How I Valentine’s

 

 

This is how I feel everyday.

Happy Valentine’s Day FabNerds! Hope you are all enjoying the magic of Feb 14 that I have waxed poetic on several times in the two years this blog has been around. In case you’ve missed it, here’s a quick recap of my thoughts on the holiday:

Valentine’s Day is awesome. It is not just a day for couples and commercialism (though what’s so bad about that, really?) it’s about remembering to be kind to those around you and treat everyone with love. And it’s about wearing lots of pink and red.

So without another V-Day Tirade I thought I’d share a little bit about some of the ways I have enjoyed today in chronological order…

2:03 AM: In the early hours of Valentine’s Day I finally finished Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter – a book that I have been reading off and on since May. It’s a scrumptious read and the only reason it took me so long to get through was because each chapter is like a full three-course meal and you need to break for a few weeks before indulging again. I don’t want to give anything away, but the last chapter opens with this epic, subversive, valentine that I think was a perfect start to the day.

 10:00 AM: Time to get all pink and red out! This year it was a pink lace blazer with my “Love Conquers Hate” (in Russian) protest tee. This is the only time of year where my wardrobe is not considered totally tacky. Or is at least is encouraged to be tacky.

 

11:42 AM: I texted everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day (separately, of course) including my brother who sent me a very sweet message back.

2:00 PM: Went out to lunch with former Valentine’s-Hater friend. We went to a little Italian bakery and if my enthusiasm for 2-14-14 didn’t change her mind, these cookies certainly did.

4:35 PM: Because this day is not just about me, I donated a Valentine’s Day meal to a person in need via God’s Love We Deliver – an organization that makes and delivers meals to people living HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses in New York City. $10 provided a full dinner plus two Valentine’s-themed desserts. Very lovely.

5:00 PM: Hey! I’m not heartless! I like to indulge in the occasional couple-y romantic V-Day fare too. This included crying of Google’s homepage and my love of Ira Glass and watching this beautiful version of “Ten Minutes Ago” from Roger’s And Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

7:12 PM: I started to write this blog post, a process which included to my annual google -image search of Valen-pics like this one…

8:30 PM: I’m jumping a bit into my future, but after posting this I’m planning to bake little heart-shaped cakes for some of my nearest and dearest. They will probably not look like this, but let’s stay optimistic.

And that’s my day! Hope your Valentine’s was just a delightful FabNerds. And if it wasn’t, you still have four hours to make it wonderful!

Love the Love,

Jess

 

 

 

A New-Born Money-Maker

She did always seem like the type to no show off her bump unless if was on the cover of Fit Pregnancy, huh?

FabNerds- You know I love Kevin and Dani Jonas, right? Because I do. I admit I find the rest of the JoBros (ex-JoBros?) to be kind of repulsive, ungrateful shits*, but I Kev and D have always held a special place in my heart. Maybe it was just that Married to Jonas a really well-produced show, I don’t know. But I have held on to the notion that they were kind, down-to-earth people. Was I excited that they were going to have a baby? You bet your ass, I was. Was I a little worried that they were going to name said baby “Jersey”? …Yes.

But now, when #BabyJonas was born yesterday, she was thankfully not named Jersey Jonas (perhaps there realized it wasn’t really good alliteration?). Her name is Alena Rose Jones, which is not terrible. So what’s my damage? Well,  I think that this may be the first birth ever sponsored by laundry detergent. Dreft, specifically.

It started as a harmless tweet from Dani two days ago.

So, OK. You think that maybe Dreft is like doing a puff piece about the married Jonases washing onesies or something- but no! Because the next day – presumably right after the first contraction started – Kevin tweeted this:

UPDATES ON THE BIRTH? What is that supposed to mean? Are they letting Dreft in the delivery room? What are they supposed to tweet? So many questions and all the answers I tried to come up with sounded gross.

Thankfully, however Dreft’s tweets were not in the vain of “I CAN SEE THE HEAD! #BABYJONAS YOU ARE ONE HAIRY LITTLE MONSTER”. Unthankfully, they were just boring.

BORE-ING! It’s like they are a detergent company or something. Makes you wonder if any of Kevin’s brothers took to the internet to talk about the new addition. Perez Hilton tells me they did.

Only Joe Jonas – who’s name,we can all agree, is worse than Jersey – would find some way to make this about himself instead of #BabyJonas. I know he’s the middle child, but he’s also arguably the most attractive of the bunch. Does he really need to bogart his soon-to-be niece’s attention? It’s like he’s compensating for something**.  Just go on Dancing With the Stars already. Jeez.

Anyway. Dreft is still in the game here and this is when it gets a little commercial (if it wasn’t already).

Like, I get selling your first baby pics to OK! Magazine or something a few days after the baby is born, but giving it to the social media intern of a second-level laundry company to post, like, moments after you cut the cord just feels a little…weird? sleazy? uncomfortable?

I mean, listen, I’m not a parent and I’m certainly not a celebrity. I don’t know what went through their heads as Dreft approached them asking if this was something they wanted to do. Maybe they wanted the free detergent. Maybe they thought it would be a nice little memento for them to look back on the day their daughter was born. Whatever it was, they obviously gave their consent so why does it feel so strange to me?

I could pretend to be all noble and take the side of Halle Berry and Jennifer Gardner or Dax Shepard and say that I believe that a celebrity’s children should not be on display for all of us to see. That would be great except I am also a frequent reader of Suri’s Burn Book (it is, in fact, where I first read about this) and while I do believe parents should have the right to control how their children appear in the media, to proclaim that I have some sort of moral motivation here would be untrue. Hell, I’m even screen-shoting these tweets so I can blog about their baby. Plus, as already stated, this was obvs done with Kev and D’s permission.

I guess I just don’t like how instantaneous it was. Normally, I’m all for the live-tweet, but maybe this was just something I would be more receptive to if it wasn’t so Right Now. Perhaps, this is just an issue of decorum. Or just good writing. There are some things that we need to edit first. Like this (finally! … finally?) gross tweet from Kevin:

yeah, EW. But he followed with this so I can almost forgive him.

Anyway, I still love them. Mazel Tov, Kevin and Dani. Mazel Tov, Dreft.

-Jess

*In the case of Joe Jonas acting like he does…I don’t know – maybe this is just me here – but does he seem like he could be, maybe, gay? He did seem really invested in Dani’s brother moving back to LA with him on Married to Jonas…just a thought.

**Like being in the closet? Listen I’m not saying he is. (Don’t sue me Joe) but I’m saying if he was, it might be time to come out. It could potentially open up a whole new market for his solo career. Just saying. If he is.