Tag: lifestyle

The Progress of Love? The Stages Stay the Same, It’s the Content that Gets the Update

On By KathleenIn Dating, Love, Mr. Right, relationships3 Comments

45 minutes after meeting each other, they were off in the corner of the lounge lip-locked. A few days later, text messages inquires attempted to arrange a proper date — neither had the time and the exchanges ceased. A week passed and she awoke to a Facebook friend request, a miracle considering she never game him her last name. As she clicked “accept,” it occurred to her that they might have done things totally out of order…

Back when I was a bright-eyed student enrolled in Art History 101, I was given an assignment to write a short paper on a painting housed in New York’s Frick Collection. I settled on a series of 18th century baroque panels by the French artist Jean-Honore Fragonard entitled “The Progress of Love.” Floral-ridden and chocolate-box-esque, the 4 tableaux track love from its uncertain beginnings to a happy ending. Beginning with “The Pursuit”  the artist takes us through “The Meeting,” “The Lover Crowned,” and “Love Letters.”

It’s been a long time since I thought about these paintings, but as I compared dating notes with a few girl friends who recently acquired/deactivated boyfriends, I decided the scenes set among the frilly, baroque gardens of earthly delights needed a 21st century make over…

The Pursuit (the attempt at seduction):

She's out with her girl friends, but that doesn't stop him from making his approach.

In Fragonard’s day, when masquerade balls were probably the 18th century’s closest approximation of OkCupid, The Pursuit really only happened in the flesh. Today, technology grants us endless ways to approach (stalk?) our future lovers, but at the end of the day, we still prefer a good chase in the real world…

Much Like Fragonard’s leading lady, today’s heroine is out with her girl friends when He makes his approach. He catches her off guard — the last thing she had on her mind tonight was getting lucky. He nonchalantly slips in next to her at the bar and leads with a corny pickup line because he figures  it’ll make her laugh.  It does. The usual questions are asked and answered. He offers to buy her a refill. She accepts. There’s an occasional arm touch or shoulder tap. Her friends drag her away – they have places to go! She won’t give out her number. But shouts back her name, spelling it out for him. If you want to find me, you’ll find me, she tells him. Lucky for him, he has a good memory. He tracks her down on Facebook. A friend request. Accepted.

She’s out again with her friends, a drink down the hatch when they convince her to message him and find out what he’s doing that night. The doors are wide open. Messages fly back and forth for the next few days. He’s busy. She’s busy. He’s busy. She’s busy. Radio silence. A week passes, then finally he tries again. They agree to a proper date…

The Meeting (the moonlit assignation)

The Moonlit assignation, or the First Date

First dates don’t happen on weekends anymore. Weekends are reserved for real friends. Weekends allow you to behave out of character. Weekends have consequences.

They agree to meet on Tuesday night, after work, for drinks and dinner. She has a 9AM meeting Wednesday morning with a big client — the perfect built-in out for when things start to go rough. He’s decided she’s worth impressing and takes her some place upscale but understated. By now, they’ve both forgotten what the other person actually looks like in real life, and are surprised to find they’re attracted to each other.

He’s nervous and spills her drink. The ice is broken, literally and figuratively, and the subsequent conversation is lively. Before they know it, the maitre d’hotel is kicking them out — it’s closing time. He wants to kiss her. She’s sorry it’s a Tuesday, hugs him instead (what restraint!) and they agree to meet again.

Love Letters (the continuation of a happy union)

after the meeting comes the love letters... or love texts

In Fragonard’s series, this actually comes last — the happy couple send letters to reinforce their eternal love for one another. Today, I’m not sure how many people exchange handwritten love letters any more. However, the exchange of love notes in 2010/11 take on many forms, thanks to BBM and text messages. Fingers shoot across miniature keyboards in rapid-fire, concise exchanges. “Wanna come over?” “what r u wearing”  “;)” NC-17 camera phone images strengthen the lust, while the occasional “i miss u” or “dinner 2nite?” tug at the heart strings.

The Lover Crowned (they finally get it on)

When she was 18, her mother gave her a copy of “The Rules.” Recently, she’d been watching “Millionaire Matchmaker.” Both advocate waiting until a relationship turns monogamous before sleeping with the guy. She always felt this approach got her into more trouble than it was worth, but she’s been trying to stick with it. They’re a few weeks into things and out to dinner when he asks her if she’d like to join him at his sister’s wedding next week. Gulp!

“So..um…what’s up with us?” she asks, knowing that she’s about the meet his whole extended family. Is she “a friend” or “the girlfriend?”

The verdict? She’s the girlfriend…

They go back to his place. Clothes fly off — in the morning, there’s shirts in the kitchen, pants in the living rooms and trails of random garments hanging off the furniture. Thank goodness it’s a Sunday morning.

Finally, she gets to close the book on The Rules.

Next stop? The Swing?

Fragonard's "The Swing"... I don't think this one needs an update 😉

Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner… For That Matter, Nobody Calls Me Baby

On By KathleenIn Bio Pics, insights/observations11 Comments

This morning, I sent out a work-related email signed with my full name: Kathleen [MI] [Last].

The recipient sent me a response with the following salutation: Hello Kathy.

Later, I was on the phone with someone wise enough to ask before proceeding: “Do people call you Kathleen or Kathy?”

Kathleen. People call me Kathleen.

Not a Kathleen among them!

I don’t know if you realize this, but Kathleen is a problematic name. It’s rarely on those iridescent magnets or “gold” nameplate necklaces you find at drugstores. There’s an overstock on Katherine and Catherine, but rarely a Kathleen. People aren’t used to the name and hearing it confuses them. It took Buckie 7 years to remember my name was not Kaitlin.

When I was 9, all of my friends were developing nicknames — Danielle was becoming a Dani, Jessica was turning into a Jess, and everyone wanted to call me Kathy. I know a grown-up Kathy who played golf, voted Republican, believed in creationism, and liked Florida. No, I couldn’t be a Kathy. My father thought it was cute to still call me Poo-Poo Head. No, that wouldn’t do either.

“Your name is Kathleen. If we had wanted to call you Kate or Katie or Kathy we would have named you Kate, Katie, or Kathy,” my parents said when I whined about not having a proper nickname. “Don’t ever let anyone call you Kathy.”

Apparently, my mother almost called me Ashley. If you knew me, you know I could never be an Ashley.

Am I Kat tonight or Kathleen?

It wasn’t until college that the need for a nickname would turn into a full-fledged identity crisis. On the first day of orientation  I met Mike and we instantly became best friends. “Can I call you Kat?” he asked. “I like to have nicknames for all my girl friends.” Sure, why not! College, I decided, was a time for reinvention and so I likewise decided to accept Kat as my new identity.

But given “Kat’s” newness, I was awkward with introductions and never fully embraced the adopted persona. Soon, I found that all my teammates and athlete friends were the ones that called me Kat while everyone I met outside that community called me Kathleen. Kat became not my new incarnation, but an alter-ego. It was all very confusing.

By the time I finished grad school, Kat had faded to the name I gave at Starbucks when ordering my venti latte.

The truth is, my parents’ adamant rejection of a diminutive form of my name had instilled in me a general distaste for nicknames and pet names. Whenever a guy calls me “Honey,” I cringe inside, while a “Baby” makes me feel like a cheap teeny-bopper. Once upon a time, there was a guy I would meet for drinks that insisted on calling me Kitty. He didn’t last long. Though, maybe the biggest problem I have with being called Baby or Honey or Kitten or Pumpkin is not that its a pet name — it’s that it’s insincere and impersonal.

How many people in your life do you call Hon or Sweetie? I bet far more than the number you call Kathleen.

What Halloween Revealed about My Sense of Fashion

On By KathleenIn fashion, New York City2 Comments
If you've ever seen me first thing in the AM, you know I don't need a costume to look a fright

Some girls dress up as wenches or sexy police officers for Halloween. I have a personal aversion to skin-tight fake patent leather and catching pneumonia, so I tend to refrain from these options. Other girls opt for ghouls, hags, or witches. If you’ve ever seen me first thing in the morning, you know I don’t need a costume to look a total fright.

When I awoke last Saturday morning, I faced the pressing need to settle on a costume for a friend’s Halloween party. In my right hand I held the riding helmet that I wore in my equestrian days, in my left, a genuine pith helmet, on my bed sat a vintage straw cloche, a stetson, and a wide-brimmed embellished velvet hat. There was a costume to match each accessory… the question was  is it a “Puss in Boots” or a “Dr. Livingston” sort of Halloween?

Whenever there was a skit or film project in grade school, I was the girl everybody wanted on their team. It wasn’t just because I was a control freak who was happy to do the majority of the work if it ensured an A+. It was because I could always costume the cast. Outfit 5 for a Wild  West adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Othello?” No problem. How about a French perfume “commercial” set in the 1920s? Done. For me, Halloween has always been about taking on a new persona. Recently, it’s been about exploiting the eclectic contents of my wardrobe. How many western shirts does one New York gal really need?

For me, Halloween has always been about taking on a new persona... not about skin-tight, plunging necklines

Even in my adult years, my wardrobe remains one deep costume bin.  My closet is a varied but edited mix of styles and epochs — the product of a decade of smart buying and self-defining. “You have your own look,” Mara said to me as we walked through the East Village (on a night sans costumes). She’s a good, straight-shooting friend who has known me since the 4th grade. “It’s not ‘trendy’ or off the rack. It’s fashionable and totally you.”

Apparently, it’s also very Halloween appropriate.

A few days after the bewitching All Hallows Eve, I rummaged through my closet in search of an outfit to take me through a hurried city day with some friends and settled on something easy and layered.

“Going to a belated Halloween party?” Jessie asked as I gave her a hug.

“Huh?”

“Isn’t that what you wore to Brian’s Halloween thing last Saturday?”

Okay, she might have been mostly right… but who says the whimsy only has to come out for costumes?

 

From Dr. Livingston to City Girl in Motion...

Getting to Know My Family: Meet Stewart, My Favorite Brother

On By KathleenIn Dating, Family, Love, Mr. Right6 Comments

“Don’t you lift those bag of wood chips,” my mother screamed at my father from the bedroom window. “They’re 50 pounds each! Kathleen will do it.” I stood up from the log pile, put down the axe, and looked at my father.

Just righting a fallen tree... Can't Stewart do it?

“You can put them in the wheelbarrow,” he said to me. “This way you can take them all to the top of the yard at once.”

“Them all” equated to 6 bags.  “The top of the yard” meant an acre uphill trek.

“Can’t you get Stewart to do it?” I whined with a grunt as I threw the first bag over my shoulder.

I grew up in the suburbs of Manhattan. At an early age, I was introduced to art and music and exposed to the cosmopolitan life.  I took ballet, rode horses, played the violin at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and fenced. One might argue that I was raised to marry into royalty, but I’d swear my parents raised me to be the wife of an Iowa farmer… in 1860.

I don’t know whether it was the Thanksgiving Day vacuuming accident that landed my mother in the ER or the conversation my father overheard my girl friends and me having about our bench-press goals, but something convinced my parents that their little girl was good at physical labor. Once they discovered they were right, I was done for.

The fridge has to be moved. No problem, Kathleen will do it. The fence needs to be power-washed. No problem, Kathleen will do it. We’re having 10 people over for a 3-course dinner. No problem, Kathleen will take care of it.

I say, why can’t Stewart do it?

Stewart is my dreamy, 6’2, rugged, utilitarian imaginary brother. That’s right. I’m 25 and I have an imaginary brother.

Stew has a knack for making me laugh, particularly in the kitchen

Stewart is the type of brother who tied the feet of my pajamas together when I was a toddler, called me “Tubs” during my awkward tween years, and glued the shampoo bottles shut  on the night of my first date.  Now at the age of 29, he has out grown his prankster days and settled into a well-groomed, gently-teasing, over-protective big brother. He played rugby for Columbia and earned a masters in architecture from MIT. He’s the kind of brother who’s good at lifting and fixing stuff. He’s the kind of brother my parents would have adored but failed to provide.

“Why can’t Stewart do it!” My parents laugh. They know what I’m trying to tell them — it was very inconsiderate to leave me as an only child. “Why can’t Stewart do it?” It’s a family joke now, but as I wheel the 300 lbs of wood-chips up the hill, I’m the only one not laughing.

“You know,” my friend Laurie said as I whined about my post-wood-chip-hauling back-ache and my MIA imaginary brother,  “you could just find yourself a boyfriend… a lumberjack boyfriend.”

She might be on to something.

The Nobel Judges Missed a Nominee

On By KathleenIn fashion, insights/observations3 Comments

Dear Nobel Prize Judges,

The Scientists behind Victoria's Secret Push-Up bras have been overlooked for one of these in physics

In your selection of nominees for outstanding achievement in physics, you overlooked a team of  accomplished researchers who have bent the rules of spacial relations and defied Earth’s gravity.

The scientists behind the Victoria’s Secret Miraculous push-up bra deserve significant recognition. Thanks to their developments in fabric engineering, for the

first time in my 25 years, I have cleavage. It really was miraculous: I looked down and there it was — a bosom. I am not the only lab rat who experienced this phenomenon. There are witnesses and other consumers who have been able to repeat the results of the experiment.

Regards,

Formerly Bosomless

~

I lost my favorite bra at the Atlanta Convention Center. Don’t ask. The resulting shortage of  support-wear meant it was time to cash in my VS gift card and replace the wayward undergarment. Hence the fitting-room laboratory discovery and my subsequent letter to Sweden.

The first time I ever shopped at Victoria’s Secret I was desperate. I was in college, it was exam week, some classmates were coming over for an all-night study session, and I had just gotten out of the shower to face the reality that I hadn’t done my laundry. Sure I could have gone commando, but knowing it would be another day or two before the items in the hamper would make it to the washing machine, I pushed my study-session back, threw my towel in the corner, and hopped on the 1-train.

that signature "don't you want to know what I just bought" pink bag

Prior to this excursion, I viewed the home of Heidi Klum and such other buxom bombshells as a store I had no business shopping in. It was only for those with boyfriends or double-D’s. I had neither. But I was in need of underwear. It was time to go where (I thought) no single, b-cup had gone before.

“Would you like to join our mailing list?” asked the cashier. Empowered and feeling flattered at the thought I could be one of “them,” I boldly answered “Yes.”  With the signature “don’t you want to know what I just bought” pink bag in hand I walked into the street like a victorious general. Victoria was willing to share her secret with me… and I had the goods to prove it.

Now every year for my birthday, my father gives me a Victoria’s Secret gift card. That’s right, some fathers give their daughters Barnes & Nobles or Crate & Barrel gift cards. Some fathers use birthdays to tell their daughters to read more or that they need a new lounge chair. Mine, concerned I’m not “going out” enough, hands me a “go buy some lingerie” card. Et tu, daddy?

Then again, maybe he’s just trying to save me the subway fare when I miss laundry day…. or lose my favorite bra in a convention center.