Citations: Part the First

So tired.

Yesterday was the training for the Fashion Police promo. It was raining and the El isn't always reliable, so I planned extra time to get there. I was over 20 minutes early and miscalculated my caffeine-to-food ratio so I was hypershakyspastic with pleanty of time to judge people. First impression: I had stumbled into a sorority girl-laden peroxide pit. I was almost definitely the only natural blonde there, but maybe a third of the 40 girls were sporting lighter versions of my genetically granted hue. The girl I was sitting next to was merely highlighted, but as we waited for things to get started she talked to her agent on her cell phone and read over a script for something and scribbled things in her planner. These people were all beautiful or at least beautifully done. I had to remind myself that I'd tried to "do" myself to the best of my abilities that morning and that I'm "cute" and pretty in an odd way, and that I looked just like my photo that they'd seen before choosing me, so to at least some degree I belonged. I've always been convinced that all the beautiful people of the world have some massive club or an island somewhere with a great secret society of perfect smiles and good skin and uninterrupted grace. This was like being invited to their tea party.
By the time the presentation actually started, I realized there were a handful of more normal person pretty and naturally pretty girls in the room. I thought, "They can be my friends."
My own dorkiness never ceases to amaze me.
Then I spotted an Uggo. I wondered how she got there, wondered if she knew someone, wondered if I was more judgmental than the worst of the Peroxide Posse. I hated myself for it, but I noticed.

We sat through more than two hours of presentations from the various people in charge of the various parts of the promotion. Remnants of my econ major self got very excited by Marshalls business model, which is fairly clever. The Marshalls rep also talked about the CEO's philosophy on stopping terrorism by promoting and empowering diversity. I wanted to applaud. After the presentations, we split up into our "street teams" and sat around chatting until we were called to try on our "uniforms." I talked with one girl (I'd actually labeled her as "could be my friend" when she walked in) who it turns out is also a freelance writer who does improv. Another girl near us had just moved from LA where she worked for Conde Naste and Wired. Then there was the recent Stanford grad, a few that didn't talk (including the Uggo, which was disappointing because I sort of hoped she'd open her mouth and be a fabulous person and kill my Uggo label), and some Peroxide Posse members. The worst of the PP was actually a brunette, but she whined and complained about absolutely everything and had such the stereotypical sorority princess attitude I wanted to punch her. I didn't, though.
After a lot of waiting and squirming to get out and go home, they made their final announcements and told us to be back before 12:30 the next day. Everybody started to grab their stuff and dash for the door in a mob of "Thank God we can leave!" when one of the directors announced that there was a ton of pizza on its way that was running late. We stopped in our tracks. The promise of free pizza defeated our intense collective desire to escape, and besides, we were getting paid until 4:30 anyway...
I talked with the magazine girl while we ate. She seems like high quality human being. We exchanged emails.

I got home and completely passed out until NBF called to tell me to come over to watch Syriana. So I did and we did and it was lovely. Then he showed me his deep dark secret inner-dorkdom: World of Warcraft. Funny how he has no problem admitting he eats dog treats or other major personal details, but the shame and embarrassment he feels over World of Warcraft are incredible. As long as he doesn't start going to renaissance fairs or talking like Beowulf, I think it's forgivable.

Today was a blur of rain and uniforms and pictures and chasing down women to give them "fashion citations for paying too much for their fashions." Perhaps I will go into greater detail tomorrow, but it somehow got to be midnight already and I have another crazy-long day tomorrow that has to start in just over 7 hours if I'm going to get things I need to done and make it back to the hotel conference room (our "war room") by 9:30 AM.