Where the cherry pie tastes like childhood...

Unlike the last time I tried to take a break from my editrixing duties, this time around I've promised myself to make like double-sided tape and stick to that commitment. My darkened undereyes and throaty bedroom voice brought on by the seven months of no more than six-and-a-half hours of sleep a night run in direct contrast to the it's-important-to-take-care-of-your-physical-appearance dogma on which ASJINE was founded, and as you know, I find almost nothing more repulsive than a hypocrite.

Therefore, for the next six days, I vow to do nothing but sleep 'til noon, go directly from my jammies to my bikini, sleep lakeside on the chaise, watch my city-pup discover life off the leash and complement my mug of morning coffee with a slice of tastes-like-childhood Cherry Hut cherry pie.

And then sleep some more.

See you next Friday!

Best minidress of 2007: Cameron Diaz

Aside from her home-kit-looking transitioning-back-to-blonde hair color and the recylced-too-soon metallic pointy-toed pumps, last night Cameron Diaz donned my favorite cocktail party look of the year - and perhaps my favorite mini EVER - at a post-VH1 Rock Honors soiree at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

The liquid jersey fabric, the reasonably short hem, the high neck, the cinched waist, the 3/4 pouf sleeves, the unique criss-cross twist with button detailing back, the blue tourmaline jewel tone -- this dress and the fit of this dress are flawless.

The charcoaled eyes, the sunkissed skin, the minimal accessories - just two gold-and-pearl bangles, a cocktail ring and skinny hoops - it's like Cammy took a page out of my own style book.

Now if I could just get her to ditch the witch-points and go for something like these instead, we'd be all set.

Well, except for that whole went-through-the-Bass-o-Matic looking face* of hers...


*don't be fooled by these she-doesn't-look-that-bad pictures -- let's just say I didn't include a close-up for a very good reason.

Quote of the day: Camerion Diaz

"If a woman who's a successful actress weighs 300 pounds and has warts, nobody ever asks her, 'Do you think you made it because you're ugly?' so why should there be a prejudice against someone who's had some success in films and looks a little better than average? It's all in my genes, so don't hold it against me."

(Cameron Diaz in an interview with Jeanne Wolf on movies.com)

Um, I'm not sure what "better than average" means in Cameron Diaz's world, but in mine, it doesn't look like this and it doesn't try to win pity points with a half-baked, fat-people-(with-warts)-have-it-so-easy argument.

And let's not forget, self-declared pretty girl, that your biggest paychecks and box-office revenues have come through two films where audiences had a reprieve from your on-screen "presence" by only having to endure your whine against a green-screen, not your toothy pumpkin mug chortling at your own unfunny, poorly-delivered comedic lines (i.e. the entirety of The Sweetest Thing). Coincidence? Yeah, not so much.

I could sit here today and write an epic poem the length of Faerie Queen, an academic essay as well-evidenced and persuasive as a Tom Christensen piece and a short story as taut and punishing as a Dorothy-Parker-penned Harper's contribution all devoted to the topic of why this beast should be shuttled off without her ProActiv to a remote, humid location surrounded by real mirrors, not the funhouse variety she's clearly been using up to this point.

But it's Friday, it's sunny and I can't allow Hollywood's most unfortunate-looking blond and her retard logic to suck the joy out of my good hair day and post-work-plans anticipation.

For the record, my definition of "better than average" is somewhere between Claire Danes and Sandra Bullock.

The pajama strut.

"If there is a city that needs your help more than DC does, it is Shanghai. Representative sample attached."

Picture courtesy of my friend E who is doing his darndest to convince himself it was a sound decision to leave the comforts of a country where women don't do the "pajama strut" and head East - waaay East - to that mythical place everyone foolishly puts on their I've-always-wanted-to-go-there list and where even in its most cosmopolitan city the food sold on the street might be labeled "chicken with spices" but is more likely ground cat-paw covered in dumpster sauce.

Yes, my boy E is in the funpark that is Mainland China, where indulgences and state-borne ideas run rampantly, gloriously and with a security detail as inconspicuous as a liberal at a gun-range.

As much as I enjoyed this picture - admittedly, more for the "challenged-looking" fellow with the cowlick poking out from behind the wall on the left than for the fashion subject - it was this next line of E's e-mail that got me most hot and bothered:

"By the way, 'Serious Job' appears to be blocked in China."

My benign, little blog...blocked?

At first, I thought it was pretty cool to be on par with the BBC and occasionally CNN in terms of my threat-level to the Chinese government, but once the cold-hard truth set in and I realized my pearls of fashion wisdom and opals of celebrity insight weren't able to reach China's enormously style-challenged female population (pajamas to work are the least of their problems, believe me), I became quite upset, especially considering how much of my life I've devoted to this mother-'effing country. After I allowed it to swallow up the better part of my early to mid-20s, after I endured months of listening to their crappy, melodramatic pop music, after the trauma - okay, excitement - of being approached in the Tianjin Guoji Dasha Starbucks to be "very special, well-paid personal assistant" to a Mr. Li Wang who was half my height and shooting me the unsexiest sexy-eyes I'd seen since Cameron Diaz in Vanilla Sky, after being forced to eat barbecued dog cartilage twice a week while living in a city whose only Western food outlet was a Popeye's that didn't have mashed potatoes or soft-serve -- this is how my Red friends re-pay me?

Hmpf.

Even if Paul Giamatti gets naked, I'll see it.

"Mr. Smith delivers a woman's baby during a shootout, and is then called upon to protect the newborn from an army of gunmen."

This is the uh, intriguing tagline for a to-be-released-this-September film called Shoot 'Em Up I vow to see no fewer than four times in the theater, eight times on DVD, and like Road House, Rising Sun and Commando before it, will receive a rare standing offer to remain un-channel-changed until the credits roll whenever the monkeys at TNT decide to anoint it "a new classic" and air it every other Sunday afternoon.

Why?

Well, let's begin with this "Mr. Smith." Imagine if you will the last famous movie character with that moniker and add a deeper, throatier British accent, a more believable I'll-fu**ing-kill-him-if-he-looks-at-you intensity and broader shoulders. That's right, this Mr. Smith is no fussy family man but rather the James Bond who should've been, my number one man-crush, Clive Owen.

I can hear my friends now, "Okay...but you didn't rush to see Derailed, so what's the big deal?" First off, Jennifer Aniston playing a seductress would have made the $6 worth of Chipotle in my tummy come right back up where it went down, and second...well, there is no second.

The big deal, readers, is that in addition to listening to Clive's voice for 120 minutes, his lady love in this sure-to-be big hot mess is none other than Monica Bellucci. That's right, just like the perfect storms of hotness that are the duos Bush/Cheney, McAdams/Gosling and Johanna/Montesquieu, higher forces have finally brought together the two most crave-worthy specimens in Hollywood.

Paul Giamatti playing the leader of the aforementioned "army of gunmen" notwithstanding - does anyone else think he should stick to self-deprecating comedy? - after seeing these two photos, the first released stills from Shoot 'Em Up, I know not even last-minute cast additions of Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz could keep me away from opening afternoon.

Casual never looked so alluring.

Because I consider Oscar night as serious and as endurance-necessary an event as a Princeton dual-race, I stayed in last night, ate a well-balanced sugar-free dinner, opted for Fresca over Stella and went to bed at a reasonable 11:30pm.

I had planned to On Demand "An Inconvenient Truth" - pretty much the last nominated film I'd yet to take in - but in the end, I just couldn't fork over $3.99 to spend my Saturday night learning about diminishing ice-caps and indirectly supporting Cameron Diaz going makeup-free at yet another hybrid-required green carpet event.

No, instead, I flipped to channel 49 and caught one of the 365 films chosen by the TCM network as part of their "31 Days of Oscar."

Rarely can I ever catch a film in its entirety on cable, but last night the stars aligned - and why wouldn't they on Oscar-eve? - and I was able to watch for the first time all 150 sweeping minutes of the Meryl Streep, Robert Redford classic, Out of Africa.

Not since The English Patient has khaki casual looked so divinely inviting.

Whether toiling in the coffee fields, on safari in the bush or sipping whiskey with Denys in wicker porch chairs listening to Mozart on the gramophone, Baroness Blixen was head-to-toe the lady in varying degrees of fitted khaki, rolled-sleeved oxford shirts, distressed caramel-colored riding boots and when the occasion called for it, simple structured hats and waist-cinched tea-length sheaths. In short, the perfect country-house attire.

It takes a quite a film - and quite a costuming director's eye - to make this can't-live-without-bronzer girl want to trade the Fendi high-waisted crepe trousers she doesn't even have yet for dust-stained dungarees and her sideswept bangs for sweat-stuck tendrils.

Then again, it might be because I assumed those matted tendrils came with a complimentary wash-and-rinse and Coleridge recitation from Mr. Redford.

The magical mini dress

The mini dress has been touted as the item to have since last winter. For a trend that can only be worn by a select few, let my rephrase, *should* be worn only by a select few, the minidress has stayed remarkably in vogue for months. Those singing its praises in the early days were primarily the style watchers who work for elite fashion magazines; you know the kind, those who put items from Barney's CO-OP in their token don't-break-the-bank features. I'm usually wary to listen to any advice those people give, not because I think they're wrong - not at all - but because I know I'm not part of their target audience. That being said, in the beginning of this whole mini dress phenomenon, I tried not be wooed by it. Let me be clear, the operational definition of "mini dress" is the high-fashion mini, not the tops-turned-dresses Britney's lady bits have been peeking out of lately. Up until July, I had convinced myself the mini was an impractical, undignified, just-not-me article of clothing. I liked not having my bare ass exposed to taxi cab vinyl, and with the strong winds that come out of nowhere in DC...from an analytic standpoint, donning a dress cut 8 inches above my knee didn't make sense. Down boys, down.

But then the East Village happened. That part of New York is fashion Narnia for me. When I first found myself at the corner of 9th and some letter street, it wasn't the fashion that drew me to the neighborhood, it was the Cuban restaurant with the spicy corn on the cob, the old record store that had an entire section of hard-to-find Teddy Wilson music, and the conveniently situated Rite-Aid that carried the ever elusive Diet Minute Maid orange soda. After a few blocks and a mouthful of corn, I discovered its true draw -- the vintage stores. Oh, the vintage stores!

It was in one of these lovely, tucked away little shops that my scorn for the minidress made an abrupt transition to adoration. In the space of one sunny July afternoon, I fell in love. Like most relationships, falling in love with my ivory knit mini dress with exaggerated puff sleeves and girly collar wasn't an easy or immediate process. As many vintage stores are, the racks at this particular store were so jam-packed in a melange of varying colors, fabrics, and styles that I got both a headache and a tricep workout moving each hanger. Fortunately, the drama in my dress was so severe I caught it right away. When I liberated it from the others, I truly had a moment. One of those I-will-never-forget-this-moment moments. I had just found my favorite dress. If in that store, that day, at that moment, I had been given the chance to swap that dress with any other dress - even this Marchesa dress - I wouldn't have. That's how much I loved it. And it wasn't even a mini when I found it, but thanks to Ahmet at Marrakesh, an alteration store a few doors down, it was 3 hours later. The store where I found my prize dress is unfortunately no longer in business, but that makes the story that much more charming. It's as if it appeared for the sole purpose of bringing my dress and me together, and once we'd found each other, poof, it was gone -- off to matchmake somewhere else.

The story of my magical mini dress is one I'm sure I'll tuck my daughter into bed with one day. It's about as face-to-face with fantasy as I've ever come. Or ever will. The life lesson, or fashion lesson, is to never close your mind to something before you try it. You may just get lucky like I did and fall head-over-stilettos in love.

The picture of Cameron Diaz really serves no purpose other than to reinforce the point that a minidress is indeed magical. She actually doesn't look heinous in this photo, does she? Not from the neck down, anyway.

Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize

It was an indelible life lesson my Mother imparted to me: if ever caught between getting somewhere on time and looking your best, always choose the latter. At the tender age of 26, I've come to realize this can't always be the case, especially if the place at which you are expected involves an important meeting or the birth of a child (though photographic evidence proves my Mom was in full debutante force when both my brother and I were born). It also doesn't apply if you're so far down the ugly path that a well-executed beauty regiment would still have you looking like Cameron Diaz. Come on, people, we've all been pretending for too long she's not beastly-looking.

Let's start at the beginning. It's morning, you've taken your shower, you've blotted off (use the towel to blot, not wipe, so as to avoid unnecessary skin aggravation), so what's next? If you said "get dressed," then thank goodness you're here, because that is NOT the right answer. What you should do is reach for the moisturizer. It doesn't need to be from Kiehl's, it doesn't have to smell like J'adore, it just has to be lotion. Let's not be lazy here, not only do your arms and legs need attention but so do your toes, your bottom, and your armpits. Everyday. And if you aren't limber enough to reach your back, get a man to do it. Unlike stale married conversation, slathering cream on your unreachable bits is a routine he'll look forward to.

The great thing about the skin on your body (unlike that on your face) is that it truly is never too late to make a major difference in its appearance. The way I try to think about it is that this is an investment in your skin, both in terms of money and time. The returns are worth every bit of your sacrifice. The tan you earned lounging by your friend's rooftop pool will last longer, you'll be able to go hose-free well into Fall, and you'll rock that Julie Haus dress with the exaggerated keyhole back like you never thought you could.

Every day since I was seven, no matter if I had pneumonia, was spending the night in a yurt in Inner Mongolia, or wallowing in a Veuve stupor over a man "who just can't," rest assured my skin was hydrated. And yours should be, too.

My favorite reasonably-priced moisturizers:
1. Oil of Olay Quench Body Lotion (CVS, $7.99 for 13.5oz)
2. St. Ives Vitamin E Advanced Body Lotion (CVS, $5.29 for 18 oz)
3. Vaseline Intensive Care Renewal Age Redifining Lotion (CVS, $5.99 for 20.3oz)

My favorite over-priced moisturizers:
1. Mistral Melon-Pear Olive Oil Lotion (Anthropologie, $20 for 10.8oz)
2. Fresh Sugar Shea Butter (sephora.com, $38 for 3.5oz)
3. Archipeligo Sugar Cane & Coconut Lotion (beautyexplorer.com, $24 for 15oz)