and batiking while confined to my house, too. One thing I haven't done, however, is any form of exercise whatsoever. Eating well isn't too difficult for me, because I don't eat meat and I love a lot of stuff that's actually good for me. So fortunately that's not the big challenge. It's the damn exercise, and I did not a LICK of it all week.


Gah.


I should point out that, for a change, I actually feel antsy to get back on track with my daily activities of becoming less bloblike. (Not physically, just like...metaphorically. Or something.) I'm a busy enough person that, in the past, I might not really have noticed that I didn't make time for exercise all week. But not this time! This week, while sneezing and coughing like a 3-pack-a-day smoker (awesome feeling, btw), the actual desire to get some exercise nagged at me a little.


Bitches, that has GOT to count for something.


Something else: I'll admit I take some perverse pleasure in losing weight while sick. Come on, you know you've done this. But this doesn't seem to happen anymore. WTF? I thought that was like, the ONE perk of feeling crappy for a week. See, now I'm hearing the doctor saying "well, you ARE 38..." Is this another 38 thing? You don't get to put your skinny jeans on after you've been sick? Because come on, that's kinda bullshit.


Whatever, it seems I have to continue eating well and exercising. Apparently Mrs. Obama didn't get those delts by having the flu.