Oops

After going on about the Newpsies I walked over to Fashion Island and, without thinking about it too much, became besties with the salesgirls at Lululemon. My new friends helped me pick out a pair of "studio pants" that are too formal for working out and too casual for anything else (they are not, however, see-through), and I'm wearing them right now as I type by the pool.

Newport

This blog post is brought to you live from Newport Beach, Orange County, California. Dan's here for a couple of weeks for work, so I tagged along to mooch off his free hotel room. It was going to be a short trip, but then my boss at the new job suggested I come out early to work a day out of the LA office, so I instantly changed my flight before he could change his mind. So in addition to the obvious perk of more time in Cali and an extra day with Dan, I got to meet some people I only see over grainy videoconference: total win. Well, it took two and a half hours to drive back to OC from Burbank, so an almost total win.

Dan's hotel is in Newport Center, which is a basically a large, beautiful, highly manicured office park. There's impossibly green grass and palm trees, and the hotels and office buildings are all directly adjacent to Fashion Island, the mall Marissa Cooper gets busted for shoplifting at in season one of The O.C. I'd assumed that they made up the name of the mall for the show, but no. It's actually called Fashion Island. That is the real name. Fashion Island. Not a joke.

Other things I've learned: as much as we want to believe in the verite of Bravo reality shows (as an insider, I can tell you that they're probably more real than you think), actual OC housewives don't wander the streets in fake eyelashes, full jewelry, and hard, blonde "beachy waves." They wear yoga tights and Nike Shox as they bip from Whole Foods to yoga-cardio class to Starbucks, with one hand on a high-end baby stroller and the other holding a green juice.

No big deal, just hangin' out at a neighborhood bar.

So even though my plans for the day involve lounging, blogging, and watching Grey's Anatomy on Hulu, I'm wearing workout gear to breakfast. I thought about wearing an all-black fuck-you-I'm-from-New-York outfit, but I don't know, it's kind of hot out.

WASN'T THIS A GREAT STORY?????? Ugh. Sorry. There was once a time I could have turned two days of farting around in Newport Beach into a thrilling yarn, but what can I say. Here're some pictures of Mom's new foster kittens to make it up to you:

Welp, They Found Him

I woke up at 6:50 yesterday morning and was briefed on the Boston manhunt by 6:51. I ended up being late for work because I was so glued to the TV - it all seemed to be happening so quickly, which was, of course, not the case. My boss, who has family in Watertown, had the local Fox affiliate on in his office all day - after testing every news station, he decided their coverage was the best - but the media I agreed with most was a tweet saying, "Starting to think I should turn off the TV and Twitter, and read an actual reported piece in the Times tomorrow AM." Eventually that's what I did, and despite the "power" of citizen journalism on social media, I think it's the way to go. So many "journalism" accounts on Twitter just tweet out everything they see on TV. I have a TV, too, guys. It doesn't make me a reporter.

Speaking of Twitter, this is a sampling from the younger bomber's feed:

August 16, 2012—The value of human life ain’t shit nowadays that’s #tragicAugust 22, 2012—I am the best beer pong player in Cambridge. I am the #truthSeptember 1, 2012—Idk why it’s hard for many of you to accept that 9/11 was an inside job. I mean I guess fuck the facts y’all are some real #patriots #gethipDecember 24, 2012—Brothers at the mosque either think I’m a convert or that I’m from Algeria or Syria, just the other day a guy asked me how I came to IslamJanuary 15, 2013—I don’t argue with fools who say islam is terrorism it’s not worth a thing, let an idiot remain an idiotMarch 13, 2013—Never try to fork a mini tomato while wearing a white shirt, it will explodeApril 10, 2013—Gain knowledge, get women, acquire currency #livestrongApril 15, 2013—Ain’t no love in the heart of the city, stay safe peopleApril 15, 2013—There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don’t hear them cuz they’re the minorityApril 16, 2013—I’m a stress free kind of guy

Please note that "I'm a stress free kind of guy" is from Tuesday, after he maimed over a hundred people and killed an eight-year-old child. As his picture circulated yesterday, I felt some empathy for him - a scared kid, probably under the influence of his brother, hiding in a dark corner somewhere, knowing his life has ended and trying to extend his remaining hours of freedom. Not sympathy - he deserves what he's going to get. More, wow, he must be scared out of his mind. And then I read about his stress free lifestyle and that empathy turned into a kind of smugness: I'm glad you spent a day cowering in your own blood, asshole. I'm glad you thought that was the worst day of your life. You were wrong: it's only getting worse from here.

Side note: Jeff Bauman, the guy in the wheelchair in this chilling, heartbreaking picture:

--identified the bombers. After he woke up at the hospital, he immediately asked for a pen and wrote, "bag, saw the guy, looked right at me." After having his legs blown off. I get chills.

Boston

The more I read about Boston the sadder and angrier I get. An eight-year-old boy waiting for his father to cross the finish line was killed, his mother hospitalized with a possible brain injury, and his six-year-old sister lost her leg. How will that family recover?

I am not a runner, aside from one-mile trots around the local track, but races like the Boston Marathon were a big part of my childhood. My mom and stepdad ran 10ks, half-marathons, and marathons every year. The Boston Marathon in particular loomed large, because my mom spent years trying to qualify for it. She finally made it the year after she was diagnosed with and treated for cancer - going up to Boston to cheer her on had such significance; not only that she'd achieved this longtime goal, but also that my mom was going to be okay (she ran a great time, too). I was always allowed to borrow whatever running gear I wanted from her - but not the Boston jacket. "You have to earn that one," my mom said.

Having my memory of such a great race clouded is, obviously, a sliver of a fraction of an infinitesimally tiny piece of the pain being felt up in Massachusetts. And frankly, there are countries where people live in fear of things like this every day. But not here. An unthinkable act like this should remain unthinkable.

Baby Thor

Is it weird that I really love pictures of Chris Hemsworth carrying around his baby? I'm not even into Chris Hemsworth. There's room for only one excessively tall Nordic actor in my heart, and that pale blond man is Alexander Sarsgaard. But there are so many, and it's just so cute.

Maybe it's because I'm not into him. If Eric were carrying around a child with his arm casually draped around his supermodel wife, I'd fall into a deep depression. Even Dan would be like, "just stop looking at it" and bring me some wine.

PS Remember that Super Bowl ad for Calvin Klein, with the ridiculous male model flexing his 8-pack for two minutes? I was in the other room and Dan alerted me instantly: "MEGHAN! GET IN HERE! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!!!" Dan is the best.

PS2 True Blood comes back June 16th.

Stella

Katie had a baby! A beautiful little baby named Stella. I feel like it's weird to put someone else's baby on my blog, though, so all you get are her ear and eyebrow:

Aren't they the CUTEST EAR AND EYEBROW IN THE ENTIRE GODDAMN WORLD? Yeah. I thought so.

Bribery

Over the past few weeks, our apartment has devolved from "lived-in messy" to "hoarding situation." The fact that Dan and I are natural slobs combined with an intense new job have put keeping things semi-neat on the last rung of the priorities ladder. Yeah - I'm so fried, I now think it's okay to attach the phrase "priorities ladder" to my name on the internet. Anyway, there were online-shopping boxes everywhere, half-filled tubs of winter clothes waiting to be put away in some theoretical storage closet blocking every door, balls of cat hair decorating the carpet, exercise clothes strewn about; you get the idea. I don't generally care that much about neatness - why clean your room when you can just shut the door? - but the constant tripping over shoeboxes and sliding down the hall on a dry-cleaning bag was stressing me out. So yesterday at the farmer's market, I bought these tulips:

"Won't these look beautiful in a vase in our nice neat living room??!?!?!" I asked Dan, who was looking at a passing dog. "Yeah!!!!!!!!"

And it worked! Kind of.

The massive pile of newspapers and W magazines I never subscribed to are now in a clear recycling bag on the curb, and all of the socks that our cats had been using as toys are at the laundromat. We still have some bags of clothes sitting around, waiting for a kind soul with a car to help us bring them to the Salvation Army, and some bookshelf overflow that will likely never be resolved, but, yeah - self-bribery via flowers: IT WORKS.

Easter

We went to my parents' house for Easter and had a great time dyeing eggs, styling Marty for his annual Easter photoshoot, and eating a big Jewish breakfast from Russ & Daughters. Mom also made a big delicious dinner, but I forgot to take pictures (doh). Per usual, enough food and drink was consumed to make up for all suckers worldwide who fasted during Lent.