Month / October 2024

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #18

The OG Dynasty!

This pic gives me more fashion, beauty, and glamour than the past 10 years of all the fashion glossies. 

This show defined the 1980s, hands down. Greed, excess, family drama, uber-wealth, power suits, shoulder pads, high glamour, big hair, bigger egos, shade fests, and, of course, thee Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan! For the uninitiated…

Almost everyone on that show was a victim of her acid tongue, from Krystle and her ex-husband Blake to even her daughters Fallon and Amanda!

And this clip when Alexis first meets Dominique Deveraux remains a masterclass in shade and reading.

Twitter battles could never!

by Lexine

40 Things I HATE!

I’m halfway through my 40 Favorite Things list, so here’s the flipside to it! It’s all in one entry, since I don’t like to pay too much attention to the stuff/people I hate. I’m sure there’s more than 40 things, but these made the cut:

1) Trump

2) Elon Musk

3) Andrew Tate (and his yucky brother too)

4) Diddy

5) anyone who supports/associates themselves with the first four

6) misogyny

7) bullshit

8) racism

9) anti-LGBTQ+ bullshit

10) all abusers!

11) people who don’t believe/mock the abused (May-June 2022 was a gross time, IYKYK)

12) liars!

13) all pedos

14) antivaxxers

15) all things MAGA

16) social media addicts (get off your phone!)

17) cell phone addicts (seriously, get off your damn phone!!)

18) Stan culture

19) when a favorite product of mine gets discontinued for good (RIP Gucci “Envy Me” perfume, NARS “Bad Girl” lip pencil, B&BW “Fall In Bloom” body mist…)

20) drivers who don’t signal

21) toxic people

22) entitled breeders

23) when my sports team loses in the playoffs (although I didn’t have to worry about that this year 😆)

24) prickly weeds

25) my eczema

26) unnecessary autotune in songs

27) two-faced bastards

28) when I cook/bake something that turns out awful

29) long recipe websites that don’t have a Jump To Recipe link up top

30) excessive photoshop in pictures

31) the “both sides are the same” crowd

32) psyops (especially political ones that try to convince gullible people to either not vote or vote GOP/third party)

33) AI everything

34) all “romance books” with an innocent cishet white girl who falls for the rich, “brooding” (translation: abusive and controlling) cishet white man and, despite all the shit he puts her through in the story, they still fall in love and have a baby in the end because rOmAnCe!!!! 😒)

35) clickbait!

36) lazy people

37) expensive perfumes that last only an hour

38) the media glamorizing/normalizing shitty people

39) gaining weight

40) wasting time on things I hate

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #20

The next few entries will be TV-themed, and I’ll start off with my favoritest (I know it’s not a word) show of them all: Married With Children!

It was the first sitcom I watched, although I didn’t watch it for the laughs but for Bud Bundy. David Faustino was my first ever Hollywood crush. As I got older, I started getting its snarky, self-deprecating humor, but little did I know that its brand of funny would not be for the delicate types. I first learned curse words thanks to that show. (Just “ass” and “bitch”, if you were wondering. It was on network TV, after all.) I learned how to clap back thanks to that show. And I also learned to never ever be a shoe salesman in my life. 😆 In a way, MWC “ruined” me for other sitcoms; I tried watching Friends but couldn’t find it funny. I watched a bit of Seinfeld and didn’t find it funny. The Office comes close but I wish they kept Steve Carrell for its entire run; it’s like getting rid of Ed O’Neil (Al Bundy) for the last two seasons–it makes no damn sense!

In my house, MWC remains the GOAT of sitcoms.

by Lexine

Yep I Voted

I’ve been voting since I turned 18 and have never skipped a Presidential election. I’m grateful to have had relatives, friends, acquaintances, and teachers who emphasized the importance of voting, which is why I’ve always taken elections seriously. I’m also quite lucky to have grown up during a time when there was no social media to spew psyops and misinformation. (Although Faux News was all the rage 20 years ago, but I learned they were all bullshit from the start.) And, as a Bi woman of color, I learned it was best to not vote for leopards that would eat my face (thus my unapolgetic preference to vote Blue down-ballot). Third party? Non-voters?? I don’t know her.

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #21

Places With a View!

20240601_184805

Taken from the Getty Center back in June 2024. 

I think my love for places with a view started as a pre-teen. Having lived in the suburbs up until I graduated high school, the view from my home was boring, but I also lived right next to some hills. I was an adventurous kid so I’d sometimes take hikes up the hills. The views of my former hometown from hillside were fascinating. I don’t recall if I remember wanting to have a home with sweeping views of the city as a kid, but I know I wanted that when I was 19.

Twenty years ago, while on a Labor Day vacation in LA, I visited the Getty Center for the very first time. (Has it really been 20 years?) The views from there had me stunned! Panoramic views from downtown LA to the Pacific Ocean–the kind of views that anyone with money in LA get to have every day from their homes. I spent $10 for parking to experience those views for a few hours. (Admission was–and still is–free to the museum, by the way.) 

Where I live now is a place with a view. Top floor apartment with east-facing views, where I’m greeted daily by sunrise, sights of the Mt. Diablo mountain range, and the city I live in. (I’m also right above an alley, and I’ve seen some sketch things go down in that alley on occasions. Take the ugly with the beauty, I guess.) 

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #22

Beaches!

Bird, boat, and sun watching at Manhattan Beach in LA, taken back in June 2024.

The one thing best enjoyed with pleasant weather. Although I’ve gone to beaches when the weather is cold, cloudy, and windy (welcome to summer in the Bay Area). Maybe it’s the tranquility of listening to crashing waves, the sunsets I see from them, or maybe it’s me being a water sign, but beaches will always attract me. (As long as they’re not crowded and the sand isn’t trashed with crap.)

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #23

Pleasant Weather!

How I am under pleasant weather. And if I had a pool. 

Fitting that I write this as the Bay Area starts to get out of what will hopefully be the last heatwave of the year.

This may be my most basic-sounding fave, but weather that is not too cold, not hot as hell, not windy but with a gentle breeze, and sunny all the way with maybe a few light clouds can set the tone for my day. I enjoy my outdoor time when the weather is pleasant, and, when I don’t need to leave my home, at least I’m not sweltering or freezing or looking at sad conditions like heavy rain or smoke. My only gripe is I wish I can enjoy it longer in the autumn like I did during the spring and parts of summer.  (Damn these shorter days, longer nights.)

by Lexine

40 Of My Favorite Things: #24

Witty and Juicy Quotes! 

Back in high school, I bought a book featuring quotes on “witty women”. Teen me didn’t know it then, but the book introduced me to the art of wit and snark. Quotes from the women shown above and more were found in that book, and it make quite an impression. If I couldn’t get a guy for a date in high school, then I’ll be the single geek with a witty tongue. (I still am, by the way, except I’m a million times more content with it now.)

When I started reading celebrity mags and tabloids, my fix for witty and juicy quotes got fulfilled every month. This was during the 2000s, right before the social media era, so shit got said then. I still can’t forget J-Lo trashing almost every actress in her Movieline interview and Xtina saying “fuck the pretty” in her Rolling Stone cover story during her Dirrty era. Social media would’ve slaughtered them had it existed then, which could be why celebs these days aren’t so, well, witty and juicy in what they say. That said, what Sir Charles said about the LGBT+ community and this bit from Megan in a recent interview with Billboard gives me some life.

by Lexine

Thirty Days! And A Short Rant

Vote.gov, people! And vote.org too! (But not vote.com, for some odd reason.)

Speaking of voting, because I can be petty, to those in their late 30s, 40s and up admitting they “never voted” before but are “energized” to vote for Harris this year, thanks…for Trump, an ultra-conservative Supreme Court, the fall of Roe v Wade, and MAGA culture that would put a smile on Hitler’s face. You were better off keeping your selfish, brainless voter apathy to yourself instead of outing yourself as partly responsible for the ongoing mess that started the night of November 8, 2016 in an attempt to earn social media Likes/Reddit upvotes.

Sincerely (but still pissed off over 2016), an almost-40-year-old who’s never missed a Presidental election and been voting blue since 2002.