Well, that was spectacularly poorly run, even by our standards.
1: The Make-up Optional Kit wins the vote
2: Everybody (even the poor entrant on 2/14, whose entry was somehow
deleted from the final competitiors) gets something. In fact, we are
going to ask all the prize-suppliers to give us enough to send all
three prizes—the Madewell tee, the ManGlaze polish, the yummy
Embittermints—to everyone. But everyone will get something.
Semi-finalists, please send your mailing addresses thusly.
3: We are totally going back to the geography quizzes for the next quiz.
This has been a difficult week for us music wise: We had to drive 150 miles with just the radio, and our hand actually cramped from pressing the scan button over and over again. It was a music nightmare. We have since been reunited with our iPod, and this is what we’re listening to:
1. Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool: Good God we love this album! Have been listening to it and nothing but for the past three days. Er, except for all the really terrible radio in the middle.
2. Feist’s Let It Die: We have had this album for like 30 years and never really cracked, but now we are singing "Secret Heart" whenever we are not singing Lupe Fiasco.
3: Vampire Weekend: If they are good enough for the Spin cover, they’re good enough for us.
These are two great bags for under $25! We are posting a $1000 bag later today, but we are not sure it could make us $975 happier than one of these. Especially when we leave it in Starbucks.
We love reader mail! We love reader mail about anything, but we love it most when it combines two things we love (vacation and shopping)!
Dear LB,
I’m going on vacation in a couple weeks, and I have to admit, I don’t travel very much. What’s appropriate to wear on a plane? I always see the celebrities in, like, heels and whatnot. Do I have to dress up or can I just be comfy?
Thanks! JW
We have been thinking about this a bit, too, because we are going to a warmer climate in a couple of weeks. We don’t travel much, and we can recount each traveling outfit with startling clarity (some were dreadful, some functional). We remember overhearing our aunt give our mother her expert opinion on traveling clothes, and it involved some kind of formal wear. We were seriously like OK HOLD UP JUST ONE GODDAMN MINUTE (we are, by nature, very protective of our mother and we do not stand for people bullying her into thinking she needs to dress up to fly on a goddamned plane) when someone ELSE in our family, who flies possibly more than we drive, piped up WE FLY EVERY OTHER WEEK AND WE WEAR JEANS EVERY TIME. Our aunt promptly realized that she was defeated and quieted down. But still!
So, needless to say, there are many schools of thought. Unless you are traveling for work, in a nicer class than coach, or on a short flight, we dress primarily for comfort. This does not mean pajamas or sweatpants and slippers, as we have seen. For us, this generally means leggings, a longish top that involves layering but can be taken off easily for maximum comfort/to supplement a pillow, and flats that are easily taken on and off. This, we think, is why American Apparel was invented.
Here are our picks, starting with the top! Which is bottoms!
We know everyone has seen AA leggings before – they’re nothing new. We thought about suggesting the winter weight leggings (we bought them and love them, pretty much), but what if you’re flying to Mexico or something? Probably no good. These are AA’s standard leggings, but we like that they come in this super dark blue. It’s just enough change from standard black without being all HEY LOOK AT MY LEGS.
We’ve learned that hoods, while traveling, can be a huge asset. If they’re big enough, you can pull them around your face and try to sleep with some semblance of peace and quiet. We would probably buy this shirt a size bigger so we could do that.
We have it on excellent authority that this cardigan is one of the most amazing items the American Apparel has ever made. We are totally going to buy it. Dear Friend owns it, and loves it, and she bought it a little big – and we probably will too. Perhaps we’re just regressing to when we used to wear baggy tops over leggings. Sure seems that way. But we’ve seen this on many people (including, just as shown, with nothing underneath!), and we still love it.
We’ve heard that Sam Edelman flats are insanely comfortable. We just think these are fun, they add a little bit of color AND class, and no one will be able to steal them from you. Plus, it pulls us ever so slightly out of our regression as these are not scrunched socks.
Without phones, or email, or actually wires of any sort:
Today, cosmetic companies and retailers increasingly aim their
sophisticated products and service packages squarely at 6- to
9-year-olds, who are being transformed into savvy beauty consumers
before they’re out of elementary school.
We totally forgot the most important part: the voting!
The finalists for our big contest (including ManGlaze gray nail polish and an awesome Madewell tee, among other lovely things in the prize package) are:
There seems to be a lot of voting going on this year. Er, you know, nationally. And here! We were so conflicted about putting up a picture here of one of these productsthat we just decided to put up a picture from our hotel at our friend’s wedding. This will make her happy, and keep us from skewing the results.
Anyway, we haven’t entirely thought this through, but we wanted to say: if anyone was glad to know about any of these products, or used them because of one of these recommendations, or thought it was good to hear about, let us know. Whichever product gets the best feedback, wins the prize. Or the person who recommended it, anyway. Right. Like we were saying, a bit more confusing than it probably needed to be. But please, vote by either commenting or email!
We’re just saying: We travel a lot. We fly constantly. And no other U.S. carrier approaches American in terms of destroying our interest \ faith in travel. Are you thinking about flying? Let us suggest:
1) Virgin Atlantic to the UK 2) Air France to France 3) Virgin Atlantic and then a discount airline like EasyJet or Ryanair elsewhere in Europe (building in a lot of time for the transfer, because the latter can be awful about missed ones) 4) Virgin America or Delta to the West Coast 5) JetBlue everywhere they fly 6) We also like Frontier, Swiss, Lufthansa, SAS, and loads of others.
We’re not going to bore anyone, any more than we already have for why we hate America Airlines so, so, so much, but we will say! We will never fly them again. Oh, here’s our story:
We get to JFK on Sunday morning to go to a wedding in Florida. One woman tells us to wait in this line. After half an hour, another woman tells us to wait in an entirely different, much longer line. We miss our flight. We wait five hours for the next one. We wait another four hours while that one goes through a mechanical delay. We get to our hotel twelve hours late, and miss the rehearsal dinner. And then, fine, fair enough, but we call them and are like, Can we please take a later flight back home, since we wasted a day dealing with your idiocy? And, they say, no, you cannot.
We know every airline can be difficult on any given day, but we just dealt with literally a half-dozen people, over three days, who were all spectacularly unhelpful. We wipe our hands of them!
We don’t know why the model isn’t wearing any shoes, but … Ksubi jeans! 70% off! She should have been able to at least afford flip-flops. 
