Comment

I’m a firm believer that you never truly know someone until you live with them.

Specifically, you don’t know your friends as well as you think until you live with them.

In some situations, you get to know your friends better and your relationships grow deeper.

Case in point: my freshman living experience was amazing. I received random roommates and we really got along well and were very close.

I’ve known many people who are best friends with their roommates, but I’ve also met many girls whose relationships have turned sour from living together.

I can name you lists and lists of girls who are no longer friends because they have lived together, and though I never thought I’d be on the list, I am.

Last semester, after rooming with some of my freshman year roommates, the result wasn’t as favorable. The girls that I thought were my best friends turned out to be completely the opposite.

I won’t go into specifics, but recently I found out about some hurtful things they had done behind my back which have posed and continue to pose serious consequences for me.

Unfortunately, I am not able to switch rooms for next semester, but imagine how Lauren Conrad would react if she had to live with Heidi Montag (again) and that’s how I feel about my living situation for the rest of the year.

Though this has been one of the hardest experiences I’ve ever gone through, after giving the situation a lot of thought, I’ve come to a major conclusion about roommates and friends in general.

I would not take back what they did to me, even though it’s upsetting, because I can now see them for what they really are and that I had trusted the wrong people.

If I hadn’t lived with them, I would never have discovered who they really were.

And don’t think that I’m roasting everyone who decides to live with their friends, because that’s not what this is about at all. I actually want to recommend living with friends.

Sometimes this can have bad consequences, but at least you will know who she really is. I’d like to be idealistic and believe that most of the time, living together deepens friendships.

As a toast to a new beginning in 2009, I’d like to offer advice to anyone nursing a broken friendship with a roomie, or a friendship on the rocks…if they have proved to be untrustworthy and more of a “frenemy� than a friend, let them go.

Though this may be hard to do, you honestly will be better off later in life.

After all, what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger.

Comment

Two of my most favorite things in the world collided this past week to create a lot of media buzz: Jennifer Aniston and GQ Magazine. Jennifer Aniston’s impossibly toned and impossibly naked body graces the cover of GQ’s latest issue, with the headline, “Is it just us, or is Jennifer Aniston getting hotter?�

With timing that is either complete serendipity or, more likely, publicity brilliance, the cover hit newsstands this past week just as Aniston’s new movie, Marley and Me, is hitting theaters on Christmas Day. The occurrence means that Aniston is currently traveling the usual circuit of talk shows and interviews to promote the movie, and unsurprisingly, all Letterman and the gang want to talk about is her naked cover.

On CBS’s Early Show, Harry Smith acted like an awkward 12-year old boy while interviewing the glowing star, while Letterman had some fun playing around with the actual tie from the cover which Aniston gifted to him. Elsewhere in the media world, reactions towards the racy cover ranged from unsurprised acknowledgment to mean-spirited outrage. BF John Mayer said he didn’t mind the shot at all and the newsstand in New York’s Grand Central Station “censored� it by placing a piece of paper over displayed magazine.

Normally, this kind of blatant “sex sells!� maneuver irks me, not because of the magazine’s decision to print it but because of the star’s willingness to shoot it. I usually find myself unconsciously judging whichever celebrity happens to be have the latest boob shot, for being fame hungry and exposing themselves beyond the realm of dignity. But in this case, two things are different:

1. As I admitted before, I have a huge bias. GQ is my favorite magazine and Jennifer Aniston is my favorite star. Both generally fall into the “can-do-no-wrong� category. Clearly this tips the scales just a smidge.

2. More seriously, Aniston seems to occupy a new place in life where her body is not for sale but rather a point of pride and, more basically, reality. This is who she is, 39 years and all, and she is supremely comfortable with that. Lord knows she doesn’t need the publicity. To me the cover just says, “This is me, take it or leave it�—although seriously, who’d leave it?— “and I’m OK doing whatever makes me feel great.�

Sure, any other star can say, “I’m comfortable with my body…� etc. But in most cases the sexy magazine shots seem aimed at self-promotion and scream “Look at me! And my boobs!� The person’s identity, what we know of her, starts with the picture and only builds from that initial image. But we know Jen, and she knows this. Her identity remains concrete in the public’s mind, shifting slightly with each tabloid caption but always remaining attached to an individual, a real personality. Whatever anyone already thought of Aniston, this picture won't change that. She has nothing to prove and (albeit unfortunately) nothing she can hide. So Jen, go ahead and enjoy that freedom— if we had that body, Lord knows we'd consider it.
Send This To A Friend

Comment

Designer Betsey Johnson, the wacky, fun-loving girlie-girl of the fashion world, announced last week that she will not be staging a runway show in the main Bryant Park tents for Fashion Week in New York this February.
Although the reason was not given, it’s probably a money issue: putting up a Fashion Week show in Bryant Park, the main site for the big-name shows, costs a designer at least $100,000. Designer Carmen Marc Valvo also announced that cost would prevent him from presenting at Bryant Park for Fashion Week, as explained by his company’s VP of communications: “We didn’t know if we would have the audience we felt we needed to justify the cost of putting on that show — stores are cutting back on sending buyers to the shows, there’s less and less press coming… we didn’t feel it was worth the effort going to go into it.�
While maybe couture designers aren’t the most destitute victims of the latest economic slide, there is something sad about seeing the world of high-end fashion affected by the economy. Couture and runway shows and Fashion Week… it’s pure escapism, baby, where the glamorous never look ugly, mismatch their clothes or have haul out of bed in the morning for work. Fashion Week is about glitz and glamour, about clothing turned to art by limitless designers and the assumption that this will always exist.
It’s disheartening to hear that even the high-end fashion world gets hit by economic recessions. Right now is when we could use escapism the most. Or even just the pleasure of a Betsey Johnson cartwheel down the runway.