The Kitchen Sink

Thirsty Thursday

2009-09-18T08:52:00.001-07:00

... Is usually a big night for TV for me. Last night not so much because I forgot everything was on. But! Thank god for Hulu and DVR!

The Office:*

This face! How can you say no to this face?
(I know there are other people on the show but... I don't care.)

The Office has been on for so damn long and it's been doing the same thing for so damn long that I really didn't think I'd have anything to say about the premiere than the usual: Oh, it's too sitcommy, it's not set enough in the office, it's too over-the-top, it's been going downhill ever since Jim and Pam got engaged, it's been going downhill ever since Season 2...

You know why I feel old? This show has been on since 2005. Ack.

If I'd have the rank the (six!) seasons, it would go like this:

Season 2 (classic, everything perfect) > Season 3 (a little too much Stamford/Scranford separation, no one liked Karen) > Season 1 (a little rough) > Season 5 (starting to get back to basics) > Season 4 (waaaay too over-the-top, too much Jan)

But the first episode, "Gossip," makes me optimistic about the season. The drama was set in, not outside or around, the office (and the drama was reasonably believable!), Jim and Pam were cute (true love! It's unstoppable! Michael said so!), and the one-liners were spot on. So: promise. Also, I wish we'd seen more of the summer interns.

If you don't love them, you have no soul.

So: thumbs up.

*I'm not linking to anything here because, after 6 seasons, everyone knows who Michael, Jim and Pam are.

Parks & Recreation:

Pawnee's Parks & Recreation department.

Everyone, please start watching this show before NBC kills it.

Favorites:

Amy Poehler singing "Poker Face." And being "Queen of the Gays." And marrying to accidentally gay penguins.

Chris Pratt's character living in a tent in the pitt and keeping his suit mysteriously pressed.

Aziz Ansari wearing the effeminate shirt that was "featured in Details."

April's character's bizarre relationship with her boyfriend: "This is my boyfriend. This is his boyfriend Ben. He's straight for me, but gay for Ben, and I hate Ben."

Also, this show has a heart. Come on, on what other show featuring female characters do you have one (Ann/Rashida Jones) turning down the Designated Love Interest (Mark Brendanawicz) for the sake of her friendship with Leslie Knope/Poehler? And then have Knope call DLI back at the end to tell him to go out with Anne, even though Knope's had a crush on him for five years? No. Other. Show. It was really mature and refreshing.

Community:

You guys! CHEVY CHASE!

Everyone, please start watching this show before NBC kills it. I feel like I'm going to be saying this a lot.

"I see your value now." "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"I'm a student!" "Well, that cannot be an inspiring journey."
"We are the only species on earth that observes Shark Week. ... We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark, and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting."
"I want to extend to that person the same compassion you extend to sharks, pencils and Ben Affleck."

The tone was a little off, a little too frenetic at first, but the one-liners were fantastic.

And! John Oliver!

I love this show already. Love John Oliver in anything he does. Not a fan of the hot girl character, she's too smug and Gorgeous but Quirky. Joel McHale is great already (love that someone already called him "Seacrest"), and I'm loving Abed. He's just too damn undeniably cute, even with whatever personality disorder he has. Also, him doing Bender's (abbreviated) monologue from The Breakfast Club was spectacular.

Also: What the hell is Trudy Campbell doing on this show? I recognized her name in the credits but I had absolutely no idea who the hell she was until halfway through the show. But "Annie Adderall"? Come on.

They're also using Chevy Chase just enough so far—which is, sparingly—and using McHale's character's douchey lawyer abilities to full effect—a.k.a., being able to talk people into whatever bullshit he decides they should believe.

So the 500,000lb gorilla in the room of the Thursday TV schedule is Project Runway.

Michael Kors, Heidi Klum & Nee-nahh Gah-cia.

Not ratings-wise obvs, it's no AI, but in terms of sheer drama and frustration. Oh my god, the last time a full season was on... I don't even remember. Last winter? Don't know.

So: Lifetime vs. Bravo. LA vs. NYC.

My opinion? The designers seem talented but, as Project Rungay says, the challenges have been a little, well, boring so far.

I blame LA. I have a visceral hatred of LA that can only be found in someone who has never, ever been to LA (or southern California) and never intends to. 70-degree weather all year round? No rain? No cloudy skies? Ugh, kill me. Sooo boring. Give me awful, capricious weather over sunshine any day. I think fucked-up weather breeds creativity anyway. Look at Russia! Look how many talented people came out of Russia! All kinds of classic authors.

(Now, how many Tolstoys do you see coming out of LA? And no, Lauren Conrad doesn't count.)

In conclusion: Bring PR back to NYC.

Big: The Next Big Thing

2009-09-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Crystal Renn proving that plussies can be high-fashion as well as commercial.

After seeing a couple posts on Jezebel about Crystal Renn, I am getting more excited about her book. It's currently sitting in my shopping cart, just waiting for me to pull the trigger.

I love anything about models. I love the sordid underbelly of the profession, mainly because I would love to have been born as a 5'11", 105-lb wraith in, like, Estonia. I know this is an extremely naive attitude to have considering that models live a very hard, uncomfortable life that forces them to scrutinize their bodies each and every day. But as a 5'3", solid-framed American girl... I can dream, right?

Crystal is an American model who used to be a "normal-sized" model... who then got sick of starving herself, and chose to gain work and keep working as a plus-size model.

Crystal at 16 and 84 lbs. Compare to above picture.

She's incredibly successful. She's worked with everyone (Craig McDean, Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier, Jean Paul Gaultier) and has been everywhere (French, Italian and American Vogue, Glamour, Elle)—all at a comfortable, normal weight for her that makes her happy. And, crucially, lets her eat.

Lately, it seems like the fashion industry (and pop culture in general) has been fetishizing certain plus-sized women. Crystal Renn follows Beth Ditto, the large-and-in-charge, outspoken frontwoman for The Gossip, who has been celebrated by the indie and mainstream press for her size. As the UK's Times Online—an outlet not known for its compassion toward the larger-than-0s of the world—writes: "Looking at her up close, you no longer think she became fashion’s latest darling in spite of her size. It’s because of it."

Ditto.

Not to take away from the sentiment behind that statement, but... well, yeah, of course it's "because of" her size. Fashion is self-consciously edgy, and there is nothing edgier than being ahead-of-the-curve and outside the norm. When "the norm" is a size 0, plus-size becomes edgy and unexpected and, dare I say it, en vogue.

I'm not the only one to have these doubts. Jezebel has been following Ditto (well, Ditto's coverage in the media) for quite a while now. In a piece critiquing the UK one I quoted above, Dodai writes, "Isn't there some inherent sexism in focusing on the weight of a woman who is making a living because of her singing and songwriting skills? Does every Jack Black interview have to include "relevant" information about his weight?"

I think it's something less than sexist or even sizeist: It's trendy. People always want to be thought of as getting in on The Next Big Thing, and considering how saturated the media has been (and continues to be) with images of emaciated female celebs, the Next Big Thing is, in this case, healthy woman who are unafraid to admit they eat.

It's another phase. Maybe in 10 years normal-sized women will be the norm and there will be another boomerang back to crack-skinny. Who knows.

Until then, I'll read Renn's memoir.

(Sidenote? I love the way the Brits write about appearance. Can you picture an American piece opening with: "To be honest, I expected Crystal Renn to be bigger. All right then, fatter. In the mind's eye, the term 'plus-size model' is liberally coated in doughnut batter, and I had her down as a gloriously buxom woman-mountain"? No, no you cannot.)

Rachel Zoe Rosensweig

2009-09-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

Brad, Taylor, Rodger and Rachel: Team Zoe.

Full disclosure: I love, love, love The Rachel Zoe Project.

First of all, Rachel Zoe has my dream job. I would love to spend my life dressing pretty people in pretty clothes. Duh, who wouldn't love that job?

Taylor, who is "so over it."

Second of all, I spent a lot of energy happily dissecting the social politics of the Rachel Zoe Camp. In the Brad vs. Taylor debate, I am 100% Team Taylor. I would be the Taylor. I'm "socially awkward." I hate doing the schmoozing thing that Brad has made part of his job. I'd rather just do my job, go home and go to freakin' bed. Which is what Taylor does, skipping a work function and getting RZ's harsh judgment: "That is so fucked up."

Brad being a suck-up. Taylor was probably home sleeping after a long day working.

I also love Rachel. I love the way she talks: "Eye dyyyeeeee." "Ba-NA-nas." "I love me a sequin." "What is this gold story?" "Agggghhhhh!!" She's amazing. Clothes just make her sparkle and glow. She also is the consummate Mean Girl. As my coworker, a GW sorority girl, said, "She [Rachel] is so a GW girl." Meaning: probably has some experience with coke, spoiled, Jappy, anorexic, imaged-obsessed, etc. She's a cocktail of crazy that is just fascinating to watch.

And on Monday night, all her body issues were on full display. Clearly, her anorexia is so deep-seated that it has transitioned from something she has to force herself to do to something that is so ingrained in her identity that she just doesn't even notice it anymore. I truly believe she believes herself when she says she's not anorexic and that she eats because, in her mind, she does.

"My hair is like my security blanket, I feel naked without it. And you know, as you get older, you want to cover your face."

In the Marie Claire photo shoot, she freaked when someone suggested pulling her hair back. When she capitulated to the oh-so-risky ponytail, she made sure to leave long bangs that mitigated the effect of her hair being back. From this 2007 picture (where her torso looks much bigger than her 2009 show), you can definitely see her using her hair to cover her face.

Money quote #2 on her insecurity:

"I'm not exactly the epitome of grace and elegance. I constantly feel like an idiot. I'm definitely not model-worthy on any level."

... Even though you've just finished explaining to us how you were a model in college so, obviously, you are a model on some level.

I think it's kind of old news at this point that RZ has something wrong with her eating habits, because normal people simply do not look like that. I have a friend who is legitimately tiny, about 5'1" and less than 100 lbs, and her life is a constant struggle to put on weight. And I've known her since I was 11, so I can vouch for her healthy eating habits. She is itty bitty but, crucially, she has boobs. RZ does not. She has breast bones but no actual boobs. In my experience, women who lose weight very quickly and unnaturally do so in weird places, leaving them a little lopsided-looking. That's how RZ looks.

But that doesn't detract from how much I love her. She's awesome, hilarious, and really good at what she does. Seriously, check out Anne Hathaway's 2009 Oscar look—GORGEOUS, stunning, beautiful, amazing, etc etc. RZ knows how to make women look good.

Do I think she's bad for women in general? Do I think she makes women feel fat by being as small as she is? Well—yes. Because anyone who's seen that episode where RZ and Brad mock Taylor for not being able to fit into designer gowns because she has—gasp!—breasts can tell you that her tininess fosters an unhealthy body image in others, as well as competition.

RZ, looking adorable at her wedding.

But guys: she didn't create the fashion industry. She didn't create Hollywood. Hollywood's dictates about weight go back to the studio system. It's not her fault. And she's making high fashion popular. She's making it normal for people, men and women, to just go gaga over clothes. And I don't really have a problem with that at all.

I do think society is reaching some sort of inflection point, where people are starting to realize the artifice behind the images we see every day. People know now that, say, Nicole Richie is not normal. It's not ok to look like that. People know that now. And I think this will all eventually stop.

But until then: I will watch her show, and be obsessed with it.

Fashion Week?

2009-09-15T14:24:00.001-07:00

So... I was supposed to go to the BCGB show today, but the flu (or whatever it is I have) intervened, and so the party dress (don't get too excited, it's H&M) and the party heels (Payless) and rare, non-Gap purse (Kooba via Beacon's Closet) I brought were wasted, and I remained in the American Apparel stretch pants and (men's) Gap T-shirt I wore this morning. And now I have to lug all that shit home with me on MTA.

One of my coworkers went to the show instead of me, and came back decidedly nonplussed. The initial "get" of the tickets had prompted a major flurry of "oh my god what do I wear," and no one listened when I said, "Guys, we are in PR, we will be sitting in the 5th row, no one cares what we wear." So Coworker was unprepared for the hourlong wait for the 10-minute show, and for the fact that she ended up sitting in Siberia, next to no one. "People were in, like, pajamas!" she said indignantly, her blown-out hair shaking. She immediately stripped out of her tight black dress and heels and back into the black jeans she should have worn in the first place.

Guys? If you're not sitting in the 1st or 2nd rows, no one cares what you wear to a show.

And, really, the shows are the least important part of FW anyway. If you're not one of the (very few) people actually writing about the shows, judging the clothes and deciding what to use in your next editorial or wear to the Oscars, the point of NYFW is the parties. And the point of parties is to network. And to network a lot. Only the people at the very top or the very bottom get to actually party at the parties; everyone else is hustling to make contacts.

I'm not judging anyone. I am "everyone else."

It's 5:32. Time to catch the 5:59 and go HOME.

Congrats to Tavi, the wunderkind who gets to go to the shows and meet her heroes. Seriously, her blog and her style are amazing. She will go very, very far—if she isn't bored of it all in four years when she's 17.

"4'9 and Proud of It"

2009-09-15T09:26:00.000-07:00

She is so cute.

Swine Flu?

2009-09-15T08:19:00.001-07:00

I have fallen victim. Hacking, coughing, sneezing, etc. Mucus flying. Not pretty. So: no BCBG show for me today. Major tragedy. Also, no fun gift bag from the Forever 21 event tonight.

Much is going on. I will hopefully be blissfully passed out and oblivious to all of it.

The Great VMA Debacle

2009-09-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

If you need me to explain this image to you, you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours and I feel sorry for you.

Ok, so I'm not breaking new ground here.

Everyone is weighing in! This guy made his angry Youtube video before the VMAs were even over. This guy made a fake music video.

Is it real? Was it staged?

If it was staged, it was the most brilliant meta-moment ever. Kanye is known for being a narcissistic, arrogant asshole who isn't shy about saying he's robbed or about taking the VMAs way, way too seriously, but... Kanye would have to have a really, really good sense of humor, which he isn't exactly known for. And—for anyone who's ever seen one of Ms. Swift's music videos—she is not that good of an actress. In short: I don't think it was staged.

I think it was pretty straightforward. Kanye had an opinion and in classic Kanye fashion decided to share it with the world, knowing full well that the live VMA broadcast was the perfect place to do it and get himself a ton of publicity for it. The man showed up clutching a bottle of booze, and his girlfriend was in a fucking catsuit—don't tell me he doesn't want the publicity.

ASS-hole, ASS-hole.

Sure, one argument for it being staged is that MTV requires at least one holy shit moment per live broadcast and has been know to stage things in the past, but I refuse to give them enough credit for figuring this out in advance.

Those who know me know my allegiance to Ms. Swift. I think her music is straightforwardly awesome. She writes what every 13 year-old girl would write if they could write music. Hell, she writes what I would write if I could write music, and I'm... not 13.

In short: Kanye gets more (bad) publicity, MTV gets more publicity, and millions of people who didn't know who Taylor Swift is just found out. So: she wins! And I'm happy. So thanks, Kanye.

Del Potro! Del Potro! Del Potro!

2009-09-14T10:46:00.000-07:00

... Its a fun name to say, I can't help it. I really, really want him to win—and not just because he looks like a bizarro B.J. Novak.

-----

Now that I got that out of my system, can I just say that it's utter bullshit that the Clijsters/Wozniacki final was on ESPN2 and the men's final will be on CBS?

I was stunned. When I asked my boyfriend to turn on the women's final, I told him to turn on channel 2. It's a final, right? Shouldn't it be on a major network? Like the men's final?

No. It was on ESPN2.

"It's women's tennis," the boyfriend explained, as if that's a legitimate excuse.

That's stupid. Sorry, but it is. I know recently there's been grumbling about women's tennis not being as deep or as consistent as men's tennis, but honestly, is anyone else as sick as I am of the perpetual Federer! Nadal! Federer! Nadal! of men's tennis? (Which is why I'm so excited for Del Potro v. Federer, and why I was frankly thrilled when Del Potro creamed Nadal.) But aren't bracket-busters kind of the point of tennis?

Frankly, I think Federer's and Nadal's dominance has been kind of boring. Look at the Williams sisters. Not only have they dominated the game, but they've both battled back from injuries, which should make them crowd favorites (everyone likes an underdog, right?). But for some reason, everyone is thrilled whenever someone unseats a Williams.

Why? Why do people still root for Federer and not for Serena? (Let's forget for now her recent behavior... which I find more funny than anything else. Guys, she's a world-class athlete, she's not going to be polite all the time.) People like underdogs when they are cute, blonde white girls from Georgia. People do not like the "scary," "manly" Williams sisters. Actual comment overheard in the country club gym: "When are they going to start genetic testing in women's tennis?"

I feel like this is a digression from my original question about why the women's final ended up on ESPN2, but it just adds to my point. Why, when the women's bracket has been so drama-filled and exciting this year, should women's tennis still be relegated to a lesser channel?

Because... "it's women's tennis."

-----

I was watching Catch Me if You Can during the women's final commercials, and wound up turning it on in a scene between Leo's character and his father. Walken's character starts crying, and it's a really poignant scene. It occurred to me that such a scene between a daughter and a mother would only ever be seen in a chick flick. No respectable man would be caught dead in a movie where a mother cries in front of her daughter.

If something is about men, it's for everyone.

If something is about women, it's for... women. Men don't care.

In other words: bullshit.

Ending my Anti-American (History) Bias

2009-09-14T07:17:00.000-07:00

After Ted Kennedy died, I dealed with my grief by going on a shopping spree.

On Amazon.

This is what I do. I go on Amazon and buy books. In college, this was my favorite in-class activity to distract myself from the lecture, which I wasn't listening to. I learned nothing from my classes, but a ton from books. I'm not going to call myself an autodictat because my interests are in no ways broad. I go through phases and jump around in time: the Russian Revolution, the Gulag system, the Tudors, the Plantagenets, the Victorians, post-WWII Germany.

And now, thanks to Ted Kennedy, American history is suddenly interesting again.

Well, the Kennedys are. Have you seen them?

RFK, EMK, JFK.

They're hot.

I spent a lot of time deciding which one I liked best. Now that I'm reading Laurence Leamer's The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963, I think I've finally narrowed it down.

JFK was definitely the most attractive one in his 20s. He has the arrogant douchebag thing going on, and bonus: there's built-in vulnerability because he was an invalid most of his life. Pictures of him on his PT boat in the Pacific are definitely swoon-worthy. In his 20s and 30s? Bangin'.

But then RFK caught up.

Right?

RFK would have bugged me in real life because he was apparently super-religious, -intense and -idealistic. These are qualities I have very little use for most of the time, but in my fantasies? Bring it on. But the tortured intellectual thing... I get it, and I like it.

EMK was definitely a cutie back in the day. I don't know what it is about the Kennedy men, but their faces expand in age. RFK's didn't because he didn't drink much. JFK drank a ton, and look what happened to him. He inflated. Much the same thing happened to EMK. But in his Harvard, football- and tennis-playing days? Fuckable.

I feel like it's a little sacriligious to be discussing the relative bangability of the Kennedy brothers, but... don't tell me it hasn't been done before. And I do have a tremendous amount of respect for them and their whole clan from a historical point of view. The fact remains, they were a self-interested family that did very great and very awful things because they felt they were, as the American aristocracy, born to live outsize, important lives. Not only is that rare, but it's pretty damn cool.

5 Reasons to Love and 5 to Hate...

2009-09-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

... Make it Or Break It. No, I'm serious. This show? Hilarious. And now I present: the top 5 Reasons to Love & Hate MIOBI.

TO HATE

5. The Gymnastics

Really, this is at the bottom of the list because, guys, this is an ABC Family show. This is the same channel that brings us The Secret Life of the American Teenager. (Also, to be fair, Greek, whichis brilliant.) We should not be expecting realism here. It's shocking when they even get some of it right (like getting Courtney Kupets to be Ayla Kell/Payson Keeler's stunt double. Go GymDogs!) So, guys, take a biiiig chill pill and just accept that Payson does, like, a hangspring front vault or whatever it is.

4. Candace Cameron Bure as Summer

Because this is ABC Family, obviously there has to be at least one church-going, pastor's-first-name-knowing character with a God complex who talks about her faith and the importance of not being a slut. I just tune it out.

3. Peri Gilpin's "Acting"

Seriously... she can't act. She's Kim Keeler, Payson's mom, and actually makes you care about her family, which is a plus, but her voice is so grating and her expressions are so wooden that it's kind of distracting. Good thing Ayla Kell is so damn cute and earnest it doesn't matter.

2. The Inconsistencies

This is kind of a cheat, because a lot of these have to do with gymnastics, but it's my blog so I don't care. There was so much drama over whether or not Lauren makes the top three, the "top flight" for Nationals, but then... Nationals comes and there are four in the top flight? Lauren was so pissed she didn't make it that she was willing to risk Emily's life (seriously, do not fuck with someone's vault settings), and then... it doesn't matter? That's always bugged me.

1. Emily Kmetko (Chelsea Hobbs)

She's already been quite astutely compared to historically overhyped TV characters like Rory Gilmore and Joey Potter (ugh, Pacy, why? You could do so much better), and there are many good reasons for this. She's your classic girl-next-door: small, mousy, BOR-ring. She gets a few good lines, but her life is just ridiculous. Single mom that Emily has to take care of? Was discovered on a playground? Crappy job at the pizza place? Cute younger brother in a wheelchair? Three boys fighting over them (two of them rockstars, one of them a rich Princeton genius)? Come. On.

As evidence of how unworthy she is to be so in-demand with, like, everyone, I present to you this example of her stunning beauty and magnetism:

Even she's like, SERIOUSLY?!? It's impossible to root for her. She has her hot coach doing trust falls with her and letting her back on the team even after she royally fucks up AND the cute songwriter boy giving her pump-up visualization exercises. She does her gymnastics routines on the goddamn playground in the motherfucking RAIN. She does her floor routine to rock music. No, really, it's impossible to give two shits about her. So I don't.

TO LOVE

5. The Music

Used to perfection. I've downloaded most of it. Superchick's Rock What You Got is played as the characters strut their stuff on a catwalk (of course, a fashion show is the center of an episode... duh). Mika's We are Golden underscores Kaylie's climactic win and then the dramatic scene next to Payson's hospital bed. All of it is appropriate for all your girl-power or road-trip playlist needs.

4. The Keeler Family

Ayla Kell/Payson is the overachiever, the one with laser focus on her goal of being #1 (who then is obviously the one who has to get injured). You guys. Ayla Kell? Does not look like a gymnast. But apparently she's a legit ballerina, so who knows. But that doesn't matter. She has a believable family and wins points for being the lower- to middle-class one in her group (besides Magic Emily, that is). And bonus: Goodwin from Lost is her father! Seriously, though, her family is wrenchingly supportive and loving and it just makes you feel happy that they exist. (Shh, don't tell me otherwise.)

3. The Drama

Kaylie is secretly dating Carter. Lauren fell in love with Carter back in the day at gymnastics camp, so she's jealous. Kaylie wants to escape pressure so she gets drunk at a kegger—without Carter. Carter finds out and gets pissed. Kaylie leaves. Lauren finds a pissed-off Carter. They have sex. (Lauren's a virgin.) Oh yeah, and Kaylie's mom is cheating on her dad... with Kaylie's former coach. Lauren's dad is dating his secretary. Lauren's mom is a drug addict.

And that's just Kaylie and Lauren. I'm not mentioning Payson's back injury, which leads to under-the-table cortisone shots. Or Emily's mother's money troubles.

So! Much! Drama!

Oh, and gymnastics. How can you not love it?

Also? Sure, they have saintlike Summer give a speech to Lauren about self-respect, and sure Kaylie ends up taking her mother's advice to wait, but for the most part, no one judges Lauren for getting drunk and losing her virginity at a kegger. They judge her for sleeping with Kaylie's boyfriend, obvs, but not for having sex. That's a refreshing attitude in today's Twilight-saturated tween world, where abstinence and waiting are held up as "better" than choosing to just do it already.

2. Josie Loren & Cassie Scerbo

Josie Loren, left and Cassie Scerbo
(rocking very un-gymnast-like cleavage).

Much has been said about how none of these girls look like gymnasts, but realistically, Lauren Tanner/Cassie looks like, say Alicia Sacramone and the beefy American gymnasts of '08 (Nastia excepted, obvi), and itty-bitty Kaylie Cruz/Josie looks like the old-school pixies of the 80s and 90s. So yay for accuracy there!

But beyond body types, both girls turn in surprisingly great performances. Cassie makes what would be a horrifically unlikeable character into someone who is, if not entirely loveable, clearly the most entertaining and infuriating girl at The Rock, and Josie's Kaylie is the most realistically complete girl on the show—boy-crazy, vulnerable, but tough when called upon to be tough.

I was actually happy when Summer stuck aroud for Lauren at the end, even though Lauren had been a straight-up bitch. And when Kaylie won Nationals in the last episode, I... teared up. Don't laugh. You would, too, if you knew what she'd gone through! Lauren stole her boyfriend! Her dad is a crazy stage parent! No one thought she could do it! Payson got a career-ending injury!

In short, these two actresses make their frequently ridiculous storylines plausible and affecting. So: win.

1. Kaylie Wins Nationals

Kaylie telling off her douchey, ex-MLB-player dad.

I thought they were going the route of making underdog Emily the winner.

Thank God they didn't.

Instead, they showed Kaylie kicking both her cheating (ex) boyfriend and insanely pushy father to the curb—by symbolically giving back their necklaces at the meet, of course—deciding that she is really a champion, and kicking stupid Kelly Parker's snooty Denver ass.

I might have screamed a little. Might have.

Okay, I did.

And finally, I present to you, Sasha Beloff:

Sasha Beloff only ever goes by "Sasha Beloff" and seriously, he is mega-dreamy. He's my sixth reason to love this damn show.

First Foray

2009-09-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

I've decided to actually start writing down all the observations I make. I've also come to adopt the axiom "use it or lose it"—this time, in regards to writing. My day-job in media relations in PR doesn't exactly leave me a lot of wiggle room in the writing department (not that I don't love UpSpring!) and I am singularly incapable of writing about myself. So: pop culture!

Interests include the obvious:
Mad Men

Pete Campbell: my personal hero.

Project Runway (RIP Magic Elves!)
Top Chef (I refuse to use the phrase FTW, but Jennifer Carroll, um, for the win)
The Rachel Zoe Project

(Hey, Bravo, want to start paying me for these plugs? Believe me, there are more coming.)

And the not-so-obvious:
Gymnastics! (Including Make It Or Break It, which was the best combo of un- and intentional humor on TV this summer.)

Emily (Chelsea Hobbs), Lauren (Cassie Szerbo), and Kaylie (Josie Loren)—and yes, I wrote all those names from memory.

Anything published on TWOP

So I'm not sure what this blog will bring to the current canon of hilarious and time-wasting pop culture and recap blogs already out there, but hey... personally in my workday I'm always looking for other things to read and procrastinate with, so what's one more, right?