Here begins day two of my week attempting to eat like a vegan:

Breakfast: Oatmeal. Again.

Lunch: My quick-fix meal, a ham and cheese sandwich, is out, so I just munch on grapes, dried fruit, and nuts. I feel like a Greek god, but not at all full.

Dinner: I pull out the big guns for dinner. I go to Whole Food’s and do a massive shopping by following a list I compiled using recipes found on allrecipes.com. The total comes out to $120. Turns out tofu is more expensive than I thought it would be. I get home and I do the unthinkable: I cook for myself. I mix and simmer and stir. I make a total mess, but it actually feels really good to slave over a hot stove for an hour.

The end result? A meaty (thank you, Boca!), spicy, filling vegan chili. I put some of the chili in a tortilla for a vegan burrito thing, and it’s delicious. I pour some in a bowl and eat it, and when I go to put it in a Tupperware container, I end up eating some of it right out of the pot, always a good sign! Read More »

It sounds like a dream: lazing in bed until eleven, having sex in the middle of the day, scoping out your city’s best happy hours in the early evening with your man. This is the life of those unemployed and in a relationship. But there’s a dark side, a very dark side, and it’s called the Wii.

My friend Veronica (not her real name) is in the middle of such a slacker paradise. She’s temporarily living at home until she can relocate with her boyfriend to an as-of-yet unknown locale, she was recently laid off from a job she hated anyway, and she’s one of the only people I know who doesn’t freak out in a situation like this. But as someone looking on at her life and her relationship from a slight distance, I’m freaking out on her behalf.

Her boyfriend recently bought a Wii, that addictive gaming console that lets you bowl or play tennis by swinging a white remote around and looking like a moron. I love my friend, and I love that she’s so comfortable with her boyfriend that she can hang out with him in her pajamas, and I love that he finds her sexy even when she doesn’t shower. But I think there’s a fine line between being comfortable with your other and being stuck in a rut.

Veronica and her boyfriend have long been turning into the same person. First, it was their jokes, sometimes funny, sometimes offensive, as if they were nudging each other on. Now, it’s their attitudes towards life, a blasé, things-will-work-out-on-there-own attitude that seems to magnify the longer they are together. This may sound as if I don’t like them together, but that’s actually not true. He’s a good person and he treats her well, and I wish I could be as relaxed and go-with-the-flow as she is, but I’m not, so I worry.

The risk of the slacker dream is real. Read More »

My favorite places to eat at in Los Angeles include In N’ Out for their double-double animal-style burgers and Bay Cities Italian Deli in Santa Monica for their “godmother” sandwich, a bread and meat monstrosity with cold cuts from every edible animal. I rarely eat at home because I can’t cook, and when I do, my go-to at-home meal is a ham and cheese sandwich. I’m telling you this to give you an idea of how hard it is going to be for me to eat like a vegan for week.

My vegan week isn’t due to some sudden desire to save animals that would otherwise end up on the tip of my fork. I’m not opposed to saving animals –– if a cute puppy were to cross the street in front of me, I wouldn’t run it over –– but this adventure is purely an experiment. I’m doing it just to see if I can.

In preparation for my weeklong meat, dairy, and gelatin-free adventure, I searched the Internet for vegan-eating rules and information. When I Google searched “veganism,” the pull-quote from Wikipedia read: “Vegans are the result of a conspiracy among the liberal elite to create a new race of inbred, herbivores.” I’m nervous already.

Sunday

12 AM: My vegan week officially begins. I am immediately hungry. I fix myself a bowl of oatmeal. Basically, I’m eating a bowl of mush for dinner. Not satisfied. Read More »

You pulled an all-nighter yesterday, and I’m not talking about the studying kind, and now it’s time for that dreaded walk of shame back to your dorm room. You managed to find your bra, but your low-slung jeans and barely-visible top couldn’t look more obvious as you wobble in your heels across the quad, and the eye makeup that looked smoky last night now looks like a finger painting. You knew this might happen, but short of bringing your backpack filled with your overnight kit to a bar, you didn’t have a choice.

Now, thanks to handbag designers like Rebecca Minkoff, you don’t have to choose between looking chic the night before or the morning after, instead, you can be prepared like a boy scout while not losing your mystique.

Rebecca Minkoff’s Morning After Bag was seen on the arm of Lindsay Lohan, a girl who takes her walk of shame not just watched by the morning joggers, but by tens of paparazzi and millions of tabloid readers. The bag comes in black mesh and black patent or tangerine (a favorite of Vanessa Hudgens) and is roomy enough for a change of shirt, face wash, maybe even a breathalyzer. $595.

For a more affordable option, check out the Urban Expressions Peterson Tote. The sleekly structured bag has front pleating, braided handles, and gold-toned hardware accents. The bag comes in tan, black, and brown, and at only $58 (currently on sale for $32), you can buy two or all three to match different outfits. Read More »

Last Sunday night I found myself at Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood. It was Memorial Day weekend, so the bar was packed. I’d come with friends, so I wasn’t looking to talk to any guys, but looking around I was surprised at how many cute, normal looking ones there were.

There were tons of adorable nerdy boys wearing glasses and semi-skinny jeans who looked like they’d just come to chill and have a good time with their friends. Yeah, there were a few desperate-looking ones in buttoned-down collared shirts and pressed slacks, but I just ignored them. I couldn’t understand why my friend S (identity protection) always complained to me about not being able to find datable girls in Los Angeles, there seemed to be plenty of cute guys. So I decided to put myself in his shoes, and I looked around for girls. It was an eye opener.

To start with, there were five guys to every girl, and for every normal-looking, attractive girl, there were ten über-slutty ones. I saw one majorly stacked blonde wearing a blue dress so low cut I could practically see the surgery scars on her nipples. Fake tans, platinum extensions, and cheap stilettos were everywhere. We weren’t in some swanky bar on Sunset, and these girls weren’t going to find their future investment banker husband here, this was Barney’s, a bar full of currently unemployed, future TV showrunners. I suddenly felt incredibly bad for S. Read More »

This column might be about finding love and relationships (or sometimes just a good lay), but there’s one more thing you can get out of someone from the opposite sex, and is just as difficult to achieve: friendship.

Growing up, I was daddy’s little girl. If my mom said I couldn’t have ice cream after dinner, I’d run to my dad; if my mom said I couldn’t stay out past eleven on a school night, I knew dad could be convinced. I was never really a tomboy (except for that brief period when I was five and told everyone I was a boy, but that’s not important right now…), but I always got along with guys better than I did with girls. Anyone who has seen Mean Girls and/or was picked on by other girls in high school knows why. Girls can be horrible to each other. Girls can be judgmental, catty, and sometimes just plain bitches. After being tormented by other girls all through school, I found it incredibly hard to get close to girls, and incredibly easy to get close to guys.

Sadly, something I have discovered in the post-college world I now inhabit is that it’s no longer easy to find guys to just be friends with. After you get your diploma and toss your hat up in the air, you’re thrust in to a world where everyone seems to be looking to pair up, and no one just wants to hang out and get a beer. Read More »

While talking to a good guy friend recently I said something about standing outside his bedroom window with a boom box to get his attention (he doesn’t have a door buzzer), and he immediately shot back with a long rant against the movie I was referring to, Say Anything.

Very few women I know actually saw the Cameron Crowe directed film in theaters. It was released in 1989; I was four, and more interested in Mr. Rogers than Mr. Perfect. But now I can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen the film, and each time I watch it I fall in love with John Cusack’s character, Lloyd Dobler, again. This is why I couldn’t understand why my friend, we’ll call him S, loathed the film, and especially Lloyd, so completely. He said the film was cheesy, the plot unrealistic, and that the character I loved so much was moronic.

I’m going to call this disconnect between the way I feel about Say Anything, and the way S feels about Say Anything, “The Lloyd Dobler Factor.” What is it about the film that I love and that my friend just can’t wrap his straight male head around?

Lloyd loves Ione Skye’s character Diane so completely he braves her overprotective (and criminal) father to get her, and he does that adorable boom box thing (the only time a Peter Gabriel song will ever be okay) to win back her affection after they hit a rough spot. Lloyd says things like, “I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen,” and tells Dad: “What I really want to do with my life – what I want to do for a living – is I want to be with your daughter. I’m good at it.” What’s not to love? Read More »