This weekend I got my hands on my grandmother’s memoir manuscript. My mother has been keeping it unavailable for as long as I’ve known about it. That’s because it is my grandmother’s first-person account of her descent into what she straight-up calls insanity, and that is a particularly and understandably painful subject for my mom. Nana was bipolar (I) and schizophrenic, with a long stretch of alcoholism thrown in there. She spent some time in mental wards and received shock treatments. I know all these hazy stories about her past and the unbelievable things she did when my mom and aunt were kids, and I have always wanted to know these stories from my grandmother’s perspective. Now, in my bookbag, is a double-spaced, typed manuscript, complete with pseudonym key and chapter outline.

ONWARD WE SHALL FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT, HO!

When last I left you, dear readers, I was musing about how Kim Kardashian and that dude she was getting it on with seemed to be having a good time, which is all I ask for when people decide to put their pink parts together. Frankly, as a joyless feminist who hates everything that everyone loves, I think they would have had a better time without having to constantly check the camera to make sure it was rolling and positioned correctly and capturing their best angles, but perhaps I am nitpicking too much at people like to multitask during sex. Whatevs. I guess that’s how some people prefer to get their taxes did. Listen, I’m not judging. I merely created this paragraph so that I could be all OMFG I DIDN’T KNOW THAT DUDE WAS BRANDY’S LITTLE BROTHER!!!
When Brandy was the hot shit and I was wailing in falsetto along to her (fairly conservative) singles, I think Ray J was, like, a fetus or some such. How quickly those little tykes grow up. Ray J? Can we talk for a second? Just you and me? Admittedly, I am not patient enough to sit through the entirety of your video oeuvre, as I find you and Kim Kardashian and the concept of watching other people have sex in general to be tedious at best, but what I saw of your lovemaking was not reprehensible, except for the part where you tried to eat Kim’s face. A few times, actually. When the phrase “devour” is used in a sexual context, it is not usually meant to be taken as literal. If you guys were doing some avant garde shit I’m not privy to, then more power to you, I suppose. But I really feel like you were trying to just kiss her and things went horribly wrong. I’m sorry that got caught on tape and you didn’t have the time to edit it out. Maybe next time you’re remember that *this* on camera comes out like ***THIS***. Except for in anatomical matters. Those pretty much translate directly.

Moving on.

What a weird coincidence! “10 Ways to Look Better Naked” all here on one page, okay actually two. Since I routinely sit in the dark and wonder what the person lurking in my house thinks of my naked form, this list is BOUND to help me out.

First up, get some red/amber lighting in that bedroom, and paint your ceiling a shade of peach to enhance the effect. Wear makeup on your face. Get your doctor to give you cream to obliterate stretch marks. Take a salt bath to shed water weight. Use a trimmer to shape up the ol’ bikini triangle, rather than shave or spend time waxing. (So far on these tips No. 1 obviously wins.)

>>> Put your hair in a French twist so it can be elegantly disheveled at night. Do squats and lunges prior to showering to feel less jiggly. Use concealer on body blemishes. Wear jewelry that points to your ass crack. Exfoliate. There, that’s it. Ladies, you’re welcome. Also? I’m sorry.

Serena Williams is really excited to not be bleeding all down her leg in this tampon ad. I know the feeling, lady.

>>> Hey look, it’s Ginnifer Goodwin, one of Memphis’s own! This mug spread follows her look from 2002 to present. Marvel as her hair is short! Grows long! Is put up into up-dos! Is let down! She blinks! She breathes! AMAZING!

First model of color in this entire magazine pops up on page 147. Aside from Serena a page back, of course, who would fucking kick my ass for insinuating that she wasn’t being used as a model in this context. Anyway, this model is advertising using baby oil as lotion. Funny story: My grandmother shaves her legs with baby oil, and one time as a pre-teen while trying to emulate her, I used baby oil to shave my legs while in the shower. I very nearly concussed myself from all the slipping and sliding around. Moral of the story is: My grandmaw is hardcore.

>>> Sarah Jessica Parker wants to talk about beauty and smelling good. What a WEIRD coincidence, since her perfume had a big ad just a few pages back. I mean, WHAT ARE THE ODDS? Best phrase on the page: “This is like a party in a bottle.” Really, SJP? Because if that were true, it’d be called “tequila.” (If I may be serious for a moment, I just went back and smelled the SJP perfume sample and I like it even more today than I did the other day. What does this mean? OH GOD.)

SJP continues her completely-unrelated-to-that-ad spiel on this page by listing her must-haves (buncha overpriced but well-packaged creams I’ve never heard of). And here’s a gallery of how she’s changed over the years! Marvel as she barely changes in a decade’s time, while I have aged a decade in two years (thanks, work and wine!). I keep getting whiffs of her perfume sample now. I like it. This is weird. Am I being assimilated? What’s that look on your face for? Dude, stop poking me with needles! Why are you putting me in this glass box? HEL-LO!!!

>>> Fish-faced model peddles fish scale-colored eyeshadow. Easiest description I’ve ever done.

Random Q&A about the looks of traditional hotties Charlize Theron and Kate “I Kind of Met Her Once or at Least Stood In the Same Room With Her” Beckinsale. No one cares so I’m not reading it.

>>> Ooooh, editors’ product picks. Surely this will be an unbiased survey of affordable shit I can add to the shit already in my bathroom I never touch!

Mascara ad: Because all our eyes should look like they have caterpillars as ambassadors.

>>> Look, I was being facetious before about the affordable shit but here’s a page with HONEST TO GOD affordable cute stuff on it. Little tissue holders, little tins of wax candles, eye shadow … sure, it’s all pointless but at least it’s cheap pointless stuff, which is basically like the 28th Amendement.

Skinny Cow, which is a really dumb name for a company of ANY sort, has a picture of some sort of chocolate popsicle that seems both improbable and amazing. For 100 calories. It must be the size of my thumb.

>>> HEIDIBOT HAS RETURNED TO CLAIM HER COVER STORY STATUS IN WHICH SHE CONVINCINGLY ARGUES THAT SEALBOT IS QUITE ROMANTIC AND THAT GIVING ROBOT BIRTH WAS “BLISSFUL” (of course it was; all she had to do was sit still long enough to have the USB cable connected to the computer) AND THAT SHE NO LONGER DOES QUOTE UNQUOTE SEXY PHOTOSHOOTS wait, what? Ooooh, I guess she means she no longer poses as a dead girl in the woods. Well. Good for her. P.S. Now that your rose is in bloom, a light hits the gloom on the gray. Which, for bots, means it’s time to have your friendly neighborhood scientist clean out your lint trap and upgrade your software.

>>> Shoes in trees. I can’t even begin to continue to stay awake to make fun of this shit.

>>> Shoes on balls. Please see sentence above.

>>> Clear furniture and jewelry. Just like in that ad at the beginning of the magazine. AGAIN, WHAT A WEIRD COINCIDENCE THAT AN AD AND EDITORIAL CONTENT WOULD BE PUSHING THE SAME THING.

>>> Here we go, catching up with “divas” who had a life-changing year: Adele, Keri Hilson, Jordin Sparks, and Pink. I have to say, their photos are quite cute. Although I have to wonder how they all got their teeth to be preternaturally white. What follows is several pages of catching up with these no doubt lovely ladies, which I don’t have the patience to read. Except I would like to sarcastically say GREAT JOB ON PHOTOGRAPHING ADELE FROM THE NECK UP. We wouldn’t want anyone to be offended by her larger-than-a-size-6 body, now would we?

>>> Disney Cruises. They exist!

>>> Inoffensive smoothie ad.

New magazine department called “Life, etc.” wants you to cut out food in heart shapes in February. I’m not sure why, exactly. Maybe because you’re 12 and you find that adorable?

>>> DiGiorno 200 calorie pizza: For when you need pizza to have STUPID FUCKING RULES.

Here’s a list of ways to say “be mine” or some such February-approved shit. The one and only thing this magazine has urged readers to do that I can also endorse: BUY A BOTTLE OF MALBEC. For serious. That shit is so cheap and so yummy and will SO make you want to make babies.

>>> More Valentine’s Day gift suggestions, all of which are interesting but none of which are as good as the Malbec.

Fancy dog food ad. That little white dog is cute but he looks neurotic as fuck to me.

>>> Creating a serene room comes down to natural fibers, less furniture/clutter, and cool colors. SCIENCE!

Essence.com is advertising some wedding-related contest that triggered my natural revulsion-o-meter, so I had to turn the page.

>>> Here’s a spread on Christie Brinkley’s home style, which is basically as inoffensive as it gets, except for this sentence, which makes no effing sense to me: “For years Christie Brinkley lived the supermodel life of a vagabond.” Huh? Are we talking about homeless supermodels? BECAUSE I WILL NOT HESITATE TO WRITE MY SENATOR ABOUT THIS.

Actually, this spread is interesting because Brinkley lives in Bridgehampton, which is more or less the stomping grounds of my BFF Amber, so looking into Brinkley’s house feels like the kind of familiar voyeurism we all cherish when our friends gain proximity-based notoriety from time to time. That seaside, Hamptonsesque style is really interesting to me. “Casual nautical,” I’ve heard it called. Lots of blues and distressed wood and relaxed white tones. I’m not saying I don’t like it (I actually like it a lot). I’m just saying you don’t see that in Memphis living rooms, for the most part. Also, Christie Brinkley paints. And the things in her house are whimsical. Sigh. I cleaned up a lot of cat puke yesterday and paid bills today. That’s more or less the same thing, right?

>>> InStyle wants you to work out “unpleasant gym situations.” Basic questions are answered with basic answers. You guys know what Google is, right?

StriVectin is a thing that comes in a container that looks like medicine you feed to ailing cattle. Is that my country roots showing through?

>>> OH GOD MY EYES (it’s a credits agate page)

Here’s an ad of V-Day tips and trends that looks more or less that the *real* magazine page a few pages back. Same deal, though: All of this crap looks useless and it’s even more badly designed.

>>> Some crap about Olivia Wilde, who has a great name but ain’t hittin’ on nothin’ with me. Except that she’s a Scrabble fan. Word, lady. Look me up on Words with Friends.

Inside back-page ad for something completely unintelligible involving Ford. And Jessica Biel. And Valentine’s Day. And Jennifer Garner. And Jamie Foxx. And something about the color pink. Is this about breast cancer? Oh, IT IS. Well, by all means. Have a completely unintelligible message involving … awareness … or whatever. I guess if that works for you, then it works. So. That works? Okey dokes.

>>> WE HAVE A BACK COVER. I REPEAT. WE HAVE A BACK COVER. It’s photographically blown out and advertising a skinny blonde lady and her giant handbag. That’s cool, right?

Right?

–30–

* and I am stealing language from my favorite radfem blogger because, well, she fucking owns.

Parts one, two, and three.

I am, of course, being overly metaphorical here in my attempt to describe what it’s like to realize that I am only 80 pages in to InDesign InStyle and there are seemingly three thousand five hundred sixty four pages to go. I feel like maybe I need a new system to expedite the process, but then I think that that’s a coward’s way out. What I really need is to crank up the JT and just power through.

So here it comes: The power.

>>> Page 80 is the other half of that shitty perfume ad. It’s pink! It smells like roses! You’re dumb and upper middle class! Buy me! Fuck you, perfume. I prefer my natural musk, thankyouverymuch.

InStyle Insider. Events, On Location, so much text, I am dancing in my chair lamely and avoiding reading. Oh crap I just turned the page.

>>> ZZZZZZZZ

Tacori’s got its own ad featuring a key covered in bling. Is this a thing? Is there some recession symbolism in the image of a key? A key encrusted with diamonds bigger than my kidney? I don’t know. ANSWER ME, MAGAZINE, WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU.

>>> AAAAAAACK HEIDIBOT’S ABDOMINAL STORAGE CAVITY HAS SWOLLEN TO TWICE ITS SIZE!!! WON’T SOMEONE BLEED THE GAS LINE oh wait, there’s supposedly a baby in there. Huh.

>>> Here’s a two-page spread I can’t hate on: Rachel McAdams’ ten best looks EVAR! She is so cute I could just rip her face off and wear it as a mask until someone noticed and called the cops.

>>> General Foods International: +10 for the pun (“Get lost in the foam-ent”). -5 for the scary non-name of your company.

Here’s handsome Channing Tatum (who?) to be handsome in a suit that doesn’t seem to fit him very well. Handsome!

>>> Oh god, they’re letting him talk? I didn’t turn the page for this shit.

True Religion: 1988 called and wants its ad back your executives to perform seppuku. Haha, just kidding, you guys are all right.

>>> InStyle.com house ad that features both a snakeskin purse (that better be fake, you sick fucks) and a shoe that I pray was butchered in the Photoshop cutout process. Otherwise, holy lotus blossom feet, Batman.

L’oréal has made a cute little noose out of Eva Longoria’s hair and placed it seductively around her neck. That’s … weird.

>>> BlackBerry ad. “Blah blah deletes your data without warning blah blah randomly shuts itself off blah blah ugly interface hooey.”

MORE FUCKING SNAKESKIN. They are not kidding with this shit. Boots, shoes, jewelry, and a purse, in case you like to wear your blatant disregard for nature’s beauty on your person.

>>> Honora: I honestly can’t tell if your ad is selling blue jeans or anal beads. Either way, do not want.

“All About Pants” this page screams gleefully. Why, yes, I am all about pants too. We gals have been for a few decades now. Thanks for noticing, InStyle.

>>> Pants! Pants!

>>> Sing the praises of pants! (Especially those costing more than $88, the lowest price of the eight pairs featured.)

Fruit of the Loom coming through with a practical ad touting a line of undies that lack a pantyline. No complaints here.

>>> More pants, I guess? Oooh, here’s a $64 pair. But to be fair, they are cropped. Soooo…

Ugg ad. I shall keep my mouth shut since I own a knockoff pair and they are both warm and comfy.

>>> Rachel Bilson’s here with her three favorite fashion trends for spring! Yay! Rachel Bilson sounds like a perfectly reasonable name for a perfectly reasonable lady. Says Rachel, “Bras as tops: Kind of a throwback to the ’90s, but in a way you can make sophisticated.”

*facepalm*

Rachel Bilson also acquaints me with the name Nicholas Kirkwood, who is responsible for these … things.

You know what? I hate Rachel Bilson.

Eternity ad featuring hot family. As a rule, families with small children don’t smell great. Cover up your shame with expensive parfums!

>>> I take that back. This ad is for men’s cologne. I just opened the sample strip and now my house smells like a really insecure dude. Great.

PEOPLE HAS AN IPHONE APP GET OUT OF TOWN. What do you do with it? Just look at photos of celebrities? Is that … okay? I mean, would you feel okay doing that?

>>> Special K: Lose six pounds by eating nothing but two cups of bran flakes a day. Whee!

On the next page, a reader asks, “I love high heels, but how do I find comfortable ones?” I snort derisively. But then here’s a helpful tip: Gloves you can wear that will work with touchscreen phones and whatnot. Neat. Oh, they’re $165? Swell, I’ll stick with my fingerless gloves.

IT STILL SMELLS LIKE COLOGNE IN HERE, BLEH

>>> Oh, fun! We’ve reached the monthly “play up your physical assets!” story. This one’s called “Play Up YOUR ASSETS!” It features photos of the same incredibly slender and shiny-shinned model in various outfits meant to flatter her already bangin’ figure. Fortunately, there are several ways to look good if you’re happy with your waist, your chest, your butt, your arms, and/or your legs! Apparently all of them involve wearing stupid-looking shoes and standing like you have hip dysplasia.

>>> Big black SUV wants to take you to another income bracket.

>>> Philosophy, the company that will NEVER EVER stop sending you e-mail spam even though you have no idea how you got on their mailing list.

Here’s a cute little spread of dryer sheets I mean lingerie for spring!

>>> More lingerie! In black and white! In neon! With tiny little bows to remind your lover that you used to be a little girl!

>>> Lingerie in berry and black, for the neoquasigoth segment of the population (thanks a lot, Stephanie Meyer).

Sarah Jessica Parker has a new fragrance that is bottled in a container made entirely of broken leopard-print dreams from the ’80s.

>>> SWEET JESUS, I GET TO SMELL IT? I feel like a fucking VIP. Okay, here goes. My god, it’s the best-smelling thing in this book so far. And that includes the envelope I was using as a bookmark that I spilled coffee on last week. Kinda citrusy and summery.

An ad for RealSimple.com. I took Real Simple magazine accidentally for a few months and never could quite shake the feeling that it could have been half the size and still provided the same information. That’s a pretty deadly thought for a print wonk to think about a printed publication.

>>> Ladies, do you feel like your well-tailored suit jackets are just too fucking classy? Slap on a generic men’s tuxedo jacket and then be sure to get into candid photos that you’ll be sure to regret in ten years!

Silpada: If you peddle jewelry for us, you will be required to wear every piece we offer on your body every time you leave the house.

>>> GNC’s got a crapload of pills to make you a better woman. NINJA KICK!

>>> Jewelry featuring knots. I just ate peanut butter out of the jar.

Dove chocolates: Now with Martha Stewart’s incredibly obvious gift suggestions under the wrapper! (“Wrap chocolate in a love note and give as a gift.” REALLY MARTHA? That is a fucking Valentine’s Day breakthrough.)

>>> More jewelry you can’t afford. I am only eating peanut butter out of the jar because that GNC ad reminded me how important protein is.

An ad for some movie and some dude and some chick and Nicholas Sparks and feelings that most people have, probably.

>>> Oooh, a page of “deals and steals!” $75 ring, no. $98 jacket, meep. $40 tank top, ouch. $110 hideous shoes, barf. Ohhhh, I get it: STEALS. I gotcha, InStyle. Wink wink.

Detergent. The only thing on this spread you can buy for less than $40.

>>> DERMAdoctor cream. It’s purple! For some reason!

And so begins the beauty portion of the magazine. First up: Shimmery gold eyes! If I may offer one suggestion: Steer clear of putting actual glitter on your eyelids. Your corneas will thank you later.

>>> Trollbeads?!?!? “The new language of love.” ?!?!? Okay, so that’s a thing.

Okay, here come the anti-aging secrets. This is pretty exciting, like time travel!

>>> This involves a lot of cream. A lot of cream.

>>> Like, an uncomfortable amount of cream.

Perricone MD ad: OUR CREAM BREAKS BEAKERS PLEASE DON’T THINK ABOUT HOW THAT RELATES TO YOUR SKIN

>>> More cream than I have ever seen before.

Kim Kardashian’s new fragrance calls itself “voluptuous.” I don’t know why this person has a fragrance that is named for her, but just as soon as I was going to defend her from people who just want to slut-shame, I click over to her official website and see that she uses the mudflap girl as her logo on some of her official merchandise. Kim, I don’t care if you like to fuck, BUT FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, STOP BEING FUCKING STUPID.

Oh hey, there’s -30- KITTY to tell me that this portion of the recap is over.

It’s probably for the best that I stop now, because I may or may not have spent some time just now tracking down that Kardashian sex tape, which, if you know me, signifies a major brain break. (Is it just me, or did those two do it up right? I mean, I think most porn in general is stupid and the dudes are gross and the women fake it — badly — but these two seemed to really be into it. So, good for them. Next time leave the camera off, you dipshits, so you don’t have to keep looking at it and making sure your angles are right.)

The good news is that we’re now in the home stretch of the desert! The next page is so exciting: 10 WAYS TO LOOK BETTER NAKED. Hopefully you’ll spend some time pondering the suggestions they might make. I know I sure will.

Where were we? Oh yes, page 50. OH FUCK, THERE ARE WEREWOLVES. Hang on while I make a pot of incredibly strong coffee to help me cope. … Okay, that’s better. Sheesus, magazine, werewolves? Because vampires are so played out? Teen Wolf, Taylor Lautner, Shakira in a cage, Wolf Blitzer—WAIT WHAT? Oh god, it hurts. Make it stop. I can’t wait until the spread on how mummies are the latest supernatural hotties. The rest of the page is devoted to Spanx swimwear. Because, remember? We love our bodies this month. Even if that means wearing a full-body glove in the pool.

Simon G. has a giant rock for you to put on your finger. I’ve got a finger for Simon G.

More after the jump!

>>> All right, we are in the content biz now. Here’s a smattering of photos from the American Music Awards. The hypothesis? These singing ladies are wearing outfits that remind us of buildings! J.Lo in something that looks like the Georgia State Capitol Dome! Rihanna wrapped in something that resembles the Guggenheim Museum! Carrie Underwood is an ancient pyramid! There are no jokes I could make that would adequately highlight how dumb this is! The bottom of the page is dedicated to the pressing question: “What song could you dance to for the rest of your life?” Keith Urban says Britney Spears’ “3″ and I hit the iTunes store to see what that sounds like, and immediately have to take a moment to donate some money to Haiti as a means of karmic rebalancing. Ick.

Lancôme, not to be outdone by Dior, offers up its own flawless brunette with an accusatory glare. I once again spend unnecessary seconds trying to make that idiotic “ô” letter, which is looking more and more like a target I want to fling big, pointy arrows at.

>>> WHAT’S THE SEXIEST PLACE IN NEW YORK? Heidibot watches over this page! Miranda Kerr, standing awkwardly in a leopard-print gown, answers, “I don’t know—my house!?” I award InStyle ten points for keeping the interrobang in place and then immediately deduct twelve points for having a picture of Jay-Z without an accompanying “I don’t know—my limo!?” answer.

>>> I HAVE FOUND THE PERFUME AD! It’s Ralph Lauren Romance, and I am so scared of its raw power that I am only going to peel back a corner of the sample, very slowly. Hmmm. Papery, with notes of glue. I will continue not remembering that this perfume exists.

Another InStyle house ad. This time for the magazine’s mobile app. In case you want to feel bad about yourself on the go!

>>> Here we go, we’ve got a spread. It’s The Bachelor, who is actually pretty cute and doesn’t — in print, at least — radiate douchiness, and his harem. Er, part of it. Apparently this photoshoot was the first challenge of the season, and the bachelor chose his favorite brood mare lady from the bunch, based on her confidence and sense of self hot ass.

>>> OH MY GOD, IT’S HILLARY SWANK FEEDING HOMELESS KITTENS AND HOLDING PUPPIES SQUEEEEE

Rimmel lays claim to the only ad in this magazine that would dare to offer to make you go from “skinny to fat in 10 seconds flat.” Of course, they are talking about eyelashes and not your disgusting, horrible not-worthy-of-love ass. NOW GET BACK ON THE TREADMILL, IN YOUR MUUMUU, IN THE HOLE.

>>> Olay’s graphic designer just could not stop with the lens flare thingy in Photoshop. It’s okay. I love it too. I forgive you, Olay graphic designer.

Singers in “pitch-perfect” dresses at past Grammys. I just cannot even begin to pretend to care, except to say that I wish that every time I opened a magazine page featuring Mary J. Blige, it sang like one of those $5 Hallmark cards.

>>> More pitch perfection. Is Fergie hydrocephalic under all that hair? Does Heidibot know that Katy Perrybot is honing in on her empty-eyed territory? Is anyone going to bring me cheesecake while I write this fucking review? How ’bout a spongebath? Anybody?

Fekkai haircare, for all your Kate Beckinsale-ish haircare needs.

>>> More Grammy fashion fun! This time it’s the risk-takers! Remember that time J.Lo stole a sheer curtain from a kitschy Miami motel room and wore it as a dress? Remember when Missy Elliott was like “fuck it, I’m gonna dress like everyone’s aunt”? Remember, uh, Monica?

Fekkai haircare, for all your Claudia Schiffer/Molly Sims lovechild haircare needs.

>>> More Grammy fun, with 100 percent more GAGA! Everyone has been pants-shittingly obsessed with Lady Gaga recently, and I can’t blame them. Last summer when her buzz hit a fever pitch, I read her Wiki because I felt so painfully out of the loop. Now people whose taste I respect are all “Gaga good!” so I can no longer afford to pretend that she is simply a couture Christina Aguilera. Now I am going to pretend that she is a blonde robot from the future sent to battle Heidibot and usher in an age of intersexism. I’m not sure what this page has to do with the Grammys. UNLESS! Gaga and Heidibot are going to have their epic battle on stage. OH GOD. OH GOD!

Fekkai haircare, for all your CHRIST, FEKKAI! DID YOU FORGET YOU ALREADY PLACED TWO NEARLY IDENTICAL ADS JUST BEFORE THIS ONE?

>>> Versace: At least our dead models have their eyes open.

Why, it’s “The Look by Hal Rubenstein”! Where Hal tells you how to elegantly complement your sapphire-encrusted evening gown tastefully, with diamond bands for your fingers.

>>> Sweet fashion-spread action! I was going to say something about Kate Bosworth until I saw the photo of Dakota Fanning in a sweet little red-carpet number. I remember when that kid was just cutting teeth, like, last month. Now she’s no doubt got a killer coke addiction. Sniff. They grow up so fast.

>>> More of “The Look.” You know, “The Look” sure does have a lot of looks. Just saying.

Kinerase: We will put your tulip in a cage.

>>> “The Look” tackles blue sequins. I check Facebook to make sure I still have a pulse.

It’s Maybelline, back to bludgeon you with bad typography! Are your lips neon pink yet? Great, because it’s time to make your face look like a matte eggshell-colored wall that will crack if you so much as blink.

>>> “The Look” is now just fucking with me to see if I’m even reading. “If there is a boot that comes too far up the thigh this winter, we certainly haven’t seen it. Inspired by fly-casting fishermen, Cher in the ’80s, and maybe even Antonio Banderas’s Puss in Boots from Shrek, footwear has become extreme legwear, raising hemlines and erasing questions about pants length and width while promising every woman who dislikes her knees the chance to walk with sassy confidence.” Wait, women dislike their knees?!

Oh, happy day! Kate Moss is in fact NOT dead! She’s in Paris, holding a rose to her chest, but looking very unhappy. She probably just realized that her knees are fucking HIDEOUS and no amount of Yves Saint Laurent perfume is going to distract a man from that fact.

>>> Ooooh, we have our second perfume sample! It smells like that cheap rose perfume little girls used to get in gift sets for Christmas. I accumulated roughly three dozen bottles of that stuff as a kid. It’s all in a thrift store somewhere now, fermenting even further. Little-known fact: Let it set up long enough and you can power a full-sized hottie robot from the future. Now I really regret getting rid of it all. This perfume sample is just a cruel reminder of my shortsightedness, and my general failure at life.

Oh, look. My darling boy cat has just plopped down on the magazine. Kitty says it’s time to stop, and kitty is probably right, because I have to go to work now. Phooey. I wish I got paid to read magazines and say terrible things about them. Everyone’s right. This economy DOES suck.

I’m only to page 80. This pace is terrifying. I’ll try to pick up some slack in part three.

Part one, for your recap pleasures.

One of the fun things about moving is the slow and steady trickle of the former tenant’s mail that you get to receive for a few months (or, if you’re super fortunate, years). When I moved into this house, I suddenly became the recipient of fashion catalogs from stores I literally had never even heard of, all of which were peddling stretchy, layery black things for exorbitant amounts of money.

My house’s previous occupant was somewhat of a fashion maven, from what I can tell. I was initially tipped off by the literally dozens of fancy dry-cleaning coat hangers she left behind (very kind of her, no sarcasm), but my suspicions were confirmed when cards and flyers in the mail from upscale boutiques kept landing in my mailbox every day.

Today, though, I scored my greatest previous-tenant mail pull yet: The February InStyle magazine. HOLY CRAP, THIS THING IS WORTH LIKE $18, RIGHT?

I don’t read fashion magazines, or women’s magazines, or many magazines at all for that matter. Most recently I had been riding on a 2008 Christmas subscription to Print, gifted by my parents, but it ran out and I’m too cheap to renew it. And I used to take Smithsonian (another longstanding parental Christmas gift tradition). And in college I was guilty of subscribing to Rolling Stone for maybe a year. I love love love The Week and took it for free when I paid for a Salon.com subscription (note to self: I should really think about re-subscribing to The Week … not Salon).

I had a torrid love affair with YM (which I was allowed to take as a 14-year-old only because my mother thought it was still the quaint Young Miss magazine she remembered) and Seventeen when I was in middle and high school. I can probably trace every neurosis about my body and relationships back to those glossy tomes, which I would read and re-read until I could recite the articles and tell you what page the cover spread fell on. Oh boy, I gobbled that mess up.

I graduated to Cosmo in high school because I was having a lot of fun thinking of myself as this mature sexual being (please) but really I just liked to read the silly sex tips and wonder if people actually did all that shit (they don’t).

I fell off the women’s magazine wagon during college, when my feminist theory classes taught me the priceless art of decoding. Once I had decoded the everloving fuck out of everything, I realized that there were no magazines directed toward my demographic (young, female) that I could really get on board with. Except maybe Bitch (Bust was a wolf in feminist sheep’s clothing) and Ms. (I subscribe to neither now.)

I’m getting off track, as is my way.

So here I sit, a February 2010 InStyle magazine in front of me. I just smelled it. It smells amazing. Bleached paper and locked ink and somewhere, possibly, a perfume sample.

I’m about to crack this baby open and go through it, cover to cover. And I am going to write down every idiotic thing that flits across the absurd stage that is my brain. (My apologies to Glossed Over, which everyone should be reading because it is fantastic.)

We start with a cover (rest of the entry is after the jump because it got SO DAMN LONG)

OH GOD WHY IS THIS WOMAN SMILING LIKE THAT AT ME?

Okay, it’s just Heidi Klum, a friendly Aryan robot from the future sent to show us what true outer beauty looks like. This woman is roughly sixty years old and has had fifteen baby Seals but her skin is apparently tighter and more radiant than Jesus’ ass cheek. Shameful. Behind Heidi, because she is a robot and cannot be contained by your silly two dimensions, is the InStyle banner, featuring a neat little Photoshop gradient that goes from lilac to baby blue back to lilac. LIKE LIFE. Isn’t this fun? The rest of the page screams random things in allcaps and italics: LOVE YOUR SHAPE! LOOK BETTER NAKED! SHOES! BAGS! JEWELRY! You know, the usual.

It’s time to turn the page. I am so fucking scared.

JESUS CHRIST THIS IS COMPLICATED. Right off the bat Michael Kors is messing with my mind by giving me an out-of-focus photo on page two that folds out into a spread of a blonde lady with a big bag and her generically handsome companion. They are wearing jersey-knit shirts. Is Michael Kors a famous designer of sportswear? Good to know.

I need a shortcut that indicates when I’ve turned the page. How about “>>>” ? Yeah, I like it.

Ahem.

>>> Gucci, not to be outdone by Michael Kors, is offering its own skinny blonde lady with big bag and generically handsome companion. Only Gucci’s duo is clothed in black stretchy outfits with big silver clasps, contorting into unnatural shapes by a big swimming pool. They are sitting in a glass recliner and they look fucking miserable. This says so much about the plight of poor people that I am nearly brought to tears by its beauty.

>>> Clinique is yelling at me in Helvetica. I will allow it.

>>> Chanel. Blonde lady. Generically handsome man. No giant handbag. PROGRESS!

>>> Lancôme exists. I spend ten seconds trying to figure out how to make a “ô” on my computer.

>>> There is a dead Kate Moss or a dead Kate Moss lookalike in the woods with a giant Louis Vuitton handbag next to her. Far as I can tell, it does not contain anything useful for the hassle that disposing of a dead body in the woods. That’s too bad, as we were really making progress earlier. Sigh.

CONTENTS! There is Aryan robot Heidi Klum again with that dead-eyed smile to remind us that we did not make a mistake in purchasing this magazine, despite its odd focus on giant handbags, skeletal blondes, and generically handsome men, all of which are unusually off-putting in this context. The contents page is basically a verbatim reprint of the exclamation point-littered nonsense that was on the cover. That’s right. Someone wrote that horrible shit and they decided to print it TWICE.

>>> Tiffany & Co. either offers jewelry featuring diamond-encrusted keys or they are boldly forging a new path in locksmithery.

>>> Acura has an ad that asked me to do something and I did it. When’s the last time you let a piece of paper boss you around? /shame

>>> CONTENTS CONTINUED because I had already forgotten that the magazine was trying to tell me what’s in it. Because I just don’t fucking care.

I wonder if Emporio Armani knows that a model had a seizure at the exact same time the photog hit the shutter? Seems mean.

>>> So L’oréal has got Kate from Lost hawking for them now, huh? I wonder if she knows that they have airbrushed every freckle off her face. Seems like a risky move when she is known by a lot of people as “Freckles,” right?

>>> MORE CONTENTS! THERE IS CLEARLY SO MUCH SHIT IN THIS MAGAZINE THAT IT HAS TAKEN 20 PAGES TO TELL ME ABOUT IT!!!

Holy shit, Cate Blanchett is staring at me like she knows that secret I’ve not really told anyone and it’s really turning her on. Um. Uh. Yeah, so SK-II. That’s, like, mind-reading cream, right?

>>> We have an actual content sighting! It’s an editor’s note! How quaint! And short. Oh, thank god, because it’s incredibly stupid. “It’s February — let’s talk figure flattery! Seems like a cruel joke, no? Who in their right mind would bring up a topic that involves focusing on what you don’t like about your body in a month that’s known for being so depressing?” HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahhh.

Faith Hill has a perfume, except she calls it a “parfums,” which, well … she’s from Nashville. Cut her some slack.

>>> The behind-the-cover-shoot page. Fun! We learn that Heidibot requested to hear Seal on the set of the photoshoot, and that she was originally programmed to assassinate Kennedy but a careless makeup artist short-circuited her by getting a little too much waterproof mascara in her eye ports.

Flawless brunette is looking at me suspiciously and I have no idea why, unless the word “Dior” is French for “I ACCUSE YOU!!!”

>>> A figure-flattery poll — purely scientific — of 2,000 readers. Fun findings: A majority polled identify with Rachel Bilson’s figure (Beyoncé comes in a close second) and 32 percent of women polled would, if they gained a few pounds and had trouble fitting into their clothes, “drop out of sight as much as possible until [they] could shed the excess.” That’s right, you disgusting fatties. Get back in the hole and wear that fucking muumuu until I say it’s okay to come out.

Target has an ad for dinnerware that I can’t quibble with because it features pasta, and we all know how I feel about pasta. (Call me?)

>>> GIADA DE LAURENTIIS IS GOING TO EAT ME oh wait, okay, you can come out, she is eating some noodles. Sheesus, that was close. This is still that same Target ad. God, Target. Play with my emotions much?

>>> Maybelline wants your lips to be pink. Really pink. Neon pink. You know, like your vulva?

>>> The list of contributors. This magazine is 198 pages and there are four. Four.

RoC purple skin stuff. TLDR.

>>> Reader feedback. There are four letters. Four.

Sexay Calvin Klein ad featuring some bitchin’ purple sheets I am going to have to own. Because I bet my cats’ hair will look great in contrast. *sob*

>>> Jesus Christ, it’s Freckles again. Sans freckles but with a kicky new hair color. Good for her. She can be Photoshopped so many different ways!

>>> The page where InStyle is kind enough to track down the stars’ fashions for you, in case you’re feeling froggy enough to spring for $234 earrings worn once by January Jones, you horrible wasteful bitch.

SK-II must have forgotten that they had Cate Blanchette selling their shit several pages back, because here they are again with a sexy closeup of … a bottle of their cream. I am so offended that I’m going to point out that they are using what appears to be Times New Roman in their ads. Which is just insulting to people with eyes, honestly.

>>> I still really don’t *get* Ellen selling makeup but okay, it happened and here it is right in front of me and I’m okay with it.

InStyle house ad + companion to Ellen makeup ad. Seems like a good time to get a drink, right?

>>> OH GOD, WE’RE JUST TO THE MASTHEAD? KILL ME PLEASE.

I have to quote this because I have no idea what it is: “Hong Kong collection by OPI.” So I have no idea if the ad is for something called Hong Kong or for something called OPI, but either way, I think it’s racist.

>>> An ad for couples counseling or something that purports to be somewhat similar.

KY Intense. I’ve read about this stuff. I’ve heard it’s like super-compounded yeast infection burning. Can anyone corroborate?

>>> MORE MASTHEAD. It takes three thousand people to put out a magazine that is mostly ads. This makes me weep.

Aveda something-or-other. They get a pass because I kind of irrationally love them. Shut up.

>>> Jimmy Choo. Pictures of women in high heels. I feel like I’m looking at a slideshow they’d show in “Getting to Know Your Back Pain: The Seminar.”

Something about Michael Kors. Not sure if this is an ad or part of the magazine content but let’s be honest — there is no real distinction, only the cutesy pretend one. Kors: “Boys love a sexy girl in an evening gown who can also be a little bit of a tomboy. The Very Hollywood woman is the best of both worlds.” Michael Kors, the spokesman of idealistic little boys everywhere, ladies and gentlemen!

>>> I just hit page 50. I am exhausted. This is way more tedious than I ever imagined it would be. And I’m not even really reading anything. But I can’t wait until I get to some of the actual content of the magazine. There is content, right? Or is this one of those special editions that’s all credits and ads? Hmmmm. Anyway. Check back with me for the next installment of this pointless thing that is bound to make me irrationally angry. AKA WEDNESDAY.

Topical and hyper-local. You’re welcome, internet.

I really can’t take credit for the idea. Blame this guy.

Previous years: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.

[Project 365]

[Disclaimer: I like my job and would like to keep it. I am only writing this here at my personal blog because these are points I would be happy to make to any of my superiors if consulted; I write better than I speak, so I am, in effect, collecting my thoughts on the matter and offering them up for mass consideration. And ridicule. You know, whatevs.]

For one, you have to put disclaimers on your personal opinions because no one wants to get Dooced.

For two, you have to count yourself among the ranks of the dreaded MSM, which can make it tricky to rail against the dreaded MSM.

For three, you have to suffer through all sorts of insipid corporate e-mails from people you’ve never met who don’t know your name or what you do.

For four, you are but a cog in a much larger machine that will often be used in ways you really, really wish would just evaporate and go away, because they’re so horrid and your influence is so minimal that you can’t really do anything about it.

I allude, clumsily, of course, to this: Skirt! — a monthly women’s publication currently being offered to subscribers of the Knoxville News Sentinel (among other papers, I’m sure, including, very possibly, the CA in days to come).

I have to admit, I am not clear on all of the details of Skirt!. All I know is what one of my bosses told me when he laid his March copy down near myself and two fellow young women designers and asked us to take a look and tell him what we thought of the unconventional design approach. He described it as a publication geared toward youngish, successful professional women.

My first impression, based on the name and the flag design alone, was one of uncontrolled revulsion.

“Skirt!” is written in some vaguely familiar and probably commonly misused typeface (my guess is Franklin Gothic), and is at times stretched and condensed and all manner of other typographic abominations in order to achieve a sort of chaotic, frantic, childish feel, punctuated frenetically with an exclamation point. Which really bugged one of my co-workers for some reason. (Perhaps she had an exclamation-point accident as a child or something?) The ‘i’ utilizes a different typeface than the rest of the word — some sort of italic serif deal, which, on the website, is animated to be a blinking eye. I am sort of happy yet still queasy to report that there is NO EYE in the print edition. Small miracles and all.

So, based on name alone, you know where this is going. Tell me you’ve got a publication for strong, successful women and I’ll usually be all, “Okay, right on,” thinking we’ve got a political-minded, informative, thoughtful outlet on our hands. Tell me it’s called “Skirt!” and my brain will start shutting down. Suddenly you’ve introduced fashion and feminine markers into the premise. Not to mention the secondary verbal definition of “skirt,” which means to avoid or work around. It’s indirect; it’s passive.

Open up the tabloid (it’s a large tab, maybe the size of the Scene or the Flyer — though I’m thinking the Scene is bit taller than the Flyer — printed on hi-brite with what seems to be full color available on every page, though they don’t use full color on every page, which I’ll get to in a minute) and you’re met with the typical blitzkrieg of colorful advertising that greets you in any periodical. My boss asked our opinion of the editorial/advertising design divide, since it seems to have blurred a bit within the pages of Skirt!, thanks to the editorial and ad designer being one in the same.

The pages of Skirt! feature gaudy blue and violet display type, aligned anywhichway seems cutesy and fun, and hefty sprinklings of solidly colored flower clip-art. Think flower power clip-art. Flowers and text, flowers and text, cute illustrations of vaguely ethnic women with impossibly long nails and eyelashes and hair, flowers and text. Ads. Flowers. Ads. Text and flowers. Ads.

One of the more remarkable (and profoundly depressing) aspects of the design is the editorial photography. All editorial (non-advertising) photographs are printed in black and white. I am told that this is — and I shit you not — because women look better when not photographed in color. That’s so their complexions don’t look so icky in print.

So you’ve got brightly colored ads of airbrushed models sitting alongside somber black and white portraits of actual women.

I’m not sure there could be a more clear and ironic distortion of what it means to be a “real” woman than this policy.

The ads sing, of course, in full color, while the editorial copy whispers. “HEY YOU SHOULD BUY SOME OF THIS AWESOME DEPILATORY CREAM” vs. “Hi, my name is Mary Ann and I save lives because I am a paramedic who works 36-hour days while raising a kid on my own and raising money for cancer patients.”

It’s almost too sad to ponder.

The rest of the editorial copy within the newsmag ranges from the feel-good, pat-yourself-on-the-back-for-having-a-job type profiles of working/creative women to the usual hyperconsumerist agitprop about which wrinkle creams get the best results and so forth.

And then, of course, there are the little things. “Shemail” as a stand-in for “e-mail.” A section called “PMS: Problems Men Started (right now, featuring “Girls Gone Wild,” “Voting machines,” “Brawling,” “Office cubicles,” and “Homophobia.”). A page in the print edition devoted to the skirt of the month. And then this borderline crazy letter from the publisher about her leap into the unknown territory of publishing health and beauty tips for upwardly mobile honky women. Because, you know, that’s something that’s never been done before.

And yet, Skirt! proclaims its mission so loudly on its cover that I must snicker at the bitter irony (see Fig. 2 for details). A huge-ass tagline that touts its deepness and its ability to bring you to the light, to a revelation about yourself is, at best, a display in marketing hackery and, at worst, a cruel joke perpetrated on unsuspecting readers who, after years and years of being bludgeoned by the spiked mace of patriarchy-consumerism, may not know how to wield a skepticism filter properly.

It’s just sad, really, that any of this could be touted as deep and meaningful, when it is so clearly viciously superficial and about anything but actual empowerment.

But that is the way with words and products hawked to the empowerful woman and the patriarchal construct that keeps her in check.

That’s why this publication, aimed supposedly at professional women (which implies the twenty and thirty and forty and fiftysomething set, at the very least), looks like a joke; its design aesthetic is more suited to a magazine for tween girls who can more easily be wooed by cute flowers and choppy typography (which they see in their glossy mags every day anyway). And the copy? Well, it’s the same hyperfeminine/hyperconsumerist shit you can read in any depressing glossy fashion mag that purports to be Empowered Woman’s Best Friend.

Twisty, the patron saint of the What I Wish I Had Written, gets the last word:

This modern preoccupation with the Empowerful Woman was funny for a while, but it begins to wear thin. I predict that if a post-patriarchal social history of the New Millennium ever gets written there will be a hilarious chapter on this bizarre, buffoonish construct.

I allude to the confident, photogenic, entirely fictitious female who inhabits TV ads, “Sex in the City,” Oprah, and the popular imagination. Today’s woman isn’t a feminist. She doesn’t need to be, because she’s empowered.

She may only earn 3/4 of what a man earns, but she damn well has the empower to look sexy doing it in her cheapcrap push-up bra from Victoria’s Secret. She has the empower to demand pink products from manufacturers. She has the empower to cry out ‘I did it for me!’ when she gets her boob job; maybe she even has the empower to believe it. The empowerful woman is saucy, yet feminine. Clever, yet feminine. In her early thirties, yet feminine. Heterosexual, yet feminine. Stays in shape eating Lean Cuisine and sweating blue Gatorade while kickboxing in slow motion, yet feminine. Yes, the empowerful woman is many things. Too bad powerful isn’t one of them. That’s because feminine is all of them.