Wanting

I only ever bother buying a book instead of downloading it when I can find a cheap first edition, or there’s something sensual about the book that makes it worth holding.

Like Bill Amberg leather-covered Penguin Classics.

As much as I love jazz babies, The Great Gatsby is a waste, no matter how finely stylized its language and leather cover are. Oscar Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray is choice. Dorian would have appreciated this Bill Amberg leather-bound book, as he was an ageless, beautiful hedonist crazy for collectibles.

Except for his murdering his friend, frequenting opium dens, and having homosexual tendencies (I’m not a gay man, only often confused with one), I like to imagine Dorian and I are very much alike…

Drinking:

A few weeks ago I visited Norma Kamali’s showroom/retail space in midtown Manhattan. PR lady Sari gave me the tour, and when we stopped in Norma Kamali’s Wellness Cafe I bought Norma Kamali lavender candies, lavender soda, and lavender tea (and they gave me this dress).

Curious how flower candies taste? Try Norma Kamali’s Gourmet Travel Kit of olive oil, lavender tea, and honey lavender drops.  Norma Kamali looks as fresh as her Walmart models, so while I wait for her line of organic, free-trade, vegan Botox, I’ll  drink whatever holistic Kool-Aid she sells…

Hating

Even perfectly suited regret isn’t chic. How did I miss that Mad Men is Ayn Rand fan fiction? (It may have to do with not owning a TV.)

You don’t need to know that when a beatnik asks Don Draper how he sleeps at night, since he’s in the advertising business, Don Draper answers, “On a bed made of money.” You don’t need to know that Don Draper is a man moved by an independent moral compass and a passion to sell. You don’t need to remember that “Bert Cooper, one of the founders of the show’s fictional ad agency, Sterling Cooper, recommends… Don Draper read Ayn Rand’s 1,000-plus page tome Atlas Shrugged. ‘You are a productive and reasonable man and in the end, completely self-interested,’ said Cooper by way of explanation.”

All you need to know is how Don Draper gets an apology…

Seeing

I just saw Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza under a big-top tent bordered by beach fog and the Santa Monica Pier.

I’d tell you how amazing Kooza was — the beautifully boneless contortionists, the ballet on a unicycle, the audience seamlessly woven into the theatrics –

But I may as well tell you a Porsche has four wheels, an engine, and is designed to drive.

You need to go see it…

Reading

I’m on a new diet. Every day I wake up to an hour at the gym, down matcha green tea and fresh fruit for breakfast, and eat VeginOut delivered meals for lunch and dinner — except Sunday.

On the lord’s day, while in Giuseppe blue satin slippers and Marlies Dekkers panties, I consume a bag of Uncle Eddies vegan cookies and flip through Helmut Newton’s Playboy photography.

The key is to eat the cookies until you feel sick, and to stare at Helmut Newton’s photos until those shots of long models’ legs begin to slice the “sur” out of “surreal.” Like Newton’s play of gleaming glam and subconscious camp, it’s all about balance.

And Oscar Wilde said moderation is fatal thing…

Hating

Tazo matcha green tea was awful even when I was only acquainted with matcha green tea through Starbucks matcha green tea soy lattes. Spend more dough on real matcha green tea, and make your mornings…

Using

I used to suck down seven soy lattes a day and snort lines of espresso grinds around midnight — sleep was a waste of time.

Then I discovered matcha green tea. A premium powder of ground-up green tea leaves, matcha is higher in antioxidants than regular green tea, and whisking matcha and boiling water into a cup of jade froth makes for a better a.m. ceremony than whining in line at Starbucks.

Le Palais Gourmet matcha green tea is especially fine. When you open its canister, the bright green powder smells like an idealized version of a spring morning: sweet and alive.

Which is lovely. But the best part?

Matcha green tea gives you a higher, smoother buzz.

“Sleeping” is always better as a euphemism…

Wanting

Forgetting about the flying bus’s bathroom, isn’t this Norma Kamali all-in-one-jumpsuit perfect for traveling? It’s Audrey Hepburn-hip worn simple like this, and you can also twist it into a halter or one-shouldered top…

Wanting

This Christian Liaigre “Padd” daybed looks impossible to actually sleep on, but I’ll have a talk with product development at Evolution.

Life’s too short for “sleeping” to be more than a euphemism…

Hating

So the throw pillows on this Christian Liaigre “Filao” daybed are elegant.

So’s a Persian cat.

I know you’d never buy either, but combine the two, and you’d be the chick with the cat and the over-decorated daybed.

Good luck…