‘ ’ Archives
The most important meal of the day
One of the nicest breakfasts I've had recently. Note the robin egg's blue cup of espresso.
I didn’t win! But I learned…
... that I'm fine the way I am, and that my favorite girls, Dana and Runa, were ROBBED of the title. D: The girl who won is in the middle: My roommate Dana is on the right, she placed in the top five. More coherent thoughts later on the whole experience.
My scary pageant face
So it's about an hour until I have to leave, and I'm slathered in spray tan makeup all over my body. I'm wearing so much makeup I'm afraid my skin will never recover. My false eyelashes are coated in black mascara goo. My hair is teased within an inch of its life. Beauty is so, so ugly.
Final show for Miss NY USA 2010 in three hours
... wish me luck! They'll be announcing the top 20, who will walk again in their evening gowns. After that, it'll be narrowed to the top ten, who switch into their swimsuits in a frenzy of nakedness and boob-adjustment. Then the lucky top five will be announced - and they'll quick change again into evening gown and answer really easy questions off their bio sheets. I'm currently 1) groggy. [...]
Behind the scenes at Miss New York USA, Day 2
Welcome to another day of hair teasing, fake eyelashing, and uh, sitting around. A lot of being in a pageant involves two activites Getting "ready" This takes at least two hours and 20 products and half a can of hairspray. Essential to the process is the tease-and-curl (not some crunk dance move) of backcombing strips of hair to create that 80's mall diva allure. I failed at this for [...]
Miss New York USA Day 1: Swimsuit Preliminary
I have been declared cattle contestant 247 in the Miss New York USA 2010 pageant. In all honesty, day 1 has been fun in the most wholesome of ways: all the girls (including myself) help each other behind the scenes. We cheer each other on. We compliment each other's swimsuits. We paint on obscene amounts of bronzer. We all have stretch marks, cellulite, big butts, flat hair, and ungainly [...]
Lingbo gives herself skin cancer, or, tanning is fun.
Back in high school, I knew several things were true about the world: Ugg boots were an abomination to nature, and I would never wear them. Tanning was absurd, and the physical symbol of capitalism and industrialization. (Not that there is anything wrong with those.) Only Paris Hilton-wannabes would do such sick, frivolous things to themselves. I would never, ever, ever, ever get into [...]
A Quest for Lovely Locks: stylist Gregory Wilde gives me highlights.
Hair is one of the most effective tools anyone has. You can curl it, straighten it, dye it any color of the rainbow, and even attach other people's hair to your hair. Since a good or bad haircut and totally change the shape of your face (I mean, no average, feminine woman looks great with a crew cut versus long, flowing waves) hairdressers are the guardians of female power. They wield [...]
Dude, I’m so stressed.
It's really, really hard to be beautiful. Let's ignore so-called "natural beauty" for a second as a freakish genetic aberration - which is its - since the confluence of genes and cultural values is not something any of us can control. There are many kinds of beauty, and I'd argue that the beauty queen type of beauty is a pretty inhospitable one, an exaggerated, gay man's ideal of [...]
Not all beautiful women are stupid
Commenter LindaW replied to my "Why I'm entering a beauty pageant" post with this: Please don’t prejudge pageant contestants, especially Tracey. I can tell you, not only is she absolutely gorgeous in person, but she’s also one SMART woman. A native Mandarin speaker, she also speaks perfect English. She went to college on a full academic scholarship, worked on Wall St., and is now studying [...]
Who moved my vegan cheese? – Peace o’ Pie in Allston
In my free time, I like to club cows and steal milk meant for adorable, doe-eyed little calves from their udders. No. Not true. But I do eat real cheese. I have no qualms about dead animals and animal products. But I did, however, eat at THREE vegan places last weekend, with no morals attached. I'll talk about one now. So how is vegan pizza at relatively newly opened Peace o' Pie in [...]
The food blogger’s guilt
I found myself last night hovering over a bowl of neon yellow, cake batter flavored ice cream. It was delicious, in an artificially sweetened, bizarrely colored, stale cake bit-infused goop kind of way. This contrasted with my diet-approved dinner of spinach greens, tuna, an orange, and chicken breast. I had wondered, back in the spring, what food blogging would mean combined with my type A [...]
International food porn – Quails on sticks, donkey meat, prawns.
Some underwhelming prawns at Private Kitchen 44 in Beijing. Donkey meat in Beijing at Noodle Loft... like beef, but with a gamier, greasier mouthfeel. (more...)
$5 appetizers at KO Prime
In the theme of trying out economically-priced bar specials, here's a tasting of KO Prime's Prime Time menu of $5 appetizers. Friend Crystal and I tried out: Pressed Prime Rib Sandwich Secret Sauce 5 Steak Taco Cola Marinated Skirt Steak, Radicchio slaw, Avocado 5 Calamari Shishito Peppers, Yuzu Aioli 5 The prime rib sandwich was by far the winner - [...]
The Beauty Pageant Diet
I've heard rumors that South American beauty queens eat nothing but tuna. On MTV's Real Life: I'm on a diet, one contestant ate only cottage cheese to drop the weight. I'm not about to do any such thing, since I also have to be a full time student, adhere to a workout schedule, intern, freelance, have a social life, sleep, and do a full slate of extracurriculars, but if I'm doing a beauty pageant [...]
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