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The above ad on the New York City subway is part of a series of Lumix ads that are all too clearly aimed at snagging the young consumer. Others in the series say, “Fits perfectly in those skinny jeans pockets,” and “With GPS, it remembers where you were last night better than you do.” It’s like, “See?? We get you! You’re precisely the hip young demographic we’re targeting! We’ve noticed what you wear! Buy our camera!” It’s downright horny, it’s so unsubtle.

I don’t know why this ad series bugs me so much. I think it’s because it’s so cloying and desperate and pandering that it reminds me of a 60-year-old guy in a toupee and boxy leisure suit hitting on 19-year-old Russian model wannabe. If she deigns to let him buy her a drink or give her a lift home in his leather upholstered Lincoln Town Car, it’s not because he really “gets” her, but because he has something she wants. (more…)

All I can say is that they didn’t have “nipple petals” when I was at an age where I could even consider going braless. Or if they did, I didn’t know about them.

I’m talking about those little adhesive flower-shaped thingies you stick on your breasts, presumably to prevent your headlights from showing through your top. (The banner above is from YourNippleCovers.com). I do remember being embarrassed when that occasionally happened–like when someone told the kind of story that also made my arm hair stand up–but I could never figure out why I should be embarrassed, precisely. What did the phenomenon really betray about me? That I was secretly aroused? That my mouth said no, but my nipples said yes? Not hardly. It usually happened when a cool breeze blew through. (more…)

That “skinny jeans” are only skinny if you’re skinny

That any jacket can be a fitted jacket, if you’ve put on enough weight

That I am not, nor was I ever, skinny

If I am ever skinny in the future, I won’t want to be, because it will probably be indicative of illness.

Grinding noises in appliances are never good.

That I will always be at least three New Yorkers behind in my reading.

Guns do, in fact, kill people, especially when people are allowed to use them.

That Heidi Montag is an idiot. With huge breasts.

There are plenty of things that are worth doing that aren’t, in fact, hard.

Photo by Kelsey_lovefusionphoto CC

I used to work at a magazine, Real Simple, that has a feature called New Uses for Old Things. It was my favorite section, even though there was no way on God’s increasingly less green Earth that I’d ever try to get more out of my turkey baster by conscripting it to change the water in a vase, or have the forethought to save a votive candle holder and reuse it as a pretty little toothpick bin. (more…)