Most important news today… our very own fabulous, talented and amazing co-founder, Jessica, reached an incredible milestone… DIRTY THIRTY!!!!!!! 

Not only is Jessica the co-creator of Shady, but she’s also health editor for LAist, a writer for the Los Feliz Ledger (dominating the front page every single issue, let’s be real) and just recently became a contributing writer for The Jewish Journal AND Jewcy!!!! Dude, what a JEW. She also happens to be a smashing good dancer, a snazzy dresser and my own personal inspiration for J-OWN (read: Jew-own. If you don’t know what they means, you’re a Shady virgin, and keep reading). 

Jess, we love you, mazel tov on this awesome, much-anticipated day. You’re incredible!!!! 

(Now read on… because there are two brand new, damn good posts below). 

Fall is always a time of reflection for me. Dropping temperatures and the beginning of football season trigger thoughts of new beginnings and inspire me to reflect back on times past. On this Yom Kippur, this gentile has realized an unsettling personal defect: I am commitment phobic.

Looking back, I see all the telltale signs. A string of romantic relationships that lasted no more than three months. An even longer string of jobs that lasted no more than 18 months. Just when things start to get serious – when my boss starts talking promotions, or I am assigned a major client or project, I start looking for escape routes. Next week marks the second anniversary of my employment at my current job. This is a major milestone for me as I’ve never been at a job for more than two years. I never even kept the same college work-study job for two full academic years.

I’ve been too busy lately to see this day coming. I haven’t worked on my resume in – well, two years. I am not prepared. And now I feel like this day is about to crush me like a giant elephant sitting on my chest. I can feel the self-destructive behavior struggling for control.

Lacking an actual therapist, I turn to Wikipedia for help. “The commitmentphobic mind sees decisions as permanent, opening the possibility of being caged or trapped forever with no means of escape.” I can feel my heart rate rising just reading these words.

But I can overcome, right? I can push past this psychological disorder and realize it’s just a job. I live in California , a state with at-will employment laws. I could be laid off at any moment, for no reason. (Why is this thought strangely reassuring?) My employer need not be committed to me. Even when I pass the two year mark, I need not be committed to them. Not in a cage, anyhow. Perhaps this bird can change. Something tells me that, tempting as it may be, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd is off-limits for at least the next two weeks.

Here’s why you should read this blog, which details my friend Shannah’s trip to Uganda:

If you are going to the latrine in the night, and you are wearing your headlamp so you don’t trip over the cow, it is QUITE LIKELY that you will be followed by a bat. And he will get there first. And then, it is him or you. Probably him.

She went to teach in a grade school there, and is staying with a family in the village. Her blog is hilarious, it’s humbling, it’s amazing. Get in there.

I don’t know about you, but I was so distracted this week by the d-r-a-m-a in the ANTM house that I barely even paid attention to the challenge.

Dividing lines were drawn between Team Ashley (Sundai, Ashley and Lulu) and Team Bianca (Bianca, then later Britney, Lauren, Kara and Nicole) as Team Ashley spent the entire episode ripping new assholes to everyone who wandered within 50 feet of their snarky little clique. The occasional treatment was delivered to someone’s face, but the majority were behind the other girls’ backs. I can never understand why reality show contestants do that. Breaking news, ladies! YOU ARE ON TV. WE CAN HEAR YOU. When you shit talk everyone in the house, it’s gonna wind up in the show. Yes — even if you whisper.

Anyway, I did manage to pick up that the girls were learning how to walk the runway this week. Along with the fabulous and poufy-sleeved Miss Jay, the girls met (briefly) Diva Davanna, a nine-year-old who had been catwalking since the age of four. I think it’s safe to say that we all have a little something to learn from her, no?

The girls then had a walk-off; or technically, participated in a fashion show. Brittany killed it even despite Team Ashley’s attempts to undermine her confidence in a practice sesh back at the house (”soften your eyes!”), and frankly, I was cheering her on because Lulu and Ashley were getting on my damn nerves.

Later, the ladies did a photo shoot in which they were asked to lengthen themselves using the magic of the camera. Lulu nearly made herself sick from all the haterade she consumed watching the other girls’ shoots, and then BAM! She got what she had coming — despite being “one of the cutest ones,” (that courtesy of Nigel, in a rare display of heterosexuality), her ass got sent hiz-ome.

One final thought: wondering why Laura sounds so familiar? It’s because her accent sounds exactly like Sookie’s!

Tune in again next week.

I fucking love this guy.

I finally got around to watching last week’s America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), JUST in time for tonight’s new ep. This season it’s all about the shorties (haha, amazing) which, as a shorty myself — 5′3.5 — I appreciate. But that aside, ANTM is getting weirder and more uncomfortable, courtesy of of Tyra, with every passing season. Last week, shit got tense, awkward, and then downright embarrassing.

First, the remaining 13 girls had a surprise meeting with Sean Patterson, President of Wilhemina Models. After each girl had a one-on-one with him, none of which went particularly well, Nigel announced that — twist! — the girl who had performed particularly atrociously in her one-on-one would be getting sent home. Shock ensued, and poor Rachel, who kind of looked like a bug anyway, got the axe.

Following that, of course, the episode maintained an air of foreboding and mystery, like anything could happen.

And, it did.

There’s really nothing else to say about what went down besides….why, Tyra, WHY???? Why do you DO those SKITS??

Tyra started doing quick interludes of “”"”"”acting”"”"”"” a few seasons back, where she would just appear in front of the girls and suddenly do something absurd. She’s been known to pretend to choke, to cry and to have something like an epileptic seizure. But last week was truly, I feel safe in saying, the most horrific display to date.

She swooped in to the middle of a photo shoot wearing a nerdy trench coat and glasses. When she started to peel off the coat, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who prayed, for a split second, that she hadn’t completely lost her mind, and was in fact wearing clothes under there.

But as it turned out, nudity may have been better than what we witnessed. Tyra was dressed in shiny black lycra, as “Super Smize.”

Smize: as in, “smile with your eyes,” the modeling trick that she was teaching the girls how to do in this episode.

Tyra did a few poses to demonstrate how to smize (to which my astute bf commented: “She’s not actually doing anything.” Think Blue Steel.) and then spent some equally awkward time with each of them in front of a mirror, showing them how to do smize just as good.

The girls then paraded out in front of the cameras in their own lycra get-ups, which gave the vast majority of them cringe-inducing cameltoe, and stepped onto platforms to be judged. In an uncomfortable reenactment of a burqua, Tyra had them cover everything but their eyes so she could size up their Smize.The only hitch? One of the girls has a medical condition that renders her left eye all but unusable. Apparently, no one on the show thought that forcing her to use it anyway in front of millions of viewers would be at all uncomfortable. After all, this is the fashion world!!

Anyway, the girls were then photographed posing topless with a racehorse and a jockey while Smizing, and predictably, most of them choked (except for Kentucky Laura who proclaimed to “love nudity” — curious to see where that plotline takes us).

Judged by none other than Lauren Conrad, who looked hilariously pissed when Tyra introduced her as a “super duper huge reality star…and, she’s a clothing designer,” the ensuing deliberation sent broken-footed Courtney home. But not before Tyra had the chance to say this about Lulu’s picture:

“I think Lulu is smizing with her eyes.”

You know — smiling with her eyes, with her eyes.

I was watching the Oprah/Whitney Houston interview (Tivo!) and thinking about people who are born for a certain career or have a real passion for their work. I’ve never really felt like that kind of person (read: I’ve had a lot of jobs). Yet in the past year, data analysis has become a big part of my job, which I find weirdly satisfying. I realize that for me, turning pages of numbers into pretty charts and graphs is the adult equivalent of organizing a pile of crayons. I get to figure out what makes the most sense – rainbow color order (ROYGBIV), alphabetical by Crayola color name (apricot to yellow orange), or even from most stubby to most unused (gray, am I right?).

Just thinking about crayons leads me down a path of neuroses. The tinge of regret when I realize I have to start pulling back the paper on the crayon. The irritation when other kids put the crayons in the wrong slot in the box. The complete confusion when families kept their crayons in old plastic ice cream tubs, Crayolas all mixed up with off-brand crayons collected from birthday party favors or kids meals at Shoney’s. These crayons were rounded on BOTH ends, wrappers half torn off, tiny paper bits scattered in with mysterious waxy stubs that could be black or blue or purple but I can’t tell which without using them.

Unable to complain openly about these perceived transgressions as a child, they now manifest as “errors” and “data anomalies” and I get to point them out and complain. In fact, it’s my JOB to highlight them and explain why they’re wrong. It’s like tattling on bad children but without the threat of getting beaten up after school.

Ahhhh… satisfaction!

*SPOILER ALERT!!*

OMG, you guys. OMG. Another year until we find out what happened to Bill. I don’t think my poor little heart can handle it.

To recap last night:

We all knew (finally!) that Maryann is a Maenad. And we found out from the vampire queen — played terrifically poorly by Evan Rachel Wood — that Maenads’ one and only goal in life is to be killed by their very own god. Maryann needed to sacrifice someone for god to show up, and she wanted Sam Merlotte.

Fine and dandy. I’d tie Sam Merlotte up and do some nasty things to him too, but maybe of a slightly different variety. Anyhoo, last night Bill called shenanigans on Sam’s holing up and steering clear of the people who wanted to drive a stake into him and dig out his beating, bleeding heart, and made him man up and face his would-be attackers. Together with Sookie, he and Sam saved the day. Maenad: dead. Bon Temps: saved. Jane’s finger: found.

Once that was said and done, another surprise: Bill took Sookie to a fancy French restaurant (”humans seem to like them”) and proposed. Sookie, all aflutter from her recent Maenad smackdown, ran to the bathroom crying (twist!). While she was in there, Bill got attacked by someone wrapping a chain around his neck and apparently, dragging him out of the restaurant. Sookie returned from the bathroom to find — dah dah dah! — an empty chair.

Not like we don’t all know who did it — ahem, Eric — but here’s my question. Excatly why would a chain to the throat matter to a vampire? It wasn’t specfically a silver chain or anything (yeah, I’ve been p[aying attention), so in theory, since vampires are dead, choking them would just kind of knock them off balance. If it made them stop breathing, like it would to a human, you have to think, how do they breathe? Do their hearts beat? Surely not. Then what do their hearts do? And then, why would Eric have used a chain to get Bill? None of it made any sense. It was like the writers for the Sopranos took chains to the throats of the writers for True Blood and wrote the end of the show.

And speaking of writing…I’m just going to be the one to say it. The writing on that show has gotten progressively worse, starting last week and culminating this week. I mean, last night’s dialogue was a carry-over of the same hokey drivel, which was so bad that I wanted to mute the TV a few times, and led Bill to say things like, “As long as you never come close to Sookie ever again.” Like a 7-year-old.

My final thoughts: I loooooove the new Jessica plotline. Seducing men in order to kill them? Get in there. And also — I will not forget about the random power that Sookie had over Maryann, and as God as my witness, if we don’t find out what that was all about next season, I will write a strongly worded letter to the producers. Mark my words.