Whoops.

Yeah, so, I don't update this ever. What else is new. Not going to apologize or explain or justify because none of that really exists. I just didn't care enough.

Then I watched the documentary Babies, and I care again. So much.

Where to start, where to start. Let's start with this, actually:

http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2011/02/video_rachel_zoes_bump_exposed.html

This is a video for Elle of Rach and RoDge romping around on a bed because this is what pregnant couples do every day while expecting. Here's my one question though: Where is the pregnant woman? I see the skin, I see that her Givenchy pajamas are unbuttoned to reveal...what, now, unbuttoned Givenchy pajamas, what are you trying to reveal to us viewers? Where is the baby bump? Rachel Zoe is evidently seven months pregnant. Or eight now, since it is February. That is so pregnant! I really don't see anything! I see what might be a stomach that, as WWD put it, harbors a large lunch. Or perhaps drank a lot of carbonated drinks right before this photoshoot. Or is inhaling deeply. Really, Rach, I think even Victoria Beckham and Christine Taylor gained more belly than you did:

Victoria Beckham (at left, preggs)
Christine Taylor, also preggs at left. I don't know what the comparison pic is for.

Also, look what I found during that Google search:
AMAZING! I forgot about these Armani ads! They are going to have sex with all of us.

Speaking of sex, as many of "you readers" may know, I am afraid of two things: death and pregnancy. Makes sense since I am so generally bipolar. I can see lots of women being afraid of getting pregnant, hence why the Pill and other contraception in general were invented and why they sell. All out of fear. No one really wants a baby, right? You want something cute, and you like to play with other people's babies, but really, a baby is forever. I tend to say that the only circumstances under which I would have a baby is to save a crumbling marriage. But I am in fact so terrified of becoming pregnant that it is irrational. I have the flu - could I have caught The Pregnancy too?! I'm a little bloated today - better buy a pregnancy test! I had the stomach flu a couple of weeks ago and still wasn't feeling so great so I went to the doctor. I told him that I threw up while sick, which was strange because I haven't thrown up in over a decade. "Is there any chance that you could be pregnant?" he asked. There is Absolutely. No. Chance. In. Hell. that I could be pregnant unless I contracted it from a toilet seat or something. And yet, as I say "No..." it turns into a "NoooooooOOOOHHH??????" Dr. knew better, though, that 99% of the time my stomach is going to be fucked up due to anxiety and the other 1% to an ulcer, which I evidently have, not a baby. Where I am going with this is that people who are as deathly afraid as I am to get pregnant can have a hysterical pregnancy. People that really want to become pregnant but are having difficulty conceiving can also experience a hysterical pregnancy. Funny. In both cases, the patient believes she is pregnant, no matter what: despite gynecology appointments, ultrasounds, weight loss, etc. Sometimes doctors will have to perform a mock delivery in order to "cure" the patient, in addition to giving her a shot of something that makes the bloating go down (the physical effects of pregnancy can and usually do occur during a hysterical pregnancy, hence the patient's strong disbelief that she is actually not pregnant).

We all saw Rachel at the end of Season 3 - RoDger kept pestering her to have that child and she was totally on the fence about it! It would change her whole career, she's 39, she's anorexic, etc etc! Is this a phantom pregnancy that's all going to go away next month? No, the reality of it is that the tabloids would have already headlined this if it were true. The sick, sad truth is that this baby is going to be the size of an apple when it's born because Rachel is not eating for two.

Here are an amalgam of photographs, in random assortment:
I mean, still so glam though. I feel bad for her. She obviously was not mentally in a position to be pregnant because she cannot yet eat properly for herself, even. Who are her doctors?

Ahhhhh I just love Joey so much! Love Rachel and her boyz. They are going to be such great dads.

RoDge is more pregnant than Rachel is in this picture. I can't see as many breast bones on her, at least.

I mean, it's a pregnancy gesture.

The bumpiest she has been.

Baby toys - it's happening.

Can't tell what she's eating. Toast and iced tea? Whatever, it's calories.

Heather and I were discussing (yes, discussing, as in making this part of our conversation) what RoDge and Rachel would be like as parents. Based on this picture, really good ones. I truly believe they are in love - he likes men and she's a tranny, and they are college sweethearts. They also look really good here.

See Rach, your life won't change all that much. This is making me feel better even though I am not allowed to have children of my own. Mainly because I would put all of them in ballet at age three and not let them do anything else. I would live vicariously threw my little prima ballerinas. So creepy!

Speaking of, next entry: Zoe's competition.

It's. On.

Lady Lump (Check It Out!)

I cannot accept credit for that brilliant title; it was Joe. He's a professional.

I'd like to claim that I was waiting for Rachel Zoe to actually start showing before posting any pictures, but the truth is such things as my job and my hobby - watching "30 Rock" - were taking up much of my awake time. Also this is why that brief stint as a Dramatic Writing major at Tisch was just that - a brief stint - and not a career path. (Neither is Art History, but I managed to get a thesis out of that, even if that thesis is now floating somewhere on the bottom of the Hudson.) I am lazy, I don't really like to write because I have terrible instincts about syntax and an even more terrible vernacular, and I get very, very easily distracted. (I sat down to write this post a little over an hour ago and since then have read about three Grub Street articles including this week's New York Diet, took a brief gander at the blog Cupcakes and Cashmere and decided it was boring, looked at some people's New Years photos on Facebook, Gchatted with Jonah, caught up on Terry Richardson's diary, looked up three different yoga studio schedules for tomorrow, checked to see when "Brief Encounter" was ending [today - oops], Wikipedia'd Peter Greenaway, looked up the soundtrack to Somewhere and bought a song from the movie, and tried to find pictures of Leigh Lezark from New Year's Eve because I wanted to see what all the glamorous anorexics did that night.) So, here are some pictures of Zoe finally showing. Though for all we know it can still just be a hysterical pregnancy (more on that later, as it is a personal matter for me as someone who is both hysterical generally and hysterically afraid of pregnancy).

December 12, 2010. I can't tell what is more discerning about this picture: the fact that she is posing next to a food-related sign, or that her thighs DO in fact look like they could fill out a 23" pant leg? (23" is a real woman waist size, according to Uniqlo. I don't care if it's a Japanese retail store and their clothes are thus cut smaller, 23" is just another way of saying "Girls' size 12" which is another way of saying "Sold at Gap Kids" and not a grown-ups store.

December 11, 2010. BEHOLD! That is a different shape than this!

December 16, 2010. Chanel coat falling around the baby bump. Note the concealing handbag; this woman is not missing a beat, and by beat I mean pregnancy-hiding accessories. Keeps the misteré.

December 22, 2010. Such an "I die" face. You can't see much in this photograph but I liked it because it looks like the heeled boots in the foreground are floating. And notice how the tranny heels are living strong. Guess her feet aren't swelling yet, and even if they did she'd probably just have to move up to a size 7. Those alone would give me morning sickness. I applaud this look, since, if I am ever pregnant, heaven and everything holy or not holy forbid, I will be wearing what I am now for nine straight months: Uniqlo henley (normal size), American Apparel sweats the color of purplish cement since they've been washed for so many years, and sandals with wool socks. A real MILF.


January 2, 2011. My take is that she is associating pregnancy primarily with freedom of food and secondarily with birthing a child. I mean, this is what all woman think for the first eight and a half months. Barnard taught me.

January 2, 2011. Baby bump catching the light. Also RoDger Berman is in this picture.

Conversation topic for next post: Dissect this.

I know, PonyShow. I know.

But a bit of upsetting news, from Janelle Brown reporting on December 3 for the Times. Do you see that first paragraph point? Rachel, don't be surrounding yourself with twatty Euroglam with their Sobranies (the new Gauloises)! This is not "Mad Men!" You are not supposed to be around cigarette or cigar smoke or any kind of smoke blown around the Chateau whilst pregnant! LA does not tolerate cigarettes as kindly as New York does; the only people who smoke in LA are 15- to 17-year-olds who hold them like, speaking of "Mad Men," Betty Draper, and don't actually inhale, like the true tortured souls would:


I don't know - not much I feel like discussing at the moment. I hope Rachel is getting the assistance she needs because that Green Hornet film is coming out soon and Cameron Diaz is in it and Zoe's going to need help styling her for the ten thousand premieres Diaz will have to attend. Anything to recreate this:

Last-minute Oscar find. Outrageous and Oscar (de la Renta), of course. Speaking of: last Saturday, I spent my afternoon walking around Floor 3 of Saks Fifth Avenue, ultimately finding myself seated in the Oscar de la Renta nook watching the Spring 2011 fashion show projected on the adjacent wall and talking myself out of trying on an Herve Leger micromini. I'll save that for my birthday and for when I'm 5 to 7 pounds thinner for Operation Look Bangin' At LA Christmas Parties. I have to have something to strive towards!

Rodger's Beard - And No, We Don't Mean Rachel.

It makes perfect sense that Rachel Zoe, the petite monarch of styling and clothes, would be married to a gay man. I don't think she could love someone who doesn't share her flamboyance. This is why I was so bored by Rodge trying to defend his alleged heterosexuality during Season Three of TRZP (naturally by watching football and drinking beer with da boyz). Come on, Rodge, we know you'd much rather be here:

Here are some more fun pictures of Rodger and his scarves, or ones where his hair looks particularly enchanted:




(God, just look at that mid-stride shot above - so precise, nearly choreographed. Amazing.)

Now that Rodger has gotten a girl pregnant, though, he needs to have a beard. And not just some scruff or a five o'clock shadow, no. A full-frontal, Brad Pitt-meets-Paul Bunyan-meets Joaquin Phoenix, scraggly, kinda graying, man beard. So Rodger brought his beard out to brunch on November 28 at Toast on 3rd Street, where he wore his cop glasses to look "tough" and Rach drank tea and water - I mean, what else do you need to consume when you're expecting?

Mmm, still too much of a tranny heel to tell if she has gained ANY sort of mass, ie evidence of there being another human being inside of her. Zoe's buttons on her sweater are undone, though, if you look closely - mayhaps to emphasize the sweater draping to either side of a baby bump?! (Probably just because it's LA and actually 85 degrees in this picture.)

Behold - ROUNDNESS. KIND OF. It could just be the shape of the coat or it could just be the shape of a baby!

"Hand on Baby Bump" - the 21st-century "Madonna and Child."

I just wanted to show off her ring. This baby will spend most of its childhood in furs and in stores. What could be better.

If only I could find out exactly how pregnant our Zoe is, then I could guestimate better between clothing bumps and baby bumps. I happened to meet someone on Halloween who works for Brad, but she was short with me (dressed as Zoe) and my Brad, so I'll just wait for Us Weekly to divulge on one of their magazine covers. One thing I have learned from being an Angeleno is that most of what you read in gossip rags is really true. Really.

I wonder if Rachel was pregnant when she filmed that falling/chocolate scene in Gossip Girl?

xoxo

Pregnant Tweet #2

No. 2 because it's after the initial "we're pregnant" tweet:

@rzrachelzoe: Sunday brunch with my hot baby daddy. @rbermanus perfect day:) xoRZ



Click here to view the original Twitter post. Positively beyond thrilled that she has already taken to referring to Rodge as her baby dady; it's not obnoxious because she is so clearly kidding!

Oh, right - NINE months.

It occurred to me that this is going to take a while. The pregnancy, that is. One does not carry a full-term baby until that baby is, in fact, full term, so until then there is not much going on. I didn't even know that one of my co-workers(ish) was seven months pregnant until about two weeks ago, and I've been working at this place-of-work since September. Who even knows if Zoe is going to be one to show that bump off?! She should, though, she definitely should, because now she can actually wear all of those backless or clingy/low-cut dresses she was afraid to wear on The Rachel Zoe Project because of all the negative/eating disorder commentary she would receive from the press. Our culture is obsessed with MILFs and all pregnant women, so she should just flaunt it. She's already looking more adorable.

In my daily search for Rachel Zoe photographs, I came across this blog via JustJared: Trendmill. I don't know what it covers - trends and the people who wear them/are stylish in general, I guess - but Sarah Morrison wrote a post about how she initially "ignored" the "moral dilemma" that was Season 3 of TRZP, in which Rodger constantly badgered Rachel about having a child and Rachel could not see how she would have time for such shenanigans. Morrison, in disbelief that Zoe was even capable of becoming pregnant, compiled a series of images of her favorite pregnant women, many of them styled by Zoe herself!

Kate Moss. She just looks like she is bulging oddly, or like she is wearing a belted jumpsuit many sizes too small. Nay, I don't like it.

Ashlee Simpson. Totally forgot she had a baby! When was that? In any case, I don't mind the maxi on the right but am disgusted by her flesh belt at left and whatever the fuck that hair band thing is in both. I think I'm just generally repulsed by the idea of her being pregnant, which is why I could not remember this occurring at all.

Ahh yes, our first example of someone whose legs do not get pregnant. Claudia Schiffer is one of approximately ten women whose legs stay that thin. Is Zoe number eleven? We can only hope!

Heidi Klum. She's had so many children by now that her body is just used to this. No different from an altered diet and workout regime before the Angels runway show. So far, she has the best bump.

Adriana Lima. Another Angel. Pregnancy is as good an excuse as any to eat normally, I say. I also say that wearing Alice in Wonderland blue whilst pregnant just makes one look like a fetishized, sexualized child mommy. The sexy pout really doesn't help Lima's argument - if she has one. Sexy children are all the rage in our society, just read my thesis!

Miranda Kerr: are you sure you're pregnant? If so, fuck you.

Giselle Bundchen. I think she has it pat down: just the right amount of sexy, rebel, pregnant momma. She's wearing a leather jacket, skinny black jeans, motorcycle boots, and a big ol' pregnant stomach that seems to dare anyone to coo at her. I love the juxtaposition of punk and Victoria's Secret model and mommy-to-be. Oh right, another VS model! Maybe this was the trend in Trendmill that day.

Gwen Stefani. She's another one who got real skinny all of a sudden, talked about how often she had to work out and starve herself to maintain her "bombshell" physique, and then got pregnant. I mean, if you're loaded, driven to insanity by Hollywood and the omnipresent public eye, have had a boyfriend or girlfriend for longer than 24 hours, and looking for a reason to not starve yourself, then by all means, go for it. Have a baby.

Gwen Stefani being really effing thin, Vogue April "The Shape Issue" 2004. Shot by Steven Meisel.

...on a side note, this was a really great editorial. Will now post some of my favorites from that spread. She did look great, but mainly because Steven Meisel knew how to make her look so classic. OK fine, she looks classic naturally, too. (Caroline and Heather: I know you're scowling at me...)

Such a good photograph. Everyone wants to photographed in Chanel tennis wear, actually participating in the sport.

Ugh, classic. I know she had a son but he's going to want to wear Mommy's couture.

Physically speaking, if Nicole Richie could do it, then so can Rachel Zoe. (And she styled her - look. at. those. tranny. heels.)

I'm very much looking forward to a tranny-heeled pregnancy. I don't think I will be disappointed. Now I have to go get my laundry from the place a block and a half away, and those are long blocks. If I were pregnant, John would do this for me. But, if I were pregnant, both of my male roommates would have jumped ship.

Here is the link to the original Trendmill article by Sarah Morrison; has a great title: http://trendmill.com/editorials/2131-let-s-get-pregnant

We Have Confirmation

Nine hours ago (so I guess 3pm EST, so I guess 12pm PST), Rachel Zoe and Rodge Berman announced to the world, via Twitter, that they were going to be a mommy and a daddy.

@rzrachelzoe: Hey everyone! I want to officially confirm to my loyal friends and followers that I am pregnant...

@rbermanus: Thanks everyone for all of the well wishes. I can't believe I'm going to be a dad :) So excited!!!!

Two of my most hilarious friends had already posted the news on my Facebook because they knew how much of a landmark occasion this is for me. A long time ago, my college roommates/BFFLs, C and H, announced to me that I was Rachel Zoe. I knew she was a stylist in our hometown of LA, that she was super small and anorexic-looking, and that she had a TV show. I did not know that, though she is originally from somewhere in New Jersey, we spoke with the exact same Valley Girl accent and cadence, that she looked just as overwhelmed by her purses and face-consuming sunglasses as I did, and that she would save me from despair on my 22nd birthday. On this particularly shitty day, I had made plans to go to 1020, told a bunch of people, and then canceled once most people had arrived. I hate birthdays and attention (should rephrase: I hate birthday attention) and all I wanted to do was curl into a ball on my circus bed and watch something with C. "We are going to watch this - it will make you feel better." "This" was "The Rachel Zoe Project," Episode 2 of Season 2.

I. Died.

Between Eva and Annie and Tay and Brad and Rodge and Babe, I was enthralled. We sounded exactly alike. We had the same blank stare when listening to people. But she beat me - she had that West LA swagger and aloofness that I had only mildly adapted before I left for New York to leave that all behind. On "The RZ Project," she flaunted it. The baubles, the venti Starbucks in hand always, the flowy peasant blouses and Mary-Kate Olsen hair, the Bottega Venetta oversized shoulder bags...and, of course, the tranny heels, the symbol of WeHo. And, of course, she knew Kate and Demi and Cameron because it was her job to make them bangin'.

More enthralling? Zoe did make them bangin'. Twenty minutes in to this episode, probably revolving around pre-Oscar season, she was referencing gowns on the tip of her tongue like Mendeleev could elements. And the fascinating bit was that she coated all of her knowledge (she did go to George Washington University and majored in sociology/psychology, so I mean, there's that) in her passionless, perpetual-LA-wishy-washy-ennui: "Love it," "That's so major," "That is everything," "Die," "Beyond," and, the notorious "Bah-nanuhs." I just fell fucking in love with her. Her reality show embodies everything that I love (to watch) about LA. Part of me kind of does want everyone not from Los Angeles to think that everyone is like Rachel in that suburb city. No one gives a shit about politics, only movies, clothes, and philanthropy. In essence, we are all blissfully ignorant, and the stress of our lives is preparing for awards seasons. That is everything.

So now Rachel is preggers. What will become of the show, her career? Did she really want to have a baby or did Rodger pressure her into doing this? Can she even carry a baby to full term while that thin? No one knows. No one cares. All we care about is how she dresses with child and that burgeoning BABY BUMP. So here is where the blog begins - with the first pictures from the earlier rumors of Rachel Zoe, The Mother-To-Be.

MOCA's Annual Gala, November 13, 2010. Notice the overlap into that woman's white dress.

Lupus LA's 8th Annual Lupus LA Orange Ball at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons hotel, November 16, 2010. The classic Baby Bump pose: arm-toting-clutch in front of protruding belly. And I thought for a moment that there was a hint of enlarged-cup-size cleavage but it's just a strand of hair. Too soon, too soon.

Shopping at one of the flea markets in LA, November 14, 2010. My favorite picture so far, because there is going to be so much speculation on "is RoDger happy?" It saddens me when the tabloids create deteriorating marriage rumors around a couple. Are they strong enough to defeat the conjecture? One can only hope. Then again, the only reason I'd ever have a child is to save a crumbling marriage. Note, again, the strategically placed purse and black baggy Olsen outfit. But the tranny heels never fail.

Out and about in LA (probably Beverly Hills, from the looks of it), November 21, 2010. Again, it's really hard to tell if anything is showing. How pregnant is she? And since she is so small, will she start showing fairly early on? Once I managed to convince myself I needed to take a pregnancy test because it was possible that, as a 5-foot-tall 90-something-pound lady, I would start showing as soon as two weeks after conception. Obviously it was negative, and I was just especially bloated that day in the H&M dressing room, and now this is an inappropriate story I tell to regale friends and strangers alike at parties, or whenever the topic seems mildly relevant. All I'm saying is, she might show, despite or because of her unspoken eating disorder. And her thighs are never going to look larger because of the heels, or maybe she'll be like Angelina and maintain her same arm/leg/face fat ratio and only get the stomach and the boobs. We have nine months to see.


Same shopping excursion from the 21st. The coat is miming the silhouette of a baby bump, but it's really just an illusion. Mainly this photograph is to show how amazing Rodge's beard is! Flecked with gray, so sexy!