Angeleno Femme

Attn: Beauty Geeks

While browsing the Harper’s Bazaar beauty closet today, I glanced over the Holiday 2010 cosmetic collections that were laid out for story consideration. Most holiday stuff is just more red glitter, more, and more, and more red glitter. Gag. But here are two collections that popped — I’d give them the “buy” nod, so Santa will hopefully come early (aka you will go to Sephora) and indulge you in a little pre-festivities beauty haul.

Nars Holiday 2010

Puuuuurple! I love purple. Also love the nudey-pink lipstick. The polishes are great too.

Not a big fan of “artsy” shadow palettes — they just get messed up. But the glosses are really pretty, and I prefer Nars gloss over any other brand.

OPI Burlesque for Holiday 2010

Glitter

Additional glitter

I really do love glitter nail polish until I have to take it off and I realize the glitter is straight glued to my nail bed.

Oh and while we are on the topic of nail polishes, Chanel is releasing a collection of polishes for Fashion’s Night Out, a khaki line. I saw them today and thought they were very cute, maybe pick them up come Friday (Sept 10). But, knowing Chanel and their nail polishes, they will probably sell out before you can get in your car to go to the mall.

Take my picture, Hollywood

A lovely shoot with Maria today. Her bone structure is great and she is at ease in front of the camera. What draws me to shoot certain people is how their face works, how their eyes can interact. I found some old plastic from a bouquet of flowers in her garbage and wrapped it around her head like a scarf. The power of spontaneity. And, at the end, two that she took of me. I’m really starting to like this whole taking pictures of other people thing. XoXo

Question of the morning (afternoon?):

Did anyone wake up feeling like P. Diddy? No? Ke$ha what the fuck were you talking about.

Blog readers, I present to you:

My best friend Katie as the Asshole last night:

(Oh and me to the right but that’s insignificant.)

So while no, I didn’t wake up feeling like P. Diddy (and I plan on brushing my teeth with Crest toothpaste and not hard alcohol), I did wake up and turn on some chill music (The Weepies — World Spins Madly On) to enjoy this cloudy, cold day — from the inside. And I stress the inside part. Apparently last week winter took its, er, winter vacation, leaving us with temps reaching the mid 50s (oh and I guess it vacationed in California? Last week’s torrential rain and cold weather? We all love a good LA trip). Vacation is over now though and winter is back with a vengeance for anyone in the east who doubted him.

I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.

New Yorkers are tough, though; while back in LA, natives were nervously layering their clothing when the thermometer dipped into the 40s citing “really really cold weather.” The weathermen in LA were probably peeing their pants like a small excited dog with the onset of so much “real” weather last week. But two thousand and some odd miles over last night, while walking through the east village in what literally was almost 0 degree weather, I noticed probably one hundred people lined up outside a local movie theater to see a midnight showing of The Room (I had no idea what movie this was — and rightfully so, because according to the internet the movie actually came out 7 years ago but has a strange Rocky-Horror-type following that will come out in throngs to screen the movie at midnight). The people were bundled up, their breath escaping their mouths like white smoke, all in the name of watching what has been dubbed by many critics to be the “worst movie of all time” — while back in LA a 45 degree morning makes residents hesitate to take their trash barrels out. Somewhere in the middle is me, wrapped up warmly in a jacket, scarf and boots, but cursing quietly about the state of my ears, little puffs of ghostly breath exploding near my lips and vanishing in front of me. Winter, I guess we’ll have to get to know each other yet again.

Happy Saturday from, well, me.

Forecast

Winter in LA is like dividing by zero. You can’t do it. You can’t feel it. According to the calendar you’re in the thick of it, but outside it’s flip flops, t-shirts and the AC cranked up with the sunroof open. Elsewhere, across the nation, things are less fortunate. But over here in the Twilight Zone of California, it’s sunny and smiles.

I wrote a piece about it way back when, how LA has a stagnant quality to it. The weather doesn’t help, the evergreens aggravate an already confusing climate. I flew to New York recently, but the winter among other things proved to be too much — too much difference, too much cold; I rebooked my flight, came home three days early to the changeless scene where jackets are optional and life is vaguely how you remember it. In other parts of the world, important life phases can be identified with the seasons; but here in California, the phases must stand alone in their own right, free of whatever context moody weather could have created. Fall in and out of love in sandals. Attend a funeral in a light shawl. Fight the blues with year-round tanning.

Today was different though, because after countless days of seventy-something degree weather, today I walked barefoot outside on the damp sidewalk and thought “hm, gardeners must have come…” only to realize that it had poured rain throughout the night. Clouds blanketed the sky in my neighborhood, like a world wrapped in dull silver. Everything smelled wet, thick and crisp with air that cleans the pockets of my lungs. I was finally contextualized. The present made sense, and the past spoke loudly in smells and the familiar images of dark gray sidewalks and puddles cushioning street corners.

Most of my vivid memories are like this. They are set to the rain soaked streets of LA, me smelling the world, watching water pelt my windows. In a land of picture perfect weather, the gorgeous days are forgotten. They flip past you like boring TV. I value it sometimes because I live in New York for most of the year, but when home for more than a week, the weather becomes background noise yet again. But today I drove down the 101 looking at the clouds, creating a new memory for the archives. The rain was proof that change was still happening, and though not as severe as New York, life was not stagnating in Los Angeles. It was shifting, evolving, slowly. The rain was a soft wakeup call to remind me to keep moving, keep progressing, keep learning, keep experiencing. It reminded me that New York is waiting. Winter’s passing gesture to Los Angeles was a tug to a world two thousand miles away where the start of something new awaits.

On that note, a showing of change. Found this old pic of me, it must be from 6 or 7 years ago, when I got my first digital camera. And followed by a pic of me now.

Yes, time breeds change.