Twelve Tips for D.C. Neophytes

1. Get a Smartrip card. Spare yourself and everyone behind you in line the frustration.
2. Unless the difference in cost is $100 or more, just fly out of DCA.
3. Save yourself the frustration: don't fly to New York. Don't take the bus to Boston. Busjunction.com is your best friend.
4. Hipster or Preppy? Pick a side and party appropriately.
5. If you're from California, your first winter here is always the coldest, no matter what the temperature says.
6. Don't try to wear foundation in the summer. Do moisturize in the winter.
7. You'll need a doctor, gynecologist, dentist and psychiatrist (trust me). Find the doctors closest to your office and then cross reference them with Yelp reviews. Call until you find someone accepting new patients.
8. Learn the bus routes; it will expand your reasonably priced apartment and dive bar options by a power of 10.
9. Ice skating at the National Gallery sculpture garden, screen on the green, E Street Cinema, Shakespeare Theater's young professional tickets and the botanical gardens--the best free to reasonably priced entertainment in the city.
   
10. Don't put off buying wellies. Sure, you can't wear them everyday, or even once a week, but when you need them, they're more frustrating to be without than a great pair of jeans or a little black dress.
    
11. PL Nails in Adams Morgan is the only place to bother getting your nails done. Clean, luxurious and $35 for a mani-pedi.
    
12. Eat at Komi at least once before you leave.

Bonus: Plan to leave. No one stays.

Wrong. Bad. Bad. Wrong. No. No. No.

The leggings topic is stalking me.

Fellow PR chick KA sent me a media request from HARO for VIVmag.com. (Sidenote: Ideeli, this is where you advertise?! Our readers are much more your target audience and our rates are incredibly reasonable.) The request read:

I'm looking for fashion experts who can offer advice to women 35+ on how to make the leggings trend work for them. For women who think they're too old or too short, who think they're legs aren't good enough, or their style is too traditional, what are some tips to adding leggings to their wardrobe, including the best brands, styles, patterns, colors to wear.

Well, Shelley Levitt, reporter for VIVmag.com that gets advertisers that it totally doesn't deserve, I don't know that I can be considered an expert, but allow me to take a stab at answering your questions.

First, there is definitely too old to wear leggings--you don't want to look too trying-hard-trendy. Age appropriately. This is why Vogue does the age issue.

There is also definitely too short. Short girls have to be very careful not to cut off their height with leggings.

As for good legs, well, here I have a question: when we say "leggings trend" are we talking leggings as pants or are we talking leggings under skirts? Leggings under skirts can actually hide bad legs pretty decently, but you have to be able to pull off the look, and there's an age limit on it. If we're talking leggings as pants, well, if you have fatty legs, don't fucking wear leggings as pants. In fact, even if you just have normal legs, most times you shouldn't wear leggings as pants. (And yes, acknowledged, many would say never to wear leggings as pants.)

Brands? Well, they're f'ing leggings. Basic black from Old Navy for $6 will work. Just wash them in cold water. Don't wear patterns. Or I'll find you. Just to be safe, as AO advised, just wearing tights...not as pants.

I kind of want to check for this article when it comes out...but I don't want to drive up VIVmag.com's viewer numbers and subsequent advetising rates. Hmmm...

On Skinny Jeans: Proof that We Read Our Comments

Recently, BellaNutella asked us the following in comments:

How do we feel about skinny jeans? more coverage and hold than leggings, but are they still offensive? I'm hoping the answer is no, as I've spotted a nice black pair at BR; however, I'm counting on you Bitches to tell me the truth!

Well Bella, you're in luck because bitches always tell the truth. The truth about skinny jeans is that only (and this may be generous) 5% of the population can pull them off while closer to 35% of the population believes they can pull them off.

I don't object on principle, but the very simple fact is that skinny jeans were invented for, shocking though this might be, the skinny. And not just the normal skinny, the freakish model skinny. They're one of those things that should only be available in sizes 00, 0, 2 and maybe 4 (but only for the tall) just to save people from themselves. It's like when you see a tight fitting dress in a size large and you pray that the store won't sell any for the benefit of your eyes. I say if no one above a size small should wear it, you just shouldn't make a larger size at all...for society.

As for me, I'm a size 4 and I cannot pull off the skinny jean. Anyone who has hips and thighs just shouldn't try. Skinny jeans are the skinny legged, knock kneed girls' revenge from when they were picked on in middle school. To tell if you're in the should or should not group, try on a pair of skinny jeans. If (1) your inner thighs touch each other when you stand with your feet shoulder width apart or (2) there is any rounding from the thighs just above the knee then you're in the 95% of the population with me and you'll have to give up on the dream. Bella, I could be wrong, so take the test above, but my inclination is that, knowing you as I do, you have more womanliness to you than a 12 year old boy and, as a result, skinny jeans are not for you...or for most people who wear larger than an A-cup.

If you do qualify to wear skinny jeans, please, for the love of god, wear the proper footwear with them. Tennis shoes are a no. Really, not anything you'd need to wear socks with. Converse maybe. Generally, go for a simple flat...ballet shoe-esque. Like the overplayed Tory Burch slides...but something not so over played. If they're the type that bunch at the bottom, you can wear heels. Otherwise, heel with caution.

That's this bitch's take. Tami? Commenters?

Universal Solutions

Interpersonal relationships are complicated, whether they be romantic, friendly, or working relationships. That being said, my best friend from college and I came up with a couple of activities that, when all else fails, act as universal solutions. I'd like to take this brief moment to advocate for them...

All romantic problems can be solved with physical violence. All interpersonal problems can be solved by throwing things at someone.

Some people would tell you that violence is never the answer. They're wrong. And kind of dumb. You should throw things at them.

In college, said best friend had a complicated relationship with one of those complicated guys who has feelings for you but doesn't want to be with you but but but but but. Finally, she got fed up (and perhaps a little drunk) and hit him in the stomach (or kicked him in the shins? I can't quite remember) and suddenly his feelings became a lot more clear and gentlemanly. (He better be single to this day or I'm going to go either kick him in the shins or punch him in the stomach, whichever fate he escaped the first time.)

Following that, I came to see examples all around me of men who deserved to be on the receiving end of physical violence, either as a reform tactic or an entirely deserved goodbye. Corporal punishment is underrated.

Similarly, when someone gets just so annoying that you can't stand them any more and really have nothing to say, I think it should be socially acceptable to throw things at them. I've given this advice to friends many times and none of them have ever taken it (it boggles the mind), but I've found it thoroughly effective every time I've tried it. I think it's the initial shock of the thing. Or the consideration that, if I'm willing to throw things at you, I'm probably also willing to straight up ruin your life. Which I am.

(Post dedicated to the great and wonderful HM, and Tami and I's rough day.)