February 2012
2 posts
How To Rob (An ATM)
Early Friday morning, I noticed that our front door looked like this:
“Has the door always been blacked out like that?” I thought, as I rushed away. “Yeah, probably.”
It hasn’t.
It had been spray-painted sometime after midnight the night before, when I got home. This is assuming that my sub-par observational powers hadn’t failed me then.
Some...
What The Fuck Is Juice?
julienducastel: i have a stupid question
me: how can i help? (there are no stupid questions)
julienducastel: who the fuck is lana del rey?
me: ha ha
julienducastel: i see that name everywhere
me: she's a singer who was supposed to be huge then crashed and burned on SNL
julienducastel: how did she crash and burn?
me: i am not exactly sure
julienducastel: copy. so... no one important. check.
January 2012
5 posts
Spill The Wine; Take That Pearl
On Christmas Eve, I was helping my mom improve her Gchat skills—I wish I could say this was a tradition—when I spilled a glass of red wine on my year-old laptop. My dad had asked my mom if it was okay to give me a crystal goblet for my wine, which is a joke dads make, but in my case it’s not a rhetorical question. The computer did some things that made it seem like Gremlins...
November 2011
4 posts
Breakfast of tourists
There is a lot about this picture you can’t discern by looking at it.
Matthew and I got up at 4 AM to go to the daily Tokyo fish market auction, which, according to our guidebook, was supposed to be the best tourist attraction in the city. We thought about sleeping in until 4:30, but as you can see in the picture, that was not necessary: I’m well rested and wide awake. After making...
Never forget
When I go to Asia, I like to get eyelash extensions. If you like to get different souvenirs, I’m not going to criticize you. I decided to do this my last morning in Tokyo because I didn’t want to waste Matthew’s time with my need for quality, affordable fake lashes. He was leaving early in the morning and my flight wasn’t until four. But the night before when I asked the...
October 2011
4 posts
The Me Decade
Ten years ago on Halloween, I got my first job offer. It was to be an editorial assistant at Footwear News. I was thrilled, a reaction possibly intensified because when I got the call I was babysitting. As a fun activity, the mom asked me to take the kid to the children’s Halloween parade in Washington Square Park, where I had to carry her around in circles while like five people and homeless guys...
Big in Japan
Matthew has been on sabbatical this fall. In case you guys don’t know what a sabbatical is, it’s when you get to ditch work for three months and still get paid even though you’re in Bali or Hong Kong or Hanoi and not at work. He invited me to join him for the last week, and I even got to pick the place! We’re going to Tokyo, land of my Airfarewatchdog.com alert for the last...
The Lady Doth Not Protest Too Much
Occupy Wall Street has been going on for a couple of weeks here and, as of last week, other parts of the country held similar demonstrations. I’ve been mostly uninterested in all of this and, as it’s becoming clear the movement’s no longer nascent, I’ve started to wonder why. In 2003, I protested in Times Square against going to war with Iraq, and in 2008, knocked on doors throughout Pennsylvania...
I'm going through changes
“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” says Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby. What I remember most about The Great Gatsby is a torturous discussion in high school English about what the green light on the dock symbolized, but when I looked her up, I found out that she’s a “beautiful, cynical young woman.” My favorite kind of person to take advice...
September 2011
1 post
I knew I wasn't drinking enough coffee!
Women who drink four cups of coffee a day are 20 percent less likely to become depressed than women who rarely drink coffee, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
August 2011
4 posts
I’ve haven’t seen anything about this on the Internet, which is possibly because I’m the only fan Denise Richards has, but this story about her first date with Charlie Sheen upsets me. This is what happened when she went over to his house to watch a baseball game, according to her new book The Real Girl Next Door (don’t panic — I only read excerpts):
“Rather than order in food, I...
I wear pink shorts
At the beginning of the summer, my mom bought me a pair of hot pink shorts, after a brief dressing-room discussion about whether the color was too bright to be worn on the human body. I put them on immediately. My friend Chad actually shielded his eyes when I got out of the car in front of his house for dinner that night. Since then, they’ve had a triumphant run: I’ve worn them to lounge in...
I don't have anything else to do with these...
On Friday, I did what I always do on Fridays: groomed myself excessively. I went to Sephora in Times Square to check out their eyebrow studio because I am writing an article on brow shaping (people need to know). When I was there, the manager very nicely asked me if I wanted to have some free photos taken of myself by a fancy photographer, who also shoots models and Netflix ads. Since I don’t have...
July 2011
5 posts
Where Am I Headed?
I went to check out the Canadian side of Niagara Falls yesterday, and as I got closer to border security, I prepared. I felt sort of intimidated, the way that I do before entering into any situation—parties, doctors appointments—where strangers are going to ask me personal questions. I turned the radio down and got my passport out.
I was done for after the first question.
“Where are you going?”...
Why I Can't Be a Basketball Wife
When I saw this profile of La La Anthony, wife of Carmelo, I thought, “Finally.” La La is one of those people who’s poked around my consciousness for months now. I hear her name but don’t understand who she is or why her name is repeated so often. Then I read the profile, got how awesome she is, and decided I wanted to be her.
Five Reasons Why I Want to Be La La
1. Her...
June 2011
6 posts
Enemy at the Coffee Shop
I have to work today, even though it’s supposed to be my day off. So I wasn’t super enthused to be up and dressed and in the coffee shop this morning when a three-year old sidled up to me. I was at the front of the line, but I guess if I were three or could get away with it, I wouldn’t respect a line either. She ignored me, but said loudly enough for me to hear, “Mom, when am I getting my manicure...
Dear Pippa Middleton,
It’s on.
Sincerely,
Kayleen
P.S. Call me when your picture is in ESPN The Magazine.
P.P.S. I don’t know if you’re much of a reader, but here’s the whole story.
My version of Weiner's press conference
You know how sometimes the best way to stop doing something that is bad for you is to talk about it publically? I’m giving it a try. You guys, I’ve been watching The Bachelorette. Again. I promised myself I wouldn’t tune in for another season after the one with the brunette model who was so boring that I can’t remember anything about her except that she had shiny hair. But I’ve relapsed. I...
The Hangover Part II Revisted
Since “The Hangover Part II” was a sub-par movie, three of my favorite fellows recreated it this Saturday in Philly. We begin immediately after a college rugby tournament where The University of Texas Longhorns have just made the quarterfinals. The boys are all very excited, since they’ve figured out they look smashing in burnt orange and that repping the Horns is a lot of fun. So they...
Why I Am More Awesome Than Pippa Middleton
I run a lot – and have for about nine years – but I’d never entered an actual race before last weekend. This is because until then no one offered to pay me to do it. But when I got a magazine assignment to cover Tough Mudder, the 10-mile obstacle challenge that involves getting sweatier and dirtier than I’m usually comfortable being, they said they wanted it to be participatory. This is...
May 2011
2 posts
My birthday trip
officially began when the TSA worker at the airport checked my passport and wished me Happy Birthday! She totally made up for the other TSA lady in Lubbock, Texas, who got a little too friendly while giving me a full-body patdown (or as I like to call it, a Texas handshake).
What's Past Is Prologue
I’ve heard rumors that there are billions of abandoned blogs on the Internet. Kayleen Grows in Brooklyn, I will not abandon you. Herewith, some of my recent activities:
After 9.5 years in New York, I finally got to check this off my to-do list: Go to the opening night of a Broadway play that Sarah Jessica Parker was also at. This is not as hard as it sounds. I’ve heard she makes movies these days...
April 2011
1 post
March 2011
7 posts
I got my Kindle before I got this blog, and after I finished reading my first book on it, I wrote about it in a private note to myself (I would never call this private note to myself part of a journal because that would make me sound old, which I’m not):
“I finished reading my first book on a Kindle. The book was Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck. This is a work of literature that I would...
Face time
I don’t have to work on Fridays, but because no one else is around to play with me, these days have become increasingly self-absorbed. Yesterday, I got five beauty treatments. A haircut, highlights, a facial, my eyebrows groomed, and, for good measure, a make-up touch-up. This is what the lady at the Chanel counter offers you when you walk by with no makeup on—“Would you like a...
February 2011
4 posts
Today, Justin sent me a text regarding my placement of Mac’s food near his litter box. It read, “Re: cat, No one likes to eat where they shit.”
Later, I came home and saw this:
Apparently some people like to drink beer where they shit.
Why I Can No Longer Hate the Fish Tank in the...
This is Mac, my cat for a week. I purposely picked an unflattering picture of him because he kept me up all night by alternately crying and running around the room. His general temperament reminded me of Ellen Burstin’s in “Requiem for a Dream.”
He also mocked me while I was doing my super awesome in-room calisthenics.
It’s cool having him around, though. Justin was a little alarmed when he...
prevailing winds of affluence: rock and roll? →
“The girls there do not…hold forth on anything Internet related.”
prevailingwindsofaffluence:
I’ve been getting pretty upset lately each time we go to rock shows at clubs. Everyone younger than me (majority) seems like a nightmare. They stand still, hold up their digital cameras, drink expensive beer, and don’t get wild. WTF?
But…..potential solution. The once-defunct club...
January 2011
2 posts
After the Fall: A Rough and Tumble Tale
In the winter, I am bad at some things. (Everyone say it together now: “Like blogging.”) The other night my problem was walking. I fell down on some ice, and even though I was wearing my pre-frayed jeans that have a hole in the knee, I managed to rip open a spot right above this hole. So now my jeans have two holes and a bloodstain. Who says I can’t break in my own clothes? When I got home, I was...
WatchOffice as snow globe.
December 2010
5 posts
