Friday, May 18th: With my final final out of the way, I was finally free to visit my family in Bethesda for the weekend. Of course, no trip to Bethesda would be complete without a detour to Friendship Heights, a throng of luxury shops conveniently situated near the metro stop before Bethesda. I got to try a few new-to-me perfumes, including Frederic Malle Outrageous! (this smells suspiciously like my favorite Ineke, Chemical Bonding, which was actually released a year earlier) and Guerlain London (actually a very nice rhubarb fragrance, but unacceptably thin).
Our evening entertainment was Sacha Baron Cohen’s new movie, The Dictator. My parents protested, citing the terrible reviews it’s been getting; I ended up having to guilt them into it by reminding them that Sacha was a long-time member of the same Jewish hippie movement to which my brother and I had belonged. I am delighted to tell you that The Dictator is very, very funny, and that SBC remains one tall glass of water.
There was also a preview for Anchorman 2, which thrills me to my very core. I ended up wearing Etat Libre d’Orange Bijou Romantique, which is working overtime to replace Guerlain L’Heure Bleue as my all-time favorite perfume.
Saturday, May 19th: I spent a good 2 hours playing around in the Nordstrom beauty department while my mom had about 20 outfits tailored. The trials of being a five-foot fashionista! While I was there, I sprayed on the new Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb. The first time I tried Spicebomb, I got plenty of warm spices and a virile leather note; this time around I got syrupy sweetness. I haven’t made up my mind about this perfume yet, although I do feel 100% sure that the grenade packaging is pretty freaking tacky.
In the afternoon, we went to see The Bloggess speak at the Gaithersburg Book Festival!
The Bloggess, for those of you unfortunate enough to have never read her tales of the giant metal chicken named Beyonce, is a woman named Jenny Lawson who writes about taxidermied animals and panic attacks (the two are unrelated). When Jenny walked up to the microphone, I swear that I just started sobbing. This is actually unremarkable, because I am kind of a total crybaby (my weakness is Subaru commercials), but it was just so exciting to see how successful this strange, brilliant woman has become. Jenny read through the colon-cleanse scene of her memoir, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, in her delightful Texas deadpan. She also graciously answered my perfume blogger questions (turns out she doesn’t wear any perfume, but she does occasionally wear Teen Spirit deodorant).
Later we ended up seeing Bernie, that new Jack Black movie in which he plays a mortician. I wore Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur, which I figured would go well with the vestiges of the morning’s Spicebomb. Bernie was honestly excellent, although it really should have been named Did You Guys Know That Jack Black Can Sing? He Totally Can, You Guys! It turns out that not only can Jack Black sing (he totally can, you guys!), but he can play a mundanely sinister character to perfection.
We stopped at Barnes & Noble on our way home, where I got a Thor bobble-head to keep Captain Kirk company.
I drifted off to sleep wearing Annick Goutal Songes, a generous gift from The Unseen Censer.
SCENTS OF SELF 
Love the Bloggess! Thanks for finding out her scent. 😉
My pleasure, Lauren! I am proud to say that it was probably the weirdest question she got at that particular reading.
mmmmm…. Thor…….
wait, what? perfume?!?!
Being able to think about things other than Thor must require a superhuman level of concentration.
I feel like your bobble-heads and my finger-puppets should be friends.
Despite their various weapons, my bobble heads are very open to potential friendships!
AND re Guerlain London: What is it w/ rhubarb? Are we going to be forced to actually rub rhubarb all over ourselves to get enough?
Well. You wouldn’t want to rub another man’s rhubarb, would you?
That could be fun… or horrific! LOL
Heh! Batman quote.
Ahem. I don’t even know what this means, but I deem it HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE
At least this one actually smelled rhubarb-y! I consider that progress, after having to deal with so many alleged rhubarb perfumes recently.
Mmmm, Mr. Pine and Mr. Hemsworth! Oh wait, you’re talking bobble heads and perfumes. 🙂
Sadly, my Kirk bobble head is of the Shatner variety, not the Pine. Mr. Pine and Mr. Hemsworth are both gods to me. I think it’s the arm muscles.
Wow, I never thought you would actually wear any of that Songes. That is some flowery-ass perfume for a non-flower-person like yourself. You’re trying to make me take back what I wrote about you not wearing flower perfumes, aren’t you?
I DEMAND A RETRACTION
So glad you got to see The Bloggess on her book tour! Don’t know if she’ll make it to my area (Memphis), but I’m getting ready to read her book, and her blog is tremendously entertaining.
Did you know the movie Bernie is based on a true story? Here’s the link: http://www.texasmonthly.com/1998-01-01/feature4.php Only in Texas, I swear.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and a great summer!
So close to where I grew up (well, close in TX terms)… And people wonder why I fled…
Thank you for the good wishes, Sharon! I didn’t find her book quite as funny as her blog, but it fills in a lot of interesting details about her pre-blog life.
They tell you at the end of Bernie that it was a true story, and even show footage of Jack Black meeting with the real Bernie! It was absolutely fascinating, how the whole town literally did not care that he had killed someone. “He might be a killer, but he’s OUR killer!” Eeeek!
Aaaah I’m so jealous you got to see The Bloggess! She and Hyperbole and a Half are my blogidols (except that I am not funny, and cannot draw comics).
I am genuinely worried about Hyperbole and a Half at this point. Allie just dropped off the face of the earth, and the last post she left us with was one about depression! PLEASE BE OKAY, ALLIE!
She wrote a post on Reddit! About a month ago, I think? http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/qov3p/does_anybody_know_what_is_happening_with_allie/c3zh6pn She’s getting better, it sounds like. And she’s engaged!! Happy days 🙂
Oh man, this is seriously such a relief. I am SO glad to hear that she is getting professional help, and that she and Duncan are still together. Now I need to hear how the Simple Dog is faring!!!
MAN, you voluntarily pick some movies I’d have to be forced to watch… you know, strapped into a dentist’s chair with hooks holding my eyelids open, with my dog’s life at stake… but I concur with you on SBC being a darn good-lookin’ dude when he’s looking like himself. AND on Pine biceps. AND on the elder Hemsworth biceps. (And, of course, on Shatner. Who, BTW, looks pretty dang fine on that Kirky magnet I bought as a sort of minimalist answer to your bobblehead.) I have to comment, though, that your Thor bobblehead really does not express the charms of its inspiration.
I’m amused that you like Songes, and now I think I really must get a nose on some Spicebomb at some point.
Glad school is DONE for you for awhile, and you can spend allllll your free time entertaining us with more posts…
I really had to be FORCED to watch Bernie, too. I don’t like being forced to think about death, and I figured that a movie about a mortician would probably do that some. But it ended up being much more about how a person establishes themselves in a community.
The Thor bobble head is really more of a chibi-Thor, isn’t it? Adorable rather than mind-blowingly attractive.
Sadly school is only over until the 29th, at which time I will start summer classes. But I’ll keep rolling the posts out!!!