Dear Miss Maude:

There’s this guy and he’s TOTALLY HAWT (sorry — a clique book reference… lol) I’m talking Brad Pitt hawt ladies….(or, for Miss Maude, Zac Efron hawt)
Anyways, he’s a real jerk sometimes and jumps from girl to girl but hes really nice if u talk to him…..HELP!!!!!

LOVE,
Totally Confused

Dear Confused, OMG:

This is the best problem of all time, and you want to know why? BECAUSE IT’S NOT A PROBLEM. When I see a hot guy, I’m all, hot damn. I’m all, hell yeah. I’m all, hallelujah.

I am not, however, all “help.”

Okay, okay. Maybe this “help” has to do with the very practical issue of what to do next. Like, maybe you want The Hawtness to be your boyfriend or something. To which I say… why? Because he’s beautiful? You know what else is beautiful? The sunrise. Has anyone ever watched the sunrise and thought to themselves, you know what? I wanna tap that. No. They pull pashmina shawls ’round their shoulders, smile their “watching the sunrise” smiles, and then they just… watch. And then they’re like:

Why’d I get up early for this, again?

And that’s how it is with hot guys, y’all.

In other news, I’d like to comment on this Brad Pitt vs. Zac Efron thing. Because I have to admit, on the hotness scale? They’re kind of a draw. Which probably means Zac’s looking for his Angelina Jolie-equivalent. Which is why — and I really can’t stress this enough, ladies — Zac needs to call me.

Um… excuse me? You don’t think I resemble Angelina Jolie? Well. Maybe you should check out these TOTALLY UNDOCTORED photos of me and my adopted Burmese son, Monx Maude Efron…

AND

EAT

YOUR

WORDS.

Only so many sunrises I can watch, Zacky!

Only so many sunrises I can watch.

Dear Miss Maude,

Um, I actually really like this guy and he says that he likes me too, but the problem is he only wants to be ‘friends with benefits’. My friends are worried about me, too–I can tell–but I honestly really don’t know what I should do about this. I like him but if he doesn’t want to be seen with me in public I dont know if I want this?

–Benefit in Distress

Dear Benefit, OMG:

Okay, so I have a serious problem with the term “friends with benefits.”  Because it sounds so good, right? You have the word “friend” — downright fuzzy-wuzzy. You have the word “benefit” — meaning “advantageous or good,” not to mention a totally cute makeup brand packed with poptastic products such as “Dr. Feelgood,” and “Pocket-Pal.” And then you have the word ‘with’ — which is a preposition. In my eighth grade grammar class we learned the following:

The bunny jumped ______ the haystack.

Any word that fit in the blank — over, under, through, up, down, with — qualified as a preposition.

But I’m not here to give you a grammar lesson. I’m here to show you what the term “Friends With Benefits” is doing, bébés. See, it’s working away at our subconscious. Infiltrating our minds. It’s saying:

BUNNAYS!

FUNNAYS!!

Watchin’ the SUNNAYS!!!

In other words it’s saying: I WON’T HURT YOU.

So, um… not to make you paranoid? But Friends With Benefits ain’t nunna that shizz. Unless both people involved are equally “eh, whatever” about the other (in which case, why hook up?), someone (sometimes the girl, sometimes the guy) is bound to get hurt.

See, your guy KNOWS he’s being unfair. He KNOWS he’s putting you in a hurtful position. So, he squirms out of saying something he seriously does not want to admit (to you, or to himself) by relying on some silly, pre-fabricated, light and fluffy phrase. The term “Friends With Benefits” was designed to relieve people (like your guy) of a guilty conscience. He no longer has to do the talking, right? Someone else already did it for him.

Think about it this way: If the term “Friends With Benefits” didn’t exist, what would he have to say instead? If he’d have to say, ”Uh… I want to hook up with you but ignore you in public,” then that is a major EW.

Also, since when do “friends” ignore “friends” in public?

Hahahah…. OMG! I feel so shivery and prickly and, like, righteous right now! I’m like this puffed-up, cod-liver-oiled Victorian woman with a gigantic bosom and her nose in the air, like, “Friend with Benefits?!!!! Hmph!”

AWESOME.

xo

Miss Maude

Okay… I have a whole bunch of questions to answer for Miss Maude Monday and wants to get to them all, so this week? I’m making EVERY day a Monday. Yeah, I know. Kinda sounds like the worst thing ever, right? Well, it’s not. Waking up to discover your cat’s excrement spattered on the bathroom wall: Possibly the worst thing ever. Cleaning up cat crap with Lysol and a roll of Charmin’s: Possibly the worst thing ever. Dutifully crapping on the wall — all over again – to show your seriously unskilled cat how it’s done…

Still. If there’s one thing I’ve always said it’s this: a true leader leads by example. And it’s a principle I apply to all facets of life, beginning with my cat, and ending?

With you.

You know how the kid in THE SHINING keeps saying ‘red rum, red rum’ and at first you’re all w.t.f. until he writes it on the wall and it’s reflected in the mirror and it reads mur der and you’re like, omigod, AHHHHH!!!? Well, it’s exactly the same with Poseur. All you have to do is flip the ‘p’ upside down, mix the letters around, and…

pOSEUR

CURSEd

I know! Are you totally freaked out?!

Okay, fine. You have to change the O into a C to make it work but, whatev. The world would be a much better place if C’s were O’s, in my humble opinion, because then I’d get to be all, “I’m an oat person,” and, “um, I’m sorry, but Matthew MoOonaughey is so not oute,” and, “My name is Raohel, and I’m an alooholio.”

Anyway.

C’s and O’s aside, Poseur really is cursed. Check out Poseur #1, page 72:

“Janie glanced up at the guy standing directly next to her. He looked like a less grumpy version of Heath Ledger, one of Janie’s absolute favorite actors.”

When I wrote that line? Heath Ledger was alive. In the month it was published? He died.

Poseur #3, page 71:

“Stage?” Melissa piped up, eyes shining. As with any exhibitionist, the word “stage” had a near physical effect on her. Like saying “open bar” to an alcoholic, or “playground” to Michael Jackson.”

When I wrote that line? Michael Jackson was alive. In the month it was published…?

You’re catching on.

The day after MJ beat it, I called my editor. I was like: Remember how I wanted to name my book, “Skinny Jean is Not My Lover”? How insensitive would it have been to publish a book called “Skinny Jean is Not My Lover,” like, the day Michael Jackson died? Ha! Good thing I named it Petty in Pink, right? After the seminal eighties movie, Pretty in Pink, directed by John Hughes, who… is not… who… um…

That’s right. HE WENT AHEAD AND DIED, TOO.

I know.

I know.

Totally.

Freaky.

This is the thing: I LOVE Heath Ledger. I LOVE Michael Jackson. I LOVE John Hughes. If I had my way they would live FOREVER. Also if I had my way they would live together… so I could move in with them. Yeah, at first we’d fight because we’d have nothing in common, but then we’d discover a shared passion for fashion, put our differences aside, and start a fashion label!!!

Heath Ledger: The Hippie Goddess

Michael Jackson: The Cool Coquette

John Hughes: The Shy Punk

Rachel Maude: The Ghetto-Glam Egomaniac

Agh! Agh! What could have been.

Anyway.

From now on I promise only to mention celebrities whose lives I personally consider expendable. Which is actually really hard because celebrities kind of deserve to live more than other people.*

xoxo

* With the possible exception of Matthew MoOonaughey.

Okay, so in a little bit, I’m going to post a video — but first: some totally tedious explanation! The video in question stars my redheaded right-hand ma’am, Jamie Mae Lawrence (also some dudes I don’t know but wish I did because they’re fun-to-the-nay). Jamie and I met when we were twelve, at the Oakwood Upper School’s seventh grade orientation pool party (f.y.i. I modeled Winston Prep, the too-too private school in POSEUR, on Oakwood). The party was hosted by this girl I didn’t know, Laurie Rubin, and I carpooled there with another girl I didn’t know, Justine Something, who wore her stick-straight wheat-blonde hair in a très sophisticated Louise Brooks bob. Louise Brooks, for those of you not in the know, looked like this:

Rachel Maude in seventh grade? Kinda looked like this:

As you can imagine, Justine and I hit it off SWIMMINGLY. Which is to say, as soon as our car pulled into the Laurie Rubin’s driveway, she, like, ejected from the back seat. I seriously don’t even recall her opening the door. It was like she just vacuum-sucked her escape through the barely-cracked back window.

Moving. On.

In keeping with my individualist aesthetic, I wore a lime-green and neon-pink hibiscus-print bathing suit from the Broadway girls’ department. Totally hot, right? Yeah, well… to my bewilderment, Laurie’s pool was packed with girls wearing not FUN AND FABULOUS suits, like mine, but classic black one-pieces and daring red bikinis, like, um, supermodels. Oh, and they had cleavage. And smooth, glowing tans. And long, lustrous hair. And they all seemed to know each other. How was that possible? Wasn’t this an orientation party?!?

I tried to make myself invisible, wrapping myself in a Little Mermaid towel the size of a car-tarp, and huddling at the pool’s edge. See? I thought, dipping my feet in the water. I’m doing something. I have purpose. I’M TOTALLY ENTERTAINED.

(God, had I only been there two minutes?)

At the other end of the pool, the Bikini Brigade arranged themselves into a row along the deep end. At the diving board, terrifyingly popular-looking boys sprung into the air, balled up like flying, tongue-lolling fetuses, and plunged explosively into the water. If the dive impressed them (i.e. if the boy was cute), the bikini brigade shrieked in delight, kicking the water into a froth at their feet. If the dive failed to impress (i.e. if the boy was less cute–none of the boys involved were totally un-cute, by the way; totally un-cute boys weren’t invited to participate), the bikini brigade looked at each other in disappointment and half-heartedly whirled the water with their manicured toes. They looked like a league of sexy orphans stirring their chlorinated gruel.

Then, just as I considered folding my Little Mermaid towel into an origami towel-plane and taking off for the hills, this redheaded girl smiled at me. She was bouncing around and wearing a seriously butt-ugly tankini. Best of all, she looked nice (i.e. she looked like a dork), so it didn’t take us long to introduce ourselves. Now, eighteen years later, we’re still friends! And still HUGE DORKS!

Aren’t you inspired?

Okay, okay. All of which brings me back to her video. Check it out, bébés! It’s actually (gasp) kind of cool.

JAMIE’S VIDEO!!!

xo

Okay, so… now that my sty is gone and I’m back to my modelly self (I graduated from Barbizon, okay? STEP OFF) I can concentrate on the task at hand: picking my cellphone zit, rattling my antipsychotic medication like a maraca to scare my cat, and recommending a book to my razzle-dazzle readerazzi: which (duh!) means you.

And the faun who lives in my closet.

Book Recommendation Number One:

STARRING SALLY J. FREEDMAN AS HERSELF, by Judy Blume

I seriously must have read this book eight billion times. I’d always pick it up and reread some random part while eating my after-school snack (that’s right; despite evidence to the contrary, my adolescence positively brimmed with such Norman Rockwellesque activity as after-school snacks, walking the dog, sharing a bunk with my little brother, and pacing the living room floor in hysterics begging my parents to please stopfighting!!! PLEASE!!!)

Anyway.

Because I always read SALLY J. while snacking, and because I’m a total pig, the pages were invariably encrusted with dried mustard, splatters of Progresso minestrone soup, and (on occasion) an entire hamburger. Toward the end of the book’s life I seriously had to pry the thing open with a chisel.

Why did I read the book SO many times you ask? Too many reasons to count (I guess it doesn’t help that I only know how to count to twelve). The book starts toward the end of World War 2 with Sally’s brother getting sick forcing the whole family to move to Florida so he can get some sun. See? Already awesome. Once there, Sally has tons of adventures. Like she tries out for a movie. She meets a sophisticated friend with braces. The war ends. She frets about her flat chest. She gets stung by a jelly fish. Her cousin Lila may or may not have died in a concentration camp. Her parents go on vacation to Cuba. An old man doling out candy in the neighborhood park may or may not be Hitler in disguise. And she lives next door to a glamorous teenage girl named Bubbles (I know!) whose parents pretend she’s dead (Bubbles!)

As you can see, STARRING SALLY J. FREEDMAN AS HERSELF combines two of my all timebiggest obsesh’s: tween angst and Hitler. Only the most classic combo since peanut-butter and cheese. Which, f.y.i., I spent an entire hour chiseling off pages 138 to 141.

And it was sooooo worth it.

xoRachel

Okay. If you’re anything like me, then you LIVE to talk on your cellie. Oh, and in case you’re from another planet, like Venusuela or whatever? This is what “talking on the cellie” looks like:

Pretty awesome, righttt?

The thing is, fun stuff almost always comes with a price. Like, can I eat that fourth slice of birthday cake without getting a stomach ache? No. Can I play all day in the sun without getting burned? No. Can I go to second base with a hot Mexican pig without causing a flu pandemic?

I know!

Unfortunately, this whole fun-leads-to-punishment thing? Includes cell phone talking. And no, no… I’m not talking about “brain tumors.” (It’s like, what’s so bad about brain tumors? No one can see your brain.)

People can, on the other hand, see this.

THE CELL PHONE ZIT. Seriously, can you even SEE how sad I am? That thing has totally taken over my face! I’m pretty sure I feel like the elephant man did in that one movie, The Elephant Man… you know when everyone points at him and he flips out, like, “I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL!!!” Yeah, well… I’m even MORE not an animal and you want to know why?

Animals don’t even GET zits. 

Check it:

Check it:

Check it:

Check it:

Uggghhh!!!! ALL of those jerk-offs: PERFECT SKIN. It’s seriously unfair. 

At first I tried remedying the problem with concealer, but the problem with concealer is you still have the bump, except instead of being a red bump, it’s now a skin-colored bump, which is KIND OF THE SAME THING AS A WART. 

Seriously, I was this close to never picking up my phone again (except for unidentified numbers which everybody knows are a) super hot guys who want to date you exclusively or b) someone using you as their Who Wants To Be a Millionaire lifeline). But then I read somewhere like in The New York Times that with a little dark brown eyeliner you can totally transform your zit into a Marilyn Monroe-like beauty mark!

I thought, okay. Why not? At this point, I’ll try anything, you know? 

And it totally works!!! Seriously, isn’t this friggin’ brillz??? I’m so pleased with the result I’ve actually added “rubbing phone all over face” as part of my nightly beauty regime. 

Week 2:

Week 4:

Wheeeeeee!!!! I’m a candle in the wind, y’all!!!

xo

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Wait. Fashion Tip Tuesday on a Thursday? That’s right, incredulistas. I am Rachel Maude and I exist OUTSIDE OF TIME. It’s like, here I am, toiling away at my laptop, ice-packing the rhinocerosian bags under my otherwise sprightly and vibrant brown eyes — just another drizzly mid-May Tuesday in Brooklyn, right? Ha! No. In fact, almost seven decades and two days have passed without my even noticing! My studio apartment is seriously like NARNIA, you guys. Which is a relief because — in addition explaining the bags under my eyes and the tiny tea-swilling faun who lives in my closet — it explains my total lateness updating my blog! You know, it’s just like John Lennon says: Life is what happens while you’re making other plans. I guess my life adds up to sixty-eight years of Googling pictures of malignant moles, Charlie Rose in various stages of undress, and my Amazon ranking. In other words? My life has gone exactly according to plan! Hahaha! Suck on that John Lennon! (But not really ’cause you’re dead and I love you.)

So! On to the fashion tip:

You know those totally cute empire waisted babydoll tops that everyone wears over jeans these days? I totally figured out a way to a) buy one that nobody else will be wearing guaranteed (i.e. you’ll get major props for originality) and b) do so at a majorly discounted price! What’s my secret you ask?

MATERNITY TOPS!

Seriously, have you ever tried on one of these things without the burden of a boring-ass baby bump? In one version you’re teetering around like a fat tick on stilts, but in the other (and this is the version we’re in, bébés!) you’re flitting about breezy as a butterfly. Seriously, all I had to do was tightly cinch my maternity top-of-choice with a ribbon and because I’m NOT PREGNANT (just a little gassy, okay?), all that extra material gathered into these fantastic, figure-flattering flounces and folds. In the end, the top didn’t resemble a top so much as an awesome baby doll dress: the kind of thing you can just as easily pair with opaque tights and slouchy boots as wear over jeans.

The other cool thing about maternity tops? You can get them for cheaps! Retailers rightly assume Tick Women aren’t going to break the bank for something they’ll wear nine months out of their lives. Which is why they sell them at scandalously low prices. I swear you can get some super hot numbers at places like Target or Old Navy, and because you choose to wear them NOT IN THE WAY THE TARGET LORDS INTENDED — you’ll look totally unique and cool.

Don’t believe me?

Check it:

Check it:

Check it:

Check it:

Yeah, this last one might need a hot pink belt to spice it up, but you get the point. Totally cute baby dolls, am I right???

Be the first on your block to rock one!

xo

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Dear Miss Maude,

I’m sooooo in love with someone that barely knows I exist! How do I get him to fall in love with me?

–Lauren, 15

Lauren, OMG:

I totally know how you feel except even more so because Zac Efron doesn’t know I exist at all let alone “barely.” But if Zac and I went to the same school — and if we were (even roughly) the same age — let me tell you: I’d stop at nothing, nothing, to make him look my way. Like, every time he walked down the hall I’d sort of lean against my locker and studiously examine my nails until the very last minute when I’d flick my eyes upward as he walked by, like, holding a basketball and everything would go slow-mo while the opening bars of “Good Vibrations” started to play except, of course, slightly modified to better express things Zac Efron.

“I-I-I…! I love the gray Nike muscle-tees he wear-a-ares… And the way the highlights play upon his hair-a-airs…”

And then, later that night, he’d call me up and ask me to be his girlfriend. Because, you know, if you stare at boys for long enough periods of time — preferably with part of your lunch clinging to your chin — they almost always fall in love with you.

Okay, fine. That’s a lie.

This is what I really recommend. Talk to him. I know, I know. Totally nerve-racking. Impossible, even. But remember: if he barely knows you… you barely know him. But I do! you protest. I watch him all the time. I know his favorite food is grape flavor and his favorite place is Maui!

Whatever.

Let’s return to me and Zac. I see that Kiehl’s-moisturized pretty-boy face of his and I think: of course we’re perfect for each other! But are we? The things I require in a bf: Must make me laugh. Must challenge me intellectually. Must strive to be a good person but never refer to himself as “a good person.” Must be a nice guy but never refer to himself as “a nice guy.” Must find farts hilarious. Must be loyal.

Is Zac all those things? I mean, I think so… but I can’t be sure. Not unless I talk to him and get to know him. And I don’t have that luxury. Just talk to this guy. And if you can’t talk to him, just think: at least I’m less pathetic than Rachel Maude. I know. Small consolation. But it’s something.

xo

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I decided to reserve Friday for discussion of All Things Guys, you guys. And I’ve received some complaints. Guys are so central, my dissenters argue–so woven into the very fabric of our lives–that to consign or “ghettoize” them to a single day out of the week is not only backward but, ironically, antithetical to my purpose: namely, to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contribution of the Guy people to history (of ma pants).

Anyway. To my dissenters I say: suck it.

And let me introduce you to my high school crush, Jeff Larson.

Sigh! So dreamy. And yeah. That perve-faced weirdo next to him is me. I can tell you exactly what I was thinking, too.

My shouldersth touching hith armpit! My shouldersth touching hith armpit! My shouldersth touching hith armpit! My shouldersth touching hith armpit! My shouldersth touching hith armpit! My shouldersth touching hith armpit! My shouldersth touching hith armpit!              

Don’t ask me why I lisp in my thoughts, okay? I just do.                                      

Anyway. Jeff and I barely talked in high school, but we’re facebook friends now. And in some countries? That’s practically the same as married.

xo

*Do you have a hottie you’d like to promote? Email DearMissMaude@gmail.com and share the love!

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