From Detective Olivia Benson’s Hair, I generally go for a Season 2, but without the curl in back.

I call season 13 ‘Soccer Mom of Sadness’ personally. It’s not bad ass enough for me.

We started out looking at Old Navy type places, for Trilby and Porkpie hats that were summer and light and casual. I don’t like a huge brim because I have a prow of a nose and that comes first. I can get away with baseball caps because of the shape, but only because I carefully curve that brim. By the way, what the hell is up with the ‘style’ of people who have never set foot in New York wearing a Yankees cap with a totally straight brim and the stickers still on it?! Oh god, am I that old creep now? Get off my lawn!

Anyway.

What I wanted was the following:

• A light color (to go with a bright blue coat)
• A light weight (summer)
• Actually looks lightweight (so as not to appear heavy)
• A moderate brim
• Crisp lines
• Sturdy quality
• Not distressed
• No flowers

The problem with that is my head is small. I generally wear a 7 – 7 3/8ths hat. Yes, my head is that small around. And most of it is hair. You can find everything on my list if you look at mens’ hats, but rarely if you look at womens’ right now. In addition, the ‘style’ of hats is apparently the distressed look, this season. I don’t want distressed, also, it’s a little early since we’re in the bright ’80s colors resurgence. Folks, distressed is for grunge! The only distressed clothes that were okay in the ’80s was acid washed jeans or that weird glam thing that Madonna and Boy George pulled off.

Sorry for the joke.

Anyway, we walked around the mall for three hours trying on hats.I felt like Goldilocks. Too big, wrong shape, wrong color, too floppy, too tall, too short… Basically we determined I need a smallish brimmed fedora type hat. Now there was a lot of arguing with the shoppers, but the two people with veto power were me and my girlfriend. If I said no, she knew I would never wear the hat. If she said no, I knew one day the hat would go mysteriously missing. No one else got a veto, but they did have opinions. The people at Nordies, Macy’s, Lord & Taylor, and Bloomies were pretty useless. They all wanted me to get a girl hat, with bright colors and flowers, or they didn’t help at all. All the GAP stores (Old Navy, GAP, and Banana Republic) understood it right away when I said “I want a hat, I don’t care if it’s a man style or not, but it must be simple, clean lines, crisp, not distressed, and fit my head.”

Alas, all their hats were too big. One size fits none in my case, and I finally announced, “Fuckit! I give up!” As we walked back to the car, my eyes touched on J.Crew’s storefront. There was a dummy with a hat that looked… right. I ducked in, ditching my family, and grabbed it. It was a hair too big, so I walked around looking for the same hat in different sizes. After all, they had everything else in multiple sizes right? Not that hat.

Finally I asked an employee, who said they were up front. But as soon as we went up front we realized this hat was similar to the ones there, it said it was the same, but it wasn’t. This one had a smaller brim, was stiff and solid, and the others were all floppy or really big. They looked in back and couldn’t find out, and then looked around the computer, checking the item number and SKU. This hat was, apparently, a one-off for the entire Panama Hat line! It was the only one in existance in their entire system. And it was just too big.

I could have cried.

But then I remembered Tintin. “Can I have a sheet of the wrapping paper you guys use?” They handed it over and three employees watched me tear a sheet, fold it, stick in the hatband, and plunk the hat on my head. It fit perfectly. I added a little extra, as I knew a haircut was going to happen soon, and turned to my family. “This,” I announced, “is the hat. I’m buying it.”

And so we did, making sure to personally thank the woman who spent 20 minutes looking it up online, and making sure she got the sale.

Of course this left me with a minor problem of permanently adjusting the hat. When I got home, a little double sided sticky and some fabric made a nice pad, which even post haircut, keeps the hat in place snugly. Perfection.

Pictures en masse.

Okay, neither married, nor are we a pig or a frog (and yes, that bothered me as a kid, I didn’t want Kermit to get married), but it’s close enough.

Pictures later.

On May 8th
Maurice went away
to wild lands
where children play
in kitchens where
they bake all day.
Crying once,
crying twice
crying
chicken soup
with rice.

Maurice Sendak has passed away.

I loved him best for “Chicken Soup With Rice” and “In The Night Kitchen,” the latter was once in trouble for having a little naked boy run around in a couple panels.

WOW.

Check out more at Lily’s Factory. She has

• Villians
• DC vs Marvel
• Female Superheroes

I’m in love!

The Oracle one is just so spot on, it’s golden.

You can buy these in her store, which has Batwoman iPhone covers (for the iPhone 4, which I don’t have, but I already have a cool WordPress case for when I do get one).

They also have framed prints. It’s on the list, after I frame my Flynn Lives poster.

What’s that? Basically Automattic likes to get their distributed employees to run a 5k, or walk, or skip, or jump, wherever they are. And they invite everyone who uses WP to join in. As my knee would sooner leap out of my leg and beat me to death than actually permit me to run, I hopped on the crosstrainer, cranked up Grrl Rock, and outran Carbs the Raptor for 39 solid minutes.

And yes, I ran a 5k.

Amusingly, that was the time for my first 5k when I was 17. I’ve never been a fast runner,

Suck it, Carbs!

So that’s my proof, as it were. I could photo my nasty clothes, too, but that seems wrong.

I’ve been running, exercising, a lot more trying to lose weight to take pressure off my knee. It’s a pretty fun vicious circle, as exercising hurts my knee, so I have to find that balance between exercise and pain. Being able to run a 5k though made me feel great! I may just have to do it again on Wednesday! Tomorrow, though, is the StairBastard and upper body.

I heard this version months before Glee picked up on it. I bothered to watch that episode just to see this. These two crazy ass Croations nailed it. Watch Stjepan Hauser & Luka Sulic cover “Smooth Criminal.”

Really it has to do with Michael Nouri.

By the way, he doesn’t know Victor’s a woman at this point.

I really adore Michael Nouri for this song. He’s perfect in so many ways. And later when he just goes ‘fuck it’ and behaves like a queen, you want to hug him. He evokes the conflict way more for me than James Garner. He was just too … smug for me. Smarmy. But Michael grabs that internal “Oh holy god, am I gay?” so well that when he utters that famous line “I don’t care if you are a man.” you really believe him.

In only two ways do I prefer the movie to the musical.

1. Shady Dame From Seville (the ‘you bitches’ line is missing)
2. Robert Preston

I suppose they should all be lumped together. Tony Roberts as Toddy is brilliant, though, don’t get me wrong. If there was anyone to carry the role, it was he.

It does make me sad to hear Julie Andrews trying to sing Le Jazz Hot in this musical though, as she has to take a ‘break’ in the middle to jump up that octave (I think? I’d ask my girlfriend, but she’s asleep). If you want to hear a mind-blowing version of that song, get the one Chris Colfer sings in Glee. He slides up exactly the way you’re supposed to, sounding as awesome as Julie did the first time I heard her sing it. I wish she still could. If someone has a link to the video of that, share!

The only real tragedy about the musical is Gregory Jbara, who plays Squash, only gets one singing line, and the man can belt! He actually gets an evocative ‘coming out’ moment, and we get to see him tell Toddy he’s gay, deal with the fall out with King, and fix it all back up.

“It’s not a crime to love each other.”

He sings, too.