Confusing Project Runway-Based Emotions

For the two of you who follow this blog and watch Project Runway, I feel compelled to comment on the finale. 

 

A few weeks ago I declared Dmitry's fashion week collection to be ugly, despite my love for his vampire good looks and bitchy commentary.

Well...that ugly collection just won him the season. I was thrilled to see him win, but I stand behind my previous comments. The collection was well made but it was overworked, weirdly styled, and minimally innovative. Many are saying that hippie Fabio deserved the win, and I'm fine with that, but his didn't excite me at all either. I wish I could take credit for this quip, but I read somewhere that Fabio's clothes looked like they were for a woman who lives in New Mexico and buys a lot of Georgia O'Keefe prints. Stacked up against the best collections of years past, there wasn't anyone this year who deserved the win.

The bottom line is that the designers were given a mere five weeks to put their collections together. In seasons past they have had four or five months. OF COURSE the entire output was lackluster.

Let Me See Your Quaker Face

I couldn't think of one story worth a long post this week, so here are several short stories, resulting in one giant post.

Quaker Face

Yesterday I did something I've never done before: I went to a high school football game. My roommate (a teacher) invited me, and I was strangely intrigued by the prospect. My high school didn't have a football team, so everything I knew about the experience was from TV and movies. Admittedly, the Seattle HS football scene isn't exactly like small-town Texas (probably 'cause, you know, there are other things to do here on a Friday night) but it was pretty fascinating nonetheless. There were cheerleaders, a marching band, and the team even charged through a big piece of paper when they came out after halftime. I was watching the Franklin Quakers, so the only thing missing was some sort of terrifying Ben Franklin mascot.

Or maybe just the skeezy one from that episode of The Office

Near the end of the third quarter, the cheerleaders started this cheer that everyone seemed really excited about. They chanted something, and then said "let me see your alligator!" and everyone did snapping jaw motion with their arms. Next they said "let me see your dougie" and then some little dance move thing happened. And last they said "let me see your QUAKER FACE" and then time stood still as my brain was like "What is happening right now? What is Quaker Face? What could it possibly be??" All my Quaker friends from Earlham materialized in an apparition before me as I threw up my hands in confusion.

Then time started again. It turned out to be some sort of motion with hands on the side of the face. WHAT DOES IT MEAN, CHEERLEADERS? WHAT DOES IT MEAN??

Welcome to Bellevue

On the other side of Lake Washington stands a city called Bellevue, which is a strange land that Seattleites make fun of. The feeling is mutual.

As I crossed the bridge and took the first exit, right away I saw something I had never seen before.

"Huh," I thought. "So THAT is what a Mitt Romney yard sign looks like."

Girl. No. 

This week I bought an awesome vintage dress that I had tried on a few days earlier and came back for because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Seriously, this dress is going to blow everyone's minds when I wear it. Get ready.

Anyway, while I had it on, the woman at the store was, of course, trying to convince me to buy it. That's what salespeople do. At one point she pointed to the beading and said, "This is very nice workmanship. It is definitely couture." I was like:

Girl. No. That does not work on me. Don't use words you don't understand.

Things Dmitry Said Today

Yeah, you saw it coming. I still want to talk about Dmitry. The problem is, I usually watch Project Runway either Friday night or Saturday morning, so when I blog on Saturday, it is all I can think about.  

Remember when I was excited for him to serve up sequins for the Rockette challenge? Well, it was awesome. First of all, we got treated to hearing him say "Rahkyette" about 10 times, and then he started snarking to the camera about how boring another designer's dress was. He actually said this: 

Hilarious. I'm going to make that a daily affirmation. 

This week they had a sort of dumb challenge to design baby clothes, and as part of it they gave them all baby dolls that cried constantly. They even made them take them home to their apartments that night. In the morning, they showed the babies all screaming, and the bleary-eyed designers scrambling to calm them. Dmitry was glaring at his baby over his pillow, and then said to the camera:

"I forgot. I am a father now."

When they made it to the workroom, Tim came in and said, "Good morning designers. How was your evening and night?"

Dmitry responded: "I barely had time to put my pants on."

Yeah, So I Figured Out How To Add GIFs To The Blog

I think it is really going to spice things up around here. 

Thanks, Michael. 

Dmitry Update

Thanks for all your kind words about the various traumas I endured last week. I'm doing better. The work thing will probably haunt me for a long time, but the actual event is over so at least I can sleep at night. Love continues to be dead, but a reasonable facsimile is still available in the form of Jane Austen novels.

As for Project Runway, I tried to seal up my heart and start separating myself from this season, but then this happened:

That would be a childhood photo of Dmitry, dressed up in what appears to be a drum major uniform with extra rickrack. As part of a challenge about personal and cultural heritage, the designers were surprised by visits from loved ones and shown photos from their past. Dmitry started crying when his friend Irina played him a video of his father in Belarus, offering words of encouragement. It was a heart-melting moment. 

Look! He already has an affinity for blonde ladies!

(For the record I'm aware that Dmitry is probably gay. Not to make blanket judgments about opposite-sex friendships, but the presence of a lifelong, female best friend is a possibly an indicator. His low V-neck t-shirts are another. But who cares? He also probably doesn't live in a Dracula castle either.)

THEN not only did Dreamy Dmitry go on to win the challenge, but we found out that next week they were going to be dressing the Rockettes. At first I was worried for him, but then another blog pointed out that Dmitry "Strictly Ballroom" Sholokov might have this one in the bag. Oh yeah. He used to be a ballroom dancer and probably learned to sew by making his own costumes. I bet he practically grew up in stretch polyester. 

Contemplating this, Olivia and I proceeded to have the following offensive conversation:

"Yeah, I feel like Eastern Europeans love their sparkles."

"For all I know sequins are the national currency of Belarus."

"In old country we put sequin on everything."

"But then we have great sequin drought of 1987."

"Yes, it was very difficult time. Is why I come to America."

Ah Dmitry, you know I'm just jealous because if I ever had to turn to my family heritage for a fashion challenge, I'd be stuck trying to reinvent the Mennonite head covering. 

Everything is Terrible.

Here is why this week really sucked, in reverse order of suckitude:

3. Dreamy Dmitry made an ugly finale collection

If you know me, you know I love Project Runway. I own the first five seasons on DVD and used to clear my schedule whenever it was on. But the move to Lifetime has been rough, and I thought a low point had been reached when Gretchen won instead of Mondo in Season 8. But the real low point was when I just stopped watching Season 9 because I realized I was dreading each episode and I felt actively anxious and unhappy while watching. I made it through All-Stars but it felt like a chore. 

So I was pretty sure I was going to watch little, if any, of Season 10. But Olivia and I ended up watching a few and got hooked, mainly because we fell in love with Dmitry Sholokov, the hilarious, ballroom dancing Belarusian who looks like younger, hotter incarnation of Professer Snape. His thick-accented quips have single-handedly brought the joy of Project Runway back into my life. 

So far, he has made some great dresses but hasn't won a challenge. I was hoping his "always the bridesmaid never the bride" story would be similar to that of Jay McCarroll, who uttered that line just before producing one of the best finale collections to date and winning Season 1. But this week the remaining designers showed at fashion week and Dmitry's was...kinda bad. Which means he won't win. Then again none of the collections were particularly exciting, so once again, a season of Project Runway is destined to collapse into one giant letdown. 

2. Love Is Dead

I probably shouldn't be dreaming of moving to Eastern Europe so I can live in a castle and have pale babies with Dmitry because the news came this week that love is dead and we should all give up.  

If you have been wondering why people are sobbing openly in the streets or why pints of Ben & Jerry's are sold out at your local grocery store, you must not have heard that all-time awesome couple Amy Poehler and Will Arnett are breaking up. 

Every time I chuckled with schadenfreude over some overexposed celebrity couple going bust, I wondered if I was just hard-hearted toward love and if I would ever be upset to hear about the break up of two people I don't know. And for years the answer was obvious: Amy and Will. Besides both being two of the funniest people I can think of, they seemed like they really had a loving, respectful, fun, equal marriage. 

So if they can't make it work, it means that love must be broken and that we should all just crawl into bed with a box of doughnuts and commence eating our feelings. 

1. Ugh

This week something very, very frustrating happened at work and it appears that there is nothing I can do about it. Since this is a public blog, I can't tell you about it, but I can tell you that my level of sheer rage on the subject has had me listening to Mozart's Queen of the Night aria on repeat for cathartic comfort. If you're not familiar, here is a clip. 

Yep. That is pretty much how I feel.