Fashions fade, style is eternal.

I'm sweaty

2009-04-28T23:48:00.001-07:00

For some reason I feel broke. I know I'm not, I'm just having a Jewish moment.
Speaking of jews, Jen and I are moving out of the F-DISTRICT this summer.
Literally can't wait. Thinking Union Square area- I need big windows.
Joe is my favorite gay boy ever. Makes me laugh all the time.
Harv and I had a great something last night. It was necessary.
I'm feeling sad. May be pretend-moving to London for a few weeks this summer.
I feel like dropping everything and just leaving. As soon as I get comfortable with anything, feeling too secure- I have to drop it instantly. Bad habit? Maybe.
I'm already scheming up my next tattoo!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

No sense of time
Want you to stay
Want keep you inside

Run, run, run away
Lost, lost, lost my mind
Want you to stay
Want you to be my prize

C'est La Vie!

2009-04-03T17:16:00.001-07:00

PEACE OUT SHIT-A-MERICA!

He Has Two Left Feet and He Bites My Moves

2009-03-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Favourite things right now:

-Harv's existence
-Models(ing)
-Cannes Film Festival in May
-Money money
-Dinner + salon + hotel comps
-Hamptons for the summer
-Car service
-Blackberry World Ed.
-Monday mornings
-Dance Parties
-Harem pants
-Louboutin Private Sale
-British slang

Rage.

2009-03-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Some of the things I love the most about the Internet, is the fact that you see pictures you don't want to see, read things you don't want to read, talk shit on certain people, and keep in touch with others.

However, I just became so utterly EN-RAAAAGED I had to use this little bloggy-blog to appease complete fucking madness.

There is nothing more satisfying than coming to that point in your own personal agenda where you can look back on someone you dated and say/feel from the bottom of your soul "WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?"

That's the point I've come to with David. I came across usual unflattering pictures of him on the internet with his new bird (*of the month)- and its so beyond pathetic. Model, brown hair, green eyes, unique name. Like honestly, he must hire someone to go out and find us girls of this form?! It's quite sickening. This man has more issues than a Vogue archive. I feel sorry for the poor little ladies that get struck by his magic wand... If I could send out any word of advice to potential future victims, Stop while you're ahead, please.

For more information, check out my website:

www.modelsagainstmagic.com/db

Now just Sod Off!

Oh yeah, almost forgot ..Harv rules.

THE ROOF IS ON FIRE!

2009-03-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

HOT, SEXY, AND SINGLE ...not to mention English
Robert Pattinson (age 22)

April's GQ cover / interview excerpt:

"Pattinson hasn’t shot anything new since Twilight wrapped. He won’t be in front of the camera again until this spring, when he starts shooting the next Twilight movie, New Moon, due out in November. But in the meantime, he’ll show up as young Salvador Dalí in a period drama called Little Ashes, about the pre-fame bromance between Dalí, director Luis Buñuel, and poet Federico García Lorca.

Pattinson auditioned for the movie two years ago, during a post–Harry Potter, pre-Twilight career lull. He’d been thinking about putting acting aside to focus on music. (Two of his songs, including the Jeff Buckley–ish ballad “Never Think,” appear on the Twilight soundtrack.)

He’d read for the Lorca part, but when they asked him to play Dalí, he said yes. “I wanted to have a vacation in Spain,” he says. “But it became just—really, really hard. I’d never done a job that was so hard.”

There was no budget. Most of the crew spoke Spanish; Pattinson didn’t. He spent a lot of time by himself, trying to figure out how to play the part, worried he’d look like an idiot. (For what it’s worth, all that effort is up there on the screen. Pattinson’s Dalí starts out as a walleyed, puffy-shirted Simple Jack type before morphing into the twirly-mustachioed culture-hero Dalí of dorm-room-poster fame. It’s one of those movies in which you can tell Dalí’s having an aesthetic breakthrough because he starts pressing really hard when he paints.)

“In a lot of ways,” Pattinson says, “I was kind of crossing lines of what I thought I was comfortable doing. I had to do all this naked stuff.”

See, Little Ashes contains a fair amount of homoerotic activity, some of which is portrayed artfully and obliquely (Dalí and Lorca dive together in a moonlit sea) and some of which is, y’know, not (Lorca makes athletic, spiteful love to a woman while Dalí masturbates gloomily in a corner). It’s the kind of project you could imagine a guy in Pattinson’s place taking on post-Twilight as a way of telling the world he’s versatile and/or fearless. Except it wasn’t.

“I thought I’d never get another acting job again,” Pattinson says. “So I was like, ‘Yeah—why not try to do something weird?’ There’s all these gay sex scenes. And y’know, I haven’t even done a sex scene with a girl, in my whole career.”

(While he says this, he’s pinching the skin on the back of his left hand and sort of twisting it clockwise with his right.)

“And here I am, with Javier [Beltrán], who plays Lorca, doing an extremely hard-core sex scene, where I have a nervous breakdown afterward. And because we’re both straight, what we were doing seemed kind of ridiculous.”

(Now he’s sort of laughing.)

“Trying to do it doggie-style. Trying to have a nervous breakdown while doing it doggie-style. And it wasn’t even a closed set. There were all these Spanish electricians giggling to themselves.”

He’s pretty sure the only reason Little Ashes is getting any kind of promotional push is that he’s in it."

Oochie Wally Wally!

2009-03-09T23:01:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was at/pretend-worked TI's "Going Away" party- except he's going to jail when most retards are going on like, a school trip to Italy. He's a really nice guy. I hate that word- its so over-used. But he is really elegant. I just stared and smiled a lot. His sentence should get lessened- especially considering all these fabulous dumb sluts who have fucked up and only had to stay in there for a few hours. If only I were a judge..

Not to mention, he is so fine.

Anyways, his boy Yung LA was hollering at me. So I'll holler for him..
He's a young fucker but cool!
(http://www.myspace.com/yunglamusic) hahah

I also partied the hardest I've ever partied this past Saturday. It started at 10pm and went until 3pm the next day. I think I will write a book some day on my experiences.

I need a gd vacation.

Fancy this!

2009-03-05T08:45:00.000-08:00

I am going to change my number.
My life, friends, job, boyfriend, studies, interests, future are all 212, for sure.
And I haven't been this happy in quite a bit of time.

Time to go pounce on my bird!

xx

F.M.L.

2009-03-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

My pseudo-"Nights In Rodanthe"-romance is over. I've spent the last 72 hours with this incredible english boy I met a week back. A few different agencies signed him so he won't be returning to the UK just quite yet. I actually made love.

Why Hello March.

2009-03-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

Big fucking things will be happening for me within the next 4 weeks. And Big is good.

I secretly like not having a best friend anymore, right now, whatever. Just a group of good friends. It suites my 'everything' right now. I don't have the time to make time for anyone except myself and my goals.

Paris Fashion Week? Should I go?

I wish I new how to play the piano, real bad. And I need to learn French. Oi-Boy!

I like his funny accent and the lovely mouth it comes out of. Mmmm Enjoy while it lasts!

Be The One.

2009-02-28T08:24:00.000-08:00

THE EVIL MAGIC SPELL IS BROKEN. Dunzo. Gone. Thank god, I've been waiting for this..

Here is a list of things to give praise too:

- Change
- Male Models Only Club
- Unlimited Louboutin's in my life now
- Warm weather
- Paris.
- Body shrinkage
- Money
- "14-8"
- Meaning business, meaning party
- Bijoux & Olivia
- Long hair
- Bahamas condo via April

"If You Are Honest, You Already Know The Question And Answer"

I don't need to need you.

2009-02-22T01:18:00.000-08:00

Amazing, amazing, amazing...

I'm considering getting "IN KARL WE TRUST" tattooed on my forehead.

I think I want to kiss the Gossip Girl boy again. And in the past week I have encountered some fella's that couldn't believe I wasn't killing myself to hang with them? Its ok I am content with my male model.

I made such a good playlist just right now.

I have a love/hate relationship with Fashion Week, although I am glad its over. Rodarte, Proenza Schouler, Marc Jacobs collections were perfection x100..
(www.style.com)

I wish my sleep & eating habits weren't so fucked.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things.

2009-02-09T13:47:00.000-08:00

FEB FUN!

2009-02-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

I'M DEVOTING THE ENTIRE MONTH OF FEBBY TO ATTEMPTING TO DO THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE THINGS WITH MY LIFE AND IN MY LIFE,
...I'm off to a good start.

Genius.

2009-01-28T11:46:00.000-08:00

ATTN: GIRLS. LADIES. FEMALES. WOMEN. BITCHS,

Read this. Read this. Oh my god, read this. This book rules so hard.

Some of my highlights:

"Men find it very satisfying to get what they want. If we want you, we will find you. If you don't think you gave him enough time to notice you, take that time it took you to notice him and divide it by half."

"Guys don't mind messing up a friendship if it could lead to sex, whether it be a "fuck buddy" situation or a meaningful romance....If we're really excited about someone, we can't stop ourselves- we want more. If we're friends with someone and attracted to them, we're going to want to take it further...Don't say he's "scared," the only thing he is scared of is how not attracted to you he is."

"If a guy truly likes you, but for personal reasons he needs to take things slow, he will let you know that immediately, he won't keep you guessing, because he'll want to make sure you don't get frustrated and go away.

"If he's not calling you, it's because you are not on his mind."

" 'Busy' is another word for 'asshole.' 'Asshole' is another word for the guy you're dating."

"Guys tell you how they feel even if you refuse to listen or believe them. 'I don't want to be in a serious relationship' truly means 'I don't want to be in a serious relationship with you.' "

Today.

2009-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

YES WE CAN!

2009-01-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

I hope I am lucky enough to have this one day!

Sexiest Man Alive!
Yay yay yay

PROUD TO BE A'MERICAN!

Top 10 Trends Spring 2009

2009-01-15T01:49:00.000-08:00

ROMPER (DEREK LAM)

ONE-SIDE (ZAC POSEN)

ROCK (PROENZA SCHOULER)

DARK (NARCISO RODRIGUEZ)

BRIGHT (ISAAZ MIZRAHI)

SPARKLE (PHILLIP LIM)

NUDE (RODARTE)

NECK-EMBRACE (PHILLIP LIM)

JEAN (ALEXANDER WANG)

BOY (RAG & BONE)

Do You Like To See Me Broken?

2009-01-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

Blake Lively looks so fab on next month's issue of Vogue it hurts!

Givenchy Spring 2009 RTW collection makes me weak in the knees. Riccardo have my babies! YSL makes me want to rob a bank. Stefano have my babies too!

I keep seeing ugly models everywhere. It makes me so frustrated. But just makes me want it more essentially making me fight stronger & harder.

I have work tonight at The Eldridge! I can't wait. I need to go shopping, I need things to wear. Here is my shopping list:

Herve Leger ($1590)

...Hence the ugly model though! WTF

Proenza Schouler ($1250)

YSL ($2890)

AND THESE PERFECT FUCKERZ!
($1295)

I wish David would stop lying, not necessarily to me all the time, but just in general. Maybe I'll sleep there tonight after work- its closer. And he can continue to try and prove things, but I know I can be his weakness. I can't remember my life without him, its so crazy. He's just always there. It felt so good the other week before Aspen, he knows my body so well. Right now I need consistency and familiarity, and he's about it for me.

I love old Mariah. My abs hurt, and I need to go upstairs to my gym

Move On

2009-01-10T17:10:00.000-08:00

2009 Resolutionz:

-Successful relationship
-Make 5 timez as much $$$
-Get signed to an agency
-Grow my hair out

Holidays were good. Spent much needed time with the family. Saw the movies MILK, SEVEN POUNDS, and REVOLUTIONARY ROAD... Never cried in any of them. Which bothers me!
Came back to NYC for NYE, went to Alon's private party at RDV and ended my night on 5th Ave Greenwich Village.

Luke comes back Monday. The DJ is in South America. And David is in Aspen, on a mountain without service?

Started my new DREAM JOB.

I also started reading a book! So unlike me, "Nights In Rodanthe" afterwards I'm going to see the movie. Also back in a Fiona phase- I love her so much.

Yesterday I got my hair cut & glossed, bought new Chanel make-up and a pair of Marc Jacobs sunglasses

My apartment is finally starting to come together. I'm thrilled!

I think I found my future husband, and it's sorta funny. All along I think the jokes will become reality. I found the place I want to live in too, 165 Charles St.
I hope he gets me it

You're My Favorite Mistake

2008-11-25T20:26:00.000-08:00

I am taking 21 credits next semester, all fashion courses. Should be fun?!
I need to put together my fashion art design portfolio by Dec.8th on YSL
I bought a new Marc Jacobs RED clutch, perfection.
I am going to ask my daddy for a pair of Louboutin's for Christmas!
I have a new job at this great spot in meatpacking, start in January!
I sorta can't wait for Luke to get back from Minnesota
I have every man I don't want wrapped around my finger
I can't wait to go to the interview/open call
I ate a bagel and soup all day- my nose is runny
I am going back home tomorrow for 48 hours
I somehow still find David's cards all over my bedroom all over the floor
I need to dye my hair again
I am going to get a beer belly from all the Corona I drink, daily.
I can't wait to see Nik & Lil tomorrow
I like video chatting with my Dad
I love my kittens more than breathing
I have to finish packing

I Want You

2008-11-02T19:32:00.000-08:00

Today is not a good day. I think I am going to try and get tattooed this week.
I really miss David.
And I knew this was coming.

That one comes home on Tuesday. That one was supposed to come into my work yesterday. That one is in a relationship he doesn't want to be in. That one is just a good time.

If I don't have something to immediately satisfy me or distract me, I go back to what I know. And I'm trying to break that habit. But he is so easy to go back to. Because lately it seems a lot easier to be disappointed than ecstatic. My moments of happiness are short these days. Today I felt like calling him just to tell him how much I hate him, wish nothing but the worst for him, and also that I miss him. Too bad I didn't. Instead I'll just lay in my bed and stare.

Im going to say it once again til I instill it
I know Im going to feel this way until you kill it

The other ones are nice. Just new, I don't know how I feel about that- for real.
I guess what's bothering me the most is the fact that I proved myself right. Normally I would bluff a lot, say certain things just because I knew they weren't true. But now I am realizing all the times I said "he doesn't give a shit about me," are turning out to be right on point.

Being right has never felt so awful

CROOSH!

2008-10-30T16:55:00.000-07:00

Time Can Change Me, But I Can't Change Time

2008-10-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Things can really change drastically in short periods of time.
I write for myself. And only myself.

David is (ironically) out of my life, for good. It usually happens like this. It's like a switch goes off in my body, and I don't feel anymore. When I saw him last, it was nice. But not good enough. And that leaves me where I am today. I have come to see that he is too far away to be saved. It's not me. It's not going to be me. I will forever have a part of me that feels completely empty inside. David has drained me. He has lost me, and he knows it. I will look back on this months or years from now and hopefully appreciate the good. How on top of the world he made me feel at times. How he was the first person I completely gave myself to, inside and out. He has taught me so many things about myself and people. It was the "kind of love that weakens your soul, that makes you reach for more." I'm listening to CoCoRosie "Terrible Angel," and this song played one night at his apartment again and again, its like every time I woke up it seemed to be playing. Our bodies would fit so right. Even when we slept it was in some crazy intertwined position, as if never close enough.

I can't wait to feel that way again.

It saddens me to know I'm moving on. It's the most depressing feeling of relief. I imagine I'll still think about him every day. NYC is much associated to him for me. He was it for me here. He;s now going to wake up every morning with 1 less. One that was real.

But I did it first so it wouldn't be done to me.

"I'm waiting for you"

"To Do What?"

"Leave me"

"I'm not going to leave you, I totally love you. What is this?"

"Please let me come, I want to be there for you. Are you ashamed of me?

"Of course not, I told you- I want to be alone"

"Why?"

"To grieve, to think"

"I love you, why won't you let me?"

"It's only a weekend.."

"..Why won't you let me love you?"

Only the one who hurts you, Can make you feel better

2008-10-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

I feel like I've been having really good luck lately.
Now, of course, I just threw all of it out the window by acknowledging that
But, I'm just feeling really great. Is it my happy pills?

David is in Germany. Don't ask.. He was so wonderful the other day. Round 2 is going to go a lot smoother.
And it will because I've learned from my mistakes and he's been knocked down. We're both at a much more "real" point.
He is truly such an amazingly complex person- I've stopped expecting people to really get that. They never will.
And frankly, I am the only one who needs to. I'm fucking happy and happy with him in my life. He has become such a huge part of my life- my adult life. The one I started here in New York- and I'm grateful for that.

I feel like I have mass amounts of money, probably the only one who feels like that on the planet. I'm contemplating buying another Marc bag, I need a neutral colour one.

I'm very unmotivated at school this semester. My classes are dumb. How many weeks left?
Hopefully next semester will be better!
I have to make my deposit for my Milan-Paris-Como trip soon!!

I want to buy a faux fur and I weigh 108 lbs.

I also really can't wait to see the movie Revolutionary Road with Leo and Kate! Luve!

Week 3 = Today.

2008-08-28T22:53:00.001-07:00

My biffy Brittany came to visit me the past 2 days. It was a lovely break from shitshow life, we went to Coney Island, went on rides, ate tons of greasy food, and got t-shirts made. Also ate really yummyyummy veg food- I have a new hot spot. No telling!

But Today was a Good day.

I met tonight with Luis who I just shot with last week to view my prints from the shoot. Incredible photos. I am so pleased. I can not wait to add them to my portfolio. He gave me one of the best compliments tonight that I have ever received. I was sitting waiting in Starbucks, with a tank top which I got stains all over from work earlier, my hair curly, dirty, and tied back with a headband thrown in there. No make-up..in fact, a pimple on my right cheek that I can see out of the bottom of my eye which is very annoying and distracting. Nonetheless, sitting there, greasy and exhausted- Luis walks in, sits down and says "You look like a mess- but so unbelievably beautiful"

I have yoga tomorrow morning and then I am going to travel to see my parents.

My new place (esp. bedroom) is still in boxes.

I saw my blonde one twice this week- it was really nice. Nice, nice, nice

Tonight I got notified that my voicemails from David would be deleted- was asked whether I wanted to resave or delete permanently.
And I was thinking, that'd be real cool if relationships worked like voicemails. And I had a choice like that.
I just, miss him.

Right now, I'm really feeling Madonna '90-'94

I Realize What I Am Too Smart To Mention To You

2008-08-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

I should really be packing up my apartment instead of bumming on the couch. I just have no energy to do anything. Everything seems like a huge task to me. I wish I'd stop acting like a baby. Because I really do have many good things happening for me right now. I'm just still so sad. Functional, but terribly sad. It's only been a little over a week and it's destroying me. I think I have a tendency to get stuck on things; maybe they're habits. Almost treat anything surrounding me like a drug. I suppose that would be called an addictive personality? But what's scary is that I recognize it, just can't kick it. I'm fucking losing it- want to jump out of my fucking skin. And I ate too much today. Did you ever listen to music so much, day in and day out- and wait for yourself to get sick of it, but you never do? Every single one of Fiona Apple's albums are the soundtrack(s) to my life. However, that may be for other weird reasons. Everything about David is right there out in the open for me to know. And I honestly think that makes things harder and worse. Maybe a lot of things are better left unsaid & unknown? Because when you care too much about something you find out things you don't want to know. I always say, if I could have 1 magical power it would be to see into the future or read peoples minds so that I could adjust my life and doings to their best. But I guess that would fall into the same concept that I would see what I wouldn't want to see. I don't know man, it's tough. For now this will sum it up..

View Perfection

2008-08-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Yeah,

2008-08-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

The past few days have sucked, I feel very numb?
I just don't feel the need to do anymore. I don't feel the need to feel anymore.
I am so dissatisfied, uncomfortable, discontent in my own body.
My relationship (or lack there of) has taken over my insides.
I'm not really analyzing anything. I'm just accepting. Plain and simple.
I feel like nothing outside of this affects me, even slightly.

I read an interview today with Barack Obama
He rules.

The only music I listen to is Fiona Apple. And it gives me a really *satisfying uncomfortable feeling inside. I need something new

My time is so consumed with everything. I never have a break. Between meetings with photographers, work at the cafe, fall semester starting soon. Ay. I have a photoshoot in a couple weeks. And I move into my new apartment next week.

Last night I grabbed some dinner at Whole Foods by myself coming home from a meeting, and while sitting there these 3 guys asked me why I was eating alone and told me I should brush my hair. Okay. Afterwards I walked down his street on my way home. His bike was parked outside and his bedroom light was on. It didn't make me feel better or worse.

Something has to give. Whether its me or him

Fool me once - shame on you! Fool me twice - shame on me!

2008-08-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

Dear You,

I wish you weren't an extremely insecure little boy, Who feels he has something to prove to the world.

I wish you didn't devote all your love and energy to things that will eventually die out: fame, fortune

I wish you would examine your life and see that you missed out on genuine relationships and people

I wish you would tell me the truth

I wish you were human

I wish you weren't so predictable all the time

I wish you would rid of all the pictures you have of me

I wish you cared enough to mean what you say

I wish you wouldn't tell me that I shouldn't eat so unhealthy

I wish you wouldn't use my name when you speak to me

I wish you never met my Mom

I wish you were here

I wish you wouldn't always grab my hand

I wish you would remember

I wish you gave me a chance

I wish you would stop repeating yourself or asking me questions over and over

I wish you had the ability to change

I wish you wouldn't say sorry

I wish you wouldn't talk to her when I'm around

I wish you thought I was the reason

I wish you didn't have so much influence over me and my decisions

I wish you wouldn't play hip-hop at 8 AM

I wish you didn't fall asleep so easy

I wish you wouldn't laugh the way you do when you're on the phone with Harmony

I wish you weren't liked by people

I wish you weren't so easily amused

I wish you were actually confident

I wish you didn't have ugly faded tattoos of their names on your chest

I wish you wouldn't always talk about my eyes all the time

I wish you saw how lucky you were

I wish you would see you're running out of time

I wish you weren't so dominating

I wish you were happy

I wish you would let me be there

I wish you didn't always leave me questioning

I wish you didn't eat every meal with chopsticks

I wish you didn't make me feel so comfortable

I wish you saying my name wasn't so reassuring

I wish you didn't treat every time we hang out as if it's the first time

I wish you didn't snore so loud that I can't sleep

I wish you weren't so difficult

I wish you wouldn't make me make decisions

I wish you never referred to me as baby

I wish you would say things to me you said when we first met

I wish you wouldn't try to be funny

I wish you never made me smile

I wish you didn't make me cry all the time

I wish you would grow up

I wish you could hear me

I wish I could have you, all of you.

Better That I Break A Window, Than Him.. Or Her.. Or Me.

2008-08-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

I'm an Extraordinary Machine

2008-08-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

I'm undecided about you again
Mightn't be right that you're not here
It's double-sided, cause I ruined it all
- But also saved myself, by never believing you, Dear

Everything good, I deem too good to be true
Everything else is just a bore
Everything I have to look forward to
Has a pretty painful and very imposing before

O' Sailor, why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Saying there's nothing to it
And then letting it go by the boards

O' Sailor, why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Saying there's nothing to it
And then letting it go by the boards

I have too been playing with fifty-two cards
- Just cause I play so far from my vest
Whatever I've got, I've got no reason to guard
What could I do, but spend my best

O' Sailor, why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Saying there's nothing to it
And then letting it go by the boards

O' Sailor, why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Saying there's nothing to it
And then letting it go by the boards

And after waiting, fighting patiently on my knees
All the other stuff tired itself out first, not me
And in its wake, appeared the touch and call
Of a different breed
One who set to get me wise, and got me there
And then, got me

And what a thing, to know what could be instead
Oh, what a blessed curse; to see
It took the agenda from its place in my bed
Made a merry paramour of me

O' Sailor, why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Saying there's nothing to it
And then letting it go by the boards
O' sailor, why'd you do it
What'd you do that for
Giving me eyes to view it
As it goes by the boards

“INSECURITIES OF THE MOST SECURE”

2008-08-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

I have sat on my bed many nights, listening to Frank Sinatra, simply just thinking about the newest and most difficult phase of my life so far. It is really something when you see how quickly things can change and do change. In the 2nd largest city (by population, yes I did my research) in the world, it’s amazing how lonely you can feel. Of course you are constantly surrounded by people walking, talking, taxis, cars, sirens, lights, music, etc., but it all becomes extremely immune to you. It’s like a huge contradiction, because while all this is happening around me- at the same time, it’s the loudest sound of silence. But then I remember this is essentially what I came here for. I came here to start over. Lose all connections from my past and start fresh. But I guess sometimes things that you think you need the most, are really just a handful of jumbled ideas in your head that you have convinced yourself are needs- when really are simply wants. And although NYC is not as bad (from what I hear) as West Coast mentality and tendencies, this city is full of coldness & superficiality. And on top of coping to a new environment and lifestyle, that’s not necessarily the most welcoming mentality to step into and be expected to have. The one thing I will never forget is about 4 weeks after moving here, I was walking with my best friend and roommate down 65th Street. As we were walking, an older man randomly came up to us and asked me for directions. Now besides the fact that at this point, I was already thrilled when people would ask meee for directions because, here I was new to the city myself, but obviously “looked” as if I was from the city. However, I was wrong. After I gave the man proper directions, he then said to me “You must not be from here.” And I laughed and replied back with “Hm, why do you say that?” And his answer was “Because you are smiling.” Apparently that was the biggest giveaway. Because “true New Yokers” aren’t glowing as they walk down the street. At first I thought that was silly and untrue, but after a year of living here, I can tell you I don’t glow down the street anymore. And it’s not that my life has progressively gotten worse or I am depressed, this city just exhausts you. At least that’s the only reasoning I can give for it. Here when there are so many people, you just mind to your own business. You do what you have to do, go where you have to go, and call it a day. And that is 1 aspect that I think it takes a certain kind of person to be able to tolerate. Personally, I love it. I am a very confidential person so there is no need for small talk. But then that goes back to- well, how am I supposed to meet people in this city then? And actually, again ironically, the way I socially began to network was from walking on the street 1 night in Chelsea and started small talk with a group of guys that I’m still friends with today. However, my main objective for all this was to discuss how people here have a tendency to put an emphasis on the trivial things in life. Such as only wearing high-end clothing and commenting how designers such as “Prada” and “Chloe” are beneath you. Or even how when you are out at clubs, girls, let me correct myself *little girls will latch on to their men like leeches if you dance near. Or how botox can seem necessary when you haven’t even reached the “Over The Hill” mark. Or how money can outweigh love in your relationship. Or how even as you walk down the street or stand on the subway, you’ll get the occasional “grill down” from a nearby passenger. I’ve even had it happen wear you will be sitting and someone across from you will take notice to something on you, whether it was my nose ring or high heeled boots I am wearing, and will completely disregard that you are sitting 3 ft. away from them and they will strike up a conversation about their chosen subject. Maybe I expect too much from people or give them the benefit of the doubt far too often but humans just enthrall me. Although I am guilty of a few of these things myself, I feel that when people lose that intimate, daily, one-on-one interaction with one another we become robots. And it may be the small town girl coming out in me, but I could never imagine, as a girl, expecting to be taken out to luxurious restaurants weekly. Or never saying please and thank you- even when it’s not necessary. I like to credit this to the fact that I was brought up in a fabulous family, which it is to an extent. But I would also like to think that it’s common respect and courtesy as friend, girlfriend, wife, mother, and so on. And this then reminds me of the stereotype us East Coast girls have of being “stuck up.” It may be factual but then there are those females who are independent, confident, intelligent, and secure who don’t take things for granted and treat everyday, as it’s their last.

He said "Are you done Pouting yet?"

2008-08-03T19:34:00.000-07:00

Men suck. And are clueless when it comes to existing. They make the simplest things the most complex. I always thought of myself as an honest, straight-forward female- but apparently not honest or straight-forward enough? It confuses me to no extent. And leaves me extremely worn out, hopeless, and unambitious. I constantly find myself in these situations with no place to turn to. No direction or outcome seems satisfying enough. I have never questioned myself more than I have with my most recent relationship(s). It's amazing how one single other human can bring out the best and worst in you. I have never felt happier, utterly satisfied, and comfortable with someone than I do with him... While feeling things I never did before: jealous, insecure, inferior, and weak. I try to think they are all beneficial things for me to experience.

MUST DO! PERFECT LOVE!

2008-08-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

TEASED PONYTAIL

EXTREME VOLUME

MESSY WAVES

SLEEK & STRAIGHT

WISPY BUN

_____________________________________________

P.S.

Take care of your hair. It's important. Nobody will love you if you have shitty hair. God gave it to you for a reason.

INVEST IN THESE!
Top Five Favourite Products:

1. Frederic Fekkai Glossing Cream
2. Jonathan Product Texturizing Paste***
3. Bumble and Bumble Surf Spray
4. Oscar Blandi Trattamento al Fango
5. Bespoke Labs T3 Overnight Dryer

Guaranteed

2008-08-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Peace from The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn

45 Wall St.

My 7 & 8

Modeling Gigs

The feeling I get from

A Man that will Forever Disappoint me

Proper Matter

2008-06-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

Life is really great.
I have been feeling like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders.
Or my eyes now see clearer than ever.
I have amazing things going on. No time or room in my life for nonsense trying to get me down.
"But I'm good at being uncomfortable, so
I can't stop changing all the time"

SPRING-AHEAD 2009

Double Denim

Royal Rainbow

Peach Perfect

Bodysuit

Double-breasted

Bigger & Bolder

Pajama Party

Washed Out

Florals

Let's get a party started right

2008-06-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

*ESSENTIALS*

Ok, Today was my birthday.
It was such a great day, truly.
Weather was beautiful, had lunch with my lady BJ, and heard from lots of people.
And although I did not hear from the 3 most important men in my life until 8PM,
..they all came through within 10 minutes of each other.
Life is funny.

And really only the 1 voicemail is all I needed.
"Hey Sagen, I just flipped my phone on to wish you a happy birthday.
I um haven't been around, just busy putting my show together.
But I just wanted to call and say happy birthday, I hope you're having
a wonderful and beautiful day. Alright, bye"

On another note,
I got a Marc Jacobs handbag for my birthday!
I'll post pictures with my new baby soon

A MUST THIS SEASON (TURNING HEADS):

I will go to sleep tonight with a smile on my face.

"All my life is on me now, hail the pages turning
And the futures on the bound, hell dont know my fury
Youre all I need, youre all I need, youre all I need
Youre all I need, youre all I need, youre all I need
Youre all I need - and maybe some faith would
Do me good
I dont know what Im doing, dont know should i
Change my mind, I cant decide, theres too many
Variations to consider
No thing I do dont do no thing but bring me
More to do,
Its true, I do imbue my blue unto myself,
I make it bitter
Baby, lay your head on my lap one more time
Tell me you belong to me
Baby say that its all gonna be alright
I believe that it isnt."

History Repeats Itself

2008-06-22T17:40:00.001-07:00

I wonder why I can relate SO MUCH to Fiona Apple's entire album...
When The Pawn Hits (written/recorded circa 1999)

*Get Gone -(track 9)
How many times do I have to say
To get away-get gone
Flip your shit past another lasses
Humble dwelling
You got your game, made your shot, and you got away
With a lot, but I'm not turned-on
So put away that meat you're selling
Cause I do know what's good for me-
And I've done what I could for you
But you're not benefiting, and yet I'm sitting
Singing again, sing, sing again
How can I deal with this, if he won't get with this
Am I gonna heal from this; he won't admit to it
Nothing to figure out; I gotta get him out
It's time the truth was out that he don't give a
Shit about me
How many times can it escalate
Till it elevates to a place I can't breathe?
And I must decide, if you must deride
That I'm much obliged to up and go
I'll idealize, then realize that it's no
Sacrifice, because the price is paid, and
There's nothing left to grieve
Fucking go-
Cause I've done what I could for you, and I do know what's
Good for me and I'm not benefiting, instead
I'm sitting singing again, singing again, singing again,
Sing, sing, sing again
How can I deal with this, if he won't get with this
Am I gonna heal from this; he won't admit to it
Nothing to figure out; I gotta get him out
It's time the truth was out that he don't give a
Shit about me

Incomplete.

2008-06-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot. The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."

I spent the day with my mother yesterday. It was lovely. We wanted to try a new veg spot in the city (as usual) so we went to...

Zen Palate
W 46th St & 9th Ave,,

Also shopped, I picked myself up some Calvin Klein undies (so classic, so cute) and also a Betsey Johnson sheer lime green and black 50's style negligee. I need something to sleep in at night now.

I really don't know what I would do without her. Especially in a time like now with how empty I am feeling inside. It ends up being the little things that make you crash the most. Like finding yourself waking up in the middle of the night not from snoring or because he has intertwined himself so much with your body that you can't breathe, but instead bad, bad dreams.

This is by far one of the hardest things I've gone through in quite some time. Everything is just very different.
It's like you're missing the sprinkles on your sundae. They are not necessary, but its nice to have them. You don't need them, you can get on without them. But for the time being, all you're going to be thinking about and wanting and missing are those sprinkles.

They completed your sundae.

My Life In A Picture Storybook

2008-06-18T19:12:00.000-07:00

My Three Current Daily Saviors:

Motivation:

Helmut Newton, Self-Portrait with Wife and Model,
Vogue Studio, Paris, 1981. Gelatin silver print.

Inspiration:

Where my Life is Headed:

..Lastly, but certainly not least

What's Missing from My Life:

"The Magic Is Gone"

Don't Speak, I can hear you

2008-06-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

I had to get an entire new hard-drive replaced in this bad boy. I don't get it, we haven't even been together for a full year.
Apple, you are slacking!

I was also up until 430AM putting together basically a look book for one of my classes.. blah blah what is hot right now in swimwear 08 fashion. However, fortunately I had my roomie Kristina to help, because yesterday was a day where there literally wasn't enough time in the day to do what I needed to do. I have a lot of those.

I'm really looking forward to getting away. Even though it may not be until a few weeks, it's something sweet to look forward to.
I will spend my 4th of July weekend in the Hamptons. Party with the elite.

I have a birthday coming up. I need a new handbag

Any of these will do.

Express Yourself, Don't Repress Yourself

2008-06-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling rather pukey on and off all day.
Almost like 10 minute intervals throughout the day (and now night) where I feel so nauseous.
I look 4 months pregnant- although I'm not.
The past few days I've had the feeling my half-Russian is bored with me.

Its the moments that suck when you realize your relationship sucks at moments

On that note,
Natalie Portman is my idol.

in Givenchy Haute Couture at Cannes.

in Balmain with a bolero jacket by Lanvin.

I absolutely love when people tell me I resemble her. Compliment & 1/2!

Tomorrow is Monday, my fellow supermodel ladyfriend Brittany is coming to visit me for 3 days! Cannot wait.
I hope this week looks up! Wait, I'm just very menstrual.
I didn't see the Sex and The City movie the night it came out, sue me.

Wakey wakey up to my nose in a fashion retail buying textbook!

R.I.P

2008-06-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

August 1, 1936 - June 1, 2008

Yves Saint Laurent, who exploded on the fashion scene in 1958 as the boy-wonder successor to Christian Dior and endured as one of the best-known and most influential couturiers of the second half of the 20th century, died on June 1 in Paris. He was 71.

The fashion career of Yves Saint Laurent was highlighted by a central paradox. The designer who arguably did more to advance fashion than any other of his generation pointed the way to the future by consistently reviving the past. His enduring fascination with more gracious or, perhaps, more vital times, informed his refined, theatrical aesthetic and made him the most influential designer of his day. His celebrated fashions of the ’60s and the ’70s continue to inspire younger generations.

Saint Laurent achieved his greatest triumphs in the midst of a notoriously turbulent emotional life, giving him mythical stature in his own time. Born Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent in Oran, Algeria, he seemed intent on burnishing that myth from an early age. Precociously, he entered a design contest while still in his teens and won the attention of Christian Dior, who eventually tapped him to take over his legendary fashion house. In 1958, shortly after Dior's death, Saint Laurent, then 21, was credited with saving the moribund house of Dior with his Trapeze line, displaying a daring that would flourish through much of his career. The beat-inspired biker jackets and turtleneck sweaters of his next, and last, collection for Dior were widely disparaged yet sealed his reputation as a designer who elevated the look of the streets to haute couture.

In 1962, he opened his own fashion house, and during the next decades designed androgynous looks like his safari jacket with tight pants and thigh-high boots and, most memorably, Le Smoking, the classic tuxedo suit for women.

Throughout his career, Saint Laurent was visibly indebted to the work of mid-20th-century painters including Braque, Picasso and Mondrian and the flamboyant fashions of earlier eras. He reinterpreted the belle époque, the ’30s and ’40s, incensing critics in 1971 by unveiling his ’40s-inflected square-shouldered silhouette, which became a dominant look of the decade. His interpretation of the pantsuit has been credited with revolutionizing the way women dress.

“Chanel gave liberation of the body to women,” said Pierre Bergé, his onetime companion and lifetime business partner, “and Saint Laurent gave power to women with the men’s clothes.”

In 1966, Saint Laurent introduced Rive Gauche, a ready-to-wear collection, and a boutique of the same name. He was the first designer to use black models in his runway shows.

He was embraced by the haute monde; his clients and muses included aristocratic young women like Loulou de la Falaise and Parisian social pillars like Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, and the iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve. In 1983 he became the first living fashion designer to be honored with a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Saint Laurent’s career was famously marred by repeated episodes of substance abuse that injured his health. By the ’90s, his designs were often little more than reprises of his greatest hits. In 1998, he sold his ready-to-wear house to Gucci Group, leaving him and Mr. Bergé with only the couture. With Mr. Bergé, he created a foundation in Paris to commemorate the history of the house of YSL, an archive of 15,000 objects and 5,000 pieces of clothing. He retired in 2002 and had become increasingly reclusive, spending much of his time at his house in Marrakech, in Morocco.

www.nytimes.com

Fabulous Finds!

2008-05-31T18:40:00.000-07:00

Urban Outfitters is on point this season! So affordable.
Me likey....
www.urbanoutfitters.com

Sabina Leather Convertible Satchel ($245)

Kimichi & Blue Goin' To Acapulco Dress ($78)

Lux Deep V Halter One-Piece ($98)

Lux Murray Street Babydoll ($54)

Kill City Zipper Jean ($39)

Insight Tiger Tail Playsuit ($58)

Mesh Flower Band ($16)

Infinity Sandal ($38)

Enjoy!

Aye.

2008-05-31T18:11:00.000-07:00

Shitty weather. Shitty mood. Shitty day.

Thursday night I drank absinthe directly from Paris, France, danced on a couch at Room Service (E 21 St. btw Park Ave. & Broadway), then made my way to an accquaintances (*amazing bachelor*) pad to find myself drinking more and by 6:30 AM dancing once again, yet on a dining room table. He lived on the 41st floor.. management complained about noise. Then my mother came into the city to visit me at 9 AM. Huge creep and took some photos...

Last night I drank a bottle of wine while doing laundry and listening to motorhead.

Tonight I am taking a break.

I'm considering trying out an alcohol habit for the summertime!

MUST READ!

2008-05-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

The Affairs of Men
The trouble with sex and marriage.
By Philip Weiss

When the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke in March, I had only sympathy for him: another middle-aged married guy tormented by his sexual needs. I’m 52 and have always struggled with the desire for sexual variety. Everyone gets an issue, and that’s mine; it’s given me pleasure and pain, and jolted my marriage. I’d only talked about my issue with any honesty over the years with about six or seven people, and when you leave out my wife and a therapist, they are all men.

So the conversation had a conspiratorial male character. When people at dinner parties cried out, “What was Spitzer thinking?” I whispered to a friend that I knew damn well what he was thinking: He wanted some “strange,” to quote the old Kris Kristofferson line. Or we passed around JPEGS of Spitzer’s date, Ashley Dupre, and commented on her luscious body. The governor’s plight had the effect of outing me. When I told one married friend about my torment, he cut me off. “Everyone in our situation has had one or two episodes. Straying, wandering eye, a blowup. If you have a pulse.”

When I decided to write about it, the novelist Frederic Tuten offered a warning about the sanctity in which Americans hold monogamy in marriage. “You can go against it in life, but don’t speak against it. It makes you a monster. Who speaks against it? And this creates a dichotomy, between what we live and what we profess.”

The challenge for me was to explore the dichotomy, of which Spitzer, with his hot wife and public moralizing and complicated secret life as Client 9, was the most flagrant recent example. Then there was his successor, David Paterson, and his affair, or two affairs, or—we lost count. And then Congressman Vito Fossella and his two families. What did it mean about men—and marriage—that this kind of duality was possible?

Even sexologists aren’t clear about issues of sex in a long-term relationship. “There is all this political and social commitment to marriage, yet this is what our news is made up of, these infidelities,” said the first person I called, Jennifer Bass, communications director for the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. “This is something we don’t understand. There’s research on relationships and research on sex, but putting them together is not so easy.” The result is that our understanding of married sexuality tends to be a rich mix of gossip, statistics, and cliché. “One week it’s ‘everyone’s having sex,’ and the next week it’s ‘the sexless marriage,’ ” Bass said. Having visited many of those clichés myself, I could look back and say that baby-boomers had changed a great number of sexual mores and traditions, from premarital sex to naming the G-spot. In his book on the history of sodomy laws, Dishonorable Passions, the law professor William Eskridge Jr. has shown how non-procreative sex had slowly but surely gained a place in American life, a cultural tide pushed by nonconformists and artists—not to mention enlightened affluent boomers. But monogamy has so far withstood the revolutionary impulse. Consider that Fossella is being pilloried for having an affair, while his sister Victoria Fossella, according to published reports, is openly gay, lives with a partner, and has adopted children that her partner has borne. No, these are not the same thing, and Victoria’s choice doesn’t yet have a place of honor—but it’s taken for granted, as it wouldn’t have been 50 years ago.

An article of faith among the men with whom I discussed these issues (and an idea ignored, if not contested, by most of the women I know) was that the hunger for sexual variety was a basic and natural and more or less irresistible impulse. “I haven’t ever seen anyone who doesn’t deliver on every single demand their sexuality makes on them. We make the mistake of thinking some people have a stronger will, they don’t,” says a forward-thinking friend. “There is no more unnatural principle of social organization than sexual exclusivity.” But like other of my male sources, he didn’t want me to use his name. “Don’t get me divorced!” was the refrain. All of these guys nursed a fantasy, as quaintly surreal as an old tinted postcard, of a perfectible world in which we might have sex outside our primary relationships and say that it doesn’t mean anything.

Housed in a handsome townhouse on the Upper East Side that might contain a huge and happy Tolstoyan family, the Ackerman Institute for the Family is a leading center for couples therapy, and when I met its president, Lois Braverman, I brought up the point that Alan Dershowitz and many others have made re Spitzer: Aren’t Europeans more evolved about marriage?

Braverman pointed out that American habits, even on the Upper East Side, have a moralistic component. That affects men too. “I’m not a sociologist,” she cautioned. “But we have a history of puritanism as a very dominant sensibility in the United States. That’s not the dominant sensibility in France or Italy. My observation is that often when people are having an affair, they get very involved and they start questioning their attachment to the marriage, which becomes very threatening to the marriage’s survival. The husbands here don’t treat the affairs in the way we imagine Europeans treat their affairs.”

I told Braverman that I’d sent an e-mail to 50 married guys and put an ad on Craigslist; one of my respondents was a guy in his sixties who said that his wife was no longer interested in sex, so he just went and had lap dances and maybe a little more, and no one was hurt. “I don’t find it’s morally wrong. What’s morality—the sex taboo. This is totally private,” he’d told me. “I can’t change my wife’s point of view.” I’d asked him if he felt shame. “I do, but a need is a need. For a woman too. A woman has needs. Women are much more mysterious than men.”

Braverman was impatient with the idea that the marriage couldn’t fulfill this man’s needs. “What does it mean that she’s not interested? How long has she not been interested? We know that age does not end sexual arousal or interest, we know that’s a myth. Was there some argument about something else, feelings hurt? What happened? Did one person feel abandoned?”

I felt that Braverman was missing the point, and making me feel guilty to boot. It was the old male-female morality play. I would insist that the man’s behavior didn’t mean anything to the relationship, but she saw it as a betrayal of trust. She also said that some people have strong relationships without “physical intimacy.”

Recent science has tended to support my side of the argument. In the last fifteen years, the evidence has grown that our sexuality is hardwired, and the science is changing the culture. My sister Alice, a respectable suburban woman happily married for eons, says that she’s come to respect the fact that sexuality runs the gamut: Some people seem happy with a sexless marriage, while others aren’t built for monogamy. The only morality she hangs on to is how honest one person is with the other about their stuff going into a marriage.

My sister has been influenced by evolutionary psychology, the widely publicized theory that the sex drive is genetically programmed. One of the leaders in the field, David Buss, author of The Evolution of Desire and a professor at the University of Texas, says that men’s genes program them to seek many mates and try to monopolize the reproductive lives of those mates; think of the manners of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints sect’s sprawling compound in Texas, in which the older men ran the younger men off and had as many of the girls—as young as 14—as they wanted. But women are also programmed for infidelity, Buss says. They have a drive to monopolize the economic resources of their mate, according to the theory, but also to keep a man or two in reserve, because men die earlier than women, or men go off, and women need protection. Recent analyses of genetic databases reveal that fully 10 percent of people have different biological fathers from the men they name as their fathers, Buss notes; that’s evidence of women cheating. But Buss says the difference between the genders in the desire for variety is not minor (as, say, the gender difference in height is, about 10 percent on average); it is staggering, “like the difference between how far the average man and woman can throw a rock.” Consider the Website meet2cheat, in which married people find one another for recreational sex; it charges $59 for a man’s three-month entry fee, $9 for a woman. Cheating wives are harder to come by. “Women are going to get bored, just like men, but I don’t think they have this driving constant need,” says Nancy Heneson, a science writer who’s covered evolutionary psychology since its early days.

The point was driven home to me by a transgender man who responded to my ad. Jay was a woman for nearly 50 years till he made the transformation a couple years ago. The testosterone regime he underwent produced great changes in behavior—as well as tolerance of infidelity. “There is a significant uptick in casual sex, a lowering of inhibitions, and far more interest in sexual variety, including bisexuality and fetishes, BDSM, etc.,” Jay said. “Personally, I have noticed I have a newfound ability to completely divorce sexuality from emotional commitments.”

s even the evolutionary psychologists will tell you, though, life isn’t just chemicals. “Cultural and social attitudes come in and sweep everything off the table,” Heneson says. Society is far more judgmental about women who cheat than men; just read Anna Karenina. Anna Hammond, an arts executive who has written on feminist subjects, points out that infidelity is more costly to a woman than a man: It tends to end a marriage when a woman is discovered, while a marriage “absorbs” it in the man’s case.

“Men have more freedom to act. It’s not because men have more desire or are genetically programmed. It’s because the social and economic ramifications of it are so much more severe for women.” Hammond told me of women friends who have had long affairs and only told one or two close women friends about them lest word get out. The women got a lot from the affairs, she said, passion and a sense of themselves as sexual. “Women do these things, too, but they do them completely in secret.”

Marital passion—and its absence—was a major theme in the responses to my e-mail. “I think that marriages in which both parties are members of the meritocracy seem to be especially vulnerable,” said one friend in Los Angeles. “I see in the [Spitzers] something of what I see in other well-educated power couples—a career trajectory that excludes passion and lust. I know a lot of guys who seem trapped in sexless marriages.”

A New York friend expanded the point. “My wife tells me that none of her friends are interested in sex … Do middle-aged, married women who are no longer interested in having sex with their husbands expect them to remain faithful? They don’t want it thrown in their faces, but if they think about it for a bit, they have to realize that that intense need is being met somehow.”

There is today an extensive literature on revitalizing sexuality in marriage. Lois Braverman at Ackerman had recommended Passionate Marriage, by David Schnarch, which counsels couples to try to have orgasms with their eyes open, along with techniques of “differentiation” to cut boredom. My wife has a copy of the book, but when she saw me on the couch reading it, she mocked me. “That’s chick lit,” she said. “How much of it really works?”

Certainly, I recognize in Schnarch’s work and another Braverman suggestion, Mating in Captivity, by therapist Esther Perel, some of my own techniques to keep my marriage sexual—an important aim, even if I fall a little short of the national average for frequency of intercourse in marriage (about 66 times a year). Sexlessness in a marriage is defined as intercourse fewer than ten times a year.

The common answer married men come up with for the deficit seems to be something everyone’s now wired for. “[P]orn is the norm,” Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller—and Hillary Clinton’s former chief strategist—said in his book Microtrends. Penn reported that the marketplace for porn is gigantic, dwarfing the national pastime of baseball. “And when women realize it, will it change the way they view their colleagues, bosses, husbands, and boyfriends?” It’s not just men. Erick Janssen of the Kinsey Institute has written, “Relatively large numbers of married men and women indicate using the Internet for sexual purposes … but the impact of this on marriages has, as yet, not received much research attention.”

One friend had lamented the Internet’s effect on his life. “There has got to be an outlet outside of marriage. I think that’s pathetic what I do, a healthy, successful, upbeat kind of guy. Am I consigned to that lonely pleasure?”

His wife has some idea of his sexual needs, and doesn’t really want to know more. One man told me that when his wife wasn’t available, he snuck out to massage parlors in a “primal state” or watched porn. He felt no compunction about this; it was part of the never-ending battle of the sexes.

“Porn captures these women [its performers] before they get smart,” he said in a hot whisper as we sat in Schiller’s Liquor Bar on the Lower East Side. Porn exploited the sexual desires, and naïveté, of women in their early twenties, he went on, but older women had come to terms with that. “The most one can expect is that women will cede that area, in porn, a period when you can observe us before we have power, because it ain’t going to happen again.” He spoke of acts he observed online that his wife wouldn’t do. “It’s painful to say, but that’s your boys’ night out, and it takes an enlightened woman to say that.”

Our conversation had a male-conspiratorial tone that was faintly ridiculous—we were like the two straight guys in a French farce. I wondered what the tattooed waitress heard—she was probably having more sex than either of us. Studies provided to me by Kinsey researchers suggest that over the last 50 years, sex and marriage have become increasingly, well, decoupled. One factor is that young people are putting off marriage longer and longer, causing women to have 8.2 years of premarital sex on average, 10.7 for men. “The link between sexual activity and marriage is breaking down,” the researchers wrote.

Susan Squire, the author of a forthcoming history of marriage called I Don’t, told me that marriage wasn’t made to handle all the sexual pressure we’re putting on it. For one thing, the average life span is far greater than it was 100 years ago; what is marriage to do with all that time? And in days gone by, marriage was a more formal institution whose purposes were breeding and family. Squire says that cultural standards of morality have changed dramatically. In ancient aristocracies, rich men had courtesans for pleasure and concubines for quick sex. In the Victorian age, prostitution was far more open than it is today. America is a special case. By the early-twentieth century, she says, the combined impact of egalitarian ideals and the movies had burdened American marriage with a new responsibility: providing romantic love forever. Squire says that the first couples therapy began cropping up in the thirties, when people found their marriages weren’t measuring up to cultural expectations.

“Marriage isn’t the problem; it’s the best answer anyone’s come up with,” Squire says. “Men and women are equally oppressed by expectations. Expectations are ridiculously high now. Nobody expected you to find personal fulfillment and happiness in marriage. Marriage can be very satisfying, but it’s not going to be this heady romance for 40 years.” Marriage involves routine, and routine kills passion. “What does Bataille say?” Squire continues. “There is nothing erotic that is not transgressive. Marriage has many benefits and values, but eroticism is not one of them.”

A long and supportive marriage may be more valuable than a sexually faithful one, Squire says. “Why does society consider it more moral for you to break up a marriage, go through a divorce, disrupt your children’s lives maybe forever, just to be able to fuck someone with whom the fucking is going to get just as boring as it was with the first person before long?”

Sitting in Schiller’s, I explained Squire’s history to my friend and suggested that we could change sexual norms to, say, encourage New York waitresses to look on being mistresses as a cool option. “That’s fringe,” my friend said dismissively. Wives weren’t going to allow it, and we men grant them a lot of power; they’re all as dominant as Yoko Ono. “Look, we’re the weaker animal,” he said. “They commandeer the situation.” He and I love our wives and depend on them. In each of our cases, they make our homes, manage our social calendar, bind up our wounds and finish our thoughts, and are stitched into our extended families more intimately than we are. They seem emotionally better equipped than we are. If my marriage broke up, my wife could easily move in with a sister. I’d be as lost as plankton.

Later, I related my friend’s Yoko analogy to my wife. She pointed out that Ono and Lennon had a marriage based on what they both cared most passionately about, art—not money or sex, to judge from the fact that Lennon went off for a year with a mistress and the marriage survived. But how many of us can afford that? Tuten says that even the New York art world is short on mistresses. “Victor Hugo had a mistress even when he was in exile in Jersey. He lived in a house with his family and the mistress lived down the road, and he went to and fro. I don’t know anyone in the art world who has that. I don’t know too many men who have enough money to set up an apartment for a woman.”

Indiana University in Bloomington is known for its forested campus with a creek running through it and its attraction to great scientists, the most famous of whom was an insect man, raised in a repressive Methodist family, who broke away from the study of gall wasps in the forties to photograph human beings having group sex in his attic, thereby rehearsing what he would soon give all Americans permission to do in their own homes.

Today the institute named after him has a more holistic mission than the strict focus on the genital. It’s called the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction and occupies a cavelike set of rooms with only one doorway to get in to it in one of IU’s stately buildings. I sat down in Jennifer Bass’s office and saw a funny magnet on her file case, a photo of highway interchange signs on a downtown cloverleaf: NO SEX FOR A WEEK on one exit, NO SEX FOR A MONTH, FOR A YEAR.

We talked about a concept Bass had introduced me to, polyamory. She said, “The old open marriage has given way to this.” Polyamory is something of that fantasy I and other men I know harbor, of a community of free-loving people in multiple relationships. Not just dyads, or couples, but triads, or a woman with two “primaries,” a whole community of friends with benefits. “With practice, we can develop an intimacy based on warmth and mutual respect, much freer than desperation, neediness, or the blind insanity of falling in love,” Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt, two former hippies, write in The Ethical Slut.

My most liberated male friend has expressed a similar view. He finds my confession of sexual torment backward. “It breaks my fucking heart to hear you talk that way. That any person has to talk about where their sexuality has led them in a shameful manner, in relation to other people. That a person’s sexuality has led them to hurt, and I don’t mean physically, another person— that breaks my heart.”

If we simply got rid of a vow of sexual exclusivity and the piety around “faithfulness,” which is a religiously inscribed misnomer for sexual exclusivity anyway, we have no idea what the family would look like in 100 years, he says. Okay, most people would be sexually exclusive and married. But there would be a party going on at the other end of town, in a community of people of high sexual desire who understood that about one another and didn’t feel jealousy or possessiveness.

I like the idea of going to that end of town, but I also wonder how much time it would take. Would my new relationships get complicated? Bass said, “One of the tenets of polyamory is that it is honest and consensual: This is something that’s out with your primary partner. How many people are willing to do that? It takes a lot of work. Because it’s about relationships, not about sex.”

Then she brought me downstairs to a seminar on images of prostitution. The institute takes a very nonjudgmental view of prostitution officially, but the visiting researcher on hand was negative about it. Sven-Axel Mansson had spent many years studying prostitutes in Sweden and argued that the desire of men for prostitutes had nothing to do with sexual “needs.” Rather, the drive is socially ordained: because men need to project their own sexual feelings onto a “dirty whore,” or because powerful men like Spitzer want to give up power for an hour or two.

The talk made me feel ashamed of my own fantasies. I had brought with me a printout of bloggings by Debauchette, a high-priced courtesan. Said to look something like a young but more bookish Demi Moore, Debauchette has obviously made a lucrative career of serving and tantalizing rich men, sometimes flying to Paris for threesomes in a sex club, thereby making Eliot Spitzer with his Amtrak-to-Washington fiddle seem unambitious. Debauchette described herself as a “highly sexual woman with a highly compartmentalized life,” and that fit right into my fantasy of the sort of demimonde that modern men and women might establish in respectable society. “He put it out there that he wanted a real relationship, something emotionally monogamous but sexually open, the sort of relationship I love best,” she wrote, and I only wondered if it was real. A commenter said he had gone into the Parisian sex club where Debauchette had been having a threesome, on a different night, and found the strobe room mostly devoid of women.

Erick Janssen is Kinsey’s lead researcher, and after the lecture, he took Mansson on. Prostitution, he said, “has to do with differences in sexual desire between men and women in general. I hate to stereotype anyone by gender. Unfortunately, there’s so much data to support the fact that, overall, men have a higher level of desire. Say if you look at masturbation frequency. If there’s a desire and no outlet, you’re going to find ways.”

Mansson seemed unconvinced. Later in his office he told me about what a dismal life prostitutes lead. “What I saw was actually misery. I saw the effect of this life specifically on women. The dark side of the forest. The negativity of being exploited, of being under the reign of the pimp. So as a result of that, I decided to launch a social-outreach program for people to exit prostitution.”

I asked Mansson about the implicit argument in Debauchette’s writings that prostitution can be legalized, dignified.

“I have a hard time from the research I’ve been doing to valorize this as a social institution … [But] I have met women who said that. Women who really think that they enjoy being prostitutes, being ‘sex workers,’ as they say. They would say, ‘I feel in command, I have determination over my life situation in a way I’ve never had it before. I’m loved by my customers.’ But these are the exceptions. They are not the main.” Had these women been given a choice, they would have chosen other things. “Because even among these women, you would find there it has a high cost. Problems with intimacy and sexuality after they quit their career. They dissociate their feelings in order to survive … The problem has been to make it whole again.”

I went on to Janssen’s office. There were pictures of erections on his wall and erotica. Janssen has tried to come up with a model for predicting who will cheat, based on two curves: one for sensitivity to sexual stimuli, the other a curve of risk-taking. These traits he calls rather prosaically “gas pedal” and “brake pedal,” though the questionnaire he offers touches on the tremulous drama of being a sexual person in an everyday world. Here are statements designed to measure sensitivity.

“When a sexually attractive stranger looks me straight in the eye, I become aroused … [Agree/disagree?]” “When a sexually attractive stranger accidentally touches me, I easily become aroused.” Even among people who would strongly agree with those statements, some are more capable of overriding those feelings. These are people with a strong awareness of risk, which Janssen measures with statements such as these: “If I can be heard by others while having sex, I am unlikely to stay sexually aroused.” “If I feel that I am being rushed, I am unlikely to get very aroused.”

I told Janssen about my friend’s comment: “There is no more unnatural principle of social organization than sexual exclusivity.”

Janssen made a face. “Infidelity is not just a social issue. It is a problem of trust and intimacy in a relationship. You have responsibility toward your partner. Why don’t men make sure they have open relationships? Let them be gutsy to stand up and tell their wives.” He shrugged. “If you can handle that—” I spoke of sexual passion and the way it makes social attitudes seem like so much debris on the ocean of real experience. A friend of mine was married for fifteen years to a woman with whom he came to understand he was incompatible, values-wise. Women had always flirted with him; finally, he made a date. “I thought the world was going to collapse when I did it,” he said. “When I was growing up, people would say they were such sinners they thought the church would collapse if they just walked inside. Well, it didn’t collapse.” He had complete pleasure; he could not accept that something that felt so good was wrong. His marriage broke up a year later, and then he met a nurse who also worked as an escort and who loved sex and loved the fact that he loved it. “Everybody’s different … She taught me I could have sex without a relationship. I didn’t want to talk to her, I didn’t want to go to the movies. I would knock on her door, and that was it. This went on for years.”

Janssen heard me out and nodded. “Underneath it all is this issue, if there is some divide between the sexes overall in how important sex is, how often you have it and with whom, and whether biological or not, how do we deal with that? We institutionalize things. We create institutions like marriage. For most people, it seems to work. That seems to be the issue we’re dealing with. Should that change?”

“Well, New York was just deprived of a really smart governor because he had a need for an illicit but consensual relationship,” I said.

“Consensual relationship, yes. But not to the person you’re cheating on,” Janssen said. “If indeed this is an essential part of you—”

“A friend calls it core.”

“Well, core could still be learned behavior. Essential means ‘part of my biology.’”

The distinction is crucial. Our core has many components, and even the evolutionary psychologists say that there is an evolved desire for pair bonding, for love.

The obvious question is whether we can import a European understanding. The stereotype is that in Europe, they have got this figured out, and every time they snigger over our scandals, they seem more superior. A gay friend tells me that gay European friends laugh at him because even gay relationships here tend to follow a bourgeois, monogamous model.

David Buss points out that in the U.S., it is very difficult for a candidate to be elected who has no professed religious belief, while this is not the case in Europe. In Germany, prostitution is legal. “It’s cleaned up and taxed, and the prostitutes get health insurance and benefits that they couldn’t get if it was illegal.” And German husbands and wives take separate vacations with the understanding that romance might ensue. “You could argue that European sensibility is more civilized and natural.”

I asked Glyn Vincent, a New York writer on social and cultural matters who is half-French, about norms.

“Marriage is more of a formality; sex is not the most important thing,” he said. “From the time I was small, I was led to understand that people have affairs. C’est la vie. This is just going to happen. You’re not going to make a big deal out of it when it does happen. You shouldn’t be hurtful about it. You’re going to be discreet. Don’t shove it in people’s faces.” While Vincent sees young Americans experimenting with new norms—“fuck buddies,” friends with benefits, etc.—those innovations don’t seem to have rubbed off on their elders. New York divorces continue to involve sexual infidelity as a breaking point. “When I make a comment about infidelity in social situations, there’s always a little element of mistrust in people’s eyes,” he said.

European norms may contravene some basic American ideals. In Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel, a New York therapist, says that “egalitarianism, directness, and pragmatism” are entrenched in American sex lives. Her point is seconded by two recently divorced women I know who describe their husbands’ promiscuity as “sociopathic.” In both cases, the men were closeted about their behavior, and the revelation of the secret was bone-crushing.

But Vincent says that French women have to “put up with a lot” and so too do those instinctual Italians.

“I’ve heard this mythology so many times, that Italian women, they’re more mature, more understanding of men’s needs, they expect infidelity. They don’t complain,” says Tuten, who was married to an Italian woman. “I don’t know if it’s true. A lot of Italian women expect their husbands to turn into philanderers, and how do they live with it? Some live by suffering.”

Why can’t we shift American norms? We’ve transformed attitudes about premarital sex and homosexuality in the last 40 years. Why not actively change the rules here and let men and, yes, women too do what they want?

Vincent’s answer echoed the sympathy I’d seen for Mansson’s point of view at the Kinsey Institute.

“I think we’re getting into a question of social stability. The male libido is considered a very dangerous and a potentially disruptive force in society. I think that’s why there are so many religious dictums and taboos around that. The idea that one is allowed multiple partners—this is something that has to be rigidly controlled.”

David Buss also spoke of the libido’s lash. “We understand that infidelity is a great source of stress and conflict and causes a lot of marriages to break up when discovered. It causes a great deal of anguish. The Jimmy Carter model might be better. Lust in their hearts.” This is obviously an American norm. “There’s a lot more fidelity than infidelity,” Bass says. Even if adultery is underreported, as seems likely, studies show that about 25 percent of married men commit adultery, 15 percent of married women.

Nonetheless, the one strong impression I took away from interviewing peers is that American mores are evolving, especially among the affluent. An affair or two is handleable for the rich, says a friend, Jo Mango. “They’re more well read, better informed, and more tolerant. They say, ‘Get over it.’ It’s way costlier to break up. Because look what happens: You lose your living situation and your community in a divorce.” A sophisticated New Yorker made a similar point: “I don’t believe that straying diminishes your love or commitment to your partner. It’s not a zero-sum game. However, it does get complicated and hurtful when you start developing an emotional relationship with another woman.

“But it’s between the partners. Look at all the accommodations you make in a marriage. It’s individualistic. I actually think that we have made a lot of progress publicly about this.” He was referring to the Clintons, and maybe the Spitzers too. They’d been humiliated in the public square, but they’d survived it, so far. Their marriages were formal and more broadly based than their sex lives. Bill Clinton has himself pointed to the Roosevelts’ highly layered marriage as a model. So does my oldest sister. She’s true blue in her marriage, and I had expected her to be moralistic about cheating. But she says that documentaries she’s seen on the Roosevelts and all the science about homosexuality has made her shrug—about others, that is.

Ever since the sexual revolution began, dreamers have made prodigious efforts to normalize infidelity, to bring that paradisiacal planet in their minds into the ordinary world. In Thy Neighbor’s Wife, published in 1981, the prominent journalist Gay Talese got his mind blown at Sandstone Retreat, a communal retreat in the Santa Monica Mountains, outside Los Angeles, led by a charismatic man named John Williamson. It reminded Talese of Oneida and earlier American experiments in communal eroticized living, and he tried to sell it as the latest twist in a road that had begun with Hugh Hefner. But Talese’s version wasn’t convincing. The experience strained his own marriage, and life in the commune was pretty stressful. One of the husbands, still holding a day job at New York Life, said that Williamson had set it all up to give himself access to other men’s wives.

The same sordid air hovers over The Blood Oranges, by the late John Hawkes, another American novelist’s fantasy of liberated sexuality, set in a utopian Mediterranean setting called Illyria. Led by the “sex-singer” Cyril and his panty-dropping wife Fiona, two couples try to make openness work, but both end up smashed, one forever, by a suicide. Lately, the novelist Scott Spencer, who first gained notice in the seventies with the adolescent fantasy of burning desire, Endless Love, published a novel, Willing, about the ultimate male fantasy: men running away from sexless, high-pressure, Ambien-pacified life in the U.S. for sexual tourism with “body workers” in Scandinavia. It turns out to be a big downer. “Prostitutes are like psychiatrists, ambulance drivers, tutors and personal trainers; they’ve got to be used to human wreckage,” Spencer writes.

When I got back from the Kinsey Institute, I told my wife all about the evolutionary data and Erick Janssen’s questionnaire, and she got agitated. “Okay. Let’s have an open marriage. And I have to be out Wednesday night.”

I said, No thanks.

I talked about my failure to grasp the nettle with a couple of other men. “When we were kids, we thought we were going to grow up and be mature; we’re not going to be crazy kids,” Tuten says. “But these questions, they never have an answer or a terminal point in age. We’re crazy all the time, we’re burning all the time … When you’re in love, you’re jealous. I’m in love with a woman, she has an affair, my heart is broken. I become ill. I can’t bear it. When you’re not in love, everything is permitted.”

A gay friend who has “brooded” over his infidelity for a long time, sometimes feeling that he ought to confess, told me it’s a very 17-year-old American view of the world to think that you should tell someone you love everything and somehow the world will be a better place. Instead, he reminds himself, he’s a grown-up, he has secrets.

He’s keeping those secrets to protect himself as much as his mate. “A relationship is a myth you create with each other. It isn’t necessarily true, but it’s meaningful. The key to that myth is that the other person is enough for you. You know in your head that another person isn’t enough for you. But if you don’t honor the myth, then it crumbles.”

How’s that for a happy ending?

...One of the most enlightening articles I have read in quite some time.

Found in the current issue of New York Mag
http://nymag.com/relationships/sex/47055/

At a loss for words..

2008-05-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

I found this in a peronal blog I had been keeping. It was written March 14, 2008..

After a surprising (yet refreshing) night filled with good people, laughter, and later mind-blowing sex- I have come to a conclusion. I feel I have managed to blind myself from the actual genuine things present in my life. And that then leads me to the question of whether or not I had begun to be comfortable with the constant headaches and heartaches. And almost expected them at the start of any new relationship of mine. Within the first 2 weeks of living in Manhattan I met a truly amazing person. And sometimes it takes time before you realize the true value of those “amazing” things. You just hope by the time you realize- that “thing,” it isn’t gone. Luckily, I have found that the things that really mean something to you and vice versa- never go that far away. All this time, while I had thought I found my perfect match, the 1 person since August, I could see myself with. He was not only beautiful, but he was goal-oriented, mature, responsible, fun- everything you could possibly want. However, I would later find out weak and unavailable. And when you meet someone so amazing, you don’t want to really focus on his or her flaws. But certain flaws can really affect your relationship with them in a huge way. It’s like; you can have a beautiful wedding cake. Everyone will walk by it and be in awe and comment/compliment on how perfect it is and how lucky you are. But if you find out that the cake was made with salt rather than sugar- it’s hard to see it as such a beautiful cake anymore. So I have spent my days trying to analyze and rationalize my situation and complaining how nothing can ever be simple for me. But what I realized last night was that, I am possibly so used to “overly baggage’d” situations that I dismiss ones that are simple and comforting. But after experiencing and learning what I have throughout the past year, my tolerance for bullshit has decreased immensely. And I feel that can only be a positive thing. I have never been happier than I am at this very moment. Simply, thank you.

My motive for sharing personal thoughts/experiences is to hopefully offer some sort of position for people to relate to.

Yummy!

2008-05-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

So after 9 months living in NYC, I decided to create some sort of document that will record my living and loving of this city, Manhattan. I have begun to learn (more so than ever) so much about life and myself; essentially since my move and “starting over” plan (for lack of better terms). However my inspiration for this post is 1 of my top five favorite things: cupcakes. I decided I want to put a list together of some of the best cupcakes places all over Manhattan I’ve been to, intend to go to, and more importantly- continue going to.

Magnolia
401 Bleecker St
New York, NY 10014

Billy’s Bakery
184 9th Ave
New York, NY 10011

Buttercup
973 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10022

Crumb
1371 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10021

Sugar Sweet Sunshine
126 Rivington St
New York, NY 10002

CupCake Café
522 9th Ave
New York, NY 10018

Tribeca Treats
94 Reade St
New York, NY 10013

Babycakes
248 Broome St
New York, NY 10002

Amy’s
672 Ninth Avenue
(Between 46th & 47th Streets)
New York, NY 10036

Kyotofu
705 9th Ave
New York, NY 10019
(212) 974-6012

Two Little Red Hens
1652 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10028

Sage American Kitchen
16 E 38th St
New York, NY 10016

Mama's New Baby

2008-05-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

Aka what is glued to my hand. Fucking amazing! Makes life so much easier! So cutiez..

On another note,
Last night I finally checked out my best friends karaoke night at this new hotspot...

Antik
Bowery between 3rd & 4th Street.

Every Tuesday. A lot of guitar hero, a lot of fabulous singing, a lot of drinks, a lot of fucking fun.
It's a smaller, real exclusive lounge. Good looking crowd. One of my new fave's!

PS. It's been exactly a week since I've seen my half-Russian and stayed at my downtown apartment. I hate busy schedules. Sad...

I don’t mean to close the door, But for the record my heart is sore

2008-05-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

I have been having the weirdest days lately. Busy, busy, busy..
I don't really remember waking up or going to sleep

La Maison de Mon Rêve & The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn (-CoCoRosie),
have been playing NONSTOP.

I have been on the search for this fashion film I watched in my Fashion Industry class on YSL (mommys favourite). I actually got emotional while watching it. It was intense and beautiful. I love learning about things that have had a huge impact in one way or another on the world. Primarily my HA, FMM courses or like documentary films on third world countries.

I will post the name of that film once I find it so everyone can watch it.

I am going to post again later, I have just lost my train of thought. As usual.

Numero Uno

2008-05-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

Time Changes You, So Does Love.

Word History: The history of the word vogue demonstrates how sense can change dramatically over time even while flowing, as it were, in the same channel. The Indo-European root of vogue is *wegh-, meaning "to go, transport in a vehicle." Among many other forms derived from this root was the Germanic stem *wēga-, "water in motion." From this stem came the Old Low German verb wogōn, meaning "to sway, rock." This verb passed into Old French as voguer, which meant "to sail, row." The Old French word yielded the noun vogue, which probably literally meant "a rowing," and so by extension "a course," and figuratively "reputation" and later "reputation of fashionable things" or "prevailing fashion." The French, who have given us many fashionable things, passed this noun on as well, it being first recorded in English in 1571.

I will elaborate later.