Again, it's an experiment. We'll see.
I love Halloween. Love. It. If I could alternate Halloween with Prom and occasionally do Christmas and a Birthday every other month, I think my serotonin levels would triple.
In any case, I spent a long time ruminating on what could top my costume from last year (I was, ahem, a "Condom Fairy"). I needed this year's costume to be just as ... uh ... clever.
So, after much thought (and a few suggestions), I've decided to be a Shooting Star. :) Although I'm not sure exactly what a "shooting star" looks like, but I know it will involve a silver gun and thigh high boots.
If you have any other suggestions, know of a particularly talented costume designer or where to buy a silver tutu, email me - julia [at] juliaallison.com.
And if you're looking for a costume of your own, I HIGHLY suggest avoiding the insanity of Ricky's and visiting www.PierreSilber.com - I have literally dozens of costumes from them, and they never disappoint.
Oh - one more question, while I'm soliciting your advice. Lilly the Puppy needs a matching costume. Should she be a "Child Star"? Or ... a "Fallen Star"? Or, um ... a comet?? I'm stuck.
PS. Jakob is going as a "Fameball." It was my idea. ha.
Big, exciting news!! As of today, I am the brand new editor-at-large for Star magazine, handling their television appearances. NY Post media columnist Keith Kelly broke the story this morning in his column (last item). I'll be replacing the stunning, kind (she's from the midwest, it's practically required) and unnervingly-articulate-about- everything-at-6am Jill Dobson, who is now an entertainment reporter for FoxNews.
I'm beyond ecstatic, obviously! This just goes to show that life has a tendency to come round full circle - I once wrote a column about my new boss, Bonnie Fuller, explaining her approach to life (Bigger! Faster! Fuller! Get it? Har). Now I too plan to crusade against organized sock drawers. Clearly this is the perfect job.
I would like to thank God Candace Bushnell, my agent, and the self-help aisle at Barnes & Noble. Without them, I'd be an accountant with a closet of Ann Taylor and a mean Excedrin habit. Whew! Three words: Dodged. Lotsa. Bullets.
*I will continue to write my column in Time Out New York, which will even (uh, hopefully) one day have a name.
Time Out New York's Dating Column naming contest EXTENDED one more week!
So far, suggestions have ranged from "I Heart NY" (um, how terribly ... Creative) to "The Daily Clap" (it's not daily, but thanks) to "Two Timing New York" (Get it? Time Out? Two Time? Sigh.) to "Banana in the Fruit Basket" (Yeah, umm ... ).
In other words, I need more ideas, damnit. And you'll get a free dinner for two as a prize if you win!! You don't even have to take me with you! So send them in, or else I'll be forced to go with "T&A with JA" which is really humiliating.
Now, listen here, people. For the past two months (since I stopped writing AM New York's dating column), I know you've all been wandering about, aimlessly lost, devoid of direction or purpose, unable to think clearly, steadfastly bewildered, scared and alone, muddled and nonplussed, hopeless and ... okay, that's enough. Anyway, you probably wondered to yourself, "Self, where should I get all my dating advice now that Julia no longer writes an actual dating column and instead just posts photos of herself on her blog, not smiling in the exact same way every single time??"
Well, Self - Your Self, that is - the brilliant weekly magazine Time Out New York has come to your rescue, and by "your" of course I mean mostly my ex-boyfriends, who are relieved that now I'll have to go on dates with new men instead of emailing the old ones at 2 am to wonder angrily why they're taking other women to Jamaica and Dubai and London and the Bahamas, even if I did dump (most of) them in the first place. (Whatever. It's not like I gave them permission to actually enjoy life without me.)
Right. So my new column - called BLANK (we'll get to that in a second) - will run every week in Time Out's print edition and at the following URL - www.TimeOutNewYork.com/dating. Bookmark it, bitches! Please?
Now. As for that name ... here's the deal. I couldn't think of anything absolutely beyond amazing (or even, you know, anything at all), so I'm letting other people do the heavy lifting and having a PLEASE JUST NAME THIS COLUMN FOR ME, C'MON YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO, EVERYONE'S DOING IT CONTEST. Look, this will be my fourth dating column (the first three being The Georgetown Hoya's "Sex on the Hilltop", COED magazine's "Sex Editor", and amNewYork's "The Dating Life"), and my fifth column overall (yes, I wrote one my senior year in my high school paper. It was beyond crap, actually. It was super crap. Craptastic, really, if "tastic" indicated more "superlative of crap" and less "sort of awesome"). And you know what? I think it's clear I'm not really that great with the uber clever column names, and I'm okay with that. It's cool. So you do it for me.
In return - cause, really, who does anything for free nowadays? - you'll receive a dinner for two courtesy of Time Out, and you can invite me or, if you're just not that into me (also totally fine), invite someone you'd actually want to sit and look at during a meal. You'll also get two dating advice books of your choice. I know, I know, try to calm yourself down. Breathe. Really, no, inhale.
And go enter the contest!!!
*Thanks to Gawker, Jossip, and Mediabistro for sweetly covering the announcement, including my personal favorite portion of the press release, which I assuredly did not write: "[Julia is] a notorious figure with a notorious figure." Two words: obit material.
No, that's not a line from Party Girl, I made it up (in this month's COED sex column). Well, sort of. With some help from Robert Herrick. Anyway, I think using "bitches" at the end really adds something.
And in case you're still unclear on just exactly what I'm getting at here, to paraphrase the indefatigable Nora Ephron: "If I knew how hot I was at 26, I'd have put on a damn bikini and not taken it off for the ENTIRE FREAKING year."
Gather ye rosebuds, bitches. Gather ye rosebuds.
Is there a certain age where suddenly, out of nowhere, completely banal topics become acceptable and even - shudder - interesting? If so, kill me with methadone right before that age.
Yes, I lost a bet. No, I will not tell you what the bet was. Suffice it to say, it was a big one. And although I am a winner, the small metal ... thing ... that is lodged within the circular indentation in my lower abs is a now constant reminder that even winners can lose. And be forced to wear diamonds cubic zirconium in their body crevices.
I recorded the event for posterity, so you too can witness my face as the angry tat & piercing lady eagerly shoves a needle through my skin. She loved every moment, let me tell you. I, meanwhile, am contemplating hanging out in Staten Island, where I can bare my now bejeweled belly with pride. Jealous? That's what I thought.
The final result. Classy, eh? Britney Spears, WATCH OUT!
Because obviously no one parties harder than the midwestern folks on the North Shore of Chicago. (Ooo, condescending New York attitude, check!)
They do have a very nice lake, however.
Anyway. So New York magazine's blog has this fairly amusing feature, called (duh) "21 Questions," where they interview New Yorkers of varying consequence about random things. Since I won't be of consequence for at least two-five years (according to the Staten Island psychic I met last week), I thought that I'd go ahead and just, you know, interview myself. Um ... right. It sounded like a cooler idea in my head. But whatever, it's already done, so I'm posting it.
Name: Julia Allison
Age: 16. Or 25. Depending on who you talk to …
Job: ex-dating columnist, AM New York; writer for Maxim & Cosmo; on-air commentator about all things fluffy.
Neighborhood: Gramercy. ish. Well … a little bit east – 21st and 2nd. I’ve dubbed it, not that cleverly, “Ghetto Gramercy.”
Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Carrie Bradshaw, of course. Do I really have another choice? After all, it’s her fault I’m I was a NYC dating columnist. Thanks for making it seem glamorous! Liar.
What's the best meal you've eaten in New York?
The Soy Gouda sandwich from Liquiteria on 11th and 2nd avenue. I eat one every day. Maybe twice a day. It's all I ever eat - they think I’m insane. I probably am, from all that soy.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
Frantically bail out my email inbox (publicists, spam), procrastinate writing my column procrastinate writing other stuff, frantically bail out my email inbox some more (editors, spam), dance around naked in my living room “thinking” of column ideas, frantically bail out my email inbox (boyfriends, spam).
Where do you get your coffee?
When I drink coffee (only in emergencies), from a cheesy, sugar laden machine at my corner deli, which I actually think is named “Corner Deli.” Mostly I drink beet juice. No, seriously. I do.
What's the last thing you saw on Broadway?
RENT, for it’s 10th anniversary. I’d seen it before, but never in New York.
Do you give money to panhandlers?
No. I’m a journalist. Panhandlers make more money than me.
What's your drink?
The kind bought by men.
How often do you prepare your own meals?
Every day in the first year I lived here, and never since then. Although I did put some frozen spinach in the microwave just last week. That was big for me.
What's your favorite medication?
Multi-Herb, Multi-Vitamin, prescribed by a dietician “to keep ya regular.” Let me assure you, it works.
What's hanging above your sofa?
A giant graphic portrait of me done by the guy who also does IKEA’s art, a one-year anniversary present from my ex-boyfriend. It's less narcissistic than it sounds, I promise.
How much is too much to spend on a haircut?
Anything more than $70 makes me hyperventilate.
When's bedtime?
Midnight if I’m being good, 4 am if I’m not.
Brunch: pro or con?
Hell yes, every weekend without fail I get an everything bagel, scallion cream cheese and nova lox from Essa Bagel on 21st and 1st. I die a little from happiness each time. Or maybe that's the feeling I get from my arteries slowly clogging.
What's your thread count?
I have the most life-changing “beech sheets” from the Chelsea Bed Bath & Beyond. They don’t even have threads. They’re made of air.
What do you hate most about living in New York?
The freaking noise! At 7 am! On a Saturday!! Car alarms, ambulances, jackhammers, children shrieking. What the HELL!?!? WHAT ARE YOU SHRIEKING ABOUT? MOVE TO BROOKLYN, MOTHERF--KERS!!!!!! I’m just saying.
What's your brand of jeans?
Seven. I think they make me look like I have a Brazilian butt. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I know it’s good.
When was the last time you drove a car?
When I borrowed my ex's to see what "driving around the city" was like. It didn’t go well. I really don’t miss tickets, accidents, or frantically seeking parking spots. Or car insurance. Or … did I mention accidents?
Who should be the next president?
Dear god, let it be a Hillary/Barack ticket.
Times, Post, or Daily News?
Gawker, because I have an attention span like a six year old boy on three cans of Diet Coke. And then the Times, and after that the Post (Page Six), but only occasionally. I won’t pay for it though – I skim it for free while I’m waiting for my Soy Gouda. It’s not the quarter. It’s the principle.
Yankees or Mets?
Um … I wouldn’t know a Yankee from a Met if I were naked in the bedroom with them.
What makes someone a New Yorker?
They’re ruthlessly ambitious. Or ambitiously ruthless?
Okay, now that I look at my funny, oh-so-cleverly photoshopped pic, two things occur to me:
1) it's not funny. or clever.
2) I really need to find better ways to use my time.
Whatever. It was either that or yet another swimsuit shot, and I think that after the Gawker photos, everyone's seen enough of my navel. For this month, at least.
Anyway. I'll be in LA for a week, frolicking in the ... umm ... sun-ish? It's not exactly bikini weather there, but it'll do.
We're not attending the superbowl - just the parties (since apparently you have to make out with people for tickets). Better to watch it on TV anyway.
Go Bears, woo.
UPDATE: At the Setai, where we stayed Friday & Saturday ...
1. Swallowing is totally underrated. No, you sickies, get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking, like, the ability to swallow, you know, water. Or your own saliva. Food is nice, too.
2. Nothing like JUST NOT EATING the four days before Thanksgiving to make you completely willing to gorge. Of course, by then your stomach has shrunk so much you can't. I think I'm the only person in America who LOST weight over the holiday, despite all attempts to the contrary.
3. Thank goodess for camera phones or my editors probably wouldn't have believed me when I called repeatedly, insisting in a strangled voice that, really, I was going to try to get my column in, but, um, it wasn't looking likely.
4. I love morphine.
It's four am, and I have no right to be awake currently, but I am, and feeling a bit guilty about my lack of blogation in the past week. Yes, I made up the word "blogation."
My absence is not entirely due to lazyness (key word: entirely), but instead because I've been contemplating the following existential question:
What is the Point of Having a Blog? (my questions always come fully capitalized)
The disadvantages I've come up with so far:
1) It's cliche. Which I obviously hate.
2) It takes far too much time and effort.
3) I don't get paid for it.
4) I only have so many witty things to say, and if I use them all up on my blog, how will I woo men? Or, uh, write things that actually do pay ... minimum wage?
5) Apparently bloggers don't sell a lot of books.
6) Not that I'm in any danger of actually writing a book because
7) Blogs have trained me to think in 200 word increments and ...
8) I'm really lazy.
9) Have I mentioned I don't get paid for this?
10) Have I mentioned I'm really lazy?
------
From: Cute Smart Boy I Like
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006
To: Julia Allison
Subject: Your Blog
Websites are good at getting your name out there but are there many serious journalists/writers that have blogs? Don't most of them spend their time fleshing out ideas they might have written a paragraph on in their website into real articles that get published?I guess what I'm getting at is it seems more and more like being a blogger (albeit you aren't, you are a 'sex columnist') but that the whole successful blog as a "write two paragraphs about something interesting" has coaelesced into gawker type sites (curbed/gawker/gizmodo, etc) and those sites have staff but that individual blogs tend to make a person on their own look a bit amateur.
Continue reading "Julia Lazy, Unproductive, Bad Blogger, Human Being" »
Apparently there ARE other things to do in Vegas besides play poker and ogle the fake breasts of women who believe that Lucite "goes with everything" and can rattle off the operational hours of Beach Bum Tans by heart.
Namely ... celebrate your 2nd amendment freedoms by shooting the crap out of paper targets. I picked one that looked like a white rapist/mugger/grandmother-beater, but you had an option of various other villains as well (like Osama, Saddam ... uh ... basically, a bunch of turbaned dudes).
Anyway, it seemed like more fun than getting skin cancer and/or blinking back tears of boredom watching card games. That is, of course, until I actually had to shoot the damn thing. I've never been so freaked out in my life; every time the guy next to me would fire his (very live) gun, I'd jump about eight feet in the air. And when I shot my own, I teared up a little. Something about the power to actually annihilate animals/people/small children just does that to me.
Anyway, below see photographic evidence of my foray into Red-States-Win mode. I actually shot with a Glock, but I thought that posing with an ... whatever this enormous killing machine is called below ... would look much more Die Hard-esque.
And yeah, I was the only one in the store wearing a pink "Puppy Love" tee. Shocking, right?
I'm off to Vegas unexpectedly this weekend - ostensibly covering the World Poker Tournament, even though I have NO IDEA how to play and absolutely NO DESIRE to learn. Why people would even want to participate in card games after the age of 8 is beyond me. Other than that whole "winning money" thing, which I do understand.
I've only been to Vegas twice - and both times I've managed to integrate a very small, very silver, very Vegas dress into my wardrobe (pictured above with The Boyfriend. And below with ... some guy dressed as Elvis I met in the elevator at my hotel.) This time I'm going wild and NOT bringing it. I'm doing Vegas in pearls and dresses fit for the Hamptons. I thought I'd mix it up, you know?
Although I guess watching boring card games all weekend DOES ensure that the details of my trip will definitely "stay in Vegas" -- no one aside from the guys at Stuff magazine wants to hear that kind of mind-numbing crap.
As Cindy Adams would say - Only in Vegas, kids. Only in Vegas.
Project Relieve-Julia's-Overburdened-Bookshelf
Tonight I'm introducing a thrilling NEW WEEKLY FEATURE, tentatively subtitled:
Listen, I love books. I vaguely remember a point in my life when I had enough time to read them (3rd grade, procrastinating studying for finals in college). Of course, now I get books sent to me every day - but offhand, I can't recall the last time I read something solely for enjoyment and not because I was writing about the author or the work itself. (Okay, okay, I can. I picked up Lolita about a month ago, just because I felt like everyone else in the world had read it / masturbated to it / written an article/song/movie that referenced it. That is some very sick shit.)
Anyway, as you can imagine, the dozens of aforementioned volumes have ceased to fit on my narrow bookshelf and have spilled onto the floor in giant haphazard stacks, threatening to topple and just generally looking ugly.
After putting up with them for months, The Boyfriend can't take it anymore. "WHY DO WE ONLY HAVE PINK BOOKS???" he wants to know. "Well, dear Boyfriend, you chose to date a dating columnist. Who often does book reviews. Of dating books. Which are frequently pink. Um ... ??"
The Boyfriend only likes the color brown. (Also taupe, tan, beige and ecru.) Additionally, out of the four bookshelves in our tiny apartment, The Boyfriend's Books dominate THREE of them, which seems a little unfair. "My books are better looking than yours," he explains. (Oh! Well, in that case ...)
The Boyfriend likes expensive Taschen books and thick art books he never opens and manly books about electronics and automobiles. He actually owns a book solely devoted to pictures of speedometers and another one dedicated entirely to the history of cell phones. (Although I just sold that one on Amazon for $10. HA!)
In any case, I have devised a Brilliant Solution to The Book Crisis:
Every Wednesday, I'll list a few books that need a new home. Whoever writes me the most clever/funny email (julia@juliaallison.com) about why they want that particular book (within a week), wins. I'll send you the book (clearly I don't have enough to do) and depending on degree of wit, post the emails.
(By the way - these books are new. No, you're not allowed to regift them. Okay, fine. But only in case of emergency birthday-of-single-girl-turning-30-with-crappy-love-life.)
Be Honest - You're Not That Into Him Either - By Ian Kerner
(2 Copies!!!)
I Used to Miss Him - But My Aim Is Improving - By Allison James
Sex, Murder and a Double Latte - by Kyra Davis
