Jenna Cole, wannabe coder, just couldn’t catch a break this week. After being unable to get on the plane to Poland because her son’s passport status wasn’t up to par, she spent the last few days trying desperately to get everyone’s passports in order. She finally had to give up and spent yesterday “day drinking” while on the phone with the airline trying to “recoup costs”. Because, alas, it seems the entire passport computer system is down or something and Jenna will not be taking Gollum smile selfies in Greece.

The state department issued a notice last week about technical issues they’re having and this morning a very nice man at the passport agency patiently spoke around my sobs as he delivered the news that they had no idea when the passport would be printed…if we hadn’t struggled with getting the notarized form faxed over and confirmed we might have been able to get it printed in time (like the woman right behind me in line this morning).

She then thanked the random mom who hugged her as she ran “out of the building red-faced and tear-stricken”, and says she is now “reconfiguring” their “summer plans”.

Some very nice people have made this awful 48 hour period bearable. And I guess that’s the end of the very short-lived #euroand15 hashtag. Antio Greece dreams.

I can’t think of a more awful 48 hour period. When I think of all the missed sexy bathing suit poses and selfies of Jenna drinking jug wine with Athina Onassis I just tear up inside. But hey, more SF summer day drinking for Jenna! All is not lost!

Happy Radical Friday, hams! It’s time to tap away that negative haterness and join me in reading Gala Darling‘s limited edition, available for one month only, life-altering book, ‘Radical Self Love – A Guide To Loving Yourself And Living Your Dream’. Get yourself a pink drink, put on some  Instagrammable shoes, and let’s love each other radically.

First impression: Wut IS this? The cover makes me feel like Maggie Prescott is screaming about what to do with this month’s Quality Magazine. I mean, I like pink. But wow. This is very pink.

Tell her if she’s gotta think, think pink!

Chapter 1 is ‘Learning To Love Yourself‘, which is evidently about “channelling your inner Marie Antroinette”. Gala starts off by telling us how she used to live in the grip of “radical self loathing”, battling depression and an eating disorder. But that all changed when she “discovered” that choosing to “focus on the positve” is “entirely transformative”. She says “metaphysics” tells us that “like attracts like”, so if we hang out with awesome, happy people, we will be awesome and happy. But then flip flops back to saying you have to be happy first to attract those awesome, happy people.

She then goes into her recommendations for shedding all your issues. First, you should take yourself out on a “#radicalselflovedate”. Which is basically take yourself out for dinner or a drink by yourself, and don’t feel weird about it. And yes, she actually hashtags it, and wants you to use that hashtag on twitter and Instagram when you go out in public alone.

Promote me for free, thanks!

She then suggests meditation, and her main trick for meditation is “I smile while I meditate” because, she claims, “physiology informs our psychology, so smiling even when you don’t feel like it will actually make you happy!”

Then she gets into “tapping”. Apparently this is a thing where you “tap” certain parts of your body associated with various ailments. She says she decided to try it for her asthma – which was so bad she frequently required an inhaler – and after the first boyfriend-coached session, she woke up the next morning completely cured. She proceeded to tap away cat allergies, hayfever, and her depression. Then she tells us she got rid of her eating disorder by tapping herself while naked in front of a mirror, which led to some kind of hysterical crying jag, and the “next day, I was able to eat without guilt” and has “never felt any shame or terror about food since”. She closes the tapping crap by pimping a link to her tapping videos on her site, and moves on to Body Love. Body Love is basically her telling us to eat healthy and go to the gym and sit up straight, and if all else fails, masturbate a lot.

Chapter 2 is ‘Finding Happiness and Making It Stay‘, which opens with this delightful sketch.

LOL YOU PAID FOR THIS BOOK

She starts this chapter by saying “[h]appiness is our natural state”, and her proof for this is that children are happy all the time until life starts beating them down. This is obviously spoken by someone who has never been around a toddler denied a cookie. She says “WELCOME TO THE PRESENT MOMENT” and informs us that this moment right now is all we will ever have, because tomorrow “may never come”, the “past is gone”, and the “future is a myth”. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that exact same junk in every Richard Linklater movie I’ve ever seen, but ok. She then repeats the stuff about meditation and mostly just blathers on about how AWESOME it is to live in the now, telling us “Carpe diem, ma cherie!” and saying we should “make the effort” to see every day as a magical “treasure” so the world can “truly be yours”.

She goes into Taking Responsibility, which is apparently Gala telling us our “external world reflects our internal beliefs”, whatever that means. I assume she’s talking about her pink apartment or something. The words “manifest our own reality” appear as she explains how personal responsibility is basically just a bunch of change how you think, be positive mind tricks and then your life will change. She suggests infusing your day with magic by only using heart-shaped Post-It notes, singing to your plants, making cupcakes at 3am, and buying a bubble gun. You should also use The Language of Creation, because “the words we say create our reality”, so start doing daily affirmations after you’re done tapping yourself and making cupcakes.

Chapter 2 ends with a bunch of babbling about not letting haters get you down, and repeats the advice to surround yourself with positive people.

Chapter 3 is ‘Love, Sex, The Galaxy, And Everything‘ and I can honestly think of about a million things sexier than a bad Louise Brooks haircut in a pink tutu talking about orgasms, but I start reading anyway because that’s what you people pay me to do.  She starts off by saying you have to love yourself before you can love someone else, and that if you are able to “make kissy faces at yourself in the mirror and put on hot pink lipstick” then you’re doing great. Apparently a “relationship should be an explosion of awesomeness” but she “can’t tell you what you should be looking for”. Helpful. Then the woman who found her husband on OkCupid tells us love “always shows up when you’re not looking for it”.

Being In A Relationship is Gala telling us “EVERYONE gets hurt in love” and relationships can get hard over time, so you need “rules and boundaries”, lots of talks, and you should “make an effort” to eat well, stay active, and dress nicely. You should also remember to have lots of sex, and if you are bored with sex then you’re doing it wrong. You should not wear “ugly, comfortable pyjamas”, and you should schedule “sex dates”, but sex “should never feel like a chore”. Of course if the magic is gone it’s best to just dump them and “use the experience” to catapult yourself into a future which is “brighter and more fabulous”.

Chapter 4 is ‘Best Friends Forever‘, and kicks off with a drawing of what I assume is Gala and Nubby.

HAHA CAN YOU BELIEVE PEOPLE WILL READ THIS BOOK?

Gala talks about how we spend too much time in front of our computers and on our phones, and it makes us lonely. Or something. It’s like a whole paragraph rambling about how talking to people via electronic means lacks deep connection. Thankfully Gala is here with some advice: go make real life friends. She then tells us she made most of her friends via the internet. You know, that place that lacks deep connection.

But hey, you can totally make IRL friends, it’s so easy! Just “practice smiling”, “practice saying hello”, “give compliments”, “avoid bars”, and “place an ad”. Because nothing says personal deep connection like a Craigslist ad begging people to be your buddy.

She then tells you all about Keeping Friends, and apparently it’s important to “make time for your friends”, because unlike that crispy brown fern in a pot of dried up soil in the corner of your bedroom, friendships need attention. If you don’t hang out with them often enough they will find someone else to hang out with. So put down that 3 day old breastfeeding baby and go have some rose with your single pals, because if you don’t make your friends your priority they will dump you!

In fact, Gala has a whole list of Friendship Killers. “Jealousy and competition”, “being constantly late”, “cancelling get-togethers”, “not returning texts”, “complaining or negativity” will destroy your girlfriend superbeefness. And don’t you want to get to Next Level BFFs? Ok then, keep rubbing your crystals and tapping yourself and be a positive person who is always on time and return every single text, or you’ll never achieve a state of clear.

Chapter 5 is ‘Manifesting and Magic-Making‘, and it’s coming right up! But first, an intermission and this week’s Book Club drink.

Raspberry Bellini on the fire escape of death.

The chapter drawing is a bunch of…I guess mystical stuff.

Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice.

In the greatest ‘do you even hear yourself’ moment since I pretended I knew all the words to Rico Suave on karaoke night, Gala informs us that the law of attraction “has a bit of a bad reputation these days” because “some irresponsible people leapt on the badwagon”. But she has 8 years of study and so dives into Manifesting 101, which starts off with “you get back what you give out”. Evidently the universe “will give you exactly what you wish for, consciously or unconsciously!” She says “everything in your life is something you want”. If you have a crappy boyfriend it’s because you unconsciously “crave it”. You see, “thoughts become things” because “your feelings, not logic create the conditions of your life”. And positive thoughts are more powerful than negative thoughts – a “good positive thought” is like doing a sexy dance, “all…hips and gyrating poses”. I…need another drink.

Gala then says “you can change your negative feeling to positive feelings easily!” no matter what your life situation is. Because “your outcome depends on how you feel!” Bad marriage, unemployed, single mom fighting a deadbeat dad? Put on some hot pink lipstick, chant some affirmations, and buck up! If you tell yourself life is great, it will become great because you’ll attract…solutions, I guess. If you “act ‘as if’”, as if what you want has already happened, it will come to you! Don’t you feel better already? And “Remember that possessions will not make you happy” – but if you are happy you will attract all the “things you want”.

Chapter 6 is ‘Style Is How You Live Your Life‘ and the chapter drawing is what I guess are Gala’s crazy pink sequin platform shoes.

Somewhere, Carrie Bradshaw is saying “Nice try”.

Gala begins by explaining Why Style Is Important. She says some people don’t care about style and still SOMEHOW manage to have jobs and relationships and be happy. But some people are just “wired a little differently” and actually appreciate beauty, because a “life lived with style” is “so very satisfying”. These special people are the ones who know art, music, and good books bring “so much delight”. So it’s time to think about what you’re wearing because first impressions count, and “our clothes make up around 50% of that first impression”. But, she says, you should “dress to make yourself happy”. And then says you should “chart your sartorial progress” by taking daily outfit photos so you know what works and what doesn’t, because photos don’t lie.

THEN. Ugh. She launches in pages and pages of My Style Evolution, detailing her journey from uniform wearing schoolgirl to teenage goth to becoming a pink tutu SATC ripoff. Bored. But you should have limits – based on your age, your body, your budget, and making “vision or inspiration boards” can help you figure out what you should be wearing, even though you should be wearing what makes you happy which doesn’t require such overthinking in my opinion. You can also download wardrobe apps to make you feel like Cher in ‘Clueless’, and most importantly, “make an effort”. That effort includes investing “in a role of Hollywood Tape”, which for you poors out there is just double sided tape so your tityas don’t slip out of your tops, good shoe insoles, underwear that fits, and a full-length mirror. If all that self-esteem improving tapping didn’t work you can buy “magic underwear” to hike up the boobs, flatten the tummy, lift the bum. Because your outside is what influences your inside. Or is it the other way around? She apparently can’t decide.

The final chapter, ‘Manners for the Modern Minx‘ welcomes us with what appears to be an invitation to a party at 3 Beekman Place.

Oh Reginald, SO good to see you!

Gala starts the chapter by saying conventional wisdom “exists for a reason: because it’s the truth”. Yes, the woman who just spent a book telling you to disregard convention now says convention is truth. She’s talking about First Impressions in this instance, and says they are “instinctual, natural, visceral”. Though you might be “completely maginificent”, and she’s sure you are, other people don’t know that. (Or as my Mimi used to say, they can’t tell you have a sense of humor from across the room.) So you need to think about what first impression you’re giving off. Because what is self-esteem without other people thinking you are awesome?

When you are Meeting Someone New you should “observe the people around you” and do what they do. Why be yourself, right? Be who other people are being. A good, firm handshake is important, and you should introduce yourself as you shake hands – be sure to smile as you say your name! If you’re Making Conversation let other people talk about their finances or fears because everyone likes to talk about themselves. Be sure to keep asking them questions so they think you’re interested. And don’t complain or talk about anything negative – if you had a bad day, “no one really cares”. So keep that Mercury Retrograde grumbling to yourself, tappers.

If you want to make a friend you should “be boisterous” and be as “outgoing as you can possibly manage”. I guess this is before you start letting them talk about themselves? You should be 100% Charisma All The Time, pay attention to who you are speaking to, because it’s “all very Eckhart Tolle when you think about it” – the key to being charismatic “is simply being present”.

She then gives us pointers which include “don’t be afraid to touch others”, “lean in towards the person”, “use metaphors liberally”. Then she shares the main points of ‘How To Win Friends and Influence People’ and tells us to put down our cellphones.

Now we are at her ‘Conclusion‘. This is where she wraps up this ‘book’ by saying radical self love is so important, and it is your choice to have the life you want, because “life is what you make it”. So “fill your day with magic” and live to your “fullest potential”. And don’t forget to use her hashtag.

PROMOTE ME!!!!

Overview: I have never read such a contradictory pile of woo peddling in my life. Yeah, sorry, that’s it. But here’s a final lulz for you – her table of contents can’t even chapter correctly.

WHERES CHAPTER 3

I mean…yeah. I’m done. I need all the beer now.

Loliver says “see ya next time!”

Cary Randolph, getting married in the Hamptons, got married in the Hamptons about an hour ago. Evidently she and her non-Kennedy husband are now at the reception dancing to totes ironic music.

Congratulations, Cary! You got married before 30, just like you always wanted. Sorry nobody bought you that $700 gravy boat though.

Last week the Mama Laughlin bikini train came to an abrupt stop when someone on instagram began accusing her of sleeping with their husband – and it got nasty.

Screenshot of some of the accusations.

The account “championsincabo” has since disappeared but had posted several pictures with various claims, and used the now familiar hashtag takeover method to get the word out. The attack went on for several days apparently, and when asked why they were doing this, the account owner replied “because she f[***]ed my husband. That’s why.”

Mama Laughlin then set her instagram account private – and rapidly began deleting her entire feed. Her account now shows no profile pic and 0 posts, and is still set to private. She has not addressed the attack on her facebook or blog, and there are conflicting rumors as to what is going on with her “Club ML” subscriber only facebook group.

The accusations seem to center on the private sexual activities of Mama Laughlin, a grown woman of legal age of consent, before her divorce, causing many to speculate that “championsincabo” could be anyone from her ex-husband to a disgusted fangirl to the spouse of another man to another woman who jealously wanted the trainer herself.

This is by far the worst example of a hashtag takeover I’ve personally seen, with the most dramatic outcome. But some are saying all is not lost, and that this is the perfect time for ML to rebrand and really start over with a new focus as a true diet and fitness blogger rather than a ‘mom who lost weight’ blogger. Until Mama Laughlin issues a statement it’s hard to know what actually happened or what her plans are, though.

Note: This post was edited to correct a statement that it may have been her trainer’s wife. Apparently her trainer is unmarried.

The schaden-fraud that is the saga of Belle Gibson, cancer faker, now continues on 60 minutes. Gibson gave an interview to the news show which will air this coming Sunday. Why do this? Is it because she wanted to issue an apology? Confess her sins? Nope, it’s because she reportedly got paid upwards of $45,000 dollars for the interview.

Saying “I’m not trying to get away with anything” and “I’ve lost everything”, Gibson’s voice and face remained carefully controlled. Others are not so self-contained – the 60 Minutes facebook post is filling up with comments full of outrage that a cancer faker is being possibly being paid to continue her pity party on television. Nine Network, which will be airing the show, responded to the anger by saying “we suggest they hold their judgment until they see the interview Tara Brown has done”.

Hey there ham dawgs! It’s Friday, and that means it’s time to get our bookdizzle on! This week we’ll be bling blingin’ to Young House Love. So put on your old blazer, throw your hair in a ponytail, and photoshop away your baby bump, because it’s time to read ‘Young House Love: 243 Ways to Paint, Craft, Update & Show Your Home Some Love’ By Sherry & John Petersik.

First impression: is the cover supposed to be some take on ‘Eat Pray Love’? Why are they doing a forced quirkey pose?

We’re so adorbzizzle!

First we have the Preface. The Dawgs say when they wanted to renovate their first home they just couldn’t find any resources that gave ideas on how to do things on a budget. See, they “wanted affordable ideas” but “couldn’t settle for things that looked shoddy and amateur”. Then they have an Introduction which seems to mostly be them warning us that they “can be annoyingly enthusiastic” and that most of “these ideas aren’t ours to own” – their goal was to “smash a range of tips and ideas” into a reference book. Then there are a bunch of before and afters of their first house.

Chapter 1 is ‘Chill‘ which is the living room section. Right off the bat they remind us they “lived in Manhattan” because anyone who has ever lived in New York City will seriously never let anyone forget that they lived in New York City. This town is like the geographical equivalent of friggin Crossfit that way. They then babble about how a real home in a suburb felt huge before giving us project number one – wallpaper the back of your bookcases. Because every home decor book has to include chalkboard paint and a bar cart, they combined the two into “Make Over A Bar Cart With Chalkboard Paint”.

Yeah I don’t see this getting drunkenly smeared at all.

If you can’t find a sofa you can use a daybed, and you can make curtains with fabric and iron some hems with hem tape. Then we are treated to some IKEA Lack table abuse. What do DIY/decor bloggers have against IKEA Lack tables, seriously? Anyburgers, you can screw the legs to the top of the table to create shelves, stick two tables side by side to create a bed headboard, or stack the tables on top of each other to create shelving – an idea similar to what Hannah did on ‘Girls’. You can use an old door to make a desk, headboard, or folding screen room divider. They give us “One Sofa Three Ways”.

So…change the throw pillows? Ok.

They don’t want you to forget your hallway. Did you know you can paint your hallway, or even hang things in it? And watch out for “dark spots” – if there are places in your home that need light you should add a lamp. Niches “can be challenging” so you should put things in them like bookshelves or plants or a bench. They give us a how-to on staining furniture, and show us how to paint a “Cheapo Paper Lantern”, and then tell us to “Try Wallpaper” by giving us the urls of the DIY Network and youtube for instructions. They show us how to glue sticks to a mirror and then suggest we switch out ugly light fixtures with not ugly light fixtures. Then some random blogger ends the chapter by showing how she wallpapered her apartment’s front door.

Chapter 2 is ‘Nosh‘ and this is the kitchen and dining section. John says the whole blog started because their first project was a kitchen renovation.

Sherry thought blogging sounded weird and time waste-y, which is more than a little ironic since she soon fell in love with it…

Yeah, to put it mildly. The first kitchen project is three ideas for a backsplash which is the same junk every DIY show ever suggests – beadboard, tin ceiling tiles, leaning framed fabric up against the wall behind your counters. The next project is wrapping decorative tape around your terra-cotta herb pots, then we are shown “A Fruit Bowl Five Ways”…

AMAZEDIZZLES

…and “Three Ways To Set The Table”, both of which basically involve “use different things”. You can “refresh” your kitchen by switching out the cabinet hardware and/or painting your kitchen cabinets, you can even remove your kitchen cabinet doors and paint the backs of the cabinets OMG! If you want to get cah-razay you can remove the upper cabinets and hang art! You can reupholster dining chairs by taking off the seat and stapling new fabric on, which is something every episode of Trading Spaces showed us how to do in college. We are told not to be scared of flowers.

Flowers used to confuse us. Until we cracked the code.

The code apparently being put flowers in a vase. And here’s a knife storage tip for all you parents of small children.

Nothing says ‘not a potential mess and safety hazard’ like…this.

The chapter ends with another rando showing us how she sanded off part of the paint on her sideboard to make it look more like something from a dumpster.

Chapter 3 is ‘Doze‘ which is the bedroom section. Sherry begins by talking about some New Kids On The Block poster she had in her room as a kid, and John had some collage of the cast of the Real World. Anyspraypaints, we start off with “One Bed Three Ways”, which is, you guessed it – one bed with three different sets of linens. We are advised to have lighting we can reach from bed because it’s “such a luxury to have a light that you can switch off from bed”. (PP note: if you really just have no way to accomplish this I cannot recommend the Hue wifi LED lighting system enough. It’s a bit $$$ up front but your electric bill will go way down and you can control them from your phone which makes you feel like Tony Stark. End PP note.) You can paint the shape of a headboard on your wall, I guess if you never plan on moving your bed ever. Then there is “One Nightstand Three Ways” which is basically a nightstand painted three different colors.

They show us how to stick wallpaper on the front of a dresser, and “One Bedroom Two Ways” which takes this idea to a new level of ridiculizzle by showing that you can change a room by changing the nightstand, headboard, and bedding. This chapter ends with rando number three showcasing how she totally changed her dresser…by painting it.

Chapter 4 is ‘Rinse‘ and this is the bathroom chapter. But first, intermission. I’ll take the book out with me so I can get a head start.

DIY calls for cold beer!

Oh intermission, you are never long enough.

Sherry begins the chapter by telling us she really wanted to take a sledgehammer to the tiles, but alas, she was DIYing a baby. When John came out of the bathroom “ten hours later” complaining about being sore Shurrybeff replied “remember when I tossed my cookies for a hudred days straight” because she was pregnant, and “took great joy in reminding John just how heroic I was” for reproducing. Anydramas, the first project is a how-to on dipping bulb covers into a bowl of paint to create stripes on the bottom, then rando number four talking about how they tiled their bathroom sink backsplash. Swapping out your faucet can update your bathroom and they provide four steps on one page on how to do this. I guess this is before they realized you can pay some dude like $50 bucks to come do this for you. You can “Chic Up A Toilet Tank” but putting flowers and a candle on it. You should “Buy The Fancy Stuff At Least Once” – then you can refill the fancy bottles with whatever cheap soap and lotion. This made me like Shurry a bit, because I like fellow Grocery Store People.

Chapter 5 is ‘Stow‘ and it’s a bunch of crazy basic storage tips like utilize verticle space and underbed storage, buy ottomans etc with hidden storage, oh hey baskets and boxes. But I couldn’t let you miss out on this.

Please stop trying so hardizzle.

Chapter 6 is ‘Hang‘ and it’s all about gallery walls and shadowboxes and framing and hanging pretty much everything. There are a couple of pages of gallery wall arrangements, then a DIY on sewing angled lines onto cardstock to frame.

You can get a projector and put a shape on your wall which you can then paint on to get the pattern on the wall for some reason? Or maybe “Hang Something By A Relative” which does not actually mean hang something by Aunt Judy’s head, but hang artwork done by someone in your family. If you don’t want to hang your art directly on the wall you can “Make Simple Picture Ledges” by screwing shelves onto your wall and setting framed art on them. Then we have CHALKBOARD WALL because that has not been done to death yet I guess. Boring “Hang Fabric As Art”, which even I have done, and advice to hang something over your television. If sticking coffee filters on your headboard wasn’t enough 3-D wtfery for you, you can cut book pages into shapes and hammer them onto your wall with straight pins.

WHY

If you’re at a loss after all of this helpful advice, Mr. and Mrs. Dawg say you can just “Start A Collection” to showcase in frames or on shelves. Other things you can hang on your wall include branches, signs, sconces, plates, baskets (wut), floating shelves, your kids’ art, wallpaper samples…and numbers or letters. It might be time for me to move on to wine now because this is getting pretty basic and I don’t know if I can continue without an actual drink.

Chapter 7 is ‘Tweak‘, which is “accessorizing ideas”. The first sentence in the chapter is “As anyone who reads our blog knows…” and I know this is super BEC but I frickin hate when bloggers act like the entire world reads their blog. Anynamingnapkins, this chapter tells us we can move throw pillows around to change up rooms, and gives advice about how to “Add A Plant That (Probably) Won’t Die Immediately”. There’s a DIY on sewing napkins together to make pillow covers and more chalkboard paint, this time on old bottles so you can use them as candle/flower holders. You can use glasses as more than just delivery systems for alcohol!

Oh hey it’s Burger, that dog who is not as cute as my dog.

You might take a trip, even just a day trip, and buy something meaningful “somewhere else”. Try stacking books or candles or art in your unused fireplace, you crazy kids! And don’t forget to “Add A Slap Of Whimsy”! Hot glue gun fabric onto a lampshade, or paint the lampshade, or paint the base of an old lamp, or trim it with ribbon! Still confused by flowers? Try sticking them in something that is not a vase.

In case you never read any issue of Real Simple ever.

The chapter closes with yet another rando suggesting you line a glass vase with decorative paper and then place your flowers inside, in a smaller vase.

Chapter 8 is ‘Cheers‘, and it’s about entertaining. The final chapter is, ironically in light of today’s SCOTUS ruling, titled ‘Out‘ and it’s about entertaining outside and has advice like paint your front door and paint wooden planters to add color.

The book ends with the now familiar resources directory.

Sorry to peace out like a jerk here, hams, but I am lucky enough to not be stuck in an office during this momentous ruling and I’m going out to celebrate my shoed-and-teethed ass off.

Baconcat says “Till next time, dawgz! Murrica!”

Are you a manic pixie dream girl looking for a perfectly twee home where you can binge watch ‘The New Girl’ in perfect curation? Perhaps you’re just a regular person who really liked every decor trend of 2011 and wish you could find a house that already looks like a 4 year old YHL pinterest board?

Well look no further. For just $189,000 you can own the “ABM studio house“, up for sale by the gals at A Beautiful Mess. If you want to see 24 staged photos, ya know, in case you haven’t seen the 590384293842392 staged photos from their blog, you can check out the sale listing here.

I didn’t see any evidence of coffee filters tacked to anything, but I guess you could add those yourself when you move in!

Happy Friday, hamcats! Are you American hams ready to celebrate this nation by shotgunning PBR and acquiring sparkler related injuries? Too bad. Because this week we are going on a journey of healthy food, exercise, and alcohol restraint with Tina Haupert‘s ‘Carrots ‘N’ Cake: Healthy Living One Carrot and Cupcake at a Time’. So restrict yourself to one beer, hide the cookies, and then dust off those treadmills as we learn how a healthy living blogger keeps herself in blogging shape.

The most literal book cover ever.

First impressions: *pops tab on first beer* Bring it, Tuna.

The Introduction details how Tuna Helper started her blog. Basically she wanted to look bonkers hot for her wedding (which was 19 months away) and, inspired by KERF, began her own blog. She goes on for a while about how she came up with the name for her blog, and how she knew she “had something different to offer” the blog world. She also had a ton of free time after she wrapped up wedding planning because her fiance was into fantasy football or something and she needed to “fill the extra hours”.

Chapter 1 is ‘Cookie Friday‘ and she starts off by saying it’s her favorite day because the weekend is starting. But mainly she likes Friday because she allows herself a “splurge”. It could “be any treat” that’s around 500 calories. She blathers on about how she eats a huge salad for lunch to fill herself up without a lot of calories, and then starts talking about how much she loves cookies. Because baking cookies or brownies or whatever and then letting her eat as much as she wanted was how her mom bonded with her. But this made her Type-A self turn to food as a way to deal with stress, and you guys omg it took her YEARS to stop that and now that she’s super healthy she can wait to celebrate on Friday with her one treat.

Chapter 2 is ‘Date Night‘. Tina loves Date Night. She loves it so much she begins talking about it with her husband “from the time we wake up that morning”.

And we ask the question, “Are you excited for Date Night?: over and over again, all day long.

They have a long history of date nights, you see. It started when they were dating, and would go on dates. They started going on dates in high school, and became boyfriend and girlfriend, and continued going on dates. Then they both went off to college but they stayed in touch. Then at some point they went on a date again and “sparks flew”, so a few weeks later they went on more dates. They discovered they are perfect for each other because she likes the cupcake frosting and he likes the actual cake part.

They moved in together and she began cooking for him, because her mother insisted on sit down meals growing up? Not really sure what that little aside has to do with making oatmeal for your man, but ok. Anytunas, she tells us she will “eat anything” which every man loves to hear, and she’s “definitely the more adventurous eater” in the relationship. But Date Night this week is at an Italian restaurant and Tina has planned for this “indulgence” by keeping her calories low all day and getting in a lot of cardio before dinner.

They have been “looking forward to Date Night all day long”, and now it’s time to get ready for Date Night. Tina makes “an effort to look nice on our Date Nights”, wearing something “formfitting” because tight clothes help her eat in moderation on Date Night. She doesn’t let herself “get carried away” even on Date Night. She eats more calories than usual but it’s ok because she did it “the right way” by “saving up calories” for the meal. She closes the chapter by providing you with suggestions of what to eat during the day so you can cram your face (but not too much) during your big Date Night dinner out.

Chapter 3 is called ‘Strength Training Is Not Extra Credit‘. Tina begins by informing us that just because it’s Sunday doesn’t mean she’s not working out. Because “Sunday is not a day of rest!” So it’s off for strength training because she likes to wake up sore on Monday morning. Personally I’d rather wake up sore the morning after Date Night, but maybe that’s just me. She goes into how she did a 12 week “Bridal Boot Camp” leading up to her wedding but it took six weeks to see results. She likes to listen to “classic rock” when she’s “lifting” and she does this three times a week.

Chapter 4 is ‘Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind‘ and it’s about how she and her husband have separate food pantries. She puts her food in clear containers so she doesn’t forget she has wheat berries, and totally unlike most married couples in a thing that she acts like is unique to them, they go grocery shopping once a week to make sure they have food in the house. She advises keeping your healthy foods in clear containers on a shelf you can easily reach and hiding unhealthy foods so you forget they exist. The chapter ends with a recipe for…mixing granola into yogurt.

Now we have ‘Becoming Accountable‘, which is Chapter 5. Tina tells  us she used to get on her scale all the time, but then one day they moved to a new place and it didn’t fit in the bathroom. So she tossed it. Of course it wasn’t that simple: she had agonized over the scale numbers if she put on a couple of pounds, wondering “What would my readers think?” because for a blogger that’s really all that matters. I mean, she “was the gal who found my ‘happy weight’ through healthy moderation” but there she was, worrying about her weight. So she didn’t tell her readers about #thestruggle until she realized she is a beacon of inspiration and keeping it real, and owed it to her readers to be honest. They would love her for it! They would be supportive! She WOULD be “authentic and honest”! Anyweights, at this point she just threw out her scale, which I guess is the point of that story.

Then she starts yammering about how she barely ate in college, and then after college she chunked up with an office job, pizza, and too many happy hours. So she resigned from that job and took a job with less pressure and less money so she could have time to go work out at the gym. She stopped eating her body weight in pizza and pilsner and started eating salads. If you can figure out the point in all this please tell me, because I have no idea why she’s sharing a journey that pretty much every post-college person goes through as if she discovered some lost Sumerian text that explains the true name of God. She ends the chapter with a recipe for blueberry bran muffins.

Chapter 6 is ‘Maintaining My Weight: What Works‘. Apparently after mildly porking out on Date Night food and wine and hitting the gym on Sunday she’s back in action on Monday “looking to get myself back on track”. She has no problem indulging but she has to “make sure I indulge within reason” which is sort of not what indulge means.

Anymoderation, she looks back on the weekend and realizes she had a lot of carbs. Not that that bothers her. But she had too many bad carbs. Then suddenly she is talking about attending a food blogger festival “eating and drinking my little heart out” but still made sure to exercise away “all of the splurges” because she didn’t want to spend her fun trip “stressing out about calories”. Out of nowhere she’s talking about how “before I lost more than twenty pounds” she tried the Atkins diet for a whole month but it made her cranky. So she binged on carbs, which made her realize she likes eating carbs. But now her carbs are “low-calorie salad” which is totally the same as nachos I guess. She created what she calls a “three-quarters rule” for salads meaning 3/4 is leafy greens and the rest is “fun ingredients” and gets her dressing on the side, and she makes different salads every day. Now she never feels “like I’m depriving myself”. Then she ends with recipes for…salads.

‘Paying Attention‘ is the name of Chapter 7, and Tuna begins with the most excrutiatingly boring story of Christmas shopping with her sister that can be imagined. We’re talking a minute by minute breakdown of shopping for decorations and then going to Kohl’s. Then they are like omg STARVATION CITY so they go get a pizza. They each shove a slice into their salad holes but then Tuna is like…wait, I didn’t even taste that! So she gets to the point of all of this, which is eat your food slowly. Then she subwhines about how you “have to go out of your way to get a small size” when you dine out because America wants you to get a large everything. Well Tina’s not falling for that. She gets the small or child portions and that’s more than enough to fill her up, you supersizing pigs. She suggests you drink water with your meal, pause before your first bite and then put your fork down every few bites, I guess to drink some water. But make sure you “enjoy the splurge”! Because nothing says splurge like picking at your food and guzzling water. Then there’s a recipe for turkey burgers in case you can’t figure out how to make a burger out of ground turkey meat and tomatoes.

Chapter 8 is ‘Cravings And The Dreaded Binge‘. The entire first three pages of this chapter is an over-detailed account of how she baked pumpkin muffins one morning, complete with a Tolkien-worthy paragraph long description of the streaming sunlight and steam from the muffins. She then mentions “munching on my first muffin” which makes my inner 12 year old boy snortlol, before talking about how she prepares a second muffin for “its photo shoot”. This takes another entire paragraph as she describes the white plate she selects for its presentation, and how she positions it in natural sunlight. She eats four muffins in all and then comes “to my senses” and darts out of the kitchen to escape further temptation. She then returns and packs the remaining muffins in a container and hides them from herself.

Then she suddenly starts talking about how athletic she’s always been and how that allowed her to not pay attention to calories for a long time. She then tells us “a lot of my success came with not being so hard on myself” when it comes to food.

Then she talks about “sharing the struggle” with her readers. It’s a bunch of self-indulgent blogger woo about how she shows them she’s “a real person who is relatable” and she doesn’t “resent the blog or consider stopping” just because she might over indulge and gain a few pounds. She thinks her readers appreciate it because “it helps them too”.

She now shares her tips to avoid overeating, which are eat enough during the day, keep “trigger” foods out of the house, stay hydrated because you’re not hungry you’re just thirsty, and “just don’t start”. Meaning, don’t even pick up that brownie because you’ll eat 12. Of course if you do binge, you can be like Tina and head to the gym and “run for 45 minutes on the treadmill” and “think about the muffins and the caloric ‘damage’” you’ve done. You’ll feel awesome for doing “something good” for your body “after doing something ‘bad’” to it “by eating too many muffins”. Everything so far sounds totally healthy and not disordered at all! Sign me up! She ends the chapter with the recipe for those Satanic pumpkin muffins.

And now before Chapter 9, which is ‘Happy Hour‘, it’s time for an intermission during which I will show Tina ‘No More Than Three Glasses Of Wine’ Haupert how to properly enjoy one glass of wine.

See? I only need ONE glass of wine.

So with this chapter, Tina begins by telling us she is “not one to pass up a cocktail” but she does not “condone binge drinking”. She’s been drunk “plenty of times” but she never lost control of herself or blacked out, so someone give her a medal I guess. She’s always been “really responsible” when she drinks and capable of good decisions. Then she starts talking about how when she’s drunk she makes bad decisions and eats crap and one time was so drunk she dropped her new camera into a glass of beer, which is the epitome of being in control.

Then the holier than thou lecture about how she never has more than three drinks begins. It seems to be partly a control freak thing until she gets to the point: empty calories. If she has more than three drinks or a shot she can’t say no to pizza and she doesn’t want to “waste my calories” by drinking. She sounds like the first person to take to a bar night, you bet. She will alternate water with her wine (who doesn’t do that at a bar? how is this brand new information?) to “save my calories”.

Then she starts talking about how she spent Friday and Saturday nights in college drinking because Greek life, but one time she had three whole packages of Easy Mac after a party and remembering this makes her want to like omg totes hurl. You guys don’t get it, she could drink like 8 drinks sometimes like after finals or whatever. Grody to the max, right? The point of all of this is that you, too, should stay three or fewer drinks under or you will wind up eating chicken fingers and grilled cheese sandwiches -  in your pajamas while watching ‘Spies Like Us’ for example like this chick I know does every Friday night after Book Club. She closes the chapter with lower calorie drink ideas like a Pimm’s Cup.

Nothing about it sounds happy to me.

Chapter 10 is ‘Girl Stuff‘ and kicks off with paragraph after paragraph of Tina going to a social gathering at a friend’s house and how she manages to eat and drink as little as possible. Her friend has the full Sex And The City cocktail spread – cosmos, lemon drops, and flirtinis. Tuna Helper helps herself to a flirtini and then carries it around, presumably not drinking it at first, while she obsesses over what food she will or won’t eat. Then she takes 3 sips of her drink and gets a nice buzz, but she’s ok – see, she has been exercising hard in anticipation of tonight’s “splurge” (of…one drink, I guess). Then she shares her party rule: if it’s not healthy she doesn’t try it. So she winds up spending the party with the one drink and a small plate of healthy options like she’s a supermodel on vacation going calorie cray cray.

Whiplash story time again, she’s now talking about how she has never had much self-confidence and never felt like she fit in because she always had big boobs on a skinny body – which, as you know, is the antithesis of what is revered in American beauty culture, but it made her uncomfortable with her body so I won’t snark on her feelings about it. Finally she got boob reduction surgery and I say good for her! I am personally a supporter of plastic surgery and cosmetic alteration when there’s a self-esteem or physical comfort issue at play, and I think it’s cool that she talks about this part of her life…even though I don’t get what it has to do with going to a party and not eating a lot. She closes the chapter with a recipe for edamame guacamole.

‘The Cookie Swap‘ is Chapter 11, and starts off explaining that a cookie swap is when a bunch of people get together and bring different kinds of cookies for everyone to eat. It also has Tina saying she spent the night before at the gym “to get a head start on the cookie calories”. Then it’s more of Tina at a social gathering trying to “keep my cool with the food”. Unfortunately she sampled too much and she could “swear my pants felt tighter and my thighs grew”. And to add to the horror this was happening right in front of other bloggers. Can you EVEN? She was one of the first people to leave because she “didn’t want to be tempted any longer”, and she was “depressed on the ride home”. Because she ate cookies. She had to give herself a pep talk when she got home. Because she ate cookies. After that she vowed to document “every single morsel” she ate on her blog so she would be accountable and never ever eat ten whole cookies in one day again.

Because Tina knows that no matter how much she works out the calories she burns through exercise “will never equal the cookie calories” she takes in. Then she says she loves exercise and fitness, but she’s “not obsessive about it”. Then she explains that she learned she indulges in sweets when they’re around. So the solution, apparently, is to not be around free piles of sweets. If she is forced to be around Lucifer’s Cellulite Creators she practices finding a distraction and reminding herself over and over of the “consequences”. The chapter ends with a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies.

 Chapter 12 is ‘Sundays With Mal‘ and Tina starts off by saying she has “very little free time” because between work and being married she is “on the go from dawn till dusk”. So she spends Sunday morning (before or after the strength training?) eating pancakes with her husband, and then does her meal planning for the week on Sunday afternoons. Well that was a thrilling chapter. She ends with a recipe for homemade iced coffee.

Chapter 13 is ‘The Most Important Meal Of The Day‘. It’s apparently about breakfast, and how you should eat breakfast so you’re not sitting around hungry while you go to the gym and then write blog posts. Then she talks about how she photographs her breakfast for her blog – she uses colorful placemats and “an appealing background” to create “a nice scene for my banana oatmeal pancake and iced coffee”. The chapter ends with a recipe for oatmeal pancakes.

Chapter 14 is ‘Murphy, Mal, And Me‘ and it’s a bunch of slobbering about her pug dog. Apparently her longing for a pug dog was a pain for her husband because they would have to move to a place that allowed pets. But eventually she convinced her husband she needed a pug, and she “researched pug breeders” on the internet before driving out to some town in Massachusetts and buying Murphy. Then they had to find a new place to live so they could bring Murphy home. Which is obviously the order in which to do things when buying a dog from some breeder in another town, because why sort out your living arrangements and look into adoption? Pug or bust, betches. Anyselfish, they “frantically” searched Craigslist and finally found a place and wound up in a butthole of a place, but hey, pug. Then they moved again to less of a butthole place. But apparently her pug saved her sanity because Boston winters can suck cans, though she finally got a daylight lamp to help with her winter blues. The chapter closes with a recipe for vanilla mini cupcakes, which I assume Tuna Helper licked the frosting from before handing the soggy cake portion to her husband.

Chapter 15 is ‘Getting Off The Couch‘ and it’s basically Tina saying she has “always been an active person” but it wasn’t until she spoke with Oprah Winfrey’s friend/fitness person that she realized exercise is as simple as getting off the couch to…do stuff. I wish I were kidding but this is pretty much all the chapter is about, stop sitting and do stuff.

Chapter 16 is ‘…And The Rest Will Follow‘. Tina yodels about joining her first gym at 16 (in case you forgot she has “always been an active person”) and tells us when it comes to gyms, “luxury helps”. See, Tuna goes to “an upscale all-women’s gym” and it has a full-service spa, is “gorgeous”, and “even the bath products in the locker room are nice”. Evidently being surrounded by such fitness luxury inspired her to “pursue a career change to become a personal trainer”, though she decided in the end that it wasn’t for her. Instead she got a job in the Harvard School of Public Health, and finally had time to post three times a day and “comment on other people’s blogs, which helped market mine” because “readers would click through” to her blog. Livin’ the dream, people!

But eventually she had to have a bunch of talks with her cake loving man about her goals. She would “always end…in tears” because she “didn’t have enough time for the blog”. But she “couldn’t give up on my dream”. But then her blog started to take off. She then quit her job at Harvard and got a job with some company called NuVal, and then celebrated with pumpkin muffins. On a Friday, I assume. This long pointless How I Became A Blogger narrative ends with a recipe for pumpkin carob muffins.

Chapter 17 is ‘Travel Eats‘ and its pretty much just Tina saying pack your own food for trips.

The final Chapter 18 is ‘Happily Ever After?‘ and it’s more of Tina ruminating on her blog and how awesomely successful she is, and how she loves what she does, in that way only married women with a fallback husband income can really do. The book ends with Tina wondering if she can really be happy only doing her blog. Boy do I feel inspired.

Overview: This is the most Jekyll/Hyde book ever. She says she doesn’t deny herself but then details the ways she denies herself. She says she’s not “obsessed” with working out, but makes sure to constantly mention how she exercises every chance she gets and reminding us how active she is. This book is apparently 4 years old so maybe this woman is different now, but at the time of this book she sounds like she had a long way to go before preaching about moderation.

partypants and Loliver say “Have a great and safe holiday weekend,
see ya next week!”

Gala Darling, author of (what she calls) the “best-selling book” ‘Radical Self Love‘, has announced the end of her four year marriage.

After 4 years of marriage, my husband and I have decided to go our separate ways. While Mike (and Dolly) have moved out, we are still extremely close friends and will continue to work together on my site, as we have been doing the whole time we’ve been together. We’re both excited to move onwards and upwards, and I’m so thankful that we have been able to end things amicably and with a lot of love.

Speculation about the status of her union began over a week ago.

It seems another one of her projects may also be coming to and end: the ‘Blogcademy‘. A few days ago she announced the last two classes in San Francisco and New York City, adding “these will probably be our last American classes ever”. She said there might be one last class in “London, probably… But that might be it!”

Gala has been busy recently jetting around the world on what, in hindsight, appears to be some sort of ‘Sex And The City post-breakup getaway to Mexico’ trip. No word on what new projects she has in the works. We assume she is currently creating vision boards and practicing gratitude.

The Cupcakes and Cashmere Nordstrom line has been available for a few days now. The collection is about as much of a yawn farm as one would expect considering the most vanilla blogger on earth created it.

It’s mostly striped cotton, shapeless dresses, leather shorts, jumpsuits, and various items made out of a floral fabric that appears to be the skin of a sofa belonging to my Aunt Helen in Boca Raton. Pretty basic crap that is sold at every Target ever since 2001.

Yet this snore inducing collection is enraging people because it only goes up to a size 10/12. Fans took her out on various facebook posts and even in her blog comments for only providing limited sizes of 0-12. You’d think people would be more annoyed that she’s selling them a striped shirt for 80 bucks when you can get pretty much the same thing at Old Navy for 8 dollars, but, priorities vary for each of us.

Anyway, I guess if you’re a skinny person with a lot of disposable money for jersey shirt dresses have fun buying out her collection!

Happy Friday, ham nuggets! It’s time yet again for Book Club. This week I’m slogging through ‘Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch Of It’ by Brittany Gibbons. The text may be NSFW in places because she obviously likes to push home the fact that she loves sex and has sex and does the sex, so consider yourself warned. Now get those cringe muscles ready and let’s get DTF.

First impressions: I guess this picture is supposed to send a message of No Craps Given but she just looks like one of those obnoxious teenagers who sit on the tables at the park trying to look cool.

Not tryhard at all.

Chapter 1 is ‘I Was Born A Poor Fat Child‘. Brittany starts off the book by explaining why she’s fat. Apparently she’s fat because her mom was depressed and ate all the time, and BGibbs inherited both the depression and the coping mechanism. But she never thought she was overweight until she was eight and met some boy with a mouth “built for cunnilingus”. Evidently this boy told her she didn’t have a boyfriend because she was fat, and her world shattered into a million piles of self-consciousness and chicken nuggets. Then her gym teacher sent a note home to her parents informing them that Gibster was obese, which people still tell her except they tell her on the internet instead of in envelopes. She finally gets to the point of “Why are you fat?” by saying childhood poverty meant crappy food and stress eating, and she’s still fat because “I like to eat food, and I’m really good at it”. Then the woman who is tired of fat shaming makes a jab about how eating whatever she wants tastes better than fitting into smaller jeans, the implication being that everyone knows anyone in a single digit size never eats, I guess.

Chapter 2 is ‘Honestly, I Didn’t Have A Chance‘ and it’s basically Gibbles blathering about her gold medal in the Most Messed Up Family olympics. This includes a pages long tale of how her father took her to adopt a kitten and then a few hours later the kitten fell out of a tree and died, and as the kitten was writhing on the ground dying her brother pointed out that “Kimberly” was in fact a boy cat.

Yes, she looks absolutely gigantic as a child. Sure.

The conclusion is that Brittany enjoyed a kind and human moment with her father as she cried over the grave with her father, the man who “murdered my transsexual cat with a shovel”. The rest of the chapter is just more of Brittany trying to prove that her family is indeed the most messed up family ever not portrayed in a Lifetime Movie. I’m not sure what the point of this chapter is beyond Brit trying to convince us somehow that being an overweight exhibitionist was really her only option in adulthood considering the childhood she had.

Chapter 3 is ‘Finding  Your Tribe And Other Assholey Feel-Good Expressions Your Parents Push On You‘, and after I was done affixing the book with an award for Longest Chapter Title Ever, I learned more than I needed to about Brittany’s educational path. Which was apparently strewn with the dried flowers of Catholic school, and then a new school at age 12 which she found hard to adjust into. Her mother told her it takes time to fit in, but Britacious began 7th grade overweight, with a gap between her teeth, wire glasses, and a perm. Ya know, like about 85% of 12 year olds in the 90s. But somehow all of this made her some kind of unicorn, so in an attempt to fit in, she tried out for cheerleading. Because obviously trying out for cheer squad is the best way for an overweight, self-conscious girl with a chip on her shoulder to build self-worth and fit in at a new school.

Anycliques, Britbrit says she was relentlessly taunted by the skinny pretty girls who apparently spread rumours that she had AIDS, so she convinced her mom to pull her out of high school and thus begins a makeover montage that put Ami Dolenz to shame.

I was relaunched into high school with contact lenses, the gap between my front teeth expertly filled with enamel colored bonding, and the Rachel haircut. It was life changing.

Except really nothing changed so she got angry. Meaning her high school experience was about the same as most people’s but for some reason Brittany thought a haircut and some contacts would reconfigure her life into the plot of ‘She’s All That’, and when that didn’t happen, well the entire world is full of bullies. She ends this neverending litany of The Ways I Was Wronged As A Teenager by informing us that if you don’t find “your tribe” in high school it’s ok, because lots of awesome people don’t, and until you do there’s always ice cream.

Chapter 4 is ‘Secret Girlfriend‘ and Britkini comes right out of the gate by saying she has “a penis in my mouth right now” so she’s “way too busy to dispute ridiculous fat person stereotypes”. Ok then. She tells us she was interested in sex way sooner than all those skinny chicks.

Behold the overwhelming obesity that shoved her into puberty in 4th grade.

She then describes how she went to a sleepover and a friend explained how to touch herself at ten years old, and it “felt amazing”. But then Catholic guilt made her literally scotch tape her vagina so she wouldn’t touch it. Which resulted in a rash and a trip to the doctor and her first foray into therapy.

Then she starts in with how fat girls are stripped of their sexuality and are just friends or “one of the guys” so her response was to become “a huge whore” in high school. She describes getting fingered in a movie theater by her first boyfriend, but then spent the rest of high school being the “secret girlfriend”, or as we now call it, a shame f**k because it apparently never dawned on her that she didn’t have to put up with that crap. Then she lost her virginity in a car to HER Andy Gibbons, which is possibly the first normal experience she talks about having thus far in the book.

Chapter 5 is ‘My Andy Gibbons‘. It’s all about Andy Gibbons, and how she gave him his first blowjob. I…think we’ll just leave it at that.

And now I need to get a drink because my mouth is starting to fill with tryhard induced cringe vomit. BRB…

I was going to drink a bottle of Skinny Girl Margarita but I didn’t want to be a dick. Also I couldn’t find any.

‘College, I Don’t Know Why I’m Here Either‘ is Chapter 6 and starts off with Brittany saying the worst thing she ever did was go to college, before advising everyone “Don’t go to college. It’s the absolute worst and it will ruin your life…” which is a super empowering message for all those girls out there hoping to improve their circumstances. Just saying, coming from someone who claims she grew up in poverty this is pretty asinine advice, but whatever. She then backtracks and says if you want to go to college hey cool for you go for it. Then I learn she went to Ohio State which makes me take a five minute wine guzzle break because universe, WHY?

Anyway she totally hated college and that’s ok because she had “plenty of things to keep me occupied” such as “having mental breakdowns and failing at lesbianism”, as if sexual orientation is an undergrad course for credit.

Chapter 7 is ‘Adorably Mental‘. She talks about having panic attacks and how Andy leaving for a year turned her into a mushy pile of sad, I guess like Play-Doh left on the dashboard of a minivan in Arizona in August. She was nervous about ordering pizza because that was Andy’s job. Anydramas she says living alone was, at first, “exactly how I imagined it in all my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies” (because nothing says Sex And The City like OSU in the early 2000s) but then she became isolated and lonely without her man. Then she copypastes a bunch of journal entries detailing her spiral into malnutrition thanks to only eating one Chinese takeout meal a day and how Law & Order made her afraid to shower alone in her apartment. Eventually Andy and her father showed up thanks to a call from her landlord, evidently due to unpaid rent, and packed her up to take her home. She ends the chapter by describing how she leaned against Andy and “weakly raised my middle finger to the failed attempt at adult life and the college degree I never earned”.

Chapter 8 is ‘Girl On Girl Interrupted‘ and she talks about how she only sees male therapists with moustaches because daddy issues. Anybinges, her moustached therapist here is Tom, and he had an office in a strip mall next to a Taco Bell. This is perfect for Brittacos because she says she does her best “emotionally overwhelmed eating in Taco Bell parking lots”. The self-love. Can you feel it?

So she moved back in with her parents and worked on forgiving Andy for abandoning her to go do his last year of school at another college. She took a job at an all-girls summer camp which evidently was 5 days of watching kids and weekends of pot and beer and attempting to have sex with the female counselor named Sprinkle. We are then treated to several pages of descriptions of Brittany’s vagina by Sprinkle, and Sprinkle’s vagina by Brittany. But Brittany couldn’t mouth love Sprinkle’s clam dungeon and so declared herself a “terrible lesbian”, again, as if it’s some Girl Scout badge to be earned and not an orientation wired into your brain.

Chapter 9 is ‘Going To The Chapel‘, which Mrs. Andy Brittany begins with a description of her proposal from Her Andy. This happened in a cemetery after 8 years together. As for so many brides the proposal was “the moment the wedding process would peak”. Most of the drama revolves around Brittneh being larger than a size 8 and finding the wedding dress selection a special kind of emotional destruction because “formal wear in general has a standard of sizing equivalent to a small Asian girl”. Which…so? Who cares what the size on the tag says, and why are you looking at it? But whatever. Drama. Dress drama. Finally no drama because she found a dress but had to order it in her size unlike skinny brides who never need alterations done, I guess.

She then tells a story about how she had to do her invitations twice. You see, she was sitting there sending out the invites when Andy came home drunk and announced he kissed someone. Her first question was “Is she thinner than me?” When he said it didn’t matter she dashed from the apartment but Her Drunk Andy laid down on the ground in front of the car screaming NOT UNTIL YOU TALK TO ME, and he explained that he doesn’t know if she was thinner because he doesn’t see women anymore, only Brittany. By then she had lost her Taco Bell and tossed the invites, so they wound up having to make their own. But they got married, and she ends the chapter by saying she married Andy because he thinks “I weigh a hundred and ten pounds”.

At this point I’m trying to figure out when we get to the loving yourself every inch every weight portion of this pile of tree murder, so I’m going to pop another bottle of wine.

Chapter 10 is called ‘The Life And Death Of Procreation And All The Gross Shit In Between‘ because she can’t seem to go two pages without cursing. Anyuterus, this chapter is about how size 18 Britters was 24 and still not pregnant but finally after games of “how many things I could cram under my butt after my husband came inside me” she finally sprogged up. Then there’s a whole bunch of omg doctors judge pregnant fat ladies omg judging the judging because only overweight women get glucose and blood pressure monitoring. But the worst part is that nobody knows you’re pregnant because it takes so long for the “baby bump to show up”. So people just keep thinking you’re fat when like, now you have a REASON. But finally the bump showed and Brittany felt “all my curves had been legitimized”, I guess because society says the only time a woman is allowed to blimp up is when she’s visably pregnant.

She gained 60 pounds because she had been told she could really safely gain about 10, so she “revenge-ate quite a bit”. Because there was no way she was going to miss out on “sending…spouses out for ice cream at 2 a.m.” because that “took a large part of the experience of a normal pregnancy away” from her. Personally I think that stuff is more cultural conditioning because to my knowledge the “experience” of pregnancy is basically gestation and birth, but what do I know. Then there’s a whole bit about never asking anyone if they are pregnant and really you’re just not allowed to mention anything about the pregnancy at all. I guess commentary on pregnancy is the exclusive right of the pregnant despite the fact that many pregnant ladies walk around bump cradling and smug leaning hoping you’ll notice they are pregnant, not fat. Anyfetus, they wound up having three babies and in case you are wondering, shooting out humans never gets more pleasant. Then there’s a nice mini-memoir of her husband getting his bits clipped because vasectomies are awesome. She felt it was very final but motherhood wound up being her “definition of success in this world” because she had “found someone to love me despite my garish physical flaws” and had managed to get married and create three humans. So, winning!

 Chapter 11 is ‘The Fourth Trimester (The Worst Trimester)‘ and it’s about how gross Brittbirther felt after giving birth. Which as far as I know is another fairly universal feeling after shooting out a person and then bleeding out entire pieces of your lady parts into adult diapers for upwards of six weeks. Add to that the whole screeching gollum creature wanting something every 15 minutes thing and yeah, she felt gross and achy and tired. But apparently the main problem was her loose caboose and so she tried ben-wa balls, and her nipples got um, shall we say ‘seasoned’, and started swinging low. She then says about women who say they breastfed “and the weight just fell right off” that she wishes “they’d die”. How accepting of body types and sizes and metabolisms. But part of me understands the irritation with dismissive crap about omg you get so thin breastfeeding and chasing behbehs.

Then there’s the debate about her woman self wanting to put on a real bra and cute clothes and her mom self saying that ish didn’t matter, which again sums up the first 6 years of being a (non-fashion blogger) mom from what I understand. She says she needs to “feel sexy in a nonparent capacity” which is finally this woman starting to sound relatable even though she doesn’t seem to have quite worked out her insecurities. But I’ll be fair – I’m sure it’s nigh on impossible to work out your body issues when you have a preg pouch hanging over your lady junk and your nipples are hanging in a fashion that allows them to have a face-to-face conversation with the tops of your feet. TLDR this chapter makes her sound normal and human without too much WOE IS MEH so that’s nice.

Chapter 12 is ‘Daughters: The Ultimate Mind Fuck‘ and opens with this:

I think mothers have an innate response to protect their daughters from low self-esteem.

I know. I know right? I don’t really follow this blogger, but is THIS, at last, the sort of beloved confident voice finally emerging? So she says, in a nutshell, that her daughter “saved my life” and goes on to talk about how instilling her daughter with confidence was an object lesson in living her faith. She had to be the change etc. Her daughter was beautiful because she was HER, and to make her see that, Brittany had to believe it about herself. So basically I’m hoping this is a nice chapter segue (or segway, for you bloggers out there reading) into the last few chapters about body acceptance.

Chapter 13 is ‘Last Cake Ever‘ and opens with the quote often attributed to Kate Moss – “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Because I enjoy wine fueled asides I’d like to point out that this statement has been made by various women including Slim Keith and Babe Paley since the 1930s, and a variation was used in many cigarette ads aimed at women in the 20s who were encouraged to reach for a smoke rather than a sweet, because “nothing is as sweet as looking a treat in your new dress”. Making a choice not to eat in order to be thin is not a 21st century social media fueled thing. Okay, aside over.

Brittlay says Kate Moss has “clearly never eaten at a Sonic”, and goes on to the point of this chapter which seems to be her defending her decision to not “strap on a lap band and get on with it”. She gets into how Hollywood pigeonholes fat women into being funny and not leading ladies, and then spends page upon page assuring the world that not all fat girls are “miserable unfulfilled losers”. This is followed by page after page of her documenting her attempts to diet and then giving up because bey don’t curr about being thin for weddings, reunions, vacations since she turned 30. Because unless she’s “sitting atop you, what I weigh is really non of your business”. Except for the part where she turned her size into her whole identity and business, I guess, but sure, go on with yourself.

Which leads right into Chapter 14, ‘How To Be Professionally Fat On The Internet‘. This chapter is about how her family of five moved back in with her parents and declared bankruptcy or something. They also had to get on public assistance. She spent the night before the bankruptcy hearing “watching marathons of ‘Roseanne’ on Nick at Night” which I can’t make a joke about because I have seen maybe one episode ever and found every character obnoxious as hell, because I’m a ‘Frasier’ fan, and I think those choices say everything about both of us. Apparently ‘Roseanne’ spoke to her because poor people loving each other but then she started a blog and got Big On The Internets but there were Mean People On The Internets but she Will Overcome and now she has a book published and is still fat so everyone can suck it. And Roseanne Barr something. Also she wore a bikini and that was #sobrave because nobody outside of Europe dares to show their body with no shits given. (Seriously, date a European man and go on vacation with him and his 60+ parents because nobody gives any body shits ever in Greece, and you quickly lose your give a shits as well. I say that as a size 14. Also girl you’re in Ohio. Bikini wearing over a size 8 is not a statement in Ohio.)

(Wow, too many wine asides. Let’s move on to the next chapter…)

The super sexy reality of Book Club. 3 more chapters, hams!

Soooooooooooo snore, Chapter 15 is ‘The TED Talk‘ because every blogger who ever spoke at TED needs you to know they Spoke At TED and how they felt about Speaking At TED and blah blah blah. Seriously that’s the chapter. And also it was TEDx which is basically like saying ‘I did voiceover for Rifftrax except it was Lulztrax in my backyard’. She was like what could she “possibly say that was on par with the Brene Browns and Bill Gateses of the world” as if TEDx at Bowling Green University is some internationally attended event. Anyegos, she spoke about being thirty and fat and wearing a bikini in omgpublic, and told everyone she was bulimic her first year of college but felt judged because no one thinks fat girls have eating disorders. Ya know, despite all the grillion women and doctors and therapists who will attest that ED, like bikinis, comes in all sizes. So she dropped trouser on Good Morning America and walked around in a bathing suit, and now she’s super famous.

She goes on to say she did this for her daughter, and your daughter, and every daughter, as if no little girls in America see fat women anywhere. JFC Brit come to Coney Island, put on a thong, you’ll look like a supermodel. Stop snowflaking about the bikini girl.

Chapter 16 is ‘Sex With Fat Girls‘. It kicks off with Brittany texting (or emailing?) Andy demanding to know five things he finds sexy about her. Then she gets into how “physically becoming a mother” changed her body by 50 pounds, and she wasn’t super into sex for a while after kids, and acts as if this is not some universal experience for women during the first year of a Weird Human Shaped Thing being in your life. FFS Brittany some of us feel weird having sex when the pets are in the bedroom, right?

This all leads to her have sex every day for a year experiment. Because nothing says alluring like forcing yourself to pussy hustle every single day whether you feel like it or not. But she did that, and this chapter includes extreme details I won’t share in the text of this post because I know at least two of you hams have read this book and will uh…include the deets in the comments if other hams ask. TLDR the experiment resulted in her being on the Today Show, and then Jay Leno mentioned her, which comes back to Brittany And The Pursuit Of Fame.

Chapter 17 is ‘The Emails‘ which is just a bunch of emails about how much Andy <3s Brittany and the phrase “sex holes” happens so yeah, Imma spare you the rest of that.

Chapter 18 is ‘Women, We’re Ruining Everything‘ which starts off with quotes from women on various online venues about how obesity is not some snowflake endowment and comments from her blog from a couple of people saying she peacocks around in public looking for validation. Her assessment is that “People are dicks to plus size women” despite being happily married and mommied and famous-successful book dealed herself. She reminds us, the women of the world, most of whom are well in the overweight range, that fat shaming is “a real thing” before going into a pages long rant about “bullying” her in her comments and “online forums” isn’t going to fix anything, as if anyone cares to fix her weight rather than her self-aggrandizing behavior. The crux of this chapter is you are bad and you should feel bad and she is awesome and everyone except you is awesome.

Overview: Some chick who is firmly a plus size wants attention and belly rubs for being plus size and daring to be ok with being plus size. Except when she’s insecure about being plus sized and demanding validation from her husband or daughter’s existence. Or the internet. Or the world. She seems exhausting.

Asleep Loliver who did not want to participate in the duckface says “Till next time!”

ShopStyle recently announced a “Snap Hub” in an attempt to help bloggers monetize their Snapchat posts, and suddenly everyone is joining the social media platform because money. Some, like Love Taza, don’t seem 100% into it yet; Naomi announced her account by saying she is “trying [it] out for a little while although I’m still not totally sold on it all”. But fashion bloggers are already starting to sign up and shove snapstyle affiliate linking onto their followers, directing them to the ShopStyle hubs to “shop my look”.

There is no word on whether RewardStyle – the affiliate link behemoth that helped turn instagram into a liketoknowit link graveyard – is working on a similar program. Maybe now that Periscope is picking up speed RS may skip Snapchat altogether and go for monetization of live streaming video. Because everyone knows every social media platform ever anywhere must be monetized, and it’s all about who provides that capability first.

Hey Natalie Jean, has a loft in Brooklyn, is apparently leaving Brooklyn.

Moscow.
The Holbrooks are moving back to Moscow, Idaho.
BECAUSE THAT IS JUST HOW THE UNIVERSE LIKES TO PLAY ME

In a totally believable statement she claims she is “giddy with excitement” right after opining that “Brooklyn I am not done with you!…Tub? Are you going to sit there and let this happen?” Natalie goes on to say she is “soooo getting chickens this time” and “a goat!!!!!!!”

Since about 95% of her online persona/identity is wrapped up in her omgbrooklynloft and being a Brooklyn hipster creative I look forward to seeing what persona she takes on after her move.

Claire and Laura, apparently twins who blog about travel, have put up a post explaining their aspiration filled travelgram is a reality that “doesn’t exist”. Saying “it’s time to set the record straight…and suggest that in reality, Instagram means living a lie”, the twins listed all the reasons you need to stop assuming they are wealthy globetrotters just because that’s what they suggest on their social media.

Saying their lives have been “pretty messy this year and it’s been far from a series of glamorous holidays and care-free travels”, they nevertheless continued posting breathtaking travel photos because obviously real life can’t be allowed to “get in the way of that ‘i’m so carefree and happy’ attitude that dominates Instagram.”

And though their blog and gram portray a fabulous life full of expensive looking, glamour soaked travel, the twins assure us they “work full-time and juggle mortgages with fairly concerning shopping addictions” and promise their lives are “far from glamorous, wealthy or perfect”.

Moral of this post? Remember, when you see that photo of a beautiful beach, we’re probably loading it up as we clean the toilet or are lying in bed trying to wake up. Reality bites.

So basically they are no better than Zilla? I guess I’m just super confused as to the point of this post. I mean…thanks for the honesty, but if bloggers want to portray an expensive looking fabulous lifestyle on the intarwebs it seems a bit disingenuous to get all defensive when people come to the conclusion that they are, indeed, living an expensive and fabulous lifestyle. If you don’t want strangers to assume your curated life is your real life then maybe don’t show strangers only a curated life?

Hey Natalie Jean, moving to Idaho, is already changing the narrative on the big event. She originally implied the decision had been sprung on her shortly before she announced the news.

…the Holbrooks are moving. Real fast like. Because that is my Brandon’s way. Advance notice is not something redheads seem to excel at much.

She now says she’s known for like ever but didn’t say anything so her husband could, I guess, quit his job on his own timeline.

Brandon’s had this offer in his back pocket for just over two months. As in, who knew I could keep a secret this long?!

Their apartment was put back on the market a week ago so I guess the big move is happening before August.  But who cares about any of this??!! I want to see which fangirl moves into her omgloft and starts squeeing all over instagram about it, and what persona HNJ settles on once she’s out west. Maybe she’ll swap Anne Shirley for Caddie Woodlawn? Maybe she’ll go Katie Granju chicken farmer? What is she going to do with all those stress inducing rugs?

Am I really the only person who thinks this is the only interesting thing she has done in forever? It should at least be as fun to watch as Jordan Reid’s big move and new persona.

PCOS and TTC online community members were apparently hit hard this week when one of their own, known as “kirbywillow”, became ill, requiring lung surgery and then lapsing into a coma. Her ‘warrior sisters’ stepped up, starting hashtag after hashtag urging each other to pray for Kirby. Reports came that Kirby was battling ‘broken heart syndrome‘ which is supposed to be a real thing. She apparently came out of her coma briefly. But alas news came Monday that Kirby had died.

Unfortunately for Kirby her IRL friends evidently didn’t get the ‘I’m Dead On The Internet’ memo and began responding to inquiries of where to send flowers and baked goods with a weird bit of news.

That’s right – “kirbywillow” allegedly just “needed to get off social media”. Rather than saying “hey guys I need a break” and locking things up for a while, she created an elaborate tale of sudden failing health – and then she Ghost Bev’d.

People are now venting their anger in piles of instagram posts that “kirby” will presumably never see and probably doesn’t give a crap about, what with being internet dead and all. I just don’t see how this self created fan fiction spinning and instagram updating was easier than saying ‘hey dawgs, adios for a while, the kirbmeister needs a break’ and locking things down for a month. But I guess that doesn’t get you much attention, does it?

Egreis Gjergjani, the blogger behind Stiletto Me Up, has apparently been charged with extortion and witness tampering in Orange County, FL.

The crux of the charges seems to be that her stepmother noticed “suspicious activity” on her credit report and “suspected” “Shoe Queen” Egreis was responsible. The stepmother filed two reports with the police about her suspicions. The stepmother alleges that at this point, Eggy called her stepmother and said her father had sent her a sex tape of himself and the stepmother, and if the stepmother didn’t drop all the charges, Eggy would release the tape on the internet.

Click to enlarge

After repeated questions on her instagram, she finally made a statement about the matter.

She also apparently made other statements on instagram claiming this was “nothing but retaliation” for her father filing for divorce from her stepmother.

Egreis was arrested and shortly after posted bail. She then apparently went out to shop and post gramworthy pics of herself at a mall or something.

Jenna Cole, future coder lady and solo work at home parent, has informed the internet that she is totally Jewish or something.

Not only is she “1/16 Jewish”, but she claimed her great-grandfather was “murdered for trying to save the Torah”. This is after she claimed during a 2008 during a trip to Auschwitz:

My mother’s side of the family has Jewish ancestors, and it is quite possible that many of them died in places like Auschwitz….We saw the names of people displayed on the wall who could possibly be related to us, and I got really excited about the opportunity to do some genealogy in Poland someday!

Since she was on the trip with her mother you’d think her mother would have told her, as they stood at the gate, all about this supposed great-grandfather. But whatever. Apparently “part Jewish” is the new “part Cherokee” because it seems like bloggers keep coming out to appropriate and/or align themselves with Jewish heritage.

Love Taza, mama to littles, just loves doing everything as a family. This week the Love Taza show went out for a bike ride, as a family.

The ride included strapping their 7 month old into a bike seat and slapping on a helmet that is clearly the correct size in order to wheel around an island metropolis with some of the most insane traffic in North America.

But apparently Taza isn’t familiar with the bicycle laws in this little city of hers. The New York State Department of Transportation says:

Children under 1 are prohibited from being transported on a bicycle (Sec. 1238(1)(2)).

Of course silly things like laws can’t be acknowledged when there’s content to generate. When a few fangirls asked wtf she was thinking, Taza claimed (in a now apparently deleted comment) that her son’s pediatrician said it was totally okay. She then waved away further criticism on the matter by providing a disclaimer on her post.

…i know the age varies a lot online about when little ones can or should begin to bike with you, so it’s always just best to consult with your pediatricians as they know your child best and if he or she is strong enough, able enough to ride along with you. i’m not an expert on anything around this topic…

I know mommies are exempt from any judging ever but…don’t you think a mom who loves being a mom to her littles in this little city of theirs would know and follow the laws about this sort of thing? And obviously bloggers are special snowflakes and above the rules that apply to those of us who must drudge through this mortal coil without internet headpats; but at some point – maybe when you’re pushing 30 and are a mother of 3 – it stops being cute to giggle and do a kewpie doll pose and do some “golly garsh I just didn’t know! just sharing my life! here’s an affiliate link to our clothes!”

Seriously, I’d like to know when “his pediatrician says it’s ok” started superseding state traffic laws. Maybe I should become a popular lifestyle blogger! Then the next time I don’t feel like curbing my dog I can just smile and say his vet says it’s ok to let him crap on your foot.

Hello again, pork people! It’s time for Friday Book Club, and have I got a snoozer for you. This week we are going to learn how to be photographers! Or at least the kind of photographer A Beautiful Mess thinks we should be. Get out your VSCO Cam and prepare to be amazed at the incredible knowledge contained within ‘A Beautiful Mess: Photo Idea Book’.

First impressions: The world really needs a book about how to twee up pictures.

TWEE WITH ME

Chapter 1 is ‘Capture Your Favorite People‘ and it’s all about taking pictures of people and pets. They start off telling you to “Photograph Faces”, and the key here is to point the camera at the subject’s face and then take the picture. Groundbreaking.

Now that the hard stuff is out of the way, they suggest taking “Storytelling Portraits” in which your subject holds various props, such as a sequence of signs with words on them, for a photo series. You should also try to “Capture Genuine Emotion”, and this page features a photo of Elsie doing her best Fiona Apple.

FEELIN LIKE A CRIIIMINALLL

You can “Get Adorable Couple Photos” by “playing with different color combinations” like making your subjects wear coordinating colors, and make sure to take pics of them in various poses like looking at the camera and then at each other. If you want to “Take Cute Photos With Your Friends” you should try using a tripod with a self-timer and again do a range of poses – the fake laugh seems to be a popular pose. To “Get A Great Family Photo” try taking pictures of families doing family things like being together as a family. If you don’t have a human family you can take pictures of your pets by dangling treats, or just letting them be themselves and taking 900 pics until you get a decent one because we all have that kind of time. And don’t forget to capture “Unique Personal Details” such as their Starbucks cup or a be-ringed manicured hand pretending to doodle in a journal!

Chapter 2 is ‘Add Backdrops and Props‘ and now it starts to get awesome. First of all you should find “Great Backgrounds For Outdoor Portraits”, like brick walls, or even other kinds of walls like wood walls or maybe cement walls. Can’t find an awesome wall, or just can’t go outside? Baby you’ve got options. Did you know you can take pictures indoors? Well you can. You can just tape up some cool paper or something and take your pictures in front of that. You can even use a chalkboard background, or fabric.

And don’t forget to use props. How will people know you own a vintage suitcase or an instax if you don’t hold it as you pose in front of the brick wall of that bowling alley? Yeah, you’re learning things now, things that will make you ‘gram famous.

Chapter 3 is ‘Use Beautiful Lighting‘, because right now you’re probably using ugly lighting and someone needs to stop you. Emma and Elsie want you to get out of direct sunlight and figure out how to angle yourself in front of “Flattering Window Light” because the world is tired of seeing those bags under your eyes, girl. If you want to do something different and new with lighting, just take a picture of your shadow or silhouette.

Apparition chic is so in.

You could “Make and Use Reflectors” if you’re dead serious about being a part-time model.  If all else fails, just stand in front of the light source and embrace the lens flare like it’s 1998 and you just discovered Photoshop.

Chapter 4 wants us to ‘Get Creative‘. By creative they mean take profile pictures, or snap some photos of moving objects. MOVING OBJECTS! Did you ever? Go crazy creative and photograph people in windy conditions, or jumping in the air, because nobody does that. When you’ve mastered those unique ideas you can try taking “Artistically Blurry Photos” because nothing says ‘seriously artistic 15 year old with an iPhone app’ like some bokeh-ed out lights.

You can “Create Atmosphere” with color and by color they apparently mean clear glass bottles in front of a beige brick wall because that creates a “soft and airy atmosphere”.  This is great because just this morning I was thinking “You know what instagram needs? More monochromatic light colored photographs” – and here are Elsie and Emma helping me make that dream come true! You can make “Homemade Filters” with clear tape over your camera lens, I guess for folks who can’t figure out how to use one of the 950000 phone apps that apply isolated blur.

Chapter 5 is ‘Get Inspired‘. Evidently this chapter wants us to be inspired to take photographs of our home and collections of ‘things’. If your home is meh and you have no piles of things laying around you can “Capture Your Daily Routines”, because there aren’t enough pictures of lattes online. And don’t forget those inspiring seasonal footwear photos.

It’s like a calendar of feet.

The chapter continues with inspiration to photograph your daily outfits, the places you go, your hobbies, your music collection, your food, and your “current obsession”.

I don’t know about you but I’m so full of inspiration at this point in the book that I might need to take a goat break.

Fire Escape Of Death: The Goatening

BRB to herd the rest of the yawn cows around this snore ranch of a book.

Chapter 6 is ‘Capture Yourself‘ as if the world needed to be told to take selfies. It kicks off by telling us to take pics of ourselves in mirrors and offers helpful suggestions like “hold your camera at different angles” and “try looking in different directions”. If you want to skip the mirror you can just hold the camera at arm’s length and point it at yourself. If you’re ready to really commit to sharing your face with the world, get a tripod and a self timer. The chapter closes with the “Thirty-Day Self-Portrait Challenge”.

The final chapter page includes 30 pictures of Elsie showing various things you can do for your selfie challenge which is both informative and horrifying, sort of like googling Ed Gein while you eat pizza.

Chapter 7 is ‘Challenge Yourself‘, and here the Queen E’s Of Twee encourage you to do wing-spreading things like create picture panels or “Take A Photo From Above”. Not challenging enough? Try taking a photo UPSIDE DOWN. I know, this is a tough one – take a deep breath, you can do this, chief. Challenge yourself to wear a costume or have your subject wear a costume, and photograph that costume. Challenge yourself to take black and white photos! Or maybe take photos in public places, which are places that are not your home. If you’re just plumb out of ideas challenge yourself to use colorful walls.

The ultimate challenge!

Anywalls, so now you’ve read a whole book and you’re taking inspiring, creative photos of your face and lattes. But did it happen if nobody sees them? That’s where the final chapter,  ‘Show Off Your Photos‘ comes in. Take those photos and use them on everything. Invite someone on a walk and use up those foot photos! Invite them anywhere, for anything, you have photos to share!

The Adventures of Dick And Lame

Glue them on a lampshade! Glue them on magnets! You know what says professional? Business cards with sepia toned photos of YOU with your hair blowing creatively in the creative wind.

Decorate your party with pictures of yourself! Varnish photos of yourself onto a chair! Glue photos of yourself to coasters so your guests can’t stop seeing your face even if they concentrate on their drink. Create homemade soaps that contain photos of you because even in the toilet there is no respite from your image. Make yourself into a cupcake topper so they can’t escape your visage even if they try to eat their rising feelings of terror.

Welcome To The Elsie Selfie-bration

And don’t hesitate to stick photos of yourself inside glass Christmas ornaments, because even the holy days need to focus on you. This chapter, and the book, ends with a page detailing their DSLR camera specs and informs us they use Photoshop CS.

Overview: I have no idea why this book needs to be in the world. It’s like nobody cares about trees anymore. This is all information available everywhere already, and some of it is so basic it makes Bisquik look complicated. I hate that I spent money on this and I hate everyone who didn’t stop me from spending money on this.

Baconcat says “So boring I passed out, see ya next week!”