I came late and unwilling to the Facebook party, dragged by a boss who wanted me to have an account where I could spy on anyone who might say something bad about the company, and then found and friended by my cousins. The boss left, and I discarded the mask of corporate dogsbody, and continued on as myself.

This has led to my discovery by people from my past, one reason why I never wanted to be on Facebook to begin with. I have a fairly easy presence to find on the web, what with the blog, the Flickr account, the etsy shop, membership on Ravelry. I always figured that anyone who wanted to find me, could. Some did. Others did and I was able to delete the e-mail with nobody the wiser.

But now my high school class has a page and a couple of people I haven’t seen or heard in forty years are on it. I have friended one or two people, and I just know where this is going to lead. I’ll show up as someone’s friend and someone else will write to me. To friend or not to friend, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms a sea of troubles…

To be or not to be– that is the question:?

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer?

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,?

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles?

And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep?

No more – and by a sleep to say we end?

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation?

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep?

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,?

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,?

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,?

Must give us pause.

People,  please. Consider this cartoon.

That was me. As I have written elsewhere, in high school, I was the lowest worm below the bottom rung of the social ladder. I was a freak and an outcast, but not a Freak. (freaks, greasers, soches, jocks, band… they each had a caste, and although I could flow between some of them—-never the jocks, never the greasers, never the rednecks—- I was never one of them. Of any of them.)

Yesterday, someone who was a friend of mine, and whom I haven’t seen in 40 years, accepted my friend request with a note that said that she’d always admired me for just being myself and never giving a fig for what anyone thought.

Oh, Laurie, you are so wrong. I cared deeply. I cried. I was miserable and lonely. I sat at home every Saturday night. But what was the point in trying to fit in? I couldn’t or I would already have. I learned at an early age to accept myself, just as I learned to accept my curly hair.

She isn’t the only person from my high school to have sidled up to whisper that they always wished they could have been as strong as I was. You people never gave me a chance to be anything but. Any weakness on my part would have been exploited. I learned that in elementary school, where I was the smallest kid in our class and it was considered great sport for the tallest and strongest girls to play tether ball with me. They would whack that ball so hard and so high over my head, as I stood there in the sand waiting for it to finish spiraling into a tight wrap against the pole while everyone watched and laughed.

In our sophomore year, I was on the swim team, and sat alone on every bus ride to every meet. I lettered, but I never went back for a second season. In our sophomore chemistry class, Paul Parrela called me a dirty Jew every single day. Do you remember who told him to stop? It wasn’t the teacher. It wasn’t anyone else in the class for the whole first semester. The first day of the second semester David Stanley (who was on the swim team with me) told Paul to shut up. He did, for all of a week. Then he started again. When I finally snapped and tried to cut him with my dissection scalpel, which of us got sent to Coach Willie’s office? Paul for calling me a dirty Jew (and worse, much much worse) or me? Right. Me, and threatened with suspension, except Coach Willie was too much of a coward to call my father and tell him that I was being suspended for hitting someone who was calling me ethnic slurs while the entire adult staff stood by and ignored it.

In our senior year I tried out for the school play, and got the understudy role for the lead. When I got on stage to rehearse my song, the popular girls sat in front of the stage and laughed at me. I quit the show and got a lecture from the drama coach about letting people down, but never got an apology from the girls who drove me from the stage in tears.

In some ways, being an outcast made me more of one, because freed of the bonds of social acceptance, I could explore any thing in any direction. When I went off to college, I discovered my own tribe. I was the queen of cool, there among the art and film students. Among the other outcasts, in other words. And now? Well, what I am is what I am.

First thoughts are that Jason is more Christofuh Moltisanti than Alex the Droogie, and Mondo is an insufferable twink who actually uttered the phrase “sometimes I think my gift is my curse” on national television, which means that he could have gone viral and become a famous internet twink by now. Oh please, little girl, who do you think you are, John Leguisamo in “To Wong Fu”? Not so much, but Miz Shoes recognizes that Mondo can design and sew something fierce.

Morning in the Atlas and Peach is being Sweet Pea 2.0 and Savannah Art Student April is being cute. In the high maintenance boys’ room, Andy has a make up airbrush and Bluto from Palm Springs mocks him, all the while looking at the device with covetous glances. Mondo is already crying and moping and whining that he’s just too strange for anyone to love him. Butch up, bitch, you are not the only little gay poseur in high school any more. Mondo has already grated Miz Shoes last nerve very, very raw and she hopes sincerely that Gretchen does not do something that causes her to fling a martini glass at the laptop.

The designers go to the Atlas roof to meet up with Tim, Heidi and Joanna Coles, the Editor in Chief of Marie Claire (aka Ninagarcia’s boss). This challenge will be to design an outfit that embodies the Marie Claire woman…intelligent, driven, powerful, stylish. And too cheap or stupid to read Vogue, not that anyone would mention that out loud. The winner will have their design featured on a billboard in Times Square, which is, OK, huge in more ways than one. Christopher, the cute one from San Francisco, calls the prize “operatic”. That’s an, uh, interesting choice of words and not one that Miz Shoes could have come up with in a million years. It’s a one-day challenge, half an hour to draw, $150 at Mood.

What in the name of Coco Chanel is AJ wearing? A toddler’s sailor suit, unless our eyes deceive us. With a widdle captain’s hat, a yellow tie with blue anchors over a blue and white windowpane check shirt? Gah. What has been seen cannot be unseen. He is designing for an amalgam of Courtney Love, Gwen Stephanie and Blondie. All of whom individually and collectively wouldn’t be caught dead reading MC. Gretchen is smug about her choice of making pants, which she has never done, just to make things challenging for herself. While everyone else is sketching (and on the product placement computer devices, thank you), Mondo is making a shopping list of what he’ll need at Mood, which is the first time we’ve ever seen someone do that. Is it because we’re getting our extra footage, or because nobody has ever had that much sense before? It is interesting, and includes things like “pretty little buttons”.

Jason has created an homage to Season Eight, or a dress that goes to Infinity and Beyond! Is he developmentally challenged? No, really. Seriously. The bowler isn’t to intimidate people, it’s because he’s not allowed out without protective headgear. Short bus. Tim calls it a “shopping exposition to Mood.” Miz Shoes will not allow herself to believe he did that on purpose. Mmmmmmm, buttons. We see the designers scurry around Mood, grabbing shit at random and panicking. Casanova says that $150 isn’t enough to make a sophisticated gown. He doesn’t have a problem then, does he, thinks Miz Shoes. Nicolas has discovered geometry in the shape of a circle. Thank you, Mood.

Back in the workroom, they have until midnight and Peach is already pouring flop sweat. The designers are beginning to bitch about each other already. Valerie is yammering about about her trench dress with extras. There is some weird interaction where AJ loses his shit over Casanova asking about a simple design problem. We see Casanova ask a lot of advice from a lot of the other designers. AJ might have been provoked is all we’re saying, despite the editing.

Tim does his walkies and really responds well to Valerie’s dress, but calls her zipper brassy. Tim gives Mondo a pep talk, and asks to see his sketches, but Mondo doesn’t have any, and Tim tells him that based on his dress from last week, he’s willing to go on blind trust. Really, Tim? Really? It is during Tim’s interaction with Jason that we realize that Jason is channeling Christofuh. He is belligerently, proudly stupid. He may be functionally retarded or merely OCD. For that matter, are half these people retarded? They are designing for a billboard and they are using black and navy and beige and grey. A billboard in Times Square, which means there will be a lot going on around it, visually, so you had better design something that will read at 40 feet high. Ooh, trash talk about Casanova from the rest. Nicholas has made a big old copy of Gretchen’s dress, she says. Big circle of fabric. Bluto is using a black and silver leaf print that Tim calls Blanche Deveraux (don’t be dissing, Blanche, Tim). Peach is still panicking, and starts over, and then panics some more and starts over again. There is a twist, of course. They have a photo shoot with a Marie Claire photographer and their model to capture the image of their design and the MC Woman. Jason’s a putz. Casanova is a tool. Nicholas foreshadows his own departure by talking about how he’s forming friendships.

Valerie, Sarah, Ivy and Gretchen are girl bonding. AJ points out that there is just something wrong with Jason and calls him shady. Peach is resigned to being sent home. Mondo keeps to himself, while everyone asks where he is, and that’s when he starts crying and says that his gift is a curse. It’s at that exact moment that Miz Shoes screams GET OVER YOURSELF. More girl bonding. Ivy yaps about her vision thing. Mondo has had a good night’s sleep and is wearing the most hideous ensemble ever seen on Project Runway, and we have seen Stella’s Dr. Seuss leggings. Mondo’s little skirt and top, however, are magnificent. Hair and makeup. Gretchen and her swatches.

Peach says her model is covered in Barbie’s sofa. Photo shoot. Jason runs out of time and makes the design decision to use giant safety pins as closures along the front seam of his dress. Bluto says that Jason is creepy, so he agrees with every thing he says, then makes Psycho shower scene knife stabs and accompanying sound FX. April’s dress is has Klingon shoulders. Andy’s plum and grey dressy pant suit is stylish. Valerie’s dress is hot. Sarah’s dress is sculptural and the colors are very sophisticated: plum, coral and steel. Mondo is good as an art director, nails the shoot and uses the product name almost naturally. Jason is a putz and has styled his model like a boxer, then choses the worst possible shot. He goes on to confessionalize about how the judges have to look past his disabilities like not being able to sew when he is a contestant on a sewing show. He is a speshul snowflake, isn’t he?

Runway. No immunity. Judges. Michael Kors, Ninagarcia, Joanna Coles. Photos will be taken into account when they score. Nicholas leads with his thing, and he is stunned to note that the judges are not impressed with the fluttery, badly sewn back of his top, nor with the tortured hemline of his skirt and they openly despise the cape. Christopher’s made a black pencil skirt and a dark top in chocolate brown with mustard gold facings and a narrow, yet plunging scoop neck. If they were doing a cover and not a billboard, it would be perfect. Jason is delusional. Bluto has made another Vegas hooker turned politician’s wife dress. AJ has made an utter failure in school bus yellow and black. Peach is OK with her dress. Michael the Knitwear guy is terrified by the fact that he’s made a tunic, not a dress and pretends that he meant to make it that short. Ivy made an ivory tank dress, ho hum. Valerie’s dress leaps off the runway, because it is red, well made and fashionable. Sarah’s plum, coral and tweedy brown/black are gorgeous. Andy has made origami sleeves of his purple organza. Pretty flashy. Casanova’s made a matronly navy top and a white pencil skirt. Kristin, peaches, ivories, pink. Gretchen’s paper weight navy linen romper. Mondo’s really cheeky little ensemble, with bounce and energy. From the front, April’s taupe and midnight blue organza is interesting. From the back, the exposed large-scale zipper is jolting.

Mondo, Peach, Nicholas, Jason, Valerie and Gretchen are the tops and bottoms and you can see where this is going. AJ breaks down and cries. Huggies all around. Bluto predicts that Valerie will win, everyone laughs at Jason’s combat boots and safety pins, then assure the viewers that Jason is a really talented menswear designer who just happens to be off his meds at the moment and they don’t want to anger him.

Peach tries to defend her yellow and pink dress. Matronly. Peach lets the judges know how many other dresses she made before she admitted defeat and sent this out. They are suitably impressed. Valerie’s fire engine red dress is gorgeous. Ninagarcia gushes over it. Joanna Coles loves it. MKors loves it. Jason gets eviscerated. MKors calls it a walk of shame dress, and Jason is a putz.

Gretchen talks about filling the page, and says that anyone from 22 to “way into their 40s and 50s” would want to wear it. MKors says that she’s a modern girl and the judges claim that the Marie Claire reader is intelligent. Nicholas gets savaged by NinaGarcia. Utterly unsexy, says Joanna. They ask for the cape to come off and then realize that the blouse is so awful that she needs to keep the cape on. Mondo calls his look young, flirty and with touch of whimsy, claiming inspiration from the opening credits of the Mary Tyler Moore show. Joanna says that the opening credits are what inspired her to move to New York and NinaGarcia loves the whole look, and then Joanna says that this is the first time in history that she and NinaGarcia have ever agreed on anything except for Gretchen’s jump suit two minutes ago.

Jason says that his model sucked and that the judges didn’t get his concept of Infinity and Beyond and that he doesn’t give a damn about his bad reputation, and the other designers all look uncomfortable, probably what the other folks in Christofuh Moltisanti’s AA group looked like when he was on a tear.

The judges love Mondo’s look. Confident and whimsical, and not at all like a bad catalog. Getchen’s jumpsuit is deemed sophisticated but not old. Seasonless, timeless, ageless. Joanne calls Valerie’s dress an “old friend”. Has Jason ever spoken to a woman, asks Joanne. Nicholas was a disaster. Peach was desperate housewife, well made, but hopelessly old lady. So how many go home?

Mondo, we loved everything about your outfit, you’re in. He gets much love from the other designers and stops whining. They like him, they really like him. Gretchen, you made a jump suit. Valerie, you made a killer dress and styled it perfectly. Gretchen, you win and Valerie, you’ve been screwed. Gretchen admits to feeling prideful. Then she says she has set a very high bar. Bluto deservedly mocks Gretchen’s tone and then says that Valerie should have won. Miz Shoes agrees.

Peach, too old or too young, but not right. Nicholas, you threw everything including the kitchen sink at this and it all blew chunks. Peach, you are barely safe.  Jason, you are a sociopathic jerk who may be borderline retarded, go home. Jason is a putz backstage and leaves. Nicholas gets sent home, and sobs and sobs. Everyone loves on him, including Tim.

Billboard model turns out to be Coco Rocha, who is apparently a big name in models. Next week, the unconventional material challenge takes place in a party supply superstore, and somebody faints.

Well, Miz Shoes caved. The desire for Project Runway overcame sense and sensibility and she paid for a season pass on i-Tunes. What? She’s a junkie, she admits it. This also means that for the first time, I can watch without taking notes, just absorb the action and get a visceral response. Geek goddess that I am, I am watching the show on my i-pad and taking notes on the laptop using a new app that is supposed to be the bomb, Evernote. We’ll see how this works out, non?*

And we’re off. Orange Manhattan. That’s new. It used to be a lurid shade of green. And what’s this? Heidi and Tim as the all-knowing talking head narrators? Oh look, it’s Alex from Clockwork Orange.

AJ, Andy. April, who looks like my school friend Psycho Patti. Kristin who makes mistakes and Mondo with an Emo cut. McKell with white girl dreads and a baby. Gretchen. Christopher. Ivy, who thinks this is going to be the Ivy show. Casanova from Puerto Rico, who is now in New Jork. He looks like the bastard child of Ron Perlman and a mule. Sarah Trost has a bling belt with her name on it and a Gwen Stephani vibe. She mixes materials. She and AJ (Daniel Vosovic V.2). He’s obviously watched this show. Peach is 50 and from Wake Forrest. She designs for the Ladies Who Lunch. She’s kinda funny. She meets up with Nicholas. More contestants meet other contestants. McKell delivers the “I’m doing this for my brand-new baby to give her a great life” reading. That never works well for the hamsters on ANTM, honey. You might want to have a life plan that involves something other than winning the lottery.

Jason, AKA Alex the Droog.

He’s straight and he boxes. He is wearing a derby hat to intimidate the other contestants. Uh-huh. Well, at least it isn’t one of the twee little army caps in plaid, Logan’s knit rasta rag, Santino’s pork pie over do-rag, or any other version of the stupid twee hats we see every season. At least it’s a new hat. Miz Shoes is not so sure about the intimidation factor without the eye lashes and white cod-piece, but maybe Jason the Droog can work it. He’s a little stupid, asking Gretchen what nationality she is. American, a-hole.

Oh, lord. Mondo makes hand gestures, wears a twee bow tie and a twee hat when he’s not doing the emo hair. Nicholas used to be an architect. More meetings. If this is the extra half hour, Miz Shoes is unimpressed. April makes dark beautiful, destroys to create. Michael is from Palm Springs, and makes a haute/hot joke. He says that he’ll gladly give you a couture gown tomorrow for a burger today. He makes little devil horns over his head. Snooze.

Lincoln Center. Heidi and Tim. There are 17 of you. Only 16 will get a bed in the Atlas. There is one more challenge before you are really a contestant. Open your suitcase and pull out one item you would like to incorporate into your garment. Now pass that item to the person to your right. Casanova stands like he’s been gobsmacked. He’s given his $1700** pair of Dolce & Gabbana trousers to someone who is going to cut them up. Gretchen is a sustainable clothing designer from Portland. She is dragging that beaded blouse through the gutter, totally disrespecting it. Valerie was poor so she learned to retrofit crap from the store. And they are in the workroom. Brother sewing room. The HP touch notebooks. Mood has brought fabric to them. Randomly selected models. 15 minutes to sketch. Andy is from Hawaii and used to design pageant gowns. Miz Shoes notes that the designers are drawing in their sketchbooks, the little computers sitting all alone and unused on the tables beside them.

Gretchen is already starting to work Miz Shoes nerves. Casanova is miserable watching his Dolce & Gabbanas get shredded. Droogie is not doing anything to his kimono, Peach is panicking over the fact that Michael’s machine knit is unraveling. Michael is a bit of a bitch about it. McKell has taken a man’s shirt, cut it away into a racer top and paired it with a fluffy print bubble skirt with raw seaming. Nicholas has been working with a polyester

bomber jacket. He’s turning it into an evening gown, using the ribbed knit bottom band as an off-the-shoulder neckline. Tim is intrigued. Cassanova has made something that he calls sexy and Tim is concerned that it might be a little slutty, slutty, slutty.

April has turned her man’s tuxedo jacket inside out and is working spontanteously. Valerie talks trash about April. Droog is wearing a corset that Miz Shoes is certain he designed himself. It is, admittedly, sorta kinda cool, in that it is actually his tool belt. Sort of Batman/bondage/carpenter. Miz Shoes may possibly want one for herself. Droog hasn’t done anything other than turn the kimono inside out and drape the sleeves around the neck. Tim is concerned. Tim rolls his eyes.

Gretchen has already used the PiperLime accessory wall thoughtfully. No, really, Gretchen may turn out to be our winner, and she may be pretty and terribly self-contained and self-aware and even well put together, and she may have that Portland-Off-The-Grid aesthetic going on, but there is something about her that makes Miz Shoes grind her teeth. She is discussing the essence of the piece and what is the story that the piece is telling.

Peach, talk to me. The scarf has “no forgiveness.” Even Our Mister Gunn is appalled by the qualities of the fabric of Michael’s knit scarf. Machine knit. Miz Shoes is tempted, as a hand-knitter to opine at length about machine knits and the kind of people (there’s one here in Miami) who use knitting machines and deliberately jam their prongs and do other horrible things to them to force the machine to knit in rips and runs and irregularities as integral parts of the fabric. Miz Shoes considers machine knitters who have never held a stick and are more concerned with using materials that were never meant to create fabric to create fabric than with the usable qualities (drape, hand, next-to-skin wearability) of that fabric to be something less than the artisans they think they are. But she digresses, and veers close to a rant. We’ve only seen 5 minutes of Michael. Let us not judge…yet. Tim suggests layering the brickish red scarf under the tulle. Peach is grateful. An aside regarding Peach. She may be the sweet, light version of Mila. So far she has only been seen in black and white, she gave away a pair of black and white toile pants (which she KISSED! before passing them to April, so clearly they are her lucky pants or some such shit) and she is using an equivalent black and white modern print for her garment, which is cute, in a young-ladies-who-lunch sort of way. Maybe she’s another Wendy Pepper?

Mondo is wearing a polka dot head wrap. Tim finds his dress matronly. Really? say Mondo and Miz Shoes in unison. Workroom. Models. Hair and makeup. Styling with the PiperLime stuff. Droogie is a disgusting pig about his model’s BOOBIES!!!! Whoo, boobies. Way to go, Jason the Droog. Peach is panicking. Droogie wants his model to have Medusa hair. He clearly hasn’t noticed that his model has bleached blonde hair that is at most, two inches long. Droogie must not have looked higher than her BOOBIES!!!! NAKED BOOBIES!!! (And they belong to him. He said so.)

Casanova can’t tell the difference between the hair salon and the make up room. He wants something that is dreadfully close to the girls on the roof in West Side Story. Getchen is giving the make-up designer exacting instructions, down to swatches that she wants him to match. She ueses the word dewey. Really. Annoying. Fifteen minutes to runway. Kristin has forgotten her model. She’s still sitting in hair, and never got to make up. Nicholas is freaking out. McKell has sewn her model in, and the model’s hair is awful. Droogie is stapling his model into the dress. Everyone goes down to the runway, except Casanova. He wasn’t finished. The model comes out. Tim isn’t sure that he’s really done? Oh, yeah, he is.

Shiny runway is shiny. Heidi threatens that more than one may go. Recap of the challenge. Only 5 hours to put the look together. List of prizes. Yippee! No more Blow Fly. Now it’s PIperLime. Michael Kors, NinaGarcia, and Selma Blair. Which came first, Selma Blair or Zooey Deschanel?

Valerie’s dress is from the D&G pants is olive green, coral pink and gold. The color blocking is amatuerish and the hem is wonky. The back is worse. Peach’s little dress is cute. McKell’s fabric looks cheap and the model is carrying a huge hot pink purse, and we see one of the other designers say that it is perfect styling. That would be Kristin the graphic designer who makes great mistakes. Uh-huh. Andy sends out a black on black ensemble with a Chinese coolie hat and hair held up with chopsticks. If anyone other than Hawaiian Andy did it, it would be as suspect as Casanova’s big hair and red lips. In the frame that is frozen on my i-pad, NinaGarcia is in the background, holding her red scoring card over her eyes. Or maybe shielding her eyes from the glare of the lights. Or maybe doing a little cropping. Holy shit, his model just busted a move.

Sarah Trost seems like she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with. She has made a romper out of a man’s shirt. Forgive Miz Shoes her sartorial sins, but she has a fondness for rompers and jumpsuits. Miz Shoes was still young in the 80’s and honestly, she had a putty-colored jumpsuit from the original version of Banana Republic, when it was still selling government surplus. She rocked that jumpsuit six ways from Sunday, with big belts and a pair of ankle-high leopard-print suede boots that were baggy and had wrap around laces of chamois. (Miz Shoes still has them, as a matter of fact. Want to see pictures?) Anyway, despite the scorn that will deservedly be heaped on her for admitting this, Miz Shoes like Sarah’s little mini-romper.

Nicholas’s dress is a dress. It has an exposed back zipper and a built-in waist purse. Mondo’s dress is still ugly. He has paired a pea-green jersey with what looks like the upholstery from the couch in the dorm room that always had a beer-bong going. Mondo loves it, even with its wonky hem. Ivy loves her Capri pants with the over-shredded, not-quite-matching top she has made to go with. Meh. Michael “give me a burger and I’ll give you couture” from Palm Springs sends out a skin-tight leatherette mini skirt and a pretty hot pink blousson tank top with a cowl neck and a surprise back. Michael says it is a classy, sophisticated look. Miz Shoes thinks that those words don’t mean what Michael thinks they mean. Kristin has taken Mondo’s little emo skirt and used it to make a dramatic collar for a sleeveless coat dress of heavy material that she has not so much draped into interesting folds at the skirt front, as hammered into shape. Christopher has completely reinvented the dress he had to work with. It’s cute. April’s tuxedo jacket dress is too short, has an irregular hem and looks like student work. She’s happy with it.

Gretchen gives a smug voice-over about nailing it, winning it, working it. It’s a little black dress with beaded flaps for sleeves and a sheer, cropped back. Michael the knitter loves his dress. It is a silk kimono-sleeved tunic that wraps and fastens at the front with a bit of beadwork taken from the original garment. The back is very interesting, with the beadwork that was probably the bodice now forming the focus at the neckline and the kimono sleeves connect in a swoop of fabric. It’s very cool.

Droogie sends out his dress and the staples are falling out as the model walks. AJ has made a black dress with tulle and foil, a Hot Topics prom mini for the happy shiny little goth girl. And here comes Casanova’s thing. He thinks it looks prettier than when it was on his table. Again he asserts that it’s sexy, but not vulgar. Miz Shoes says these are not the words you seek. NinaGarcia is stunned speechless.

AJ, Andy, Valerie, Sarah, Peach, Kristin, Michael Designs for Burgers, Mondo Emo, Knitting Machine Michael, Christopher. You are all safe. They go backstage and have the giggles. One of you is the unanimous winner, and that would be Gretchen. NinaGarcia tells her her styling is perfect. She goes backstage and does the victory dance. No top three or bottom three, you’re all bottoms. None of you should feel safe. Ivy has to defend making pants out of pants. Michael Kors says “no offense to Peach, but I don’t know why she packed those.” Ooooh, SNAP! And he hates the blouse. The blouse looks “mumsy” says NinaGarcia. “Small town, hick outfit at the bar” says Selma Blair. Dudes, Peach kissed those pants when she gave them away. Respect the pant.

Jason tries to defend doing nothing. Looks like the cape at the hairdresser, says Heidi. Selma likes it, sort of. It’s sad, but she likes. NinaGarcia asks if he really thought they wouldn’t notice that he didn’t do anything. April defends her raw edges. The judges question if April even knows how to sew. Hot mess says Heidi. Michael likes deconstruction, but not this deconstruction. 80’s street walker says NinaGarcia. McKell and her blue bag skirt and huge hot pink purse. McKell says that it’s fun, flirty and good time. Styling, says NinaGarcia, is a train wreck. It’s a DISCO APRON!!!! (Hey, do you need to download more Project Runway Bingo Cards?) “Side cleavage is a rare thrilling moment for any woman,” says MKors. Heidi says that it is just flat out butt ugly. McKell says that she never designs looks like this. Nicholas explains the polyester bomber jacket origins. NinaGarcia likes the idea. But he didn’t take it far enough. His voice quavers.

Casanova. Mother of the bride belly dancer. Pole dancer in Dubai. Questionable in taste. Fascinatingly bad, says NinaGarcia. I loved it and I loathed it says Selma. Heidi asks Casanova to defend himself. NinaGarcia has to hablar espanol to him. He doesn’t get it in Spanish either. Ivy has been beaten down.

Ivy made pants out of pants and the judges ridicule her for it. MKors just can’t get past the original hideous garment and is dumbfounded that a real woman really bought them and actually loved them enough to bring them on the show. Ivy can sew, but does she have taste. Casanova can’t speak English. Taste level is scary. You couldn’t dream of wearing that in daylight. It came from a mall store named RazzleDazzles where they sell wigs and dresses. What was the car crash?? Casanova you are this season’s Crazy Person!!! Congratulations! Droogie Boy had all the fabric and didn’t use a sewing machine. They liked the styling. A lot of story to not much outfit. April was frazzled by the time constraints, but she’s got a modern point of view. McKell lives in a different world. They like her idea, but not the execution. The hair and accessories were terrible. Nicholas had a girl who could wear a bag, and there was nothing there. He sent out a boring dress, but he can make clothes.

April, we want to see more from you, you’re in. Nicholas, can you push yourself, given more time. He’s gonna cry. DroogieBoy, we are intrigued. Leave the runway. McKell, we were perplexed by your design and poor styling choices. Casanova your look was fascinatingly bizarre and we question your taste. Ivy, you made bad pants out of bad pants. McKell, you’re out. Take your blonde hippie girl dreadlocks and go home to your baby. Ivy, Casanova, you’re both getting another shot. Leave the runway. McKell shoots a look of death at Casanova and Ivy. Tim Gunn tells her that he stands by his judgement that her dress was cute, but it didn’t fit her model and the styling was unbelievably bad, so go clean up.

Atlas. Kristin says that there should be alcohol in the fridge. Ivy says she doesn’t sleep. Casanova is hugging an armload of hangers. Good night John Boy. Next week, it seems that there might be more than one person eliminated.

*Actually, Evernote WAS the bomb. I clipped web pages, photos and stuck them together with the draft of this article and did a quick cut and paste into my blog. Sweet.

**The blogosphere is in disagreement over the price of his pants, no doubt because his English is so awful. $1007? $1070? Whatever. They were over a grand and there was a seven in the mix somewhere.

Look, Miami/Dade government, this isn’t rocket fucking science. It isn’t like the MetroMover has never failed before and you have’t had to put buses on the street to take riders along the routes. And it is hurricane season, which increases the possibility that this service failure might actually take place. And you (and the high cost of gasoline) have done a great job of increasing ridership. So.

So why the ever loving fuck are you incapable of updating the public (hey! I have a radical idea! Use your freaking website!) on where the shuttle stations are and which routes they are servicing. I’m sorry. Is that so much to ask of my local government? Yeah, stupid question for a body that just voted to raise my property taxes by twelve fucking percent next year so that they can mow the street medians less often, repair the streets less often and cut hours of park and library services.

Yesterday, as readers of my Twitter feed are well aware, it took me forty minutes to go six blocks across town, because there was only one bus and it was servicing the Omni route. This meant I was treated to a tour of various halfway houses and homeless shelters (and in intimate proximity to their residents who were on the same bus, and frequently leaning into the same seat) during my 20 block detour north and then back south.

This morning, despite promises by the Miami Herald and the update on the MiamiDade.gov website, the MetroMover was NOT back in service, and there was just the one Omni bus again. Since we were going in the opposite direction, it only took me 15 minutes to get cross town. Tonight, as I left work, the government website informed me that the MetroMover will be out of service until further notice and to allow for longer travel times. Fair enough.

I crossed the street and took my place under the “emergency bus service for when the MetroMover is out of service” sign. And waited. And waited. I got on the first Omni loop bus, resigned to the ride from Hell, but was told, rudely I may add, that there were now two buses and that this wasn’t the one I wanted if I wanted to get to Government Center. I got off and waited some more. Another Omni bus. Two Aventura Mall buses.

Finally a random Transit Authority Person pulled up in a car. Huh, am I getting private car service, I wondered? No, he’s just there to tell me that I was standing in the wrong place for the Inner Loop bus. That bus stops on the other side of the street. In front of my office. Where there is neither a regular bus stop nor any indication that it is an emergency stop.

I am sweaty, pissed off and now at the end of my travel, waiting for the RLA to pick me up for a hot date with the Urgent Care Center to get my stitches out.

The RLA and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary on Wednesday. Yes, we wed on Bastille Day, but that’s another story for another day. The RLA gave me a wicked cool hand-made bamboo case for the iPad, a set of professional class ear buds and strict instructions to load some music on this thing. So I did.

Oh, gentle readers, I am forced to confess that for the inveterate music junkie that I am, I have never used anything more than cheap, but cool-looking ear buds on any of my music-playing I-devices. Holy shit! These things are awesome! I had some nitwit sitting next to me on the train yesterday, yapping away on her phone about random, and inane shit and once I popped these bad boys into my head, I couldn’t hear a fucking word!! Sweet!!!

Today, same thing. I can’t hear any of my fellow passengers, and I have pure, sweet, crystal clear rock and roll pouring in my head.

The only downside I can see is that the music is so loud, and so pure, that I feel like I’m all alone and tend to start singing (or at least humming and finger snapping) along. And that has to be as annoying to my fellow train riders as their mere existence is to me.

Miz Shoes ankle receives a two-inch gash. Damn, she thinks, this isn’t good. Perhaps she should take a quick drive over to the Urgent Care Center. But first, a little reality check. Honey? Do you think this will require stitches?

The RLA threw me in the car and asked if I had any preferences as to which UCC we visited. No, not particularly. Less than an hour later, I was laying on my side, having a pleasant conversation with the PA who was practicing her needlework on my ankle. She loved that it wasn’t a straight line and she got to do something or other fancy involving the triangular rip in the middle. She had a light touch with the Novocain or whatever it is that is used on body parts other than one’s mouth. So light, in fact, that by the time we got to the last stitch that what had been a slight prick and tug was a distinct piercing and pulling, prompting the following exchange.

“Motherfucker”, I said, in a totally conversation tone of voice, lacking all affect, “That hurts. I do believe the Novocaine has completely worn off.” Apparently, that was an unexpected remark, at least in that tone of voice, because both the PA and her aide laughed. They did apologize, but your narrator didn’t mind if they found humor in her suffering. After all, I said, you’ve given me enough content for a week of blog entries.