Breaking News: My debit card number was stolen and while it is very annoying, I was more struck by how unimaginative the thief was: $45 at Pathmark at Ozone Park, $19 at Burger King, $120 Duane Reade, $99 at Wallgreens, $1.50 for a meter in NYC. Talking to the person at Citibank in Fraudulent Transactions was depressing, I just imagined them  wielding my fake card around to buy hair straighteners and clock radios at Wallgreens. When she told me they spent $150 at Urban Outfitters and $120 at Mandee, I was actually glad they began to realize the possibilities.

Blind item: Speaking of imaginative shopping, which Montclair mom is going to a sample sale in NYC even though she knows her kid has a rash that that is itchy and if he scratches it, which he will, can be painful.

Celebrity gossip: Asta is looking so matted and crazy, I’m thinking of renaming her Phyllis Diller. Then we can rename Chewie, Fang, which may be even more fitting because the other morning I woke up to find one of his teeth on my pillow.

In Media: The redesign of Ladies Home Journal looked pretty enough for me to actually buy it. Either they did a good job or the 40ish part of my life is really happening to me.

Forgive me. My headline is a spoiler alert but you will want to watch anyway.

Woman Falls Down

In just one evening of scrolling through my google reader I found the following:

Photos of dogs in water by Seth Casteel via Laughing Squid via cute overload.

These crazy miniature houses via my modern met

J.Crew’s announcement that they are partnering with Manolo Blanik:

“Trade title WWD announced the news today via its Twitter feed. It read: ‘J. Crew is doing a Manolo collaboration for fall, to be sold online.”

via Femail

And The Fug sisters report about Joe Jonas getting mobbed at the Jermey Scott fashion show and the highlight of Scott’s collection:

“For his part, Joe handled it like a pro—we suppose he has loads of practice dealing with crazy people wanting a taste of his business—answering questions left and right without ever breaking a sweat. “It’s so nice to meet someone so nice in fashion,” we heard him say of Scott, before noting that he previewed the collection backstage and thought it was really “exciting.”  (This is true, especially if you are a fan of Bart Simpson. That is not some kind of sarcastic remark; there really were dudes wearing sweaters with Bart Simpson on them. Insert “cowabunga” joke here.)”

The Cut

It’s Valentine’s day and after helping the boys craft 60+ valentines for their classmates I’ve been thinking about obsessions. For instance, this weekend I was obsessed with getting those valentines done (see image far left). The boys however were not. They were obsessed with playing video games, namely Minecraft, Skylanders, and occasionally watching David play the not scary parts of Skrym (sp?). When screen time is up they are obsessed with making battle stations for their Go-Go Crazy Bones out of unit blocks, Nerf guns and Ninjago. David lately is obsessed with gaming and tech podcasts, his 3-d printer and Philip K Dick. Honestly, his obsessions are far more interesting and exacting than that but I tend to not get too close.

Lately I’ve noticed that I’m a lot less obsessive about my obsessions and what I am obsessed about is not so remarkable. For a while I was obsessed with the snowlessness, but that is depressing. As a freelancer I can become obsessed with getting a full-time job. Or when I’m working on a juicy story I’ll become obsessed with the topic like my story for Martha Stewart Living on botulism toxin injections and dermal fillers, its coming out in April. (Don’t worry if you’ve sat next to me at dinner party you’ve heard all the details and I won’t go off on the topic now). I was so obsessed with Downton Abbey that I made David and I stay up practically all night to watch all of season 1 before the premier of season 2. But now that we are dutifully watching the show week by week instead of the guilty-late night recklessless of watching  9 episodes in a row its hard to keep that passion alive. Tonight I was temporarily obsessed with Malachy the pekingese winning the Westminster Dog Show, so much so I texted friends who don’t even care about dogs at 11:15 pm: “Holy Fuck! It’s the Pekingnese!”

But I have to admit I miss being obsessed. I miss not knowing the time because I am so preoccupied with whatever I’m doing or whoever I was doing it with. 20 years ago I met david and I was obsessed with him, so totally sick to my stomach in love with being with him that I confused the days of the week and missed a day of work at my job as an assitant at an art gallery in San Francisco.

But after 20 years of being together, I don’t think I’m hurting David’s feelings by admitting, I’m no longer obsessed with him in that way, frankly he’s probably relieved. When you’ve been with one (super amazing wonderful person, love ya honey!) for that long remembering what it was like to be that preoccupied with the comings and goings of one person feels like something I used to do, like smoke at a party.

What bugs me is that I feel  like I’m on the sidelines of happiness without an obsession to call my own. I wonder if I should start to hunt for obsessions or maybe that’s too desperate and I’m just supposed to chill out and wait to stumble on one?  Is this what middle age is, being okay with everything in moderation? Or maybe its just a side affect of my thyroid medications? Or perhaps its just winter and my enthusiasm needs to hibernate? I guess I’ll just have to research the topic, call a few experts and really immerse myself to find out.

In honor of Valentine’s day, I’m rounding up the weirdest news pairings I’ve seen, read and heard.

1. Portlandia’s spoof on its title song,”The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland” rerecorded as “The Dream of the 1890s is alive in Portland” points out that Portland in 2012 is a lot more like 1890s than 1990s and has lyrics like “We cure our own meats.”

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A laughing squid post on how to make your home-smoked brief jerky underpants.

2. Georgetown Cupcake’s press release announcing that you can celebrate V-day by popping the question with an 8 carat engagement ring a top a red velvet cupcake.

“There’s no sweeter way to pop the question to your significant other than with a dreamy cupcake with a diamond engagement ring sitting on top,” said Maki Garcia-Evans, owner and executive pastry chef at Cupcakes Gourmet. “A diamond is worth a thousand words, but with a cupcake, it’s worth more. It suits our store’s slogan, ‘Love Tastes Like This.’”

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The Washington Post investigates why cupcakes are still popular and asks psychotherapists for clues, one offers this analysis: “Through cupcakes, seemingly innocent little ‘treats,’ we can project fantasies of who and what we desire to be. Instead of connecting us to others, however, cupcakes keep us separate and add to our sense of isolation.” [WaPo via Eater DC]

3. Fashion’s latest bodily obessions

Cory Doctorow posted these leggings on BoingBoing from Blackmilk.

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Rusty Blazenhoff’s post on Laughing Squid about jewelry designed to look like organs.

Karl Lagerfeld reflecting on why he doesn’t keep pets

“They die so I don’t like them. The drama is I had two I really liked and after they died I don’t want another one. That’s too depressing.”

The cut

Garrison Keillor remembering Sinclair Lewis on Lewis’s Birthday, February 7th

“….Lewis walked up to Mencken and Nathan, put his arms around their shoulders and tightly around their necks, and began yelling at the top of his voice that he was the best writer in the country and that he’d just written the best book in the country, to be published in a week — and being critics, the two of them should duly take note of this. He went on like this at high volume for about half an hour, and when Mencken and Nathan finally escaped, they went to a pub to decompress and concluded that he was an idiot. But Mencken read the book anyway, and was bowled over by it.

The book was Main Street (1920), about a fictional small town in Minnesota called Gopher Prairie, a place inhabited by “a savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world.”

The writers almanac

Diane von Furstenberg at the CFDA’s Health and Wellness panel on the modeling industry encouraging young girls to be models in the first place:

“Not everybody can be a model. It doesn’t matter how skinny you are,” she said. “I think [agents] should be honest and say, ‘You are beautiful and everything, but you will never be a model.’ You know? And it’s okay. You can be something else rather than,  ‘If you starve you’ll become a model.’”

the cut

and on a personal note..My dear friend Jill talking me down after a bruising day with the Conrad

“You know what that asshole-ness means? That you are such a good mom that he feels so secure and so loved he can be a total dick to you.”

My friend Maria turned me on to these napkins that I think explain themselves.

They are sold out in Joss & Main where they are on sale for $19, but you can still get them at the Petit Coterie site for $35. Yankee swappers, take note.

Dash went to the dentist today. He was scared of the drill and so the dentist gave him nitrous.

He liked it so much he said he wanted to take it home. We all laughed, haha so funny, a kid has never said that before but inside it made me very nervous. It’s a little too easy to imagine him stealing Redi-Whip from Quickcheck to do whippits when he hits Montclair High.

After the gas wore off they gave him a token to get a present out of a gumball machine. He got a blonde mustache.

The visit felt a bit too prophetic for a drizzly Monday.

urbanoutfitters.com, $34

And even possibly this 2012 calendar from cuteoverload.com

Last week in the Sunday Metro section the NYT times featured a story about my grandfathers butcher shop in Flatbush. Its 80 years old and still going strong because my second and third cousins who continue to run it, long after the grandpa Mike died, have adapted with the changing neighborhood demands from Italian, Irish and Jewish to Carribean. I grew up my whole life with a first course of pasta and a second of steak or chicken or both, now maybe he’d be bringing home goat.

“At Michael’s, a woman carrying two shopping bags pushed open the door on a recent afternoon and asked, in a Caribbean lilt, for the price of the oxtail. It was $6.29 a pound, she was told. “Lord have mercy,” she said, backing out the door.”