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pink ladies
save your life, cheap!
How The He's Just Not That Into You Guy Actually Helped Me Get Over My (Married) (Strip Club DJ) Ex-Boyfriend
Tormented? Driven witless? 99 problems but therapy bills ain't one? Welcome to "Save Your Life, Cheap!" in which we write about the dumb things that get America's uninsured through hard times. AA meetings, James Joyce, Ani di Franco, suicide hotlines…anything nonalcoholic can apply, the more embarrassing the better. Which brings me to: self-help. In our first installment, Sephora Spy's Loren Hunt reviews the $1 book that got her through the worst breakup ever.
So, it's probably safe to make the baseline assumption that self-help books are not the kind of thing that anyone reads because they think it's cool. For some reason, self-loathing became more inherently cool than trying to fix problems, which would explain the aura of lameness surrounding self-help books: the corny covers, the corny catchphrases, the corny jacket photos, and the corny titles, which are invariably presented in a corny (and really large, readable) font. There are no cool self-help books. Cool people do not write self-help books. Happy people write them. And they could give a fuck who thinks they're cool. And you know who else doesn't give a fuck who thinks they're cool? A 23-year-old stripper who just used up every last shred of self-regard finally "breaking up" with the three-timing strip club DJ she had been fucking for the past year. And that, friends, is how I came to appreciate It's Called A Breakup Because It's Broken, the second offering from Greg Berendt of He's Just Not That Into You fame.
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self-help
John Prescott's Ugly Common Person's Guide To Coping With Eating Disorders
Remember that deputy Prime Minister who resigned two years ago with Tony Blair only to resurface a year and a half later with a memoir about his decades-long struggle with bulimia? The British press sure does! And while coverage of this confession has generally fallen into the category of "merciless mockfest", an interview in the latest British Esquire convinced me he was doing bulimics of the world a service. Because while writing about your eating disorder isn't really a British thing to do, John Prescott's method of dealing with his eating disorder is kind of hilariously British, starting with the way his wife caught wind of the problem: she noticed symptoms she'd learned about from Princess Di. Which is, of course, the grand irony: the kids all assume eating disorders are the path to looking like Di and Nicole Richie when, ha ha ha, Prescott pukes his food too! Herewith, John Prescott's Stiff Upper Esophagus Guide To To Coming To Terms With Your Puking Problem, culled from Esquire. More »
self-help
25 Things All Women Should Learn To Do Already
In honor of its 75th anniversary the May Esquire has a big pullout feature called "75 Skills Every Man Should Master." The premise — Magazines! Lists! — is not exactly revolutionary, and the "skills," such as practicing "brand loyalty to at least one product" and "making three different bets at a craps table" are not exactly universally vital, but I'm writing about the feature precisely because it's so classically Esquire. Esquire is a magazine about "how to be a better man" or some John Wayne shit like that. Esquire doesn't try and tell its readers they are fine just the way they are. Esquire likes rules, definites, moral "absolutes" to substitute for the old moral absolutes in which modern society is so woefully deficient. Glamour would, for whatever reason, never tell its readers they needed to know how to deliver a eulogy or install a thermostat without asking for help, because they are too busy telling their readers to not feel guilty about being too emotional to deliver the eulogy without breaking down, or ask a dude for help installing the thermostat. Thank the nonexistent moral authorities that I don't get paid Glamour rates to write this stuff, right? More »
our charmed quarterlives
"Quarterlife" Vs. The "Return Of Saturn": Which Existential Crisis Is More Stupid?
I will never forget the first time I noticed the term "Quarterlife crisis." I was about to turn 25 and I had just left a big-time newspaper job in Los Angeles to try magazine writing (and phone sex!) in Philadelphia. I was in the throes of a really really wise platonic-romantic entanglement with someone twenty years my senior. We had just seen the movie Lost In Translation. And the movie, something about it...spoke to me. I started doing that thing where you reverse-read all the movie reviews of the movie you just saw to try and figure out what it was... and some critic referenced ScarJo's Quarterlife Crisis. That's it! A crisis. See, I mean, it wasn't like I assumed, after dropping out of college and entering one of the nation's more tumultuous industries, that it was going to be, like, easy. It's just that...well...what was "easy", anyway? It's not like I was joining the workforce following a two-year stint in the Navy SEALS. What did I know of "hard"? I didn't even know what the Navy SEALS really do; I don't even know anything; nothing! Ohh, how I hated myself. More »
i just cried
