So, like the true scintillating femme fatale that I am, I went to...wait for it... the dentist today.
An hour and a half of the dentistry nurse lady who takes sadistic pleasure in my agony doing incredibly painful things to my mouth while asking me, just like she has since I was five years old, what I think I might be when I grow up. I swear one of these days I'm going to turn to her, beam a big smile and say sweetly, "Well, I'm considering getting into the Internet softcore porn business, I hear there's good money in that."
But seriously, who makes small talk with you while there's a DRILL STUCK IN YOUR MOUTH? And then after the whole cleaning-probing scenario, she had the NERVE to ask me, all annoyed-like, what was wrong (I wasn't crying! Shut up. I have no pain threshold. The day I got my ears pierced I tried to bolt, and my best friend had to hold me down). You just spent the last hour STABBING me in the GUMS with a TINY SPEAR, lady, what do YOU think might be wrong? My teeth were incredibly sore from Crest Whitestrips, so when I first sat down I politely asked if I could get a little bit of numbing stuff before she started cleaning them.
She looked at me and said "You'll be fine".
WILL I, NURSE RATCHED? WILL I BE FINE? BECAUSE MY SORE AND BLEEDING GUMS BEG TO DIFFER.
And I know nobody reading this blog really needs to know about my sore and bleeding gums, but, yeah, I overshare when I'm pissed.
On top of all that delight, it's exam week, which is like a personal little vial of hell in itself.
I will refrain from talking about how a)tired, b)hungry and c)overstressed I am, for the sake of you nice people who deign to read this blog. You don't need any extra profanity in your day.
But please know that I am.
AND, I recently found out that THIS exists.

This was in the "Shorts" section of the Urban Outfitters website.
Not "Sleepwear", or "Heinously Ugly Things You Keep In Your House For When You're Running To Get The Mail Because Even Though They're Hideous They're Easy To Put On".
"Shorts".
There are a lot of things I could say about adult romper suits, but I believe the proof is in the pudding, or in this case, the model.
Look at her. She's totally bored and mortified. And not in a cool, haute couture, heavy-lidded I'm Best Friends With Cocaine way. In a "Maybe if I slouch enough and hide behind my bangs nobody will notice the camel-toe, oh my God if this picture ever gets back to the kids in Montana I will NEVER LIVE IT DOWN, they think I'm in New York being a cool tall model girl with long bangs who goes to parties, not Tired Girl In Romper Suit On The Urban Outfitters Website. NOBODY MUST EVER KNOW. And also, my crotch itches," way. I mean, who enters a store and thinks, "God, I need to buy something to take my mind off my troubles. EXCELLENT! The new line of ROMPERS is in! I'll take ONE IN EVERY COLOR!"?

Needless to say, the combination of tooth pain, exams and romper suits has left me desperately in need of a pick-me-up. And I know most of the readers of this blog will appreciate it as well, at least if your taste in men is along the same lines as mine...
without further ado, I give you
EMMA'S LIST OF THE TOP 5 SEXIEST/CUTEST/GENERALLY HEART-PALPITATION/INDUCING MEN IN THE WORLD
*Editor's note- results are not guaranteed to be scientific, and are not in any particular order
**If a certain guy is listed with this asterisk *, that doesn't mean I necessarily think the GUY is that hot, but rather the character he played in any particular movie/TV show- for example, Colin Firth is not on the list, but Mr. Darcy of the wet white shirt most definitely IS. I'm not going to list him again since I just explained his main form of appeal (wet.white.shirt. I think freeze-frame was invented for that particular scene), but je love him anyway.

1. Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You*

In stress-filled times like the one I am currently enduring, I am apt to turn to my DVD of "10 Things I Hate About You" and just sort of watch it and watch it and watch it until I'm reciting Julia Stiles's immortal sonnet-list at the end with her.
In case you can't tell, I'm a dork.
BUT. If you are telling me that you don't kind of fall in love with Heath Ledger in this movie, you are a bad liar. I'm going to quote a very smart English teacher I once had on the subject of guys like this. We were discussing Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights during class and she told us, "I always envy the girls who don't seem to fall in love with Heathcliff when we read this book, because I know those are the girls who are going to have stable marriages with good guys." Deep, eh (yes, "eh". I'm Canadian now, apparently). I once spent an entire four weeks at summer camp besotted with a tattooed boy named Derek because he reminded me of Heath Ledger in this movie. But that's not the point. The point is, Heath Ledger is not one of my man-candy delights in real life- I think he's cute but not THAT CUTE- but in 10 Things he is Australian, and has a really great smile, and...phwoarrr, as Georgia Nicolson would say (Katie from Girl + Style once left me a comment telling me my blog sounded like the Georgia Nicolson books, and except of course for the always-charming "Hey, baby, how you feelin'?" I get from the crusty, gross ogler construction workers near my house- hey, what can I say, I'm a sucker for eloquent prose- it is the greatest compliment I have received to this day. Georgia Nicolson is pretty much my idol). So, yeah. Where was I? Oh, right. Phwoarrr.

2. Adrian Grenier

Dear Adrian Grenier,
I love you. Not in a creepy, stalking, Fatal Attraction, camp-out-outside-your-house, bake-you-cupcakes-with-Emma+Adrian4Ever-written-on-the-top-in-frosting way (although, incidentally, on a totally unrelated subject, what do you like better, rainbow or strawberry sprinkles? Let me know, there's no hurry).
Just in a healthy, normal, love-you-on-Entourage, see-everything-you've-ever-been-in-including-that-awful- movie-where-you-were-neighbors-with-
Sabrina-the-Teenage-Witch way.
I mean, look at you. You have such pretty eyes, Adrian. Do you expect to have those eyes and NOT attract stalkers? You little eye tease, you. Also, I love your hair.
And in that above photo at The Devil Wears Prada premiere (I'm assuming. Not that I was there in camo and binoculars, tracing your every move.), you appear to be holding out your arms for a hug. You big adorable suit-wearing pretty-eyed hugger, you.
So, to sum up- I love you. A normal amount.
Best Wishes, Emma
P.S. I was serious about those sprinkles. I NEED to KNOW, Adrian. I HAVE MY REASONS.
P.P.S. Call me.

3. Christian Bale

Some of you may know that I have a fondness for (obsession with) Christian Bale. Some of you may also know that I mention him in some (all) my posts. APPARENTLY, he has an alleged wife and an alleged daughter. Hmph. I bet they have beards or something.
Scroll up and look at that photograph.
Sweet GOD.
Almighty Jehovah.
Good gravy on a biscuit with a dollop of marmalade jam, that is one GOOD-LOOKING MAN. He's BATMAN, for God's sake. I'm going to refrain from saying the things I really want to say about him, because this is Not That Kind Of Blog.

But...did you know he is literally the ideal man?
Not to be alarming or anything, but he WILL be mine one day. Not that I'm implying...anything. Certainly nothing to do with kidnapping, or secret marriage in the woods miles away from where anyone can ever find us, or anything. I'm just saying- be on your toes, Bearded Wife. When you least expect it...expect it.

4. Gael Garcia Bernal

I'm actually kind of glad I don't know him in person, because guys this hot make me nervous and I would undoubtedly, upon introduction to Mr. Bernal, a)spill something on myself and start shouting expletives in not so much an endearing, charming, girl-in-Love-Actually-who-says-"fuck"-to-Hugh-Grant-and-they-fall-in-love way as a does-she-have-Tourette's way, b) stammer something about nothing while trying to reattach my jaw to my face, or c) start blabbering "IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou who said that? My sister, my daughter, my sister, my daughter!" and slapping my own face. None of those options are very sexy, per se. I mean, you never read womens' magazines with cover captions like "How To Twitch Your Way Into His Heart!" or "Top Ten Sexiest Nonsequiturs To Shout Upon First Introduction To That Special Someone".
But, back to the point. He's very, very, very hot. And whenever I see pictures of him he always looks kind of cool and geeky (but not in that I'm Such A Geek But I Love Myself Anyway, Worship At My Feet way, for which we have the insufferable Adam Brody to thank. I'm sorry, I just do not get his appeal). Ah, the wonders of Gael Garcia Bernal. Remember how hot he looked at the Oscars?

5. Paul Rudd

I know there's a lot of people out there who claim that Paul Rudd is their imaginary boyfriend and nobody else's. To them I say- hush your mouth. I have loved Paul Rudd since I was a wee girl watching Clueless and aspiring to be Cher Horowitz (except with better clothes- sometimes I can't believe the '90s actually happened). Then came The Object Of My Affection, with Jennifer Aniston (remember when she wasn't bland, and had a movie career?). I saw him in Anchorman (which only made me love him more, because that movie has more quotable lines than any other one of its sort), and in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And I can firmly state that he is, in addition to being hot, a good actor and HYSTERICAL. And I just saw Knocked Up (more on that later), which plunged me even further into my Paul Rudd obsession. Movie ticket- $10. Bucket of buttery popcorn- $3.50. Paul Rudd high on 'shrooms at Cirque Du Soleil- priceless.

So, that's my list, make of it what you will. I was contemplating putting in that puffy-lipped Italian singer kid, Paolo Nutini, but then I thought better of it because I realized who he is. He's That Kid. The one who's really funny and does random stuff like smoke cigars and invent The Price Is Right drinking games, but is actually kind of an asshole and a poseur and knows exactly how cute he is. Or at least, that's kind of how I see him.

TV, MOVIE AND MUSIC CORNER- So, as I said, I saw Knocked Up, and I LOVED it. It's not, like, on my Top Best Movies Ever list, but it's very, very, very funny, and it doesn't bash you over the head with the whole "babies, babies, babies!" thing. It's one of those movies where you leave not only laughing but actually...feeling something, and you're like "How the hell did that happen?" There were so many good lines and moments, but...my favorites were "You weren't chosen for a reason", the whole Cirque Du Soleil 'shrooms thing (seriously, don't eat or drink anything during that scene, you'll be laughing too hard to swallow), and Kristen Wiig as the slyly bitchy Underminer who works with Katherine Hiegl's character- it was subtle, but HIGH-LARIOUS. I totally want to see this again. TV-wise- does anybody else out there love Ab Fab reruns as much as I do? No? No takers? Okay. My mother and aunt instilled a deep love of this show in me. Best line EVER- ''One snap of my fingers and I can raise hemlines so high the whole world's your gynecologist.''

Thoroughly awesome. Also awesome is Catherine Tate as Lauren Cooper. I just discovered these sketches (they're on British TV, I think) and they're awesome. "I ain't bovvered!" is my new catchprase. I don't know if anyone but me finds them funny, but... here's some anyway. Lauren Cooper English Class (with David Tennant),
Lauren Cooper French Class
For some reason it's not letting me load the other 2, but if you like those, Youtube-search "Catherine Tate Field Trip" and "Tony Blair bovvered". They're vair, vair amusant. In the second one, Tony Blair makes an actual cameo!

Seriously, Lauren is my idol. "Suis-je bovvered?" "Have you got Jesus in your heart, miss?" "Are we your flock? Izzit that we are your flock, miss?" "D'you fancy Billie Piper, sir?" "Amest-I bovvered forsooth? Be-eth this the bovvered face thou seest before thee?" Oh, and in case you don't know, David Tennant is Doctor Who. I didn't know until I Wikipediaed it.

Music-wise...

SIGHTINGS- I think I saw a drag queen wearing the same top as me.
Also...

Obviously this picture of Jenny Lewis doesn't count as a Sighting, as I, shockingly enough, did not attend the CFDA award thing. But I just wanted to stick it in to send a positive message to the community, and that message is- things that would make one person (i.e. Lindsay Lohan) look like a crackhead, can look really cute on another (Jenny Lewis). And I covet those shoes.
Speaking of Lindsay, which brings me to the question of rehab, which brings me to the question of alcoholic beverage consumption which of course leads me to Paris...I saw the Sarah Silverman thing on Youtube, and while I have no problem with Paris getting bitch-slapped, I just didn't think it was all that funny. I much prefer The Sarah Silverman Program. I thought she seemed stilted onstage (perhaps because the MTV Movie Awards are a widely-renowned piece of crap).

CURRENT ATTIRE- Da-Nang silk cargo shorts, fitted pale gray tee, colorful bangles, white wedge-type shoes.

XOXOXOXOXO,
Emma

There's something about the end of the school year that always gets me a little nostalgic.
And when I say nostalgic, I mean my own personal brand of nostalgia. Not sifting through boxes of old photographs, a single delicate tear running down my cheek while singing "Memories" softly to myself with a sob in my throat
I mean my special interpretation of the stages of grief (eat that, Kubler-Ross)- stuffing my face, moaning about the diet I'm supposed to be on, watching Tyrant Banks attempt to Oprah her way in to the Benevolent Martyr Of The Year award show by doing her "listening face" (which was so clearly jacked from The Big Book O' Winfrey that I can't even handle it), finally trying to get out a stack of photos and getting a papercut, therefore leading me to run around the apartment for three hours screaming "MY THUMB, MY THUMB, OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD MY THUMB", and of course, reflecting back on my childhood.

Look, even Nicole Richie is like, "Hello? Hello? Can you even HEAR ME? Or are you just MESMERIZED by the REFLECTION of YOU in my T-ZONE?"
In one of my junk-food-entrenched reflections on the days of yore, I remembered something that played a very integral part of my early life- fantasizing about my Dream House.

Surely somebody out there knows what I mean. Back in my Popsicle-stained, muddy-kneed, red-overalls-wearing (I didn't pick my own clothes out, okay? So shut up) days, my similarly sticky little friends and I would convene on the playground to discuss the houses we would live in when we were all grown up- you know, pink fuzzy towels, lots of animals, only candy in the fridge, Prince Charming hanging out on the couch, that kind of thing. But my idea of the Dream House has been tweaked a little bit since I was seven. Now, the kitchen is filled with kitsch accessories and I've scrapped the whole animal-jungle thing (I'm not really a menagerie kind of girl- it turns out animals require food, water and unwavering attention, and hello, I can barely focus on my own hand for more than nine seconds at a time), but at times I still catch myself daydreaming about the kind of place I'll live in when I'm on my own. Therefore, I give you...

Emma's Dream House! Or at least, some of the amenities I like to think would be in there-


Voila, I give you The Orange Room. Please note the shoe Rolodex, the painfully awesome chandelier made out of GUMMY BEARS (I don't completely understand how it works- surely the lightbulb would melt the poor little bears? But I'm glad it exists), the awesomely tacky Hawaiian pineapple pitcher and glasses, the so-ugly-as-to-be-awesome Rococo-but-gaudier desk which I so sorely crave (and costs about $3,000 at the Conran Shop, but whatever, this is my fantasy apartment), and the curtains which I will so totally be buying in the near future if I ever stop spending all my money on bronzing powders and muffins. Heh, look at the little fish in the funky tank! Hello, Mr. Fish. You are as close as I will ever see myself getting to having a real pet- after all, "fish" ranks about one step above "balled-up Kleenex" on the responsibility
scale.

Ah, the Game Room. Come on, who wouldn't want to lounge in those ridiculously comfortable-looking chairs (seriously, that red dish chair is from Urban Outfitters and is so shamefully comfortable that I end up having to be pried out by the employees because I'm lying there in a trance), basking under the glow of that funky chandelier and propping their feet up on the awesome Union Jack light-up coffee table (maybe I'm a poseur for wanting that table when I'm not even remotely British, but hey, I'm a wannabe about that stuff. Note- the Brit-speak that's been slipping into my speech, both online and off lately- my friends have been mercilessly mocking me about my exclamations of "Bugger!" and "Bloody hell!" lately)? Then maybe I could mix a drink in the drink shaker with the recipes scrawled all over it, and prop it on the Amish coasters- you can't really see them, but they have little Amish sayings and cartoons and they're F-N hilarious, especially to a self-confessed quasi-Amish non-iPod-having girl like myself. Then, we could engage in some good-old-fashioned parlor games...Vegas, perhaps? I can only imagine what a Vegas board game entails. "You landed on a toothless prostitute convention...go back five spaces! Oh, but you won some of your money back in a game of craps- move up three spaces?" Or perhaps we'll even indulge in some Shenanigans™, wink wink, nudge nudge. And OH MY GOD. The Bible Game. I hope no very religious people are reading this and getting mad at me (I'm not making fun of religion itself, I'm making fun of whoever created this game)...but is that not the funniest thing you've ever SEEN? I mean, wow. Who wouldn't want to come over on a Saturday night and play a rousing round of The Bible Game? "Congratulations, you have just parted the Red Sea. Advance through the pearly gates to receive your complimentary rosary".


When I get a headache from the gaudy tackiness of the rest of my Dream House, I will repair to this, my Semi-Classy Room Of Relaxation. I love the aubergine couch- it's called a fainting couch, and I can totally see myself coming in and throwing myself across it, calling out, "Eet 'as been such a horreeble day, come and rub my feet, Hans, et s'il vous plait, avec le bon massage oil, oui?" The first thing is a little at-home garden which I think is very pretty, as is the weird twist glass flower vase and the totally useless but lovely glass perfume bottle. The suburst clock is from Plaid Pony Vintage, as are a bunch of other things in this post. The funky lamps, pillow and Gothic-beautiful black candle holder are from the Conran Shop, and the print of The Bar At The Folies-Bergere is one of my favorite paintings. I would probably end up hanging it in my first apartment no matter where I lived, amongst all the Seventeen Locker Pinup pictures of Hayden Christensen's abs and "REMEMBER- YOGA SUNDAY! DON'T SKIP IT TO GO SIT ON THE ROOF AND EAT POP-TARTS! ALSO, FOR GOD'S SAKE, STUDY FOR EXAMS! " Post-Its littering my walls. Not that those things hang on my current bedroom walls. Well, maybe they do.



I know I have about two million things here, but I LOVE KITCHEN CRAP. Mainly because it makes food, and we all know how I feel about food (I like it. A lot. Gluttony is the new black). In my Dream Kitchen, I would have appliances in all different pretty colors- aquamarine oven, apple-green mixer, red microwave, orange juicer, pale yellow toaster, pink dishwasher. I would also have a kitsch retro bread bin, fake Amy Sedaris cakes (they would totally taunt me, just like that Philosophy body lotion that smells like cinnamon buns taunts me- every time I take a shower it smells so good I just want to swallow a big gulp but then I remember that it's not, well, edible, per se- still, I love those cakes. And I use the delicious-smelling little tease of a body lotion), a cotton-candy machine, a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN (Oh God, I want that to appear in my bedroom right now), an awesome weird egg contraption that is both an egg timer and an egg cup, according to Suck UK, the off-beat company that carries it, heart-shaped measuring cups, a funky "Coffee-You'll Sleep When You're Dead!" coffee mug and of course an awesome fifties-diner-style straw holder. Also, in my Dream Kitchen (or should I say, Kitsch-En? Oh yes, I went there) I would eat everything and not gain any weight. I would just run around baking things in that '50s slip-dress-like apron from Ballyhoo Vintage.

In case you can't tell, this is my Random Awesome Stuff category. That washing machine is GOLD-ENCRUSTED, which would really take the sting out of having to do my own laundry. The Absolut Salt+Pepper Shakers are there because...heh. The pink flamingo lawn ornaments will surely be adorning any future lawn of mine, and that weird cumbersome lime-and-pale-green studded thing is a cute dresser. I generally hate sleep masks (I mean, come on, can't you just turn the lights off?) but this one is just so damn cute. Speaking of so damn cute, look at those Fred Flare patterned folders! They actually give me an urge to be the OCD kind of girl who turns in all her projects a month early perfectly folded and laminated. The little mod sewing patterns are perfect for me, a wannabe seamstress who's been trying to make her own clothes for awhile but usually just ends up sewing her jeans to her top or something stupid like that. If I ever make anything worth showing, I'll post a picture of it.

MUSIC, TV, + MOVIE CORNER- I'm writing this post from up on my roof; I recently figured out how to get up here, and it's really cool and comfortable in the sweltering NYC heat to have a place to "study" (blog, eat, listen to music). Anyway, I've been rotating between my "Old-Times Playlist"- Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Fred Astaire ("Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday and "Satin Doll" by Ella Fitzgerald are so fantastic, and of course listening to Billie always calls to mind that quote from Clueless- "Do you like Billie Holiday?" "Oh, I love him!" Is it sad that I can quote that movie in its entirety? Probably. But not as sad as the fact that I could literally perform Heathers in its entirety if asked to do so) and my "Regina Spektor Playlist", which features- you guessed it- Regina Spektor. The songs I'm currently stuck on are "Music Box", "Baobabs" and "That Time". The latter, particularly, so perfectly embodies what I'm feeling right now in a way I can't explain. Her voice is so weird and freaky, but also beautiful. I also entertained myself the other day with...oh God, I hate myself- an SATC marathon on HBO. I hate this show so much, I publicly deride Patricia Fields' Quaaludes-fueled sartorial "brainstorms", and I personally find Carrie Bradshaw to be one of the most loathsome characters concocted in recent TV history, but I can't help it. It's a DRUG, I tell you, a DRUG. What woman (and maybe men too, though they won't admit it) doesn't occasionally have a guilty renaissance with this show?

SIGHTINGS- My friend and I were walking along enjoying Mr. Softee cones when our eyeballs were attacked by the sight of a girl in ankle boots, metallic blue leggings (STILL? REALLY! GOOD GOD! SWEET MOTHER OF THE APOCALYPSE! I FEEL LIKE MY EYES ARE GOING TO BLEED. ENOUGH NOW. PLEASE. PACK IT UP, LEGGINGS FIENDS! AM I GOING TO HAVE TO THROW PAINT ON YOU BEFORE YOU FINALLY PUT THEM AWAY? I'm sorry, that was involuntary), a tiny tee-shirt and a vest. Basically, Sienna Miller's bastard child. It wasn't good, to say the least. We shuddered briskly in a manner that is reserved for when we see gruesome car accidents, or Justin Timberlake. Also, on a happier note, this girl at my school was wearing totally real-looking, very funky retro cherry-shaped earrings which I really coveted. And I saw this very Face Hunter-y guy downtown in a pair of misguided black "slim-fit" hipster trousers which I did not care for, but he redeemed himself by being very cute and crisp in a Thomas Pink shirt and a refreshingly offbeat polka-dot tie (but not in a nerdy bio-teacher way, in a funky way).

CURRENT ATTIRE- Little printed sundress, wedges, bright-red vintage bangle bracelet from some shop in London, my usual Strand bag.

Arrivederci!