Girl Crush: Wendy's Lookbook

Do you guys know Wendy?  She's bubbly and stylish and smart.  She is a genius at pairing outfits and even more brilliant at wearing scarves...no really.

Check out her blog here.

And be prepared for some fashion wizardry below.

Congratulations Natalie!

My number one girl-crush, Natalie Portman, and her fiance, Benjamin Millepied, have welcomed a baby boy.  No word on any of the good details yet, but we here are W&W would like to extend our congratulations.  We know it's important to Nat and Ben to have our blessing.

xo kate

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

The first excerpt of Mindy Kaling's book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns), hit the internet this week.  I appreciated the free 26-page excerpt (which you can read for yourself here) and, apparently -- according to The New Yorker, am Mindy's target demographic, "i.e., unmarried,
babyless women above the age of sixteen and under the age of thirty."  Gee, thanks New Yorker, there really isn't enough pressure to be married and having babies in your twenties, or even pejorative comments made in the media about young women -- I needed you to point out that I'm the target of certain authors.  


Media targeting aside, my favorite part of the excerpt was Mindy's rights and responsibilities for being best friends.  One of the best parts about being a women is the ability to have really great friendships with other women.  I always feel bad for guys because, although they often have a lot of male friends, for some reason men don't seem to be allow (I don't know if this is a testosterone thing or a society thing -- or some combination of the two) to have intimate friendships with men in the same way that women are allowed to be friends with women.  Personally, I think that having close, adult friendships with other women is the reward that girl's get for surviving middle school.  Mindy's best friendship rules remind me of how lucky I am to get to have great friendships with my best friends and include: I can borrow all your clothes (as long as you've worn them once), We sleep in the same bed (how else can we talk until we fall asleep?), I can ditch you -- within reason (as long as alternative plans for travel home have been established), I will try to like your boyfriend five times, I will hate and re-like people for you (but don't get mad if sometimes I can't keep track), and It's okay to take me for granted (when you fall in love, but don't forget about me completely).


At any rate, I wasn't blown away by what I read so far, but I did enjoy it and, given my love for Mindy Kaling, I'm sure I'll read the whole thing when it comes out.  That is, unless I get married or pregnant before that, in which case, I'm out.


xo kate

“You can’t do it alone. As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, and spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” - Amy Poehler

Today is the graduation exercises for the Harvard University class of 2011.  As members of the class of 2010, D and I have spent weeks preparing to not even pretend to be genuinely happy for the class of 2011.  We'll be too busy trying to be bitter that we aren't the specialest anymore.  Because although we both think education is great and should be celebrated, we also really like to be the center of attention.  So forget those graduates, focus on us again! 

But, however unexpectedly, that crafty class of 2011 managed to warm our hardened hearts by inviting our girl-crush, Ms. Amy Poehler, as their class day speaker. 

Enjoy her speech here:


And congratulations to the class of 2011.  We guess.

xo kate

"Scott, this may be solid gold, but to us it's lighter than air, because dreams never weigh you down." - Fairchild Van Waldenberg, Blades of Glory

"It was reported that a spectacular light show that
many stargazers enjoyed last week was created
when the spaceshuttle Discovery emptied their urine tanks.
Haha! Serves you right for looking into space, nerds!"

Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers' room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start.  There were always a lot of noisy "comedy bits" going on in that room.  Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can't remember what it was exactly, except that it was dirty and loud and "unladylike."  


Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, "Stop that! It's not cute! I don't like it."


Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him, "I don't fucking care if you like it." Jimmy was visibly startled.  Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit.  (I should make it clear that Jimmy and Amy are very good friends and there was never any real beef between them. Insert penis joke here.)


With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place.  Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute.  She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.  (Tina Fey, Bossypants, pgs. 143-144)


I think that pretty much sums it up.

xo kate

"I'm not good at anything except writing jokes." - Mindy Kaling

Things I know about Mindy Kaling that I love:

"Oh my God I have so much to tell you!  Tom Cruise and
Katie Holmes, they had a baby and they named it Suri,
and then Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, they had a baby,
too, and they named it Shiloh. And both babies are amazing!" 

(1) Kelly Kapoor is hi-lar-ious.  One of my all time time favorite moments on The Office is when she tells Ryan she's pregnant and the shot cuts to her shaking her head.  Or the one when Ryan, who's at that point the new boss, asks if anyone has any questions and she says, "Yeah, I have a lot of questions.  Number one: how dare you?"  Seriously, I'm giggling to myself just typing it.  I really wish it was on YouTube. Damn you, ComcastNBCUniversalGeneralElectric.

(2) She went to Dartmouth.  And I may or may not be (but definitely am) going to Dartmouth reunion this year in the hopes of meeting her.  Also, a little bit to see my friends.  But a lot to meet Mindy Kaling.

(3) The talented Ms. Kaling, writing under the name Mindy Ephron -- in a nod to the immeasurable Nora Ephron (Wellesley '62) -- used to write an awesome blog called Things I've Bought That I Love.  She stopped writing it about three years ago, but I loved it.  Generally stars writing about all the fancy things they buy with their money would piss me off, but Mindy did it in a way that was not annoying and endearing.  It was funny and totally ridiculous, but she knew that, totally owned it, and posted all the emails her friends wrote her about being frivolous.  I feel like it was her nobody-puts-Baby-in-a-corner moment.

Daryl Philbin is the most complicated man that I have ever met.
I mean, who says exactly what they're thinking? What kind of game is that? 

(4) Since she no longer writes on Things I've Bought That I Love, her Twitter is one of the seven people I follow, six of whom I don't care about.  Seriously, most of the time I don't even sign in -- I just going to twitter.com/mindykaling.

(5) I think that Mindy is the best writer on The Office, as evidenced by the fact that she wrote so many of my favorite episodes, including: The Dundies (the first Dundies awards); The Injury (Michael burns his foot on the George Foreman grill); Ben Franklin (this is the one where they hire the strippers for Phyllis and Bob Vance's bachelorette and bachelor parties but instead of a male stripper they get a Ben Franklin impersonator); Niagara (Jim and Pam's wedding); and Michael's Last Dundies (obvious, right?).

All of this is to say that she's smart, she's funny and I'm fairly certain we'd be best friends if we ever met.  Which we will, since I too am smart, funny and also kind of creepy.

xo kate

Oh, and Ashton Kutcher is extremely good looking.

This movie poster is delightfully
cheesy.  And I love how they
look like wax figurines.

So tonight I was watching No Strings Attached, because it recently came out on iTunes and because I have thousand other things that are less fun to do.  It was exactly what you would expect.  Exactly.  And I mean that as an absolute compliment.  I love chick flicks.  Love em.  There's nothing that I hate more than when I sit down to watch a chick flick and something unexpectedly tragic happens, or there's not a happy ending.  There's enough in my life and in the world that is unpredictable, so I want my mindless entertainment to be enjoyable and satisfying.  Period.  Don't try to make it more than it is.  So, I enjoyed No Strings Attached for it's serious, grade-A, chick flickiness (we're talking starts-at-summer-camp-ends-at-a-wedding chick flickiness) and because it has too of my biggest girl crushes, Natalie Portman (you know about this one) and Mindy Kaling (you'll hear about this one at some point).

Beyond those fine qualities, No String Attached also reminded me about the fantastic Hugo version of 99 Problems.  I completely forgot that this existed and now it's back in my life and I'm happy.  Remembering an old song is sometimes just as good as discovering a new one.

So the moral, wildcats, as always, is sometimes you've gotta forget you have actual responsibilities and watch a chick flick on a Wednesday night.

xo kate

I die: Kiera Knightley

How much do you love Kiera's hair and makeup in this post:


I wish I could take pictures with my mouth open like this and look sexy. When I do it I just look like I have a sinus infection or horrific head cold. Not cute.

image via where is the cool

I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman

Since it's officially Oscar weekend, I think it's the right time to make a confession.

I love Natalie Portman.  

When you think in your head of the actress or actor that you would like to live your life as, for me that's Natalie Portman.  I really hope I'm not the only one who does this.  Otherwise, this is about to get really embarrassing.

There it is, folks, the magazine
that started it all. I would have killed
for those perfectly rolled bangs and
that purple jacket.  

It started in November 1995.  I was in sixth grade, and Natalie was on the cover of Seventeen magazine, which was my favorite publication at the time.  I even dealt with my dad asking me every month if you needed ID to buy one.  Oh, dads -- they're the best.  She was wearing what I thought was the awesomest outfit ever.  It was lavender.  It was iridescent. It was fantastic.  She also had the greatest haircut in the world.  I kept the magazine until I went to college, bringing it to the salon every time I got my haircut so that I could look just like Natalie.  (Unfortunately, this was a time in my life before I discovered the beauty of styling products and learned how to use a round brush.  Most of my efforts were for naught.)

Anyway, that was in for me and Natalie.  I've loved her ever since.  Some of the other things that I love about her are that she went to Harvard (Veritas, bitches.) and one time, I passed her in Harvard Yard and it. was. magical.  I mean, I'm pretty sure it was her.  It was night time in the winter, so there were lots of hats and down coats and stuff.  Plus, Harvard Yard isn't actually super well-lit at night.  But in my head it was her and it was awesome.  She's also classy and poised but doesn't seem to take herself too seriously, which I think is great.  For example, I think her SNL digital short is hilarious.

Ms. Portman is undeniably beautiful, fashionable and can even pull off pregnancy glam and a shaved head.  (Some of my other celebrity friends don't do this as well.  I'm looking at you, Britney.)  She's been in nearly every genre of film and done significant theatre work.  We ain't just talking rom coms here, folks.  She campaigned for Obama, and spoke publicly about how much Hillary Clinton inspires her as a woman. (Wellesley blue, through and through.) Also, she has some of my favorite movie lines ever in Garden State (and not the one about the retarded quarterback):

Who would you want to live your life as,
wildcats?  Leave your answers in the comments.

...What do you do? You laugh. I'm not saying I don't cry, but in between I laugh and I realize how silly it is to take anything too seriously. Plus, I look forward to a good cry. It feels pretty good. 

That's life. If nothing else, it's life. It's real, and sometimes it fuckin' hurts, but it's sort of all we have.

Besides all this other awesome stuff that she does, Natalie Portman is also in the title of one of my very favorite songs, I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman.   That gives me a great name of this blog post, and also an opportunity to introduce those of you who are unfamiliar to k-os, a Canadian rapper/producer that I love.  True story: I discovered k-os because I used to be really into songs that had my name in them, (hence my ongoing affection for Trisha Yearwood's She's in Love With the Boy) so every once in awhile I would search iTunes for different combinations of Kate, Katie, Katherine, etc.  I stumbled upon k-os's Joyful Rebellion album because k-o are my initials.  Turns out he's awesome, so I continued to follow him and in 2009 he put out his fourth album, Yes! featuring I Wish I Knew Natalie Portman, which doesn't actually have anything to do with Natalie Portman, but does sample the theme song from The OC.  If you like what you hear, I also recommend Burning Bridges, The Love Song and The Man I Used to Be.

At any rate, all these confessions and stories are really to say, Natalie, you're officially in my wolfpack.  And that means you're a winner no matter what happens at the Oscars. 

xo kate