When I was a kid, I got exasperated and asked my (African-American) father why all the black people on TV talked “black” even though none of our relatives did. He didn’t know – no one seems to – and I have a gut feeling that 20 years from now people are going to watch these commercials and shake their heads at how racist they are.

Someone made this barely exaggerated parody of “black people in a McDonalds commercial”, and I did the laugh-so-hard-you-can’t-breathe thing, and now Patrice and I can’t stop quoting it at each other and giggling.

Happy weekend.

p.s. here is the mango pineapple smoothie commercial referenced in the video.

After a few friends read my list of 25 things I plan on doing this summer, there was an outcry of “I want to make friendship bracelets with you!” So I threw a party to do just that. Admission was one skein of embroidery thread, and we started off by undoing them and wrapping them around clothespins to keep them neat.

Most folks grabbed a dvd off of the shelf and started braiding on it, which works well. A few people opted for the safety pin method.

Someone showed up with a mess of emboridery thread from her childhood, and Johanna here decided she could untangle it.

We have, I think, the smallest living room in the world, and I have no idea how everyone fit. They just… did.

Patrice has no idea, either.

I ran around offering up instruction and helping people – I was surprised a lot of y friends had never done this before.

And the results!

This was a super fun and really inexpensive party idea. I’m already scheming my next one!

Photo by G.

Nicole, G. and I “met” in 2007 on Flickr, but I never met Nicole face-to-face until last week, when G. and I helped her with her fun photo project, shamelessly laying all over the floor in Grand Central Terminal to get good shots of Nicole’s feet and traveling suitcase. It’s fun to be a tiny bit silly in a group of fellow photographers. Then we went to Waldy Malouf’s Beacon for dinner; the trout was ace, the company was better. I told Nicole there was literally nowhere else I would rather be that evening than running around with my two photo-crazy gal pals, drinking champagne and splitting souffles (Plural. Two. It was girls’ night. No one should have to decide between bourbon caramel and double chocolate souffle.)

Oh, internet. You give me such fun friends.

Risk!
“True Stories, Boldy Told”

I started listening to Risk! after meeting the host, Kevin Allison, at an event. “I know your podcast,” I said, “because my husband made me listen to an episode, and I was sooooo uncomfortable! It’s inappropriate!” He laughed and said, “You will NOT like the story I’m about to tell tonight, then.” He then got on stage and told the tale of meeting a heavily-accented Asian man at a club and having awkward sex with him which he descibed in detail while I slid down in my seat and covered my face with my hands.

I’m kind of a prude.

On the podcast, Kevin usually tells one of his own stories in the hour-long broadcast, and notable comedians and story-tellers (and sometimes every day folks, too, from all walks of life) tell stories, too; stories that they swore they’d never tell. Stories that are awkward and embarrassing: think pooping your pants on a date or drug-induced hijinks in the 90′s. I refuse to listen to it with anyone else in the car, and have to be careful while listening on the subway: I tend to bust out laughing to myself, making me look like a crazy person. If you’re like me, though, and you love the stories of other people, this is for you.

Fruit Ninja

Pay the $2 and get the full version; it’s worth it. Fruit comes flying up from the bottom of the screen and you have to use your samurai sword (your index finger!) to slice it before it falls to the bottom. There’s a magic formula to an iPhone game that makes it good: Quality graphics, simple premise, challenging game play. This game has it all.

Tiny Wings

I know, everyone is obsessed with Angry Birds, but I’m more partial to the squat little chicken with wings too tiny to fly. The game is sweet: you touch the screen to wake him up, and when time is up, the sun goes down and he falls asleep again. Gameplay is a little tricky to master: the ground is a series of islands covered in dips. Since the bird can’t fly, he has to use gravity to be mobile. You touch the screen to fold his wings and make him heavy to slide down one side of a dip, and lift to make him light so he goes flinging forward. It takes a little practice to get the timing down, and then the obsessing begins! You start with a series of three objectives, and when you complete them, you get three more. Each set is a score multiplier, making it a constant challenge. Also fun: the design changes every 24 hours, so you want to check in every day to see what wonderful combination of colors, hills and coins the designers have in store.

A few weeks ago, we randomly acquired a 10 oz. tub of wet dog food – stuff we would never feed the dogs normally because it’s full of chemicals and weird by-products.

Gross, right? It smells even worse.

I felt bad chucking it, though, and since it was only ONE tub, and I knew they would love the crap out of this gooey, smelly stuff, I decided to make it a treat. I portioned out it out into small plastic cups and put it in the freezer. When the temperature outside got really hot, I passed them out. Dog popsicles!

When I went to take her photo, Leeloo grabbed her popcicle and started running!

It’s ok, girl. I really, really don’t want to share.

I tend not to post about my parties often because I want people to feel relaxed when they come over and not worried that they’re going to get written about after they drink too much and puke/make out with a new friend/go home with a new friend of an entirely different gender than they are used to going home with/get naked/declare “the party has moved to the shower!”/pass out in my living room and wake up spooning one or two of my dogs/etc.

Because that shit is fun.

But I’m breaking this rule thanks to Gavin (who comes over, like, once and then I can’t stop talking about forever) and his instant camera photography. And for the record, no one pictured here did anything (too) debaucherous.

Photojojo gave me an Instax 25 camera and a dual pack of film at a Mighty Events party I went to months and months ago. I was “saving” the film for a project, which is a horrible idea. We all know “life” counts a special occasion, right? Right. Well, I forgot, but Gavin didn’t, which is why we are friends.

So Gavin oh-so-wisely busted out the film and loaded up the camera, then walked around snapping shots of everyone. I had a piece of orange photo paper left over from a photoshoot that I assisted on and it came out for this party, held up by duct tape which is what you see in a few shots.

Go get an Instax to have on hand for your next party, and go ahead; stock up on film so you don’t end up hoarding it. It’s cheap enough, and worth it!

Edited to add: The photos come out about the size of a credit card, perfect for tucking away in a wallet as an impromptu party favor.

Gavin brought us this crazy good root liquor over the weekend that we mixed with cream soda. I highly recommend it.

Happy weekend!

Remember secret pizza word number one? The very next day I made secret pizza word number two and tucked it into my wallet where it sat for months until Tuesday night.

I met Caylin at the Brooklyn Blog Meetup. In the course of conversation, she mentioned that in order to run her successful blog she had to keep swimming “… like a shark.”

“Like a shark, you said? Right, um… I kind of have something for you.”

I dug around in my purse while I explained the concept of my secret pizza word. Then I showed her the coupon I made, and where I had written “Shark”.

“So!” I said, “I guess I owe you a pizza.” I hoped she wouldn’t think I was (too) crazy.

Her eyes got wide, and then she started to laugh and got really excited, and said that of course I could buy her pizza (she is pretty awesome).

We met yesterday at a new place in the neighborhood (oh, yeah, bonus: she lives within walking distance!) It was noon; we confessed to each other that it was actually breakfast for both of us. Bloggers, man.

Thank you, Caylin, for indulging a quirky stranger!

The third secret pizza word is in play. No hints.

I just got back from a fun girls’ weekend in Tennessee. There was wine, fake eyelashes, hot tubbing, talking about feelings, drinking, mechanical bull riding, a stretch hummer limo, Taco Bell at 2 am, dancing, karaoke, flirting with cute boys, massages, gifts, giggles, cupcakes, and pretty make up.

To throw myself back into balance when I got home I threw my socks on the floor, burped really loud a couple of times, and scratched my balls.

A super big thank you to Maile for making it happen, and congrats for checking off “host a retreat” from your Life List. I am so excited I was a part of it!

How are YOU doing with your Life List? I haven’t checked anything off recently, but I have a good excuse: my business is officially booming and I’m up to my ears in editing and shipping disks off to clients. It feels SO GOOD.

Update: We were here, at the Lyric Springs retreat house in Franklin, TN. It’s just under an hour outside of Nashville proper, and SO beautiful. It slept all of us comfortably.

It’s March 1, heretofore known as “Alice and Eden have written a book and you should buy it because it is funny and they are awesome” day. It’s called Let’s Panic About Babies!

I’ve only met Eden once, at Blogher ’10, and she was really nice. Eden is one of the women I hope to emulate as I get older because she’s so damn fun and a big dose of affirmation that being an adult and becoming a mom doesn’t mean loosing your hip. If you’re not reading her blog, you’re missing out.

I know Alice a bit better, mostly because I took photos of her in bed that one time. True story! And this other time we made friends with drunk hipsters at a bar in Park Slope. That was fun.

You can buy their book here, and if you are in NYC and would like to be my date to their Brooklyn reading, show up at Powerhouse Area on Tuesday, March 8, and look for the girl with the afro. That is me. It starts at 6:30 and I’ll be there around six.