I’m not a doctor, but I play one whenever I’m on webmd, a friend is not well or a neighbor’s kid has a bad case of diaper rash. I was recently sent this press release and I don’t think I’ve been more excited about a book launch since Judy Blume released Then Again Maybe I Won’t (the boy’s version of Are You There God? Its Me Margaret). My new bedside table companion is: the Hypocondriac’s Handbook, Symptoms and Illnesses That Should Have Killed You By Now, by Ian Landau.

I imagine this book will thrill and reassure me just the same way Then Again did. It will reveal all the dirty details of disease, I’ll tell myself I should stop but I won’t be able to to because illness, after real estate, is a fetish of mine. Soon after, it will become my life story as I quickly am struck down and (miraculously) recover from the most troubling ailments. Don’t worry about me though, I’ll make it through.  Its David my darling husband who will have suffer through my symptom obsession, he’s who you should be concerned about.

With detailed descriptions of each disease and its history, tips for self-diagnosis, and suggested

treatments, Ian Landau has given you everything you need to know to diagnosis yourself. So, don’t wait for next week’s episode of House, get a copy of The Hypochondriac’s Handbook and diagnosis yourself and your friends today! Discover which of these diseases you should have already died from by now.

About the Author

Ian Landau is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his family. He is not a doctor, but his two children don’t know that.

Hypochondriac’s Handbook

Syndromes, Diseases, and Ailments that Probably Should Have Killed You by Now

By Ian Landau

Skyhorse Publishing Hardcover Original

On Sale: July 13, 2010

My dad was discharged from the hospital on Friday and my parents insisted they could manage by themselves, in fact my dad sounded so chipper on the phone that morning I couldn’t argue.

I had the whole day to myself because dad conveniently had has his heart attack during spring break. David took the kids to visit his family in Rockport and I spent time with my parents at the hospital. Now they didn’t need me and David and the boys would not be home until Saturday afternoon. I had nearly two days all to myself.

I should have been excited, but to be honest I was a little panicked. I hadn’t been alone for a weekend since…I didn’t know. It must have been before Dashiell was born and traveled to LA for a story but even then I was with friends from work, or maybe it was when I went on that press trip to St. Barths, but then I was with a pack of other reporters. Either way it was at least five years since I had been alone—completely alone for nearly two days. (more…)

Dogeared is producing a line of jewelry for the movie Eat Pray Love. Even though the cover was beautiful, I didn’t love the book, in fact I’m pretty sure I remember throwing my copy across the room because the whole thing felt premeditated. I imagined Elizabeth Gilbert crying in the bathroom realizing she wanted to get a divorce and then realizing that getting a divorce and writing a book about traveling the world looking for love would be a lot more fun than staying married and picking out towels at Restoration Hardware. It bugged me. I’ll admit I started reading the book around the time we were house hunting and all I wanted to do was win a bidding war and shop for towels myself, so I may have taken her rejection of the suburbs a little too personally. But still there’s something that didn’t ring true.

And now there are necklaces to go with the movie version of her book. I understand the appeal of Dogeared’s line of delicate gold trifles on your neck, they are easy to layer and not expensive and their current nautical line is pretty darn cute. But the idea of fine jewelry based on a movie feels as manipulative as the toys in a Happy Meal. They are extremely seductive to a six-year old and fun for about as long as the french fries are warm. As I write this, I realize that I’m probably just too old to be their target audience. I want my jewelry to have a story about my life, not Elizabeth Gilberts’. What do you think?

Cintra Wilson’s piece about visiting the Lilly Pulitzer store made me laugh and remember my first summer on Nantucket where it was all pink and puce giraffe prints and no irony. Here’s and excerpt from her story Lilly Pulitzer: Fashion With a Colorful Narrative [NYT]

“The second floor was also home to some absolutely terrifying sport jackets for men. I imagined it was what Anita Bryant’s linen closet would have looked like after Hurricane Andrew: violent mangos, pinks and aquamarines starched into jackets of such female bedspread intensity they might cause even Ricardo Montalbán to run toward the volcano. I asked for help from Jessica Stoller, a wry minx with turquoise eyes to match her cardigan. “What kind of men buy these jackets?” I asked. “Mobsters? Gay guys? Gay mobsters? Game-show hosts?” She assured me the jackets were extremely popular and left my mind to wander about the ramifications of this for society at large.”

Full disclosure, when Conrad was too young to protest I dressed him in pink swimming trunks with green tigers. He looked like a regular at Surfside.

I love the new linen line Lilly Pulitzer has created for Garnet Hill. But I just don’t think my husband will feel the same way.  The copy reads:

“The life of the party! Taking its cues from a smashing cocktail dress, this hand-quilted bedding adds cheer and elegance to the room. A shot of Palm Beach color and a dash of embellishment mixed with crisp forever-summer white — the perfect blend of fun and fashion — a recipe for a good time!”

It’s pretty convincing, but I can’t help but wonder if we got this bedspread, would he would feel like he was kissing his mom?

Alexander Mcqueen’s suicide is still on my mind. I feel the same way I did when Kurt Cobain committed suicide, somehow to me they seem so similar because of the futures they both gave up. I still can’t believe we won’t see his creative mind anymore. The Cut Blog did a round up of his best looks and when I watched the show it was both beautiful and tragic.

So I needed a pick me up and when its cold in the suburbs, I revert to my teenage self and I go to CVS. (But if I want to feel chic, I pronounce it CaaVaaSaa). There I trolled the beauty aisle for a cream that had my latest obsession: hyluronic acid to draw all this chilly moisture into my skin and lock it in with its pseudosciencentific technology. I purchased Vichy LiftActiv Retinol HA SPF 18, it was featured in a January beauty story I wrote for Self and it’s actually doing the job. I know it takes three weeks for your skin to adjust to a new routine but I feel like I’ve found a drugstore face cream I can use in the winter that actually makes my skin look younger. It’s on the high-end side for drugstore purchase: it was $43 for 1.35 ounces. But I’m comfortable with that because just this week I was lucky enough to receive a package from The Organic Pharmacy that contained two exquisite products: Antioxidant Face Gel and Antioxidant Face Serum. They are made from all natural organic ingredients that are quick to be absorbed, smell citrusy and made me look like I’d slept in a king sized hotel bed all by myself all night. I glowed—truly, until I checked the catalog and realized that the gel is $84 for 1 ounce and the serum is $130 for 1 ounce. It get why it’s expensive and I’m over complaining about that, my problem is   how fast I’m working through each vial. If I had to order this stuff I would have spent $2400 on skincare annually, which is also a summer beach house rental or my powder room makeover. What does it say that I want my powder room to look prettier than me? Anyway, I can’t commit to that kind of beauty pricing. So viva Vichy! (Until I find something newer and cheaper).

A reader asked about peels so I thought I’d elaborate because I’ve really seen a difference in my skin since starting one. A peel isn’t as scary or as invasive as it sounds. Usually, its pad like those old fashioned Clearasil pads, that’s soaked in alpha hydroxy acid and beta hydroxy acid, your derm may have his own line or you can buy one online, at Bliss or at your drugstore. Dr. Gross’s peel is MD Skincare Alpha Beta Daily Face Peel, it’s a combination of both alpha and beta hydroxy acid that makes your skin shine by gently sloughing off dead skin, dissolving the yucky stuff in clogged pores and builds collagen so you skin looks firmer. According to Dr. Gross skincare products with several different kinds of acids (AHA and BHA) are the most effective and least irritating, because when many acids are combined, the peel contains a milder concentration of each so you get a little bit of the good stuff, without irritating you skin. Your face will look a little red after and you absolutely have to wear sunblock when you are using a peel.

I’ve also heard good things about Earthen Instapeel which is face and body peel but it’s a gel that you use in the shower. Bliss sells it. But be careful because they also sell an Earthen kit with a French blackhead extractor which is a recipe for disaster. Even the most disciplined beauty lover can’t resist letting her inner-aesthetician use that tool to pluck blackheads. I’ll admit an extractor is extremely satisfying when it works, but it’s also dangerous because it practically eggs you on to dig just a tad too deep and end up with a huge zit that then becomes a pock that heals into a life-long scar.  Beauty treatments can turn ugly so fast.

And lastly, just yesterday I was at CVS and noticed this product: Medical University Face Lift Wrinkle-Free Kit. Granted the name sounds like a total fraud and the site is very much in the infomercial genre. Think the Ginsu of beauty brands. But the products use serious ingredients: GABA (which instantly plumps) and hyluronic acid, which brings moisture to your skin, even though they don’t explain its benefit very well. According to some Walmart shopper reviews their products work—especially the University Medical Face Lift 20 Minute Wrinkle Free Eyes. It got 5 stars and women said they saw a difference right away.

I should probably give up my bird obsession before somebody gives me a cuckoo clock, but The World’s Best Ever just posted these birch-plywood 3-D post-cards made by a Finnish company called Lovi. They are available in light blue, lime, and mustard as well as black. Irresistible.

The bar I recently set up and motherblogger is mentioned in the Time’s Home section in a story about the super fun bar cart trend. Unfortunately, the wrong url was printed in the story, but they fixed it online.

When Maria, the reporter for the Times was interviewing me, I realized that I received a bar cart one Christmas from Santa. I had forgotten about it, but while we were talking I remembered coming downstairs one Christmas morning to find an orange plastic cart with metal trim and bright shiny wheels decked out with a tea set and glasses. The mod tangerine plastic gleamed next to the tree lights and even though I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t even know a present this chic existed in child size— it was a wildly reassuring gift. The cart was my mother’s way of saying to me, I know who you want to be and who you will become. That summer I was voted clumsiest camper at Camp Chinqueka, but by giving me that cart, my mom was telling me that I could also be Grace Kelly.

My mom is still that kind of gift giver and she manages to surprise me every Christmas. When I was in college I was too controlling and specific about what I wanted so she stopped taking risks and I received lots of gift cards. It was what I had asked for, but when I’d open the little card it felt like our connection was diffused into an institutionalized transaction. Parent = Shopping spree at Anthropologie. It made me feel like a favorite neice, not her daughter and her gifts had been her unique way of mothering me.

So I stopped telling her what I wanted for Christmas because I didn’t want checklist gifts. I wanted her imagination. And it worked. In the years since, she has given me a vintage Tutu from a performance of Sleeping Beauty; a limited edition of The Flair book; a fur scarf; a set of Leeds china. This year she gave me a ruffled purse. Where I’ll use it, I have no idea, but it’s her way of saying, you need this as much as a new pair of yoga pants. All her gifts are her way of guiding my taste while boosting my confidence to be who I wanted to be in a way that only she can.

When my mom gives me advice, sometimes I can hear the worry in her voice. Her gifts, however, are clear they all say I believe in you. And often enough, her presents are ideas of myself that  haven’t even occurred to me. So it was funny to realize, that while Maria was interviewing me, I had said I set up the bar because I was having two parties and I didn’t want anyone crowding up our tiny kitchen, but I really set it up because I wanted to have that life that she whispered into my ear when I was seven on Christmas morning.

I am just tickled by these Alphabet Plates featured on Swiss Miss. The boys are average eaters, when they do eat. It’s getting them to the table and to stay there that is hard. Con is already on board with loving broccoli, Dash not so much but he lately he’s been craving meatballs. I can’t wait to craft some of our own plates and I wonder if there can be some subliminal messaging while they eat the food: Dash loves green beans. Or, maybe I could just motivate them to keep eating by writing rewarding messages on their plates. Everything in our house is a competition: who can get dressed fastest, who can be wetter in the tub (no joke) who can fart louder (I swear). I bet I can turn this to my advantage by customizing plates to say: Wow! You Ate More Than Your Brother!  If the plate says it, it must be true, no?

This image is from SwissMiss customizing her plate.