So, now you can rejoice in this.

Happy 2012.

Love,

Stella xxx

They jack us up on cheap champagne and make us feel that beauty and happiness are just one swipe of a credit card away.  And I love it!  If you spend, you get 25% off.  As one sales person said last night, make up is never on sale, so this is the moment you stock up for the year ahead.

I go every year with my friends Amy and Nancy.  We develop sophisticated strategies to stop our selves spending too much or ensure that we maximize the discounts and then promptly forget them.  We carefully evaluate the products we bought last year and seek out a more perfect purchase.  I’ve been a loyalist to Trish McEvoy mascara for about five years…but last night I got abducted into the Bobbi Brown camp…new mascara experience coming right up!  And a cream eyeshadow…here’s their recruiter.

We all adore the T. LeClerc guy and allow him to paint our pretty lips with new delicious colors.  Nancy gets a don’t-mess-with-me red.  Apparently, T. LeClerc no longer sells in D.C. so it’s our last fling with Joe.  We imagine the only other people buying the silvery encased products are elderly powdered ladies in New York.

Amy Austin, the fab publisher of the City Paper and un-friend of a certain NFL football team owner, chats with Blue Mercury owner Marla Beck.

And then we’re done.  We retreat to the Vietnamese restaurant next door for nourishment and the next best part of the night…the review of purchases, the analysis of strategy, the sharing of regrets, the comparison of free samples, and the inevitable start of the planning for next year.

Ah, Blue Mercury night, where the hope of a more beautiful life is never more than a year away.

But, it makes me realize more and more how ill-equipped the bus is to attract more middle class professionals.  It’s not just the class diversity, which might put you next to someone who is drunk or high and you fear might vomit on you.  It’s the bus drivers.

I was on my way to a business lunch the other day and realized it was faster to hop on the bus that was pulling up than take the metro across town.  There were only three of us on the bus, including the driver.  I pulled out my briefing to do a bit more prep, but couldn’t concentrate because the bus driver was conducting a LOUD conversation with the other passenger.

One woman driver who I see regularly is a nutty and aggressive driver.  She hits the gas and then breaks every few seconds and yells at the traffic.   Frequently, the drivers want people to exit at the front door, most likely for some traffic safety reason, but they never explain why.  And then bark at the passengers like they are doing something wrong.

I imagine the bus drivers are highly stressed and feel besieged by the traffic, the passengers, and their bosses.  But a little customer service would go a long way.  Sometimes, I avoid taking the bus simply because I don’t want to deal with the hassle.  Over on metro, everyone stands and sits in wonderful silence.

Why is the humble umbrella such a conundrum?  Can we not come up with a design that can open, close, fit in a purse, and withstand a certain degree of bluster?

Having spent a day battling New York winds and rains, I am stumped at the imperfections of this essential object.  I propose that we invite James Dyson to take on this design challenge.  Having perfected the vacuum cleaner and the fan and hand dryer, surely he could solve the brolly crisis?

And then, can we develop an app to locate our lost umbrellas?  I quickly scoured the app store and couldn’t find anything.  Presumably, the Dyson umbrella would be engraved with a unique QR code that could be scanned and geo-located.  Right?  And then a stranger would find said umbrella and a service would provide envelopes so we could mail umbrellas back to each other.  Did I just give away my million-dollar idea?

I would also like to invent the tea temperature alarm.  A thermometer that would tell you when your tea is at perfect drinking temperature (adjustable to personal preference) and then you wouldn’t let it go cold.

What else would ease your daily existence?  Can we give up our day jobs and set up a daily design collective to focus on perfecting the little things?

It’s kind of awesome.  She has ways of dealing with life, the universe and everything.  It’s an ideology, but not one that freaks me out.  I’m madly averse to organized religion.  But this doesn’t scare me.

Thing I learned from Tara: make space for the anxiety and stress or whatever emotion you’re feeling.  And inquire.  Inquire where it’s from and what’s beneath it.  Give it the space it asks for.  And strangely and magically it breaks down.  It doesn’t disappear.  But it becomes a part of the jigsaw, not the whole puzzle.

And say yes to the emotional guests, good and bad.  Don’t deny them.  Learn from them.  It feels quite dramatic to stop castigating oneself for feeling negative and being open to feelings without prejudice.

I know!  It sounds like I joined a cult.  But it’s such a nice cult.