I'm OK. You're OK.

Over the past few weeks, Able and I have been on a mission; a mission of self-help. We both picked up various self-help must-reads, the most epic being the classic manifesto of borderline personality disorder I Hate You, Don't Leave Me. You see, your dear bloggers happened to have been the victims of borderline lovers, a fate I would not wish on my worst nemesis (for reals). The borderline person is vengeful, full of rage, self-destructive, needy on the level of a newborn, and wonderfully manipulative. They also love you so much they would die for you one minute, and hate you so much they want you dead the next. The point is that this disorder and recovery from being close to someone who suffers from it have been at the forefront of our thinking here for a while, and has probably colored a good number of posts over the past few months. So now that I've sufficiently over-shared, let's get to the entertaining part: I've compiled a list of some songs that I love that were obviously written about one of these nutbags. Enjoy:

6. "Hate on Me" Jill Scott

5. "Battle for the Sun" Placebo

4. "Hot N' Cold" Katy Perry

3. "Sweet Side" Lucinda Williams

2. "Shadow" Britney Spears

1. "Shadowboxer" Fiona Apple

Happy Mother's Day!

Album Cover For the Weekend

Stacy Lattisaw, Sneakin' Out (1982).

Aural Diptych for Thursday

Love in this Club

Augustus Caesar.

I'm OK. You're OK.

Paul Signac and Lisa Frank

Some People Started Singing it not Knowing What it Was

I've always hated the expression "if walls could talk" but SERIOUSLY guys? Do you think they just went back and forth like "you're beautiful...no you're beautiful."

Now That We've Found Love What are We Gonna Do

Verses

"Sweet Side"

Lucinda Williams

You run yourself ragged

Tryin' to be strong

You feel bad when you done nothin' wrong

Love got all confused with anger and pride

So much abuse

On such a little child

Someone you trusted

Told you to shut up

Now there's a pain in your gut

That you can't get rid of

No one heard your screams

When you were nine

When bad dreams filled the summertime

So you don't always show your sweet side

You don't always show your sweet side

You're tough as steel

And you keep your chin up

You don't ever feel

Like you're good enough

You've had the blues

Ever since you were six

Your little tennis shoes

And your pick-up sticks

You were screamed at and kicked

Over and over

Now you always feel sick

And you can't keep a lover

Every Christmas there were presents to unwrap

But the things you witnessed

When you were five and a half...

So you don't always show your sweet side

You don't always show your sweet side

Someone deserted you,

The damage is done

Now you don't deserve to be loved

By no one

Hands that would feed you

When you were two

Were the same hands that beat you

Black and blue

You get defensive at every turn

You're overly sensitive

And overly concerned

Few precious memories

No lullabies

Hollowed out centuries of lies

You don't always show your sweet side

You don't always show your sweet side

I've seen you in the kitchen

Cooking me supper

I listened to you bitchin'

And I watched you suffer

I still love you baby

'Cause I know you

Don't mean to do the cruel things you do

I've seen you sewin' buttons on your shirt

I've seen you throwin' up when your stomach hurt

I stick by you baby

Through thick and thin

No matter what kind of shape your in

'Cause I've seen your sweet side

I've seen your sweet side

I've seen your sweet side baby.

Two Glamorous Minnie Riperton Album Covers

Best Thing Going (For Wednesday)

Guess what y'all. Russian dressing is so-called because sometime at the turn of the century, in the private rooms of grand New York restaurants (points of reference for Hello Dolly set designers) it may have contained caviar. Mayonnaise and caviar! What an adorable combination! I want to put old-fashioned Russian dressing on positively everything.

Holy Denali Party

Marc Jacobs....."don't talk about me like I'm not herrrre!" You too Topshop!

Though it's in my nature to be suspicious and territorial when it comes to usage of my patria placename, I must admit, Marc's bag and Topshop's various eighties video girl/hottest b*%*$ at the trailer park items do closely resemble my racks of jumpsuits and satchels and maternity dresses from the local Goodwill (circa 2006). Right on, I guess?

Thanks for Making Me a Fighter Elizabeth Edwards

The fates are funny. Every Seis de Mayo I wake up with a kind of terrible sense of forboding that accompanies any Great Hangover like "god, will I ever feel normal AGAIN?!" After trying to medicate with aspirin (no) bathing (no) and pot (yes), I've managed to regain a little health just in time to settle into a morning with my best girlfriends Kathie Lee and Hoda. Today's episode looks to be a juicy one, as any jilted wife/national cheating scandal is a great opportunity for Kathie to wax nostalgic about being cheated on and publicly humiliated usually is. Ricki Lake will be joining us later in the hour, and all is right in the world.

Only One Peach

It's been 9 years since Peaches' debut album Teaches of Peaches first penetrated America's ear drums. In those 9 years, Peaches has become an underground cult hero while still acheiving mainstream success, appearing on soundtracks for Mean Girls and Lost In Translation and in ads for The Gap.

Her fourth studio album, I Feel Cream, is a more cohesive blending and understanding of her dual roles than 2006's Impeach My Bush, and a return to the smoother, more seductive eletronic beats she utilized in 2003's Fatherfucker (arguably her finest album), still with clear signs of evolution.

This is Peaches' first time to commission outside producers on an album, a risk that certainly paid off. The result is sexy and seductive, nasty and classy, with a song for just about any occasion.

Feliz

click to enlarge.

Elba

Oh fay-shun. You look like rainy exile.

Last night, despite drizzle and reports of a flagging guest list, The Costume Institute Ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Anna Wintour's Great Big Themed Fay-shun Museum Corporation Party) went off as it tends to, in a stupid, spring flash. This year: "The Model as Muse," another show that exemplifies this long-curdled era of servitude to luxury industries at the Costume Institute (the directorship of which was my childhood dream). If I'd been asked to curate an exhibition it might have worked in tandem with the fantastic "Pictures Generation" show, a study of artists' clothes and/or gender-neutral/gender-ironic outfitting in the 70s and 80s, or a show about cooperative clothes, fashion and Utopian socialism, fashion and communism. Oh well.

What this barbecue is good for is a fat folio of red carpet snaps, much more sophisticated and absorbing than most. As far as those go, I find that Marc Jacobs behaved hatefully (except maybe for that crazy, cartoon Poiret situation he put on Blair Waldorf?). And not to harp on GG stars, but is Serena wearing a bonafide "scripper gown"? Mostly, folks looked great. And I am so pleased about the return of Fortuny, and approving of their chosen "muse," the super lovely Natalia Vodianova.

"The last time I saw my son was at the Jack in the Box in Wai'kiki."

Cooked Food

Verses (Archival Gmail)

In 2007, one of my most dastardly ex-boys, who was fresh from a West Palm rehab facility (and mighty self-satisfied) when we were together in 2003, fell off of the wagon. Petrova wrote me a series of haiku on and around the subject, to which I replied in kind. I have kept quiet a few of the extra-unsavory ones (mostly mine) and redacted his last name--

never changed the sheets
stunk of old spice and beef tips
rugby and gay love

dan s___ drinks again
hope he wrecks his boxy car
smug grin off his face.

wish i washed my hands

after i applied self-tan

(i look like jaundice.)

bored children in rye
turn to drugs to numb the pain
of living in rye.

rye is damn good bread
pumpernickel is good too
marble rye is best.

"Daysha's grandma has come down with a bad case of sadness."

Monday Afternoon Song

More with the Italians

It must be noted that creepy creeperton Italian P.M. Sil Berlusconi's soon-to-be-ex wife Veronica Lario, who is finally fed-up with his lechery at/on/for teenage girls, said to reporters over the weekend, "I cannot stay with a man who frequents minors."
Word.

Able Consulting

In the Summer of 2002, I played receptionist for a few weeks, rocking some combination of evening wear and sleepwear with my toweringest 17-year-old heels, cups and cups of coffee and an artfully folded Business section. I kept up with the stocks that interested me: FedEx, 3M, LVMH, Fiat. You see, I had a crush on Lapo Elkan way before Vanity Fair or M. K. Olsen did. I was relatively convinced that we would be married once I was old enough to study History of Dress at the Courtauld and haunt Tramps and Raffles and Aspinal's (lordy). Well, as it turns out, I was right (at least on the economic front); Fiat was worth investigating...at present, it appears they're swooping in to profit from the untimely death of American autos, and HOW.

Will some tycoon or other please recognize and reward my corporate consulting potential?!

Scripture Knowledge Prize

I woke this morning from a funny, innocuous dream about smoking weed on a fancy train car next to a pair of cops who didn't seem to notice. I rose to remove my eye-makeup (woops), and muttered to myself, "I hope not sporadically." This line, like so many from Clueless, is musical, sample-able, both full and devoid of meaning. And it's proof that Brittany Murphy is a really good character actress, albeit one who was semi-ruined by Ashton Kutcher and a push to be a mainstream, rom-com lead. Watch at link (from 00:07:30).

50-1

Sort of accidentally mired in THE ESPN ZONE (caps can't quite do justice to the fearsome, flame-engulfed font of the in-the-flesh sign) in Times Square—a truly awful place (and you know I like kamp so...)—for two hours of pre-race, race, and post-race, I was a tired, hormonal, slightly beer-buzzed mess, deeply offended by noise and drunk men (ha). The icky, cavernous space and the tableaux of grown-ups taking kamikaze shots were misery. But the race was spectacular. Last year, watching with a mint julep, in my parent's home in Memphis, all ease and civility as accustomed, I saw a lame horse put down, an ugly thing that rendered even the winner and bourbon insignificant. So I suppose, just this once, style is inconsequential, the environs of a Kentucky Derby celebration nothing to the actual stupefying and glorious run.

Watch below as Mine That Bird, a horse that cost $9,500 (!!!!!!!), wins with the second longest odds in Derby history. Each person involved, the aggressively adorable Cajun jockey, the stiff and sweet cowboy owners and trainers, is astounded and OH-SO earnest. Many will be talking about Depression Era, David and Goliath, Meet John Doe, hope-y, cute-y stuff (as well they should)—