July 22, 2010

Me in the Klink?

Because I am a complete navel gazer, I want to know everything there is to know about me. Particularly, I want to know everything there is to know about me on the WWW. Which is why I have a Google Alert set up with my name. Yep, that’s right. I don’t even have to manually ego-surf anymore; Google does it for me.

Basically, what this means is that when I do something awesome, Google lets me know about it. Like when I Tweet about being hungry or using the toilet, my Lauren Ober Google Alerts light up. Or when I blog about lost sweatshirts or cats stuck in trees, I am notified of my aforementioned awesomeness.

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June 7, 2010

Lighters Up: The Lil Kim Experience

Dear besties,

Here’s one important thing you need to know about hip-hop queen Lil’ Kim: she loves Vermont. Like, a lot. She told us so about 350 times at Wednesday night’s show at Higher Ground.

But she doesn’t love us in the same way that your grandma loves you. She doesn’t want to bake you cookies or tousle your hair. No, she loves us in that freak-nasty, look-where-I-can-put-my-leg kind of way. Basically, she wants to fuck our brains out. Which kind of makes up for the fact that her show, all 60 minutes of it, was really a lackluster parade of old beats and late ’90s hip-hop standards.

I hate saying that about Lil’ Kim. I mean, she’s the Queen Bee, the Original Bitch, the Black Barbie. And she’s a felon. She’s done hard time. But maybe she lost a little something during her year spent in the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center. For a woman who plied her trade in extreme raunch (read the lyrics to “Suck My Dick“), her vanilla show left a little to be desired.

Of all the shows I have ever attended at Higher Ground, this is the first where I have been greeted at the door by a pat-down. I kind of liked it. It made me feel like the show I was about to see had some element of danger. Like there was going to be some sort of Hot 97-esque shootout. You know, with all our rival hip-hop crews here in Vermont.

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May 11, 2010

Rachael Ray Wants to Join My Motorcycle Gang

Dear Rach (cuz we’re tight like that),

Thank you so much for having me (and 35 other people) to dinner on Friday night. I very much enjoyed your company, and your fetching brown top. I wanted to follow up on a couple of things and figured this letter would be the best way to go about it, seeing as how you neglected to give me your number (though somehow you managed to get mine. Hit me on my cellie, girl!)

Just some photos of us, laughing at each other.

As we discussed over fancy pizza and endless thimbles full of limoncello, yes, I think it’s a great idea that you join my motorcycle gang, the Ginger-Haired Devils. I am willing to overlook the fact that you don’t have red hair if you are willing to overlook the fact that I don’t own a motorcycle, nor do I know how to ride one.

Our jackets will be way cooler than this.

Also, if you formally join the gang, that will bring membership up to two, so that’s not much of a gang. If you have some suggestions as to whom we might invite into the fold, I’m all ears. But don’t ask Rosie O’Donnell because I think one lesbian is quite enough. Ditto on Gayle King. However, I will make an exception for my good friend and yours, Kim Severson, author of the bitchin’ new memoir Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life. By the way, have you read the chapter about you in the book yet? You should. It’s delish.

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April 26, 2010

Fat-grabbing with Kaki King

Dear besties,

Last week, it was my birthday. Perhaps you were aware of that, since it’s the most important day on our modern Gregorian calendar, Anyway, for my birthday, guitar virtuoso Kaki King decided to come to Burlington and play a show for me, along with some other people I didn’t invite (like that drunk guy in the red T-shirt).

Kaki King is a fave of mine. I like the way she loves her guitar into submission. And I like that she’s not your typical singer-songwriter, any-old-strummer-with-a-heartbreak-and-a-guitar kind of musician. She’s slick and witty and her guitar-playing face is what I imagine her O-face to look like. Even better.

Of course, I arrived at the show a bit late and missed the opener, a brilliant little Australian duo called An Horse (the second time I’ve missed their opening act. Apologies, Aussie friends.) When I got there, Kaki was already three songs into an ambitious two-hour set.

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April 26, 2010

Miss Congeniality Was Congenial, Just Not in Vermont

Dear besties,

From the Department of Big-Ass Mea Culpas:

Well, friends, it turns out that America’s favorite scrappy-do movie star was NOT actually in Vermont over Easter. Contrary to what I wrote a little more than a week ago and what a number of online gossip sites “reported” around that time, Sandra Bullock did not dine at the Fair Haven Inn on the day Jesus rose from the dead.

Yikes! That means I was wrong. But how could that have happened? I’m never wrong.

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April 15, 2010

Sandra Bullock Dries Her Tears… In Vermont

Dear besties,

A few days after Sandra Bullock took home the Oscar for best gal-next-door actress, it was revealed that her motorcyclist husband Jesse James was slumming it with a woman who has multiple facial tattoos and a fascination with White Power. Classy.

Naturally, our pal Sandy went into hiding after the philandering was revealed. What else do you do when your husband, whom you credit your career turnaround, has been caught engaging in a colossal act of scumbaggery?

But Sandy, sweet Sandy, didn’t bury her head under a mountain of eiderdown pillows on her California king-size bed. No, the Blind Side sasspot repaired to the Vermont countryside where she could cry on the shoulder of her sister Gesine far from the long lenses of the Hollywood paps. Gesine used to own the eponymous bakery in Montpelier and currently peddles fancy French macarons (they’re not macaroons, you philistine hayseeds) from somewhere in southern Vermont.

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April 14, 2010

“Project Runway” Wants Vermonters!

The other day Tim Gunn, the kindly mentor on Lifetime’s “Project Runway” and all-around dashing fellow, gave me a call. He was all like “Hi, Lauren. This is Tim Gunn. Can you get some Vermonters to audition for “Project Runway”? We’re tired of these slick city kids and their geometric, bedazzled pap. Thanks.” Then he gave me air kisses over the phone and hung up before I could say anything.

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March 23, 2010

Shredding Church Street With Hannah Teter

Dear besties,

Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day (also known as Americans Getting Fatter Day) is upon us. Generally, I try to stay as far away from the Free Cone Day as I possibly can.

For one thing, I hate waiting in line. Especially not for a $2.50 ice cream cone that’s only going to make my cholesterol continue its slow creep towards the top of the charts.

Secondly, I hate being sticky. ‘Nuf said.

And finally, I am a curmudgeon and don’t like fun things.

However, this year’s Free Cone Day in Burlington at the Church Street Scoop Shop was different. Sure, the line still stretched all the way down to Outdoor Gear Exchange. And, yes, people still acted like Ben & Jerry’s was giving away a free car. But this Free Cone Day featured an appearance by Olympic snowboarder, native Vermonter and all around swell gal Hannah Teter.

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March 23, 2010

‘Tweens and 1080s — The U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships

You know what sucks more than riding a chair lift by yourself? Riding a chair lift with four foul-mouthed, flatulent ‘tweens who want nothing more than for you to take your pathetic ass and hurl it to the snowy depth below. But this is my life. Or at least my life for the next two weeks, until I wrap up my 20/20 Challenge. Yes, I’m nearly finished. Thank the sweet bearded Lord in heaven for that.

Throughout this project, I’d had to deal with a number of hiccups — broken bindings, no one to ride with, scheduling snags, ski areas that were closed, ski areas that are now private and won’t let me in. But none was more aggravating than my recent oversight at Stratton.

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February 17, 2010

Montreal Haircuts and Misunderstandings

Dear bestie(s),

[Insert apology for not keeping blog up to date here]

So much has been going on in my life since last we spoke. Or rather, since last you read. Where to begin? Well, for starters, I gave birth to twins shortly after winning the Olympic gold medal in biathlon. Just before that, I started a Fortune-500 company that makes personal care products for redheads with pasty skin. Oh, and I have been asked to host the Oscars. So, that’s pretty great.

But before all of that, I got my haircut.

Before haircut.

After haircut.

Because I have special hair (and by special I mean boring), I can’t just have any beer-guzzling, gun-toting, liberty-loving American swat at my head with a pair of shears. No, this mane will only take coiffing by a Canuck. But not one from Ottawa or Alberta. The person who cuts my locks must be Quebecois. So every couple months, I head up North to Canadialand and get my hair chopped. At a bike shop. For queers.

I’m not sure how I first found out about JJ Levine, lesbian haircutter to the stars. But it was about a year ago when I first felt the swift swipe of her razor working its way through my mop. JJ cuts hair at a place called Bikurious Montreal. It’s basically a bike shop with a hair cutting station. She offers what she calls “lesbian haircuts for everyone.” Or “coupe lesbienne pour n’importe qui” if you talk foreign.

This is JJ’s bilingual business card.

The fact that I get my hair cut in Montreal signifies that I’m cool, most likely cooler than you. It says I have style and daring. It shows that I am cosmopolitan. N’est pas? The customs officers at the border crossing are always incredibly impressed when they ask what I was doing in Canada and I say, with a certain smugness, “getting my hair cut.” They are so impressed, in fact, that they often detain me for hours just to admire my new ‘do.

So on this day, I drove up to Montreal and made it to JJ’s in a breezy hour and a half. In front of me in the leopard-print barber chair was a cancer-ridden, drug-addled lesbian who talked through her entire haircut about how much she liked to party and do drugs. Cool. JJ shaved the sides of her meaty scalp, leaving a strip of long hair in the center. The woman joked that it would probably all come out in chemo, eh.

Then it was my turn in the chair. Now, I should say that getting my haircut is incredibly traumatic. The mirror, the person with her hands in your hair, the asking for what you want, the crossing your fingers hoping the stylist understands, etc. That said, JJ is pretty chill and cuts good hair. So that makes things a little easier.

When JJ asked me what I wanted, I didn’t really know what to say. Here’s a basic transcript of the interaction:

JJ: What do you want to do with your hair?

Me: Um, I don’t know. I’d like the back shorter and get rid of the weight in the front.

JJ: Ok, so you want a short hair cut?

Me: Um, well, no, I don’t know. Maybe.

JJ: But we’re taking off the mull (rad person slang for mullet)?

Me: Yeah. I don’t know. Just do whatever.

JJ: Ok.

That interaction is how I ended up looking like Boris Becker

This is Boris Becker.

Now, I like Boris Becker. No disrespect to the man. But it’s not what I went into the shop hoping to come out looking like. When JJ finished and gave me my glasses back, I was a little bit taken aback. I’ve never had short hair before. I looked like Julia Roberts as Shelby in “Steel Magnolias” after she cut her hair. My self-esteem lay in clumps on the floor beneath me. I immediately looked around for my hat. The cool queer girl with the gigantic spectacles who was hanging out in the shop waiting for a trim said I looked good, but I’m pretty sure I looked like a tennis ball.

This is a tennis ball.

The whole way home I obsessed over my hair. With my eyes squarely focused at my image in the rearview mirror, it’s a wonder I got home without crashing. I was sure I’d have to wear a hat or a fancy old lady turban for the next three months. When I got home, I collapsed into a bundle of patheticness, sobbed about my hair for a day and a half and vowed I would never leave the house again.

When I finally got the courage to reenter the world of good hair, I was greeted with comments like “Wow, did you get a haircut? It’s very boyish.” and “Well, that’s a very sporty haircut you have.” In this instance, sporty didn’t mean it looked like I’m going to take home the gold medal in speedskating; it meant I looked like  a lesbian. I suppose there are worse things than looking like what you already are. Like looking like a crazy mass shooter.

This is a crazy mass shooter.

It’s been a couple weeks now since JJ razored off the bulk of my hair. It’s not her fault that I get wishy-washy about what I want the minute I put my sweet one in the chair. To her credit, it is a good haircut. Everyone’s told me so. Except for my mother who hasn’t seen it, and most likely won’t. Because her reaction would most likely be this: “But you looked so cute with long hair.” Yeah, like when I was 8 — the last time I had truly long hair.

I suppose I’ve settled into the haircut. I might even like it now. I think it looks like a pile of sweet meringue sitting atop my head. At least it made my attempt at being a Temptation during Winter is a Drag Ball XV a little more believable. Because we all know the Temptations were white homos with short red hair.