It's Friday, so it must be time for Mamarazzi

Angelina Jolie credits her post-twins weight loss to ... video games.

Hey, my house is bulging (and I use the term deliberately) with video games, but I don't notice myself getting more fit.

Is she pulling my flabby, cellulite-ridden leg?

After choir practice ...

I went out with my girlfriends and got kind of drunk.

See, there's this restaurant in town that serves great food, but here's a dirty little secret: after dinner, it turns into Girls Night Out. Complete with lots and lots of wine.

Seriously, if you're into MILFs, have I got a place for you.

THANK YOU INTERNET!

YOU'RE ALWAYS THERE FOR ME!

YOU ARE THE BESSSHHHHTTTT FRIENDSSSSHHH I EVER HAD. :D :D :D

... but that dress? Sucked.

And I'm not the only one who feels that way.

It actually doesn't look so bad in this picture.
One of the groups I sing with is made up of 12 women, all of whom are incredibly sharp. One of them is a personal shopper at Saks.

I always try to clean up my sorry act when I head downtown to rehearse with them. Today I showed up a little late and caught everyone talking about the rally in Grant Park.

Did they talk about how well-behaved the crowd was, or how crowded it was, or how proud they felt of Chicago? Maybe. But when I got there, they were all agreeing about one thing: Worst. Dress. Ever. Everyone thought the black belt thingie made her look pregnant.

What do you think? Lovely or lava lamp?

I am Chicago

And

I

am

so

PROUD.

Smooch

Halloween 2008

In years past, our Halloween costumes have been somewhat ... elaborate. Which is a very tactful and understated way of describing the insanity of spending the night before Halloween making a Lisa Simpson wig out of a knit hat, a yellow swim noodle, and a lot of yellow plumber's tape.


At other times we've resorted for the expensive glamor of catalog costumes.


Or put together a Luigi costume with mail-ordered overalls, a silver backpack, a vacuum cleaner hose and a pair of Mickey Mouse hands.


But we were kind of low-key this year.

My daughter wanted to be a pop star. She wanted to wear one of those pre-made costumes, but they don't come in her size. So we used some stuff she already owned, a leopard print hoodie from Delias, some rhinestone-trimmed jeans from eBay, and all the glittery makeup I could dig up. Plus rhinestone sunglasses. And a microphone, in case people didn't get the point.

And my son ... well, he wanted to be John Rowser, the famous bountyhunter.

What's this? You've never heard of John Rowser? Well, of course you haven't. My son made him up. He's one of the dozens and dozens of characters who people the alternate universe my son has invented. They're going to end up a television show, movies, recordings, YouTube videos, video games--you name it. The residuals will have us living on easy street. Eventually.

However, there are still no John Rowser costumes available at the store. Yeah, yeah, yeah, any day now ... I keep checking ... but in the meantime, my son decided to accommodate his rapidly-aging mother and be someone recognizable. Like Zorro.

The fact that we already had a cloak, mask, and black hat in our costume stash had nothing to do with it. I swear.

So this

and this


were the inspiration for this


And I think we did OK.

Although brown shoes with a black outfit? Very bad. And the usual "Glamour Don't" black bar is out of the question, because he's already got a black bar across his eyes.

But frankly, a giant "Z" across each shoe is called for.

Lacking that, I'm simply going to have to confiscate all his Milky Ways.

Halloween at the Clampetts Buxoms

The day after Halloween, Mr. Buxom and I went for a long walk and admired the Halloween decorations.

OK, we didn't really admire them. With our ceaseless thirst for long, cool, heady draughts of sweet, sweet mockery, we mostly weighed their efforts in the balance, and found them wanting.

Actually, my husband is easily pleased. But I'm a tough judge. When it comes to Halloween decorations, my preference is for the low-key, the traditional, the home-made, the casual, and the inexpensive. However, I am grossly outnumbered by people who can't wait to head to a big box store and come home with a huge inflatable snow globe filled with ghosts.

But some of their efforts met with our approval. I like this house, and I'm not surprised that I also like their Halloween decorations. Sure, they went a little heavy with the painted yard signs,



but the little kids will actually be able to make it all the way up the walk to get their candy--without pissing their costumes with fright. Painted yard signs? $5.00. Dry Halloween costume? Priceless.

This is a typical example of Newtopian over-the-top-ness. We have the cobwebs, gravestones, skeletons, giant spiders



but we also have the corn stalks, seasonal wreath, and colorful mums. It's like a schizophrenic lives there, and he can't decide whether he's tasteful or tacky, so he decided to be both.

These people had an impressive number of expressive pumpkins.



We awarded big points for all that carving.

Some people go kind of overboard when it comes to inflatable lawn decorations



to the point where their front yards look like a carnival bounce house.



I mean, seriously, they could charge admission. Click on the pictures if you want to see the inflatable hearse filled with ghosts.

I loved these ghosts



but I suspect that they had help hanging them from their trees. They're twenty feet off the ground, suspended from long wires.

In fact, I'm beginning to wonder whether people are outsourcing their Halloween decorations to those companies that will come and put up Christmas lights. It would explain a lot.





Either that or it's Halloween at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

After all the judgey judgmentalism, it's nice to head home to the Clampetts-y end of town, to the lovable shack where the Buxoms started off the whole decorate-your-house-for-Halloween by making ghosts out of our old sheets


A particularly woebegone example

and putting out a few pumpkins


Which we didn't even bother to carve

There are purple icicle lights in the Japanese maple, and orange ones in the evergreens. OK?



Look, I know our yard looks lame. And messy. I mean, can you believe the nerve of us? There are dead leaves on our walk!

But dig my newly-treated moss-free cedar roof and our new cee-ment driveway. (I know what you're thinking, "So what?" but trust me; our neighbors are thrilled.) And to those of you who are wondering "Where's the giant purple inflatable spider?" give it time. My daughter has gone from the kid who made me walk up to the door past all the rotting zombie corpses complete with putrefied flesh to get her a candy bar to someone who wants the whole nine yards: pumpkins, ghosts, black cats, grave yards, dry ice, inflatables, arachnids, freshly-dug graves, the entire Universal pictures prop closet, and this motion-activated screaming death's head



which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "I'm doomed."