Offseason Schedule

Gonna leave this up top so folks checking in know we're in official offseason mode.  But never fear: new stuff will continue to be generated as news/procrastination breaks/a continued desire to mock Buckeyes arise.  Such nuggets will be posted below.

FYI - I'm doing a much better job of updating on Twitter rather than posting during this dead period (it's a hell of a lot less time consuming).  So be sure to follow the MZone @MZoneBlog.

UPDATE:  So much for this being the "offseason."  Thank you, Tresselgate!

Actress Drew Barrymore

#133 Scallop Wave Top

Design 1

Design 2

Design 3

INFO

Colour crazy!

Sleeveless. Lightweight.

Semi sheer.

Made from comfy chiffon material.

Available in
 Design 1(AVAILABLE)
  Design 2 (AVAILABLE)

Design 3 (AVAILABLE)

'Un-Masqued' it @ RM32.

 

#132 Cut Hem Blouse

INFO

*Topshop Inspired!

Peterpan Collar.

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Sheer. Inner tank not included.

Made from comfy chiffon material.

Measurements:

Length - 24inches

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#131 Crochet Collar Jersey Dress

 

INFO

*Topshop Inspired!

Contrast crochet collar and 3/4 length sleeves.

Key hole back.

Made from comfy stretchy cotton material.

Measurements:

Pit to Pit - 14.5inches

Length - 25.5inches

Waist - 13inches

Available in
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  Blue (AVAILABLE)

'Un-Masqued' it @ RM58.

Quality assured!

Voices of August: index page

Your day-by-day guide to who wrote what during a month of guest blog posts:

Aug. 1 -- Voices of August: a month of guest bloggers | George Rede
Aug. 2 -- A "Courageous Conversation" about race | Aki Mori
Aug. 3 -- Field of American Dreams | Patty Chang Anker
Aug. 4 -- The Situation | Nancy Rommelmann
Aug. 5 -- Motherhood: The battle inside my brain | Heather Lalley
Aug. 6 --
Aug. 7 --
Aug. 8 --
Aug. 9 --
Aug. 10 --
Aug. 11 --
Aug. 12 --
Aug. 13 --
Aug. 14--
Aug. 15 --
Aug. 16 --
Aug. 17 --
Aug. 18 --
Aug. 19 --
Aug. 20 --
Aug. 21 --
Aug. 22 --
Aug. 23 --
Aug. 24 --
Aug. 25 --
Aug. 26 --
Aug. 27 --
Aug. 28 --
Aug. 29--
Aug. 30 --
Aug. 31 --

Motherhood: The battle inside my brain

After 12 hours of labor...

By Heather Lalley

Should-Be-Doing List:
Pitching freelance articles
Looking for ways to promote my book
Re-launching my blog
Searching for a job at a bakery
Laundry
Dishes
Jogging

Actually-Doing List:
Changing diapers
Breastfeeding every two hours
Walking a fussy baby up and down the hall of the condo
Singing the Addams Family theme song over and over to elicit gummy, slobbery smiles

It’s raining. And we’ve just walked the 7-year-old down Irving Park Road on Chicago’s northwest side to summer camp. “We” are me – the mom – and Emma – the 52-day-old baby girl strapped to my chest, snoozing in her carrier. I’m writing standing up, swaying my hips and shushing every time I feel her stir.

When her big brother was tiny, I went right back to work as a newspaper reporter for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash.. But not this time.  I guess I’m a stay-at-home-mom now. Or a WAHM, or some such crazy acronym.

Emma

As a hard-charging, career-focused journalism student at Northwestern back in the ‘90s, I looked at SAHMs with much the same respect I’d offer  a cigarette butt wedged in a sidewalk crack. So pathetic, I’d tsk-tsk. Such a waste of a decent brain; throwing away a career to wipe someone’s backside and sing “Little Bunny Foo-Foo.”

But that’s me now, I guess. So you can understand the battle going on in my brain.

Oh, sure. I’m still “working.” Frantically pitching stories and writing during brief snippets of naptime. Lining up signings for my new farm-to-table cookbook while Emma coos in her vibrating chair. Praying I can finish a phone interview without background wailing.

I graduated from the baking and pastry program at Washburne Culinary Institute this spring, though, after two years of hard work. And I worry this time off will make it tough to find a job. I expended too much effort and cash on that degree to just be the room mom who makes pretty cupcakes.

But then I think: Emma will never be 52 days old again. This is my last baby.

 In a blink, she’ll be as big as her brother – all knobby knees and grubby fingernails, flying across the playground.

And I look down at her peach fuzzy head and think, today, this is just where I should be.

Heather Lalley is a mom, wife, recovering journalist, recent culinary-school graduate and author of the just-released “Chicago Homegrown Cookbook.” Find her on Twitter @flourgrrrl.

I met Heather during her tsk-tsk stage when she was a Northwestern junior and I was The Oregonian's recruitment director. I was impressed by her talent and her dry wit, both of which remain in abundant supply.

Columbus DJs offer Casey Anthony $10K to wear M hat instead

Oh those wacky morning radio DJs. A couple of guys from the originally named "Dave and Jimmy Show" on WNCI in C-bus are offering Casey Anthony $10K to ditch the Buckeye hat she was spotted in and don a Michigan one.

Doh! Those funny, funny Zoo Crews! Now let's go to Christy K. with a look at the weather. Christy?



(HT: Busted Coverage)

Soapbox House Of Cards And Glass

"To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."

( Friedrich Nietzsche)

They Shoot Skodas, Don't They?: R.I.P.

Vestidos strapless cortos

Los vestidos strapless cortos son diseñados para las mujeres actuales que gustan de lucir bellas en todo momento o evento.

Si deseas lucir hermosa no dejes de usar vestidos strapless cortos son perfectos para hacerte lucir mas delgada y alta.

Las mujeres por naturaleza propia somos coquetas y nos encanta levantar suspiros a nuestro alrededor y con los vestidos strapless cortos es fácil lograr este cometido.

Te sugerimos usar un vestido corto strapless para esa fiesta, evento, cena importante o para ir a el antro con los amigos.

Los vestidos strapless cortos favorecen a nuestras piernas las hacen lucir mas largas y delgadas, que esperas para ir a comprar un modelo como este.

New MZone Feature: Ask a Buckeye

This is an idea I've had for a long time.  Don't know if it's a good one or a bad one, but let's give it a shot...

As many of our regular readers know, we have a large and faithful Buckeye readership.  For those that appreciate the humor and don't take us seriously, thanks for reading.  For those that post the crude remarks and are pissed and shocked - shocked! - that our biggest rival is regularly poked fun at on a humor-centric Michigan site, blow me.  That would be akin to me going over to Gerd at the Ozone and bitching about their reportage on the Wolverines.

In any event, a new Buckeye has been lurking among us, the mysteriously named, "Ex."  After an exchange of emails, Sir Ex has volunteered to be the Voice of Buckeye Nation Unincorporated Township here on the MZone by answering all those burning questions you've always had about Tosu*, its fans and C-bus.  Such as (and speaking of burning):

* Why the love of setting fires after a Michigan victory/loss/any day in November?
* What is the story behind the Buckstache?
* What's with all the "Fuck Michigan" shirts and are they worn to weddings?
* Do you really think Tosu* fans are treated the same in A2 as U-M fans are treated in C-bus?

And many more.

Now, before I agreed to let Ex hold this cherished position here at the MZone, I put him through a rigorous vetting process.

1) He was forced to sign an affidavit swearing that he's never thrown anything (including his fists) at a Michigan fan either in Columbus or on any visits to Ann Arbor (I did not, however, ask him if he's ever thrown any F-bombs since I assume that would disqualify all Buckeye fans).

2) Since he uses words like "adjudicate" in his comments on the site, he had to prove that he indeed knew what the word meant and wasn't simply relying on Google.

3) He had to promise that he's never rocked a Buckstache.

With the above all answered to my satisfaction - and in the spirit of "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer" - let's give this a try. 

So leave your questions here or email them to us at the MZone (addy on the left below the masthead).

Bryson Baby Shoot

Had the honor of photographing the adorable baby boy Bryson. What a cutie. So many expressions. 

Bryson actually struck the below pose on his own. I do believe he was channeling Sears Portrait Studio.

The Situation

By Nancy Rommelmann

Nancy Rommelmann

My husband and I went on Friday to see a friend's band play at Slabtown. For those who do not know the bar, it's a box, with a floor-level stage and acoustics so loud the only way you know the singer is singing is because you see his mouth moving.

There wasn’t much of a crowd, and only one person dancing; a dude in his 40s who’d squeezed his snowman physique into jeans with acid-washed skulls on the back pockets. He shouted the band’s songs back at them. He spread his arms and soared like a plane. He did that guitar-god jump-kick, and I recognized in him the sort of lonely boy who thirty years ago found a place to alight in punk rock.

When the band took a break, we stepped outside. Twenty feet down the block there was a house party going on. The house was typical enough, an old Portland with a big porch. But who were the people on it, the twenty or thirty people clustered in the yard and on the sidewalk? It was hard to tell. From a distance, the girls looked like hookers, which didn’t make much sense for a house party in Northwest Portland.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” I told my husband.

“Careful,” he said.

I walked up to the party and stood with my back against a tree. The partiers, I could now see, were college-aged, and they partied like college kids, drinking beers and shouting at each other. But where one might have expected green sweatshirts with gold Os, or skinny jeans and 80s T-shirts, there were girls in diaper-shorts as tight as a layer of paint and six-inch stripper sandals. The boys wore ribbed white tops, gold chains, their hair shorn on the sides and spiked on top.

“Can I tawk to youse fa minute?” a girl said to a boy, who did not break from throwing signs and busting into the dance moves that he and his friends performed for what seemed to be an invisible camera.

Even from six feet away, I had no idea what was going on. It was theater of a kind I had not seen in Portland. Among the cugine I grew up around in Brooklyn, sure, but here? Never. The scene was evidently curious to a couple walking past, gals wearing sensible fleece at 1 a.m. on a rainy night. One smiled at the partiers, but I could see she had as little clue as what was going on as I did.

I wanted to stand there an hour and figure it out, and would have, except I sensed more than saw a ripple. Someone had broken character. One of the dudes I’d been drinking in was walking toward me, palms up. He was going to ask me to leave, I thought, or what the hell I was doing here.

"Yo,” he said, moving in so close I had to press my back against the tree. “You want some of The Sit-u-A-tion?"

I tried to think quickly: situation meaning… the party? Meaning: being told to mind my own business? Meaning…

"I said, you want some of The Sit-u-A-tion?" he asked again, which is when I saw he’d pulled up his shirt up and was gyrating his naked torso at me. I started to laugh.

"Yeah, you want some,” he said, and backed away so I might admire his tan and, maybe, that he’d had himself waxed from navel to neck. I introduced myself.

"I'm Will," he said, shaking my hand. So, Will, what was up with the party?

"You know Jersey Shore?" he asked. I haven’t seen the MTV show about rowdy kids from, well, the Jersey Shore, but yes, I told him; I knew it. Oh… this was a Jersey Shore dress-up party!

"No, we are Jersey Shore,” he said. “We are Portland Shore!”

Portland… what? What shore? The shore is ninety miles away, a comment Will apparently found irrelevant, as he moved in close again and said….

“You want some of The Situation?" Up again went the shirt, Will doing his man-hula as if to say, I was very welcome to touch him; that this, in a way I was just starting to figure out, was the answer to all my questions.

I thanked Will; I told him I was married, and could he tell me who these people were and where they came from?

Will lowered his shirt. "You know Beaverton?” he asked. “A lot of them go to school out there.” No, he wasn’t in school anymore; he had an MBA. The house was his.

I told Will I was sorry I’d crashed his party, but I just found it so fascinating. I could see it pleased him that someone thought so. That like The Situation, the character on Jersey Shore whose self-anointed screen name Will had appropriated -- a one-time exotic dancer who, I recall reading, had earned $5 million in the past year -- that Will, too, was a hot commodity. He could, I thought, as easily have affected Mad Men’s Don Draper, and perhaps next year, he would. I thought of my own trying on of identities, the year of wanting to be a tough Puerto Rican chick giving way to gypsy scarves and Gitanes. How one outgrows the costumes but not the emulating. How long ago was it that I wrote Didion in my notes, to remind myself how a chapter must be structured? Oh, that was today.

"Give me your hand,” said Will, and led me through a multi-part handshake that ended with our fingertips tapping. And then we broke, Will back to his party, me back to Slabtown, where the Snowman was still performing for an invisible camera of his own.


Nancy Rommelmann is the author, most recently, of the novel The Bad Mother. Her book of essays and journalism about Los Angeles, "Forty Bucks and a Dream," will be released in November (Dymaxicon). Rommelmann will be a featured author and read from her work at Wordstock 2011.
 
I met Nancy two years ago when a mutual acquaintance recommended her to me as a talented freelancer who might be interested in writing for the Sunday Opinion section I was then editing. We worked together on a handful of essays, including a superb piece on the city's  twentysomethings, "Is Portland the new Neverland?"


Tomorrow: Motherhood: the battle inside my brain | Heather Lalley 

Buckeye "Pride?"

Yesterday, we posted the TMZ pix of Casey Anthony rocking her block "O" hat at a mall near Columbus.  Okay, we admit it: easy joke.  Ha ha.  Everybody move on.  "Story" forgotten in 24 hours.

But for reasons which only the school's ill-advised PR team can answer, the school felt compelled to issue a statement about it: 

"We are never surprised to see Buckeye pride displayed across the world.  Buckeye hoodies and hats have traditionally been spotted across the world, and we understand that as a result, our logo will be seen in a wide range of news situations, whether positive or negative."

Why some flack/the school felt the need to respond/issue a statement and give the story legs is stunning.  Sure, our lazy blogging asses appreciate the free material, but what an egregiously bad PR decision.  Wow! 

And such a poorly worded statement to boot.  Having the words "Buckeye pride" associated with a story about Casey Anthony?  Well done, Tosu*.

It's no wonder that TMZ titled their follow-up piece, "Casey Anthony: Ohio State NOT surprised she wears Buckeyes gear."

Ouch.

Can't wait for Tosu* to issue another statement clarifying that first one.  Or maybe we should give them a buzz to ask for a statement on all the Buckstache affectionados.  Wonder what the "pride" level is on scarlet and gray-clad library pervs?

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