"Curators"

When strolling the galleries of museums both grand and intimate, I am always grateful for the discerning eye and expertise of curators even if I don’t always fancy the art itself.

In college, I interned at a terrific museum in Washington, DC devoted to art by women. I went on behind-the-scenes tours of other museums ranging from the National Gallery to the Corcoran, and sat down with curators for brown bag lunches to learn about what they do. I even helped take a Frankenthaler off the wall.

Respect, y’all.

But sadly the ranks of actual curators have been breached and sullied. Just like anyone can start a blog, print up 100 Moo cards, and call themselves a professional writer, so too can some yambag create a list of cured meats for a regional magazine or a collection of sunglasses or yoga pants for Piperlime.

So you eat a lot of sausage and like to shop. Do you have a PhD in anything remotely relevant? Is there any standard that makes you a bona fide expert in anything other than being obnoxious? And there’s the trend to call employees “content curators.” Call me crazy but in my day, that was an editor. So go ahead and offer your top ten list or opinion freely and often, but don’t call yourself a curator. The only thing you’re qualified to select and collect is my ire.

(Photo: http://ny.racked.com)

Themed Christmas trees

’Tis the season to be jolly…not to coordinate your tree with your great room décor.

A Christmas tree should be a joyous jumble of handmade ornaments, crude garlands, and twinkling lights.

What is should not be: an accessory. It should not be tricked out to match your couch or your carpet or your paint color. It shouldn’t be tastefully, blandly monochromatic. And it shouldn’t look like it belongs on the floor of your local Pottery Barn or Joann Fabrics. When my parents split, my mom left behind the handmade ornaments our family had made and accumulated over the years. Instead of ornaments made out of glitter and a green metal ashtray from McDonalds (remember those?), we had a fake flocked tree adorned with blue plaid bows and little white seagulls perched in wooden napkin rings. Color me Ebenezer, but this didn’t exactly read Christmas to me. It screamed “aisle 4 in Michaels Crafts,” not a place where I wanted to spend much time during the holidays, for fear of stabbing my eyes out with florist’s wire.

Please pull out all of your ornaments—the wonky handmade ones, the corny gifts, the big-ass, almost-to-scale Santa you bought on an ill-advised trip to a Christmas Shoppe—and lather up your tree the way God and the Von Trapp family intended.

(photo: barefootfloor.com)

Duck face

I’ve done it. I don’t know why.

Maybe I was going for a Real Housewives blowfish look and was trying to mask my lack of Juvederm or lip implants. Maybe I was blowing a kiss to the cameraman. Maybe I was just knee-deep in gin.

Maybe, but more likely, I was going for sexy and thought duck face was a quick way to look like was I single and ready to mingle. Instead, I—and every other trout mouth out there—look like I have a bill instead of lips, like I’m ready to sample some sardines instead of a tasty man’s mouth.

I don’t want to ruffle any feathers but ladies, when a camera is pulled out, please remember “quack is whack.”

Non-prescription eyeglasses

Guess what? I’m selfish.

I’m also blind as a bat. I’ve worn -13.5 Coke bottles over my eyes since second grade. Combine these two and it makes me blind with rage when I see hipsters trying to look emo, ironic, brainy, sexy librarianish, or Weezery by donning a pair of frames.

If you don’t need them as your third and fourth eye, if your peepers don’t look like tiny blinking specks or giant dilated saucers behind your lenses, back way from the Oliver Peoples and pass by Pearl Vision.

Buy a hat or get a tattoo, and let me have this.

(photo: loulove22.wordpress.com)

Pinky rings

Are you in da mob? The universal sign of mafia d-bag, pinky rings are the older generation’s equivalent of Ed Hardy gear. Klassy with a K, which come to think of it, also stands for kielbasa. Have you gotten so bloated that you have to wear your wedding ring on that sausage that doubles as a pinky?

Grease that digit up with some olive oil and yank that ring off and put it where it belongs: on the finger of a small, malnourished child.

(photo: luxury4play.com)

Snowbrellas

As a Midwest gal now living in Seattle, I’ve learned a few things. Like, for example, that umbrellas are for rain, not sunny days and certainly not blizzards. If you live in a place that gets blanketed with snow, you should be prepared to have a few bad hair days. There’s this newfangled invention called a hat. Have you heard of it? Use one, embrace your limp locks, and take consolation in the fact that everyone else’s head looks like flat ass, too.

Just don’t pop up your parasol and take a stroll in your winter wonderland. I might have to grab your umbrella and beat you around the head, which I guarantee will give you flat hair.

(photo: cheekyumbrella.com)

Crunchy hair

We always want what we don’t have. Curly-haired vixens always want to kick their corkscrews to the curb in favor of stick-straight hair, while those of us with only a hint of a limp wave want undulating, Keri Russell-like locks of love.

We spray, rub, and massage curl-enhancing unguents into our manes. We scrunch. We dry with a diffuser. And voilà! We achieve the follicular stuff of which pre-Raphaelite dreams are made. One problem: we could blind a passerby with our crunchy curls. More post- than pre-Perseus Medusa, our hair is a mass of stone-cold locks.

Put down the can, jar, and bottle and learn to love yourself, limp hair and all. You could poke an eye out.

(photo: omgihavethat.blogspot.com)

White guys with dreadlocks

Hey you! Yeah, you with the dreadlock fountain sprouting from your head. Guess what, Medusa? You’re not cool or interesting or indie. You’re dirty. With dreads, you look like Sideshow Bob, not Bob Marley. Cut that shit off and stop co-opting someone else’s heritage and style.

Note: While I’m not crazy about dreads on any Caucasian, it’s the dudes I am most annoyed at.

(photo: mobyrebuttal.blogspot.com)