Michelle sported her J. Crew ensemble over at the Tonight Show last month, and J. Crew's not only featuring her outfit on the site, they've even purchased a Google AdWords campaign for it.



You, too, can channel the first lady-to-be in a Pembridge-dot pencil skirt ($148) and Italian Deco tank (was $148; select colors $99.99), but sadly, you won't be getting one of the Crystal-Button Colorblock cardigans, which have all been snapped up (probably not by Republicans).

The clothes do seem to be a huge distraction lately, as Rebecca Traister points out in her piece over at Salon called "The Momification of Michelle Obama": "The majority of the coverage of Michelle Obama in the week since her husband was elected has centered on her clothes."

More from Traiser: "The Associated Press wondered what kind of first lady Michelle will be, and concludes, "the kind of first lady this country has not seen in decades." You mean, the kind with a high-powered job? No, "the mother of young children."



There's been a lot of hype over Michelle donning "accessible" clothes (no Cindy McCain $5,000 de le Renta suits in mustardy green HERE!) -- her first public foray into fashion on The View is credited with both softening her image and selling out the $148 White House/Black Market dress before the episode even aired.

But there are a lot of people I know back home who still are NOT going to dish out $148 for a simple dress, or $450 for an outfit. Accessibility is in the eye of the credit-card holder.

So... ARE we focusing too much on clothes, from Michelle's sundress to Sarah Palin's $150,000 of Neiman splurges (sorry, but .... drool! I simply MUST run for office someday, dahling)?

As always, we must turn to Google for the truth of the matter:

"michelle obama dress the view" = 413,000 hits
"michelle obama j crew" = 294,000
"michelle obama job administrator" = 2.3 mil

OK, at least we're starting to start out our priorities.

Post to Print 350,000 More Copies of Election Edition

From article: The Post is printing an additional 350,000 copies that will be for sale at 7-Eleven, CVS, Giant, Harris Teeter, Safeway, Shoppers Food and Pharmacy and other retail retailers around the region.

Today's the day, my little chickadees. I shivered in the predawn darkness outside my polling place with 200 or so of my closest buddies, who all looked like they'd showered, groomed and consulted with a personal shopper before hitting the line at 5:45 a.m.

I hope they enjoyed seeing me in hot pink sweatpants, a free sweatshirt from my old job (three sizes too big) and a hand-knitted hat whose closest color match could only be termed "kaleidoscope." And large uncovered pores, I haz dem.

Tonight I'm freelancing for the Associated Press on results in Prince William County, Virginia. Polls in VA close at 7 p.m. so I should be able to scarf down some chicken pad Thai before then. Yes I can.

(My too-much-extra-time-in-Excel graph inspired by GraphJam)

I'm about to lose electoral college control and I think I like it, like it.


Political beliefs aside, I am sooo looking forward to watching like 17 hours of political coverage from my TiVo once I get home on election night. No spoilers, pls, kthnx.

Slate's calling like, hundreds of e.c. votes "Safe Dem" and a whole buncha others "Lean Dem," so I'm thinking Barack's gonna come out of this with oh, about nine thousand and twelve electoral votes.

But when it comes to a dance-off, the election may go another way.


I do, however, most heartily regret the existence of any person who Photoshops Sarah Palin's head onto a bikini body.

I'm a decent Photoshopper too, but I use my skills for good, not evil.

Time Inc:
RIP 600

Gannett:
RIP 3,000

Star-Ledger:
RIP 140

Christian Science Monitor:
Goes paperless
(I can just see the tombstone now.)


At least Twitter is still going strong, right? ... RIGHT? Oh, good GOD.

All this stress. I needs me a Vivanno^TM Nourishing Orange Mango Banana Blend. Bananas cure everything.

I've been through media layoffs before, from a company that started with A and ended in L and maybe had an O in the middle, but I'm not really sure. It was surreal to sit in the multipurpose auditorium where Santa would come to visit employees' children sprung briefly from the company daycare center across the street... where we created care packages for home-bound senior citizens on volunteer days... where we got discounted flu shots, donated blood, and ate brownie triangles on launch days ... and where we were, on a sunny October morn one year ago, receiving our severance packages in thick, navy blue folders that were not in any way pink, nor slip-like.

Do I miss my happy little company fambly? Yes, yes I do. Sure, I can joke about it NOW... but many, many more media cumps are following suit.

I predict an explosion in Blogspot accounts any second now. And three, two, one...

So of course on every Web site, blog and/or magazine's list of "ingenious" money-saving tips is to ditch the $4-a-day Starbucks habit. I have to ask: What kind of person spends 80 bucks a month on coffee without realizing they spend 80 bucks a month on coffee? (Let's see: Coffee, new boots or interest-bearing savings account? COFFEE, obvs.)

On Newsweek.com today:
A Venti-Sized Recession? The more Starbucks a country has, the bigger its financial problems.

Naturally, I'm suspicious that this can be tied in a neatly wrapped package with a shiny silver bow, but here we go: "The Seattle-based coffee chain followed new housing developments into the suburbs and exurbs, where its outlets became pitstops for real-estate brokers and their clients. It also carpet-bombed the business districts of large cities, especially the financial centers, with nearly 200 in Manhattan alone. Starbucks's frothy treats provided the fuel for the boom, the caffeine that enabled deal jockeys to stay up all hours putting together offering papers for CDOs, and helped mortgage brokers work overtime processing dubious loan documents."

Still awake? Yeah, me neither.

Now, there's nothing I like more than coffee. Possibly a Nintendo Wii, if I had one. But tying the Starbucks excessplosion into the housing crisis? Ehh... I rent. And I will forever, until someone can figure out a way for me to save tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment without reducing my monthly iTunes expenditures.

What we really need is some way to, oh, CAFFEINATE the economy. We're not gonna pull ourselves outta this mortgage/Starbucks/McMansion ditch with just one Vivanno^TM Nourishing Orange Mango Banana with Matcha Blend.

Mark Malkoff knows what to do, and he started it back when this economic meltdown was still solid chocolate, long before it was shaved into curls and drizzled on the foamy surface of a 200-degree beverage.

Indeed, he made a purchase at all 171 Starbucks locations in Manhattan... in one day.

• Yes!
We!
Carve!
(.com) [by way of Daily Kos] shows off Obampkins! ...Barack-o-lanterns?


• New York Times piece on Cindy McCain makes her out to be a sad, lonely lady who's been shunned as the floozy John left his first wife for. It starts off with this telling anecdote:

"Cindy McCain was new to Washington and not yet 30 when she arrived at a luncheon for Congressional spouses to discover a problem with her name tag. It read “Carol McCain.” That was the well-liked wife John McCain had left to marry Cindy, to the disapproval of many in Washington. Fearing that the slight was intentional, she slinked to a half-empty table that never filled. “No one wanted to sit at her table,“ said Barbara Ross, , a friend who was not surprised when Mrs. McCain announced a few months later that she was moving back to Arizona. “It was like high school.” And McCain is POed -- Fox News fires back.


• New endorsements for Obama - Colin Powell, Chicago Tribune (who has NEVER endorsed a Democratic candidate), Chicago Sun-Times


• Did youse guys hear about this when it happened, ‘cause I sure didn’t: Richard Fuld, CEO of Lehman Bros., got punched in the face at the company gym after it was announced they were goin’ down: "He was on a treadmill with a heart monitor on. Someone was in the corner, pumping iron and he walked over and he knocked him out cold.”


• Target: Women goes after the Disney Princesses. Finally! Someone needs to put those pretty little things in their place. I think Cindy McCain has been pursuing a career as a Disney princess, incidentally. P.S., Did you know that Al Gore helped start Current TV? I read it in his book "The Assault on Reason." Seriously, he did. This isn't like how he helped start the Internet.




• David Brooks: Sarah Palin "Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party" - Huffington Post. Wow. Harsh.


• McCain “Loves Being the Underdog" - CNN.com. Well, yeah, who DOESN'T love being the underdog? I love being an underdog almost as much as I love parking tickets, the smell of moldy bread and having to walk my dog at 2 a.m.

This moment on 'SNL' went WAY too quickly. Personally, I'd been hoping for a Jennifer-screams-and-passes-out moment like in 'Back to the Future Part II' when the teenage Jennifer encounters her 47-year-old alky self in 2015.

One of my heroes, Joan Didion, has a piece up on Salon this a.m.: "Belief" in the surge translates to "success" in the surge; does Palin have a better life story than Biden; what was up with the "lipstick on a pig" bid-nez?

Time got wasted in the familiar ways. The presence of Barack Obama in the electoral process allowed us to talk as if "the race issue" had reached a happy ending. We did not need to talk about how the question of race has been and continues to be used to exacerbate the real issue in American life, which is class, or absence of equal opportunity. Instead we could talk about what Barack Obama meant by "lipstick on a pig," and whether it was appropriate for him to go off on vacation "to some sort of foreign, exotic place." The "foreign, exotic place" in question was of course Hawaii.

Anyone who complains that Barack gets to go to Hawaii regularly is just jealous. Trust me.

I am drinking Yoo Hoo for the first time since I was about 12. My workplace always has various sodas in the fridge, but the addition of Yoo Hoo was too powerful to resist.

It is not as good as it was when I was 12.

Other things that were way better when I was a kid:

• Fun Dip


• Boy bands


• Hot Dogs


• Chewing on the rubbery feet of Barbie dolls


• The fact that members of The Baby-Sitters Club spent 10 years in 8th grade


• Dot-matrix printers

Sweet deity in a bicycle basket! It's not like I regularly turn to Dear Abby for advice on my oh-so-post-modern existence (can't even REMEMBER the last time she discussed how hard it is to hold up a 1200-page Ayn Rand on a crowded Metro) but I couldn't believe the idiocy she's spewing today.

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend and I have been living together for a year. We split all the bills -- rent, utilities, etc. -- in half.

A few nights ago I asked him how he felt about paying for half my birth control pills, which amounts to $40 a month. Because neither of us is ready for children, I think we should share the expense.

Am I out of line to ask my boyfriend to split the cost with me? This has become a hot topic at work. The guys don't agree with me, and surprisingly, most of the women don't, either. What is your take on this? -- ALL IN LOVE IS FAIR

Abby responds that it's HER expense, not theirs: "As I see it, there are two kinds of expenses when people share a dwelling: joint expenses and those that are personal. Prescription drugs usually fall into the latter category." So is it only her "personal" expense when she starts spewing out bebehs that need dydies, milks and college educations because he's too cheap to pony up for a couple of Trojans?

Abby also suggests that if a man needs Viagra, it's his expense and not the woman's. Now, I don't necessarily agree with that either, except that it's been more than obvious for a very long time that women still make less than men for doing the very same job. But why is Viagra always the obvious counterpart for birth control pills? I would argue that Viagra is (well, somewhat) necessary, but not compared with a pill or other method that would prevent the average woman from becoming pregnant 10-15 times in her life.

Psst:

Reproduction is prohibited, but not impossible.



Another wonderful moment from this creepily narrated but brilliant video:

"There are three types of virgins:
A. Virgins by choice
B. Virgins by way of poor social skills
C. People who should be in Group B, but claim otherwise for reasons of prestige"

Anyhoo, watch it NAO!

In case you haven't already seen this, oh, I dunno, EVERYWHERE?

It was elbow-to-elbow after hours last night at Nanette Lepore in Chevy Chase, where they held a party for the opening of the new boutique. Yes, I was there! And newsflash, so was Nanette herself, glowing amid the pink recessed lighting of the shop. (Everyone looked so rosy.)

Champagne, teeny noshes, three-piece band popping out Euro jazz, but unfortch, most of the clothes were moved away to make room for party space. Sad! However, I ogled the off-the-rack goodies around the edges, including a single soft-tastic purple coat, size 0 and $525. Le sigh. (Avail in blue at Bloomie's. And Stella McCartney also has a great fuzzy purple coat this season.)

Goodie bag: Nanette Lepore perfume, logo umbrella and a copy of Capitol File. I gave the mag to my boyfriend. He reads it for the pictures.

K Street Kate (who I haven't met, btw) has piccies.

Store:
5449 Wisconsin Ave.
Chevy Chase, MD (just across the DC line opposite from Mazza Gallerie)

Here's my um-brella-ella-ella-ella: