DISCLAIMER: It has been recently discovered that your advice-giver's kitchen is completely infested with a common household pest known as the "confused flour beetle." So please think twice before taking advice from this individual, because 1) ew, there are tiny little bugs in all her dry goods, and 2) even those tiny little bugs are confused and stupid. Dear Amalah, Queen of Everything, I have an embarrassing problem, which I am sure you do not have because you are so polished and lovely. I have not been able to find an anti-perspirant that works for me. The deodorant part works fine, so it's not like I smell bad, but I get sweaty and it's completely disgusting. My question for you is: do you know an anti-perspirant that works? I do not mind if it is expensive, as this is clearly an important problem that is worth spending money to solve. Please help! If you can't help me, I don't know who can. You are the best! Name Withheld Because, Well, Duh Actually, you know who can help you? Sars and all her readers over at her advice column, The Vine. (That she does DAILY. Which means EVERY DAY.) The original... Read more →

Friday was a huge day in the exciting, glamorous life of Amalah. For starters, I finally got my car's stupid safety inspection renewed. It only took me two months! And $200 in tickets! Which, I KNOW, Parking Enforcement Lady. I KNOW. I'm aware that my inspection expired and you can slap $50 tickets on my windshield EVERY DAY and it WILL NOT MATTER, because I KNOW, but I don't have time. Also because I am chicken and will not drive to D.C.'s ONE LONE INSPECTION STATION by myself, because the neighborhood scares me. It's a very COPS kind of neighborhood, and our friends who had an apartment nearby finally moved because, you know, how much arson can you take before all the fire alarms and middle-of-the-night evacuations start really fucking with your sleep cycles? So I made Jason drive me, and he kept trying to explain the route he was taking to get there and how not to get lost because you know, the next time I'll totally be going by myself, because Jason still doesn't fully understand that he married a total child who will NEVER DRIVE TO THAT SCARY PLACE BY HERSELF, EVER. He's cute. So we got... Read more →

Last night, I surprised Jason by taking him out for a decadent, three-hour dining extravaganza for his birthday. A foodie's dream meal. All I can say this morning is: DAMN YOU MICHEL RICHARD! Damn you and your inventive and whimsical take on contemporary French cuisine! Damn you and your amazing nine-course tasting menu with the foie gras and the lobster and the three goddamn dessert courses! Damn you for the free birthday sorbet you sent out for Jason, because clearly, we had NOT HAD ENOUGH FOOD. Damn you and all that to hell! So yeah. Dinner was awesome, but my belly button popped out on the ride home. It's not a full outie yet, but it's close, and one more pudding cup may push it over the edge. Jason thinks it's cute. I think he can go to hell too. Read more →

(Also an interlude to say HAPPY 29th BIRTHDAY JASON! Whee! Whoo! I hope you love the new fancy camera that you bought for yourself, because really, I am very thoughtful like that.) BUT FIRST, A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SMACKDOWN Y'all, the Advice Smackdown was never intended to become an actual advice column. Really. One Wednesday, back in April 2004, I was bored and without inspiration so I bugged some friends to send me funny and fake questions so I could answer them with The Worst Possible Advice in a somewhat humorous fashion. This continued until we all got really sick of it. Early results were mixed. Eh. There was also extensive mockery of Blaire from The Facts of Life. Mostly, it was just me acting like a hyperactive ass. Then somewhere along the line, people started sending in REAL questions. I think it all started with a question about hair. And then I started getting questions about things I knew nothing about, but felt obligated to sort of fake it, so I'd do some Google University or fashion mag research and bullshit my way through. And now the stupid thing is a full-fledged advice column thing. And a weird... Read more →

(Yes, I went to a sushi restaurant this weekend. But no, I did not eat raw fish, so calm down.) (I've officially reached the stage of pregnancy where my diet has suddenly become The Entire World's Bizness, so even the parking valet was all, "Sushi for baby? Really?" No, dipshit, sushi for husband, veggie tempura for me, and delicious, wholesome placenta for baby.) (Placenta laced with sake. Rice wine is good for babies, right? Because of...rice?)* *Hello! This is a joke. Please don't email me. So we went to a sushi restaurant and sat at the bar, atop the most uncomfortable stools I have ever put my ass on, pregnant or not. I spent the first 20 minutes of our meal bitching about said stools and struggling to find a comfortable position and then promptly taking the martyrrific "No, it's okay" stance when Jason asked if I wanted to get an actual table instead. I spent the next 20 minutes eavesdropping on the couple seated next to us. Because lo, he was an asshole, and she was slowly discovering that maybe he was kind of an asshole, and it was FASCINATING. He was the kind of asshole who, when asked... Read more →

Blrrptt! Geffrribbddlle! And also, plrrawwr! So the work thing, not getting any easier, that. But does your job make you wear a lampshade collar? No? Then shut the hell up, Mom. Love, Glowy McEyeball. Ceiba's eyes are much better. A checkup on Tuesday revealed that the puncture wound in her right eye has all but healed and the infection is gone from both eyes. Yay for the ointment in a tube! The lampshade collar is a thing of the past, but the pictures, they are FOREVER. And? I have nothing else to say. Here. Belly at 25 weeks. Going to sleep now. To sleep, perchance to dream. To dream of the days when I did not live in fear of a violent belly button eruption, which seems to be quite imminent, especially since Jason CANNOT STOP POKING AT IT. Even the baby is rolling his eyes in there about the supreme lameness of this post. Read more →

Yesterday's all-day meeting went well, or at least was going well until I had to open my gigantic trap and propose some big huge idea that is so absolutely brilliant that Very Important Work People who previously thought my name was probably Annie or Jaime or Blond Girl are now personally congratulating me on my brilliance. Which is all well and good, except that I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning wracked with terror and stress and oh-my-God-what-have-I-done because now I have three months to make all this brilliance happen and I HAVE NO TIME FOR EXTRA BRILLIANT PROJECTS. You have no idea how much extra work I've made for myself. I am really so very stupid sometimes. So every day until the baby gets here will pretty much feel like this. But since I'm really, really (REALLY) behind on the advice questions, I'm writing a column anyway. And I started it at 5 a.m. after waking up in the aforementioned panic with an overwhelming urge to make to-do lists, but instead started banging out advice while half-asleep. So yeah. It's probably all shit. Sorry. Amalah, Lovely Soul: I have a blog. I am not linking the blog here,... Read more →

Big important meetings all day today, folks. Place your bets on the following: 1) How many times I'll need to leave and pee. 2) How many times I'll get distracted by Squishy's acrobatics and completely lose track of the conversation, then totally make some bullshit up to cover this fact. 3) How many sandwiches I'll eat at lunch, and in what manner I will kill anyone who dares comment on how many sandwiches I eat at lunch. In the meantime, please enjoy some random pictures, taken by our brand! new! camera! A Canon Digital Rebel XT, which is Jason's father's day AND birthday AND Christmas present for the next five years. (To balance out the gifting universe, I bought a new purse.) (Coach sent me a 25% off preferred customer coupon! Twenty-five percent off! I couldn't afford NOT to use that!) (How does one get to be a preferred Coach customer, you may ask? Well, I started getting the coupons and invitations to seasonal unveiling parties right around the same time I added my handbag collection to our homeowners' insurance policy, so I'm guessing you just need to spend gobs and gobs and gobs of money first.) Anyway. Pictures. Moving... Read more →

Last weekend was the weekend we thought we might lose the baby. This weekend was the weekend we thought we might lose Ceiba's eyeballs. Seriously, y'all, can we get a break over here? When I came home on Friday I had Big Plans of Doing Nothing. We were going to order Indian food. We were going to sit on the couch. We were going to watch Band of Brothers for the hundredth time and I was possibly going to treat myself to a small glass of red wine, because SERIOUSLY. But then I opened my front door and got beaned in the leg by my dog, who could not see a BLESSED THING, because both of her eyes were completely sealed shut by goop and pus and eyeball-crust nastiness. And yet I was determined to save my Evening of Nothing. So I sacrificed one of our guest towels and washed her eyes out with some warm water. Within five minutes the pus reappeared, so I called the vet and tried to convince them to prescribe some antibiotic ointment to me OVER THE PHONE, because apparently I know ALL ABOUT THIS STUFF. She just has a little eye infection! She had... Read more →

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