Thursday, February 18, 2010

Belle Curve

I love Christina Hendricks. She's one of the best reasons to watch Mad Men not named Matthew Weiner, Katherine Jane Bryant or Jon Hamm.

Her portrayal of secretary extraordinaire Joan Holloway is so incredibly fantastic, I dressed up as the character for Halloween and I credit her for the resurgance of dresses and high-waisted skirts in my closet. She's unapologetically voluptuous and her curves are utterly sensual.

The media is also all too enamored of La Hendricks and here she is on the cover of New York Magazine. Totally has made my morning. Every few years, a new "real" woman captures our attention simply for not being a stick figure - Kate Winslet and Jennifer Hudson, anyone? Hopefully, this time it's not just a spectacularly luscious flash in the pan.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Platonic Love is a Many Splendored Thing

Having recently joined that enviable demographic of single women in their 30s in the New York Metropolitan area, I decided if you can't join 'em, beat 'em.

For the past two years, I've had boyfriends on Valentines Day and while nothing terrible happened either time, nothing especially spectacular happened either. We had quiet dinners at home, one boyfriend cooked, the other one gave me a CD. Just another day.

This year, Valentines Day came just a few weeks before the one-year mark of me being firmly single, a milestone that hasn't bothered me as much as one might guess. Maybe it was the relatively grander shock of recently turning 30 that desensitized me. Regardless of the reason, I decided this year to proudly celebrate Valentines Day as an unattached person rather than cowering in a corner of woe and loneliness. But to truly do it in style, I would need a team.

As has become my custom in the past seven months, I convened my friends - this time just the single ones - for a potluck feast dedicated to Platonic love at my apartment. Foods infused with garlic, greens that might stick in one's teeth and messy desserts were completely welcome as none of us came expecting to snag a date. No lonely hearts set-ups here. We were single and fabulous, exclamation point!

More than a dozen guys and gals gathered to sample our spectacularly tasty culinary creations, to send really hokey puppy & kitten-themed grade school valentines and to play dirty Jenga. And it was the best Valentine's Day I've ever had.

It made me wonder why we get so stuck on having just one significant other, just one certain kind of relationship, just one version of love at this time of year. Not that those relationships and loves aren't mind-blowingly fantastic and the stuff of song and legend for good reason. But why not love love no matter who it comes from?

Luckily we have 364 days until the next Valentine's Day to embrace love whether it's love of our friends, family, certain sports teams or just a certain someone.