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Sex, politics, fashion and everything else a gen-X everygal loves to dish about.
Published bi-weekly, 2 or 3 times a month

Vajazzling Is Befuddling

Published by Starshine Roshell on November 18, 2010

I live to sparkle. To glimmer. To gleam. Blame it on my name, or too many formative hours spent draping Barbie in disco lamé (that’s lah-MAY, which, for the record, is the distinct shimmering opposite of “lame”). Whatever the cause, the result is that I wear sequined sneakers, carry a rhinestone-peppered purse, and shot a titanium stud through my nostril so I could have permanent bling on my face.

I’m a chick who likes to twinkle, okay? But I draw the line at gilding the lily.

A scintillating new trend in girly grooming has some gals (let’s call them “adventurous”) bedecking their vajannies with jewels. That’s right. Paving the privates with stick-on gems in custom designs: heart, starburst, fleur-de-lis.

More resplendent than the downtown display itself is the fun-to-utter name of this privates practice: It’s called vajazzling. And some celebs find it va-dazzling. D-lister Kathy Griffin, Snooki from Jersey Shore, and Jennifer Love Hewitt are all stuck on the habit like diamonds on a … well, you get the idea.

New York City’s Completely Bare salon takes credit for originating the craze, and the name — a riff on the Bedazzler, that infomercial-hawked craft tool used to fasten decorative studs to clothing.

Happy Meals lose weight

Published by Starshine Roshell on November 11, 2010

TM-hawking McDonald’s corporation understandably unHappy^TM. But I, for one, applaud it. Oh, I know your new law will be ridiculed. I know loud-howling liberty-lovers will call your “eat this, not that” edict an audacious obstruction of free enterprise and a bass-ackward Band-Aid of a solution to a staggeringly complex socio-economic problem. Also, let’s face it, the crap food is still being served at irresistibly low prices, and this is exactly the sort of chop-off-our-hands-to-keep-us-from-harming-ourselves legislation that makes us liberals seem so frighteningly stupid.

Love Among the Stars

Published by Starshine Roshell on November 4, 2010

We’ve all got a dirty little secret. A vulgar habit. A nasty pastime we strive to hide from others. Because if the world knew of our crude obsession, we’d be mocked. And rightly so.

I grapple with my secret as I stand in line at the supermarket check-out, trying fruitlessly to resist its seductive call. No, it’s not the king-size bar of Milky Way Midnight Dark. Not the carcinogenic carton of Camel no-filters.

My vice is fueled by the front of a glossy gossip magazine brandishing words on which no intelligent person should find herself fixating: Courteney Cox and David Arquette split!

Let me be clear. I don’t like either one of these actors. I neither admire nor relate to them and might very well turn down an invitation to join them for tapas. And I love tapas.

Yet I feel compelled to know that the couple is ending their marriage after — apologies in advance — not having had intercourse for several months.

Why do I need this information? I don’t know. It embarrasses me that I care about celebrities’ love lives, but I can’t look away. I must know if Jake Gyllenhaal has fallen for Taylor Swift! I must know why Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek divorced after 17 years! I must know what movies Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan watch on stay-at-home-date-nights! (I must try to try to find celebrity examples whose names are easier to spell … )

Scouting for Some Sense

Published by Starshine Roshell on October 28, 2010

Pet Care. Kickball. Archery. Cub Scouts earn a colored belt loop for each cool new skill they master. Strangely, the organization doesn’t make a loop for the lesson that’s being taught to the little boys in Pack 70 of University Park, Texas: intolerance.

The pack’s leaders stripped a fellow dad of his uniform and troop leadership role earlier this month because he’s gay.

That’s all. Just gay.

For two years, Jon Langbert and his nine-year-old son, Carter, were active in the pack; Carter has more than 15 loops on his belt for fishing, woodworking, basketball, and chess.

Langbert was once a Cub Scout himself and treasures memories of building pinewood derby cars with his own dad. But he worried about joining with Carter.

“I was concerned about the gay issue,” he told me last week. “I called the Cubmaster and said, ‘Hey, I’m a gay guy and my son wants to sign up. Is there going to be any problem with that?'” The Cubmaster welcomed him, and the pack even nominated him to run its popcorn-sales fundraiser. A Harvard Business School grad, Langbert brought sales up from \$4,000 to \$13,000 in one year.

In Honor of MJ

Published by Starshine Roshell on October 21, 2010

My husband doesn’t dance. Doesn’t know how, doesn’t try, and doesn’t even stop to watch dancers unless they are, say, female and nearly naked.

Which is why it was so weird when he ordered an instructional DVD last year and dragged the whole family into the living room one rainy Saturday to learn the five-minute dance made famous in the “Thriller” music video.

Um. We’re going to do what?

Like everyone our age, he’d been dazzled by Michael Jackson’s creepy, campy, and undeniably boogielicious 1983 mini-movie and its dancing undead. After seeing Jennifer Garner and Andy Serkis (Gollum moonwalks?!) bust the routine in 13 Going on 30 — and watching 1,500 inmates at a Philippines prison nail it on YouTube — he decided no Gen X-er should be without the skill.

Plus he figured if the whole family could whip it out at parties, maybe we’d get invited places. “We just have to have those spooky, kooky Roshells!”

It turns out the instinct isn’t so weird. Okay, it’s weird, but it’s weirdly common.

For four years, people around the world have gathered annually, and at the same exact time, to set world records for the Largest Simultaneous Dance — while doing the “Thriller” routine.

Beauty Secrets Revealed

Published by Starshine Roshell on October 14, 2010

It’s the sort of news that’ll have Grandma pining for the good old days: More unwed couples are living together than ever before, according to a new Census study. The number of shacked-up couples jumped 13 percent in the last year to an all-time high of 7.5 million, and experts say it’s not a decline in morals that’s driving the trend — it’s a drop in income.

The economy, they claim, is spurring unmarried sweethearts to pool their resources in the form of shared rent and utilities.

Which makes sense. It is cheaper to live with your lover. And while I’m technically a love child and thus a terribly unreliable source for conventional relationship advice, I have to tell you that living in sin is also jolly good fun.

When my fella and I first moved in together, I was so utterly enchanted with having him constantly nearby that I followed him from room to room in our tiny apartment.

“Whatcha doin’?” I’d ask.

“Watching the game.”

“Whatcha doin’ now?”

“Untangling these extension cords.”

“How ’bout now?”

“I’m reading, babe, and on a completely unrelated topic, is it going to be like this forever?”

It wasn’t. Adorable quirks (and also mine) have a way of tempering with time. But there’s one aspect of living together that I still haven’t gotten used to, still haven’t learned to love.

Ana Marie Cox Waxes Wonky

Published by Starshine Roshell on October 7, 2010

She’s informed. She’s omnipresent. And she once called Ann Coulter a “horse-faced tranny” on MSNBC.

“Now I kind of wish I’d said something worse,” jokes Ana Marie Cox, the Washington journalist who serves up politics with liberal seasoning and a side of snark.

The founding editor of political satire blog Wonkette, Cox now waxes wonky as a correspondent for GQ, a frequent guest on The Rachel Maddow Show, and a hardcore tweeter. A self-described nerd, Cox entertains her million-plus Twitter followers with confessions of bad ’80s hair, shout-outs to beloved indie rock bands, and links to cool politi-stuff — like her recent interview with Gov. Schwarzenegger (Ahnuld Sez Gerrymandering Is for Girly Men).

On October 15, Cox comes to town to speak at Politics, Sex & Cocktails, a benefit for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo Counties (tickets and information).

But first, she spoke to slightly starstruck me…

Insanity by Baby Book

Published by Starshine Roshell on September 30, 2010

Shhh. Listen … There! Did you hear that? That snarky mumbling? They’re doing it again. Taunting me. Shaming me. Making judgmental “tsk, tsk” sounds in my direction.

Yes, I know they’re only books. Just glossy hardcover journals. Just pretty pastel diaries with a soft-focus cover photo of some baby’s delicious feet. The books look so tidy and innocuous, with their sweet ribbon embellishments.

But we know better, don’t we?

We moms know that baby books — those keepsake compendiums where we’re supposed to inventory our kids’ cute sayings and developmental milestones for posterity — do not exist to bring joy to families. They exist to bring revenue to the gift industry. And to drive me self-loathingly, inferiority-complexedly deranged. (Ooh, there’s a nice line for the baby book. Lemme jot that one down.)

Sure, there was a time — when my babies napped often and I was too exhausted to stand up and go make a sandwich — when I wrote diligently, dutifully in those pretty books: “Why we chose your name … ,” “Our first days together … ,” “Your first smile … .”

'Why He's My Ex'

Published by Starshine Roshell on September 23, 2010

Smacking your head on a low-hanging beam. Ordering an expensive dinner and forgetting your wallet. Neglecting to notice the gaping hole in the crotch of your pants.

Some things just aren’t funny until they’re over. Looong over. And then they’re hilarious.

Bad dates and god-awful ex-boyfriends are like that. They make us curse, cringe, cry … and ultimately leave us no choice but to cackle like maniacs.

That’s how I feel now about the guy I once dated who was hot for my mom. And also the one who compulsively stole pens from drugstores.

And it’s how friends Jessica Hill and Krishna Devine felt after enduring ugly breakups a few years back.

“We were sitting around having cocktails, dissecting our dating experiences, and comparing notes,” Devine recalls. “And we said, ‘We’re ready to get over this. It happened, but we’re going to find the funny part of it and move on.'”

So the gals coauthored a book, Why He’s My Ex, a snappy and acerbic new picture book cataloging the heinous-cum-hilarious things men do that make them Mr. Wrong. They’ll sign the book at 3 p.m. on Sunday, September 26 at Chaucer’s bookstore.

Take My Kids … Please

Published by Starshine Roshell on September 16, 2010

It was like a meeting of Irresponsible Parents Anonymous. Shuffling anxiously into the sterile office, we were strangers to one another, with two shared attributes: shame that we hadn’t taken care of this sooner, and relief that we were finally doing something about it.

We are the laggard parents (perhaps you’re one of us?) who haven’t yet named a legal guardian for our children — haven’t debated the relative merits of various friends and family members to raise our children in the event of our untimely deaths, haven’t had the touchy conversation with said individuals wherein we ask them to accept the onerous responsibility of ushering our spawn gracefully into adulthood, haven’t filled out the legal paperwork making the decision official … But as you see, the process is complex.

It’s one of those parenting chores that fall into the category of “prudence” — and that I stink at. Saving for their college. Having them fingerprinted. Even getting them flu shots. So if I’m an unfit mother for not planning for their potential orphanhood, well, add it to the list.