Glamour

glam·our/ˈglamər/

Noun:

The attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people or things seem appealing or special: "the glamour of Monte Carlo."

Here I am with my cape/coat and my Glamour bag outside of Carnegie Hall.

For the second year in a row I have been lucky enough to attend Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall.  It goes without saying I’m a fan of the glitz and pizazz such an event brings.  From celebrities to sequins, the evening is an all-out star-studded extravaganza that’s inspirational and entertaining.

If you don’t know what the Awards are about, here’s a quick rundown.  Each year, Glamour selects around 11 women who are doing amazing in things out in the world.  These women can be politicians, artists, fashion designers, royalty, actors or activists, and every year they are selected by past recipients and honoured at the Awards. 

As I’m clearly not famous (well, at least not yet), how I was able to attend this event is a bit of a mystery, that is, until you discover the world of being a seat filler.  Basically all televised awards shows get a group of people to dress up and, well, sit in empty seats so the theatre always appears full. If Cher gets up, you sit in her seat.  When she returns, you give her seat back.  This particular example hasn’t specially happened to me, but I have seen Cher at the Awards, so I’m speaking from experience. Ish.

Last year, I braved this new world of seat filling on my own and I moved about the theatre a number of times, filling empty chairs and having a few brushes with fame (thank you, Stanley Tucci – I’m still talking about you).  This year, I convinced my husband to come along, but unlike last year, after we sat down in the 10^th row, we didn’t have to move.  We sat across the aisle from Tory Burch, Lea Michelle, Gloria Steinem and Jennifer Lopez; we listened to colourful stories from Arianna Huffington and shared in an inspirational adventure with Esraa Abdel Fattah.  The night was full of girl power… and it was awesome.

“The Bests” – in my opinion

• Most Inspirational Story – Withelma “T” Oriz-Macey
• Best Dressed – Lea Michele
• Best Acceptance Speech – Arianna Huffington
• Best Surprise – A four-way tie for unexpected award presenters: Jennifer Aniston, Emma Stone, Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer
• Funniest Speeches – Arianna Huffington and Chelsea Handler

Of course, it wouldn’t be a truly glamorous event without an equally fun bag of goodies at the end of the night.  So, what was in that bag?

As the title sponsor is Loreal, you'll notice a pattern of strategic product placement.  Here we have full sized bottles of shampoo, conditioner and hairspray.

Loreal make up fun! False lash mascara, Glamour Women of the Year lipstick in 'blazing sangria',  'blushing berry' lip gloss, and 'smokey for all eyes' eye shadow (a product I'm frankly skeptical of... how can one foam brush blend everything in one sweep?)

A Pandora collector's guide and, perhaps most importantly, a bottle of 'Youth Code' serum.  Apparently  if I put it on  in the morning I'll look like me and by the end of the day I'll end up looking like Abigail Breslin.  Quite frankly, as long as it can guarantee I'll look as good as Julianna Margulies at some point in my life, I'm willing to try it out. 

Super Fans

Spending hours in stand-by lines of television shows can be either a frustrating or rewarding experience… much like how rainy days can go one of two ways: full of gloom and disappointment or crammed full of fun and unexpected surprises.   When you get a frustrating, gloom-filled, disappointing day, it’s best just to go home and turn on the Wendy Williams Show because sadly, your day can’t get much worse... but when you get a rewarding day jam-packed with fun and unexpected surprises, you’ve hit the rainy day lottery.  Last Thursday, alongside a group of friends, the rainy day jackpot was ours for the taking and no inverted umbrellas or messy hairstyles could stop us!

Writing about the entire day would take approximately 8,000 words (yes, it was that crazy), but the story that will live on forever is short-ish, oh so sweet and involves 30 Rockefeller Center and that late night host named Jimmy Fallon.

Life lesson: Friends who will spend rainy days in stand-by lines are keepers

When we lined up for tickets in the morning, we only knew of one specific guest: Eva Longoria.  Now, having seen Eva on a few talk shows over the last year, I’m not ashamed to admit I have a bit of a girl crush on her.  She’s smart, fun, competitive in family games like charades and can cook.  Basically, if she lived next door, I would befriend her and borrow cups of sugar.  All of us were just excited at the prospect of being in the Jimmy Fallon audience, no matter who else was going to be on the show – Eva was a bonus and anyone else would be icing on the cake.

Coming back in the afternoon to redeem our tickets, we lined up in numerical order – we had tickets 17-20 and were reasonably confident in our positions.  The first cut the NBC staff made: 1 – 36 would get to go to the next checkpoint.  No guarantees on audience admittance, but the further you get into 30 Rock, the better.  Horray – and we’re off!  Next up, we find ourselves in a boarder-line deserted hallway with the top 36.  The next cut: 1 – 15 would get in.  Disappointment… and not just for us, but for ticket holder #21 who had her wallet stolen a few hours earlier and who was still in line to see the show (WHAT?!  I would be losing my mind if I was in NYC and had lost my wallet… I wouldn’t be in line to see my hopeful new bestie do a 15 minute interview with no guarantee of Jimmy’s ‘thank you note’ bit).  But wait!  As they look at the top 15 it seems some people are missing… they are willing to take the next four people in line.  Hello rainy day lottery!

Hello upgrade opportunity!

Wristbands up!

After taking a quick look at our little group they handed us tickets, attached green bands to our wrists and pulled us out of line to take us to another roped-off area.  Puzzled, we stood with a group of about 20 people until our beloved NBC girl came back and announced she had “an upgrade opportunity available.”  You had me at “upgrade” NBC – this could only mean good things!  The offer was to be in the bandstand and dance/sway on stage when their musical guest performed.  Well, this was better than we ever could have imagined.  Ummm, yes, we’ll take it! 

Wait, should we at least know more about this band? 

Fast forward. 

Jimmy slow-jammed with Brian Williams. Eva was awesome. Kal Penn was entertaining.  We’re up. 

During the last commercial break we are taken on stage with a clear view behind the scenes where we see what can only be described as “alien monsters.” The band: GWAR.  If you aren’t familiar with them, neither were we.  According to their cyber fortress, GWAR is a heavy metal band that’s been around since 1984, they are all about outrageous costumes often made of rubber, body paint and obscene lyrics.  Of course, they were on Jimmy Fallon to perform a new hit from their current album, ‘Bloody Pit of Horror.’  Oh sure. To get the full picture, I encourage readers to visit http://www.gwar.net/ - my words alone aren’t able to do justice to this group.

So there we were, on stage in the bandstand, clouds of dry ice encircling us as GWAR performed their song.  To be honest, it was difficult to understand – it could be because the singers were wearing enormous amounts of rubberized head gear, or it could be because we had to head bang so as to appear like number one fans.  Either way, nothing could have prepared us for the slaughter that happened next.  Yes, slaughter.  By the end of the song, band members were fighting on stage, tearing chunks of flesh from their costumes and trying to decapitate each other with saws.  At some point I had to ask myself, ‘why couldn’t we have landed on Josh Charles day… Josh Charles day would have been so much dreamier,’ but it’s one of those things you can’t question.   The universe wanted us to see GWAR.

The only way to truly sum up this experience is by saying one word: hilarious.  How we made it into the audience, how we were selected to be bandstand members and how we managed to land on GWAR day is simply a mystery.  It’s something that a very few people would ever experience – a true, ‘if not now, when?’ moment.    That said, if you’re in Calgary on November 5^th, they’re playing at MacEwan Hall.

And that’s how we became super fans of GWAR, super fans of Jimmy Fallon… or maybe just super fans of those things you look back on and say, ‘only in New York.’

Even Jimmy Fallon was scared

Remember to Love

Ribbons tied to the gates of St. Paul's Chapel

On the street the other day, I overheard two men bragging about how many Jeeps their respective families own.  One man’s family has four, the other, nine.  Nine Jeeps in the family?!  Variety is the spice of life, but Jeeps are clearly the starchy side for this meat and potatoes crowd.

With the 10^th anniversary of September 11^th around the corner, the sobering realities of that day’s events are ever-present around North America, and especially New York.  Here, people are finding ways to pay tribute to those who both survived and lost their lives.  TV shows are offering moments of silence, reporters are interviewing those who made it out of the wreckage, drug stores are offering free American flags and churches are giving people "Remember to Love" ribbons so they can write messages and tie them to the surrounding wrought iron gates.  So, how does this fit in with the guys talking about the Jeeps?  I’ll get back to that eventually.

A decade ago, I couldn’t ever have imagined I would be living in New York City, let alone mere blocks away from the World Trade Centre site and watching these things go on around me.  It’s difficult for me to believe it has been 10 years: in many ways it seems like yesterday and in other ways I can hardly remember a world without the date “September 11” being associated with the attacks.  I remember the morning it happened, watching, in shock, as the Trade Centers came crumbling to the ground and as I walk the streets that would have been covered in debris, I can only imagine the chaos that would have been running rampant throughout lower Manhattan.  Even today, you can tell the events of 9/11 are within those New Yorkers who lived through it – the feeling is palpable and I don’t think that will ever go away.  Even for me, I won’t ever forget being outside when airspace over Calgary re-opened and a plane flew overhead.  I stopped on the street and looked into the dark sky, thinking that things wouldn’t ever be the same again.  Our world was forever changed, New York more than anywhere else.

10 years ago, I was starting my first year of college, I had just met the man I would later marry and I was embarking on a great new adventure.  By the time I graduated, the events of 9/11 were in my text books as a piece of modern day history and these days, watching the rebuilding of the site has become part of my daily life. 

Now, with the 10 year anniversary on the horizon, threats of another attack have surfaced.  Checkpoints have been set up and those riding the subway are being spot searched.  I’m thankful for the vigilance of the NYPD because, well, this is what living modern day history looks like in New York City.  If Michael Bloomberg can ride the Subway, so can I; if the average person can talk about how many members of their family own Jeeps, I will listen and be grateful for the lightness of the conversation; and if New Yorkers can carry positive spirit, strength and resilience with them, I can, too. 

In a world where variety is the spice of life, I’ll take meat and potatoes this weekend. 

One of the many police checkpoints that has been set up in Manhattan

A cherry-picker style police tower overlooking the Trade Center site

Construction in the reflection of a nearby building

10 years later, the rebuilding continues