I'm An Aunt!

Welcome to the world, brand new person Madelyn Grace!

10:47 am June 16, 2011
6 pounds 15 ounces, 20 inches

Congratulations Lee Anne and Tim!
my little brother
♥

Happy Ramendan, Pastafarians!

Earlier this afternoon, I was informed via The Twitter that today is National Spaghetti Day. So of course, in honor of this prestigious holiday, I helped fund a Kiva loan in the name of The Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

May you all be blessed by his noodly appendage.

Post-Snowpocalyptic Park Slope

Monstrously Compelling Reasons To Be Grateful I Don't Own A House Or A Car:

Exhibit A:

This is the scene literally right outside my door.

Exhibit B:
These are not parked cars. They have been abandoned in the street.

Exhibit C:
This man is not a city worker. He's just a neighbor.

Exhibit D:
Don't even think about trying to use the side streets.

Exhibit E:
This kid is standing in the middle of an intersection.

Exhibit F:
Thistle Hill Tavern is open for business! If you can find the door!

These photos were all taken within a single one-block radius.

Your Honor, the prosecution rests.

I Made It.

"If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model and the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister, then New York is their cousin. Her hair is dyed autumn red or aubergine or Egyptian henna, depending on her mood. Her skin is pale as frost and she wears beautiful Jil Sander suits and Prada pumps on which she walks faster than a speeding taxi (when it is caught in rush hour, that is). Her lips are some unlikely shade of copper or violet, courtesy of her local MAC drag queen makeup consultant. She is always carrying bags of clothes, bouquets of roses, take-out Chinese containers, or bagels. Museum tags fill her pockets and purses, along with perfume samples and invitations to art gallery openings. When she is walking to work, to ward off bums or psychos, her face resembles the Statue of Liberty, but at home in her candlelit, dove-colored apartment, the stony look fades away and she smiles like the sterling roses she has bought for herself to make up for the fact that she is single and her feet hurt." — Francesca Lia Block.

Lighten Up, It's Just Fashion! Again!

Last Friday, as part of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week here in NYC, the cast of Project Runway Season 8 was appearing at the Piperlime pop-up store in Soho for Fashion's Night Out. And by incredible, heavenly, divine chance, I was there.

Some highlights:

The cast. I was standing directly behind this photographer as this picture was being taken. I yelled "Everyone say 'Make it work!'"

Conversing with A.J. Thouvenot via Twitter, prior to the event:
A.J. says...
I reply...
He writes back...
My response.
After discussing how I was sad that he didn't get to show at Fashion Week, and his reassurance that I will definitely be seeing more from him soon, we basically rehashed this conversation and I re-extended the invitation to him and April Johnston to come by and grab a beer or crash on my couch anytime. :)

Told Michael Costello that I heard he was telling everyone Ivy was the bitch of the show.

Told Michael Drummond I thought he should have won the Philip Treacy hat challenge.

Told Andy and Mondo that they far and away had the best hair of anyone in the room.

Told Casanova he wasn't getting fat. He starts laughing and says "No! You don't see me!" then almost knocks me over. I think he may have been indulging in a little more champagne than the rest of us...

Told Sarah that I thought the manner in which she was eliminated was unfair, and that I would have loved to see her show at Fashion Week. She told me, "Oh, if I had shown at Fashion Week, it woud have eaten your face."

Totally ignored Gretchen. :D

And to give you an idea of the atmosphere: Project Runway Gone Wild!

Immediately text messaged everyone I knew afterwards and burped up champagne the whole way home. 'Cause I am nothing if not a classy broad...

For Real This Time

Park Slope studio.
October 1st.

Operation Escape From The Ghetto: SUCCESS!

Exposed brick, mothafuckas!!!

Ouch.

The other night I woke up at 4am, violently ill. There is nothing lonelier or more frightening than being sick in the middle of the night, all by yourself.

Fortunately (I guess), this isn't the first time this has happened to me, so I wasn't quite as panicked. This time, I was past the worst of it and back in bed — shaken, but basically ok — within a few hours.

Last time, I called 911.

I thought my appendix was bursting and I was going to die on my bathroom floor and no one would even know for days and then who was going to feed the cat? It turned out to only be either gastritis or a ruptured ovarian cyst (the doctors' certainty on this issue was really reassuring...), and I was out of the emergency room about 8 hours later. I felt like my stay had been interminably long, but a more seasoned Brooklynite friend of mine was impressed with the turnaround time: "They let you go the same day? How? Did you break out of there with the help of a rogue orderly and a weapon made out of tongue depressors?"

Earlier, though, I had spent most of the ambulance ride crying, from both the sudden, severe pain, and out of sheer self-pity for being all alone. Luckily, in a flash of momentary clarity, I had remembered to grab my cell phone on the way out of the apartment — I forgot my health insurance card, but I remembered my phone — and thankfully, my misery was lessened through an abundance of text message exchanges with my concerned family. Even from far away, they always find ways to remind me how much I love them. This missive from my brother being a prime example:

"Ms. Godan, we have your results, and there seems to be a small family of frogs inhabiting your abdominal cavity. Even stranger, the tests show that one of them is the reincarnation of the late Senator Paul Tsongas."

Just what I needed to hear. :)

Two Things No Woman Should Ever Have To Hear From A Medical Professional (Guys, You've Been Warned...)

1. From an ER physician during a manual vaginal exam: "What is that?"
2. From a comically accented Asian sonographer proffering a probe resembling a very large, lubed-up dildo: "I need you to insert this into your own vagina."

Well, thank God she specified my own and not somebody else's, 'cause that might have been embarrassing...

Liberty

So tomorrow (well, technically, today) is the Fourth of July, more formally known as Independence Day. And in honor of our nation's independence, I've planned to immerse myself in the highly patriotic pursuit of looking at pretty clothes. No, really — I will be celebrating my love of country by visiting the Metropolitan Museum Of Art and the Brooklyn Museum to view, respectively, their exhibits American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity and American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection.

It honestly doesn't get more patriotic than that for me.

I've stated proudly before that when the issue of citizenship is in question, I am a New Yorker first, an American second. I've also stated before how profoundly lucky I feel to be surrounded by such a wealth of culture and opportunity, to live in a place where world-famous sites and events are so easily accessible that I only need a bus pass to get to them. By wonderful chance, I get to experience some of the best that not only this city, but this country, even the world, has to offer. And I am thankful my country allows me the freedom to do so.

Museums are one of my favorite ways to take advantage of this abundance. To put it simply, I like pretty things. I can stand in front of a painting staring at the subtle gradations of color and individual brushstrokes for hours. I will marvel at the delicacy and detail evoked through something as seemingly unyielding as metal, wood, or stone. I am fascinated by exotic myths and icons. And it amazes me how some of these things have been handed down and saved through history: I am physically looking at time.

I'm particularly fond of social history — the stories of individuals and everyday life. When I saw the Titanic exhibit some months ago, we were given "boarding passes" at the entrance, each with the name of an actual passenger who had been on the ship. Each contained a brief history — where the person was coming from, where they were going and why, who they were travelling with, which class they were in. My passenger's name was Ellen, and she was travelling second class with her mother and aunt, on her way to America to be married. It put the exhibit on a whole new level. The artifacts specific to the second class were now of particular personal interest: "I" had eaten from this china; this was what "my" bed had looked like. It was exciting, but also distressing, due to the fact that at the end of the tour, lists were posted that named the passengers who had survived and those who had died. I was actually nervous as I approached the lists, and genuinely relieved to discover that not only I, but — amazingly — my whole party had made it. Miss Ellen would become a bride after all.

And speaking of brides, I am also a fiend for fashion — color, texture, pattern, design; elaborate period pieces and theatrical costumes; traditional dress of different cultures and avant-garde ensembles never meant to be worn, only to be seen as living art [see "pretty things" above]. And what could be more American than these simultaneous displays of American fashion? The Met exhibit in particular provided an eye-opening history lesson. Focusing more on what's now considered the "ready-to-wear" side of fashion, it was split into several sections by era: "The Gibson Girl," "The Bohemian," "The Suffragist," and "The Flapper," to name a few. Besides different styles, these categories each represented a type of emancipation for the women of the age: physical, intellectual, political, economical, sexual. These clothes weren't just pretty, they were functional for their era: skirts that allowed women to ride bicycles and horses in the traditional style rather than sidesaddle; Grecian and Oriental-inspired silhouettes that displayed worldliness and artistic appreciation; practical military uniforms incorporating elements from those of the men; a sartorial counterpart to the societal loosening of restraint. This wasn't just about changing hemlines — these represented stages in the progression of American women's freedom, a historically significant part of our country's heritage.

As an American woman, I find this connection meaningful, and as a self-identified, dyed-in-the-wool feminist, the idea of independence itself is especially meaningful. It's an issue I've struggled with, and still do, to an extent. My autonomy is important to me, but it's been a battle to balance my sense of self against society's expectations. I don't consider myself especially patriotic, in the fireworks and flag-waving sort of way, but I will always be grateful to live in a country where I have that choice not to be so, and the right to voice those beliefs.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch James Cameron's thinly-veiled anti-American propaganda piece, Avatar.

I Survived Glam Nation...Barely

I am way too exhausted to write up a full report right now, but I thought I'd at least show you what I looked like:

Glam Nation Transformation!

We Are Glam-ily...

Got my early birthday present from my mom and my sister tonight:

I AM GOING TO SEE ADAM LAMBERT!!!

Passport to Glam Nation gets stamped June 23rd. I can not WAIT to put together an outfit for this!

Thank you, Cleveland!

UPDATE: Ticket says "16+". Thank goodness I just squeaked by there...

OMGOMGOMG!!!

I am TOTALLY moving on May 1st! *happy dance* Thank you, Universe!