TV Blankets

Falling asleep watching television is like my favorite simple pleasure.

(Other high-ranking Simple Pleasures are 1) finding dollar bills in unwashed jeans pockets, 2) when the teller at my Bank of America puts out her basket of miniature Hersheys bars, 3) successfully squeezing a blackhead out of my nose, and 4) eating freely from my boyfriend's plate at dinner.)

The guys I work with are so into "The Wire". They like "The Wire" so much, I would say they like it more than they like really beautiful women, like Jessica Biel.



They talk about it forever and when it got snubbed this year at the Emmys, Michael Schur (who was nominated for his excellent episode "The Negotiation") was more upset about that than he was excited about his own nomination. I know this because Mike's office is next to mine and the walls are paper thin and I eavesdrop like cah-raaaazy.

So I watch "The Wire", and I enjoy it, but I swear to God, it's like a soporific. The writing and acting are fantastic. But something about the mumbling and languid shots of Baltimore streets make me drop like after twenty minutes. But the sleep I sleep when I fall asleep watching "The Wire" is some of the best fucking sleep ever. (Other good sleep, I remember, was when I was in junior high, and would fall asleep during Saturday Night Live and wake up during American Gladiators.)

But you need a good TV blanket. Here are a few.

1. Rib-knit cashmere throw.

Garnet Hill is completely expensive and kind of too hippie-ish, and I don't usually need my sheets to be like, made of cruelty free hemp or whatever.



But the colors are rad, and they do have adorable patterened sheets for kids, and this throw is cashmere (whaaaaat!) and on sale. I just bought one.

Price: $168 (marked down from $268!)
garnethill.com


2. 525 America cable knit throw.

If you are squeamish about having a cashmere (ie. dry-clean only) TV blanket, get this cozy and totally machine-washable throw.



Maybe get two, cuz you will want to cocoon in this and not share it with anyone else who might be sharing your couch with you.

Price: $99 (on sale)
bluefly.com

Listen, you can watch television comfortably without a blanket. God knows I can; I can fall asleep on a roller-coaster, my heartrate is like 3 beats a minute. But why use your sweatshirt as a TV blanket when you can have the real deal? You will be so excited to have these. You will want to know my address to write me a thank you letter. And I will want yours to write you a congratulations letter.

Also, get "The Wire".



Are you seriously not watching this show yet? Haven't your most insufferable male friends told you this is the best thing since "The Shield"? (but girls, unlike the very good but bafflingly hot-guy-free "The Shield", this show features dreamboat and Mona Lisa Smile alum Dominic "Black Irish, Super Babe" West).

Price: $47.99 for the complete first season
Amazon.com

Banana Republic Long Cashmere Hoodie

Usually I buy my cashmere just after Christmas. At that time, the prices are astonishingly, suspiciously good. J.Crew is practically paying you to take their cashmere off their hands. That's sometimes why I love monster chains like the Gap or J.Crew or whatever. There's this end of the year corporate panicky decree to simply get rid of all their stuff, which only weeks earlier were full-priced. How often have you seen, like a pretty pea coat at the Gap on a sale rack for like $12.99? God, I'm like salivating just thinking about it.

So ordinarily, I would rather die than pay full price for cashmere. So you can imagine how special this extra-long BR hoodie must be if I am willing to drop $198 to own it right away.



First of all, the color. Deep saturated bluey purple. BR calls this color "Dream Date Royale". What a bunch of queerballs. But it IS super-gorgeous on almost every skin tone, and looks fantastic over jeans or little black pants.

But the really special thing about this hoodie is that it's sexy tunic length.

Oh, I love you, Tunic Length. Tunic Length is so rad. How decadent to have extra inches of luxurious cashmere snugly covering your ass? Strangers will think you're an heiress. Your boyfriend will think you are a classy girl of the Jackie Onassis variety. Your friends will begin to hate you.

But you don't need friends with a sweater like this. Just hide in your hood and play peek-a-boo with your boyfriend. Then throw up.

Price: $198 at bananarepublic.com

Mindy Kaling Staples, Pt. 3

More staples.

1. Alisha Levine 3/4 sleeve backless top.

You know those weekend nights when all you want to do is sit cross-legged on the floor and watch Jesus Camp or whatever? And then your boyfriend is like, "hey, we never go out, all we do is sit on the floor eating dinner and watching documentaries. Let's go to a party thrown by an acquaintance of mine." And in your head you want to be like "Can't you read this grimace on my face and this inert body language? Go by yourself. If you're so into a jet-set life of partying and drinking or whatever, let's just break up."

But then since he's so cute, and your butt is starting to hurt for sitting on the floor so long, you decide to go. But you don't want to wear your cutest outfit, the one you saved for when you think you might see an ex-boyfriend or whatever, you just want to look passably cute so your boyfriend is like, reasonably psyched to be standing around with you.

This top is great for that. I have slung it on sulkily more times than I can count. It seems totally boring in the front, right? All roomy and skin-concealing? And then bam! Backless! (Longsleeve and backless? I love you, Alisha Levine!) Guys at the party are like: "shit dude, that girl's showing some skin. Let's talk to her." And then your boyfriend's all "oh no why'd I even suggest coming to this." and you can just smile at him with a look that says "This is what you get for trying to transform this homebody, Muchacho." But then you both feel surges of love and emotion for each other, and you go home more in love than ever before.

Buy this shirt! It's sexy but pretty much the easiest way to look cute while under duress.

Paired with cute sparkly little Eiffel Tower earrings like these:



...and no one will ever know what your true self would rather be eating Lean Pockets in front of Ken Burnses "Jazz".




Price: top $192.00
earrings by Lena Wald: $242
both at Shopbop.com

American Apparel Fine Jersey Short Sleeve Leisure Shirt

Getting up and figuring out what to wear every morning before work can be a pain. That's why I took some advice from my friend Rufus and decided to buy a variety of colors of the above style shirt from American Apparel. Every morning, I wake up, go to my closet, pick a color, and I'm done. I throw on a pair of jeans and my Chucks for shoes, and I'm out the door.

Barry Schwartz would be proud.

Silver Lake

So, it turns out, I'm adventurous. Listen. I'm not gonna front with you guys: most of the time I'm a hap-py (Hindu-American princessy) girl who lives on egg-based brunch meals from gay luncheon spots on 3rd street.

But lately I have found myself in Silver Lake. This is extremely weird for me. Silver Lake has been called "Williamsburg west", and from my (admittedly cursory) knowledge of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, it seems accurate.



(See, now I feel myself growing scared. Will a mean/brilliant dude from Vice Magazine mock this? Is Echo Park actually "Williamsburg west"? Or Glendale? Oh god. Sometimes I'm more scared of mean verbose hipsters than I am of like, Muslim fundamentalists.)

As a roly-poly person, I've never been drawn to the gaunt, drawn (eh, same word twice) faces of Williamsburg/Silverlake guys. I like ruddy Irish and Jewish faces. Is this racist? Yes. But whatever, some dudes only like petite Asian girls, so cut me some slack.

Also, musicians and visual artists frighten me, their talents are so far away from anything I can understand or do. Silver Lake seems teeming with these artsy hipsters and like, pupuserias, and I kinda need to be near the Targets and Loehmanns of the world. But since I'm open-minded and plucky, and because Ben lives there, I'm in Silver Lake all the time. Go me. "You go, me." - me

I recently needed a pair of pajamas. For all my huffing and puffing about the importance of pajamas, I was tragically lacking a good pair. (I chalk this up to a sort of "the cobbler's children always go shoeless" type of situation. Very sad.) So when we drove by the pink facade of Bittersweet Butterfly and I practically jumped out of the car while it was still moving.



I found pajamas galore, and even better, the fucking cutest little underwear a girl could want. Plus flowers. And their website is even better. This is one of the handful of places where I truly believe any guy, no matter how clueless, cannot go wrong finding his girlfriend or wife a present. The buyers have exquisite taste. Did your girlfriend recently do something incredibly sweet, like host your parents and listen to your pedantic dad talk about politics for hours? They have amazingly sexy and fun gift baskets on their site. Also, they have cute guys underwear. And flowers, and chocolates. What more can I say about this place? Oh! It's not very expensive either.

1406 Micheltorena St
Silver Lake, CA
90026
Phone: (323) 660-4303

I like diner food and I love the Brite Spot. Unlike a lot of depressing LA diners, it has a huge inventive salad section, and lots of hearty and health-conscious options, like the Lean and Mean Deal. Also the prices are 1/2 the cost of West Hollywood brunch places, the people sexier and scarier, and the portions just as enormous as Doughboys. Best of the menu is the Whatevers, a giant hot plate of eggs scrambled with mixed veggies, potatoes, turkey sausage and covered in cheese. After a night of drinking or sex or crying or whatever, this is the place I want God to sit me down at.



1918 Sunset Blvd, Echo Park
(oh, give me a break. It's Silver Lake adjacent, you guys).

Let's say all I want to do is wear hot drapey clothes designed by awesome LA designers. I want Grey Ant jeans and unusual chunky jewelry. Like, let's say, a weird, large owl pendant dangling in my decolletage that makes cute guys at parties go "Who the fuck is that girl (in a good way) and how do I start an argument with her (in a good way)? I bet her opinions will make me fired up (in a good way), and I'll want to spend the night with her (in a good way)."



Sirens and Sailors. Favorite boutique in L.A. Not huge, kind of a hike from Hollywood, but totally unique and always fun to browse. If you are judging a boutique by the people that shop there, this places gets a 10, or A+, or a two thumbs up, or whatever "best" is in the ranking system we're using.

1104 Mohawk St., Los Angeles, CA 90026

That's it for now. The actual Silver Lake seems quite beautiful and pretty to run around, but I haven't done that yet. It's our drinking water, apparently. You learned a lot reading my blog today.

Pajamas

I have to wear clothes when I sleep. Even if it's hot out. I wasn't raised by some French grad students or whatever. To sleep naked is unseemly. Also, how can one sleep naked when there looms the ever-present possibility of: what if there's a fire in the middle of the night and you have to run out into the street?

I love pajamas. But I'm incredibly fussy about them. For one thing, the worst thing that ever happened to pajamas is when flannel decided to make itself inextricably linked to them. Flannel pajamas are the worst ever! When is it ever so freaking cold that you need flannel pajamas? Even on the coldest of east coast nights, after about thirty seconds of wearing them, you're like, ugh, why am I so hot? Why am I all sweaty and gross when all I signed up for was a nice night of sleep?

I guess Russian soldiers stationed in the deepest frozen corners of their country have to wear them. But that's about it.



Oh, and don't even get me into flannel sheets. WTF??

Solid, crisp cotton pajamas are the worlds best gift. I want to put them on the instant I get home from work.

Burberry Men's PJ's are great. For women too. Get them in a small and you'll be set. The cotton is soft but ever-so-slightly firm, so they don't get all twisty around your torso or give you a wedgie when you sleep.



If you don't like the "I'm wearing my boyfriends clothing" look (which, by the way, why don't you?), Betsey Johnson has some cute cotton blend pjs I love a lot. These are animal print, which I adore and highly recommend (because animal print is so hard to pull of as daywear without seeming like a hooker or a weird off-kilter granny, it kind of behooves you to wear them in your sleep, where you have freedom of expression.)



They're polyester but feel like satin. Who wears satin pajamas, by the way? If I have to DRY CLEAN MY SLEEPWEAR I think it's time to kill myself.

And last, but not least, these gorgeous little fun Natori Chinese-inspired pjs.




Ahhh, how cute. How could a person wearing these pjs ever sleep alone? Not possible.

Good for: Everyone must wear pajamas.

Price: Burberry: $300 burberry.com

Betsey Johnson: $88 betseyjohnson.com
Natori: $140 sakfifthavenue.com

Things I Can't buy that I wish I could

The ability to whistle.

To be best friends with Katie Heigl.

A beagle puppy (my apartment doesn't allow pets).

For my other best friends to be the characters Dave Chappelle and Tom Hanks played in "You've Got Mail".

For my apartment to exist inside Spice Market, and to eat off Jean Georges Vongerichten's menu every meal, every day.