As you may recall, I cut off all my hair the day after my wedding. I don’t regret that decision, taking a page from Emma Watson, I figured it would be the perfect “well that forced long hair business is OVER AND DONE WITH and so is this entire phase of my life” healing moment. It garnered me a lot of complements about my bravery and bone structure and who doesn’t like hearing nice things about themselves.

But I grew tired of it quickly. My hair is really too coarse and unmanageable to regularly look good that short. It made me way more sensitive about gray hairs (as did my ever-dwindling twenties. Relatedly: I’m 29! It’s my birthday! All shall love me and despair!). It was boring. I missed my curls.

So I started the incredibly painful process of growing it out, which is finally about 90% done.

Along the way, I unadvisedly dyed my hair blonde.  And I see Ms. Hathaway is going through the exact same post-pixie process. Although looking a million times better, because a) movie star beauty b) I assume, a world-class colorist.

You see, when you are forced into hating your hair because you are tired of your pixie and the awkward process of growing it out, bleaching it can seem like a great way to change it/punish it. Moreover, bleaching your hair seems much less foolhardy and intimidating when you only have a couple of inches of it.

And then there is the second layer of the desperation: I dyed my hair blonde out of boredom and out of malaise set on by experiencing a double winter from my inter-hemisphere move. I dyed it because I was living an unusually isolated life so even if it looked terrible not too many people would see it. I imagine the post-Oscar-win recluse period feels similar.

Anyway, I never had as blonde or as awesome hair as Hathaway is rocking here, because it’s hard to blondify dyed brown hair (I dyed my hair to banish the aforementioned grays). It was a failed experiment and I’m a million times happier with the in-between fake color I now have. But it’s nice to see I’m not the only person who succumbed to the blond hair of desperation.

At the same time I got into Pinterest, I got into painting my nails.  There could be a connection there, because nail art seems to be at least 18% of what Pinterest is for (46% cat pictures, 23% for “thinspiration”, yeuch; 10% for recipes no one will ever really try, 3% life hacks that aren’t really all that helpful). But remember correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, and the abject boredom that let me down this path may be a better explanation. [Also, I started to find that having polish on my nails made them just a tiny bit blunter when it comes to scratching my skin, so it was actually helping my eczema situation so long as I still kept them pretty short.]

Anyway, a short while ago I pinned this photo I found on a search for “gray polish.”

I really just wanted to look for nice gray polishes, and pinned this because that is a great shade. The glitter part of the look wasn’t really relevant to me. Although I find glitter nail polish the most tolerable form of glitter (because it is trapped in the polish and therefore less of a sinister cancer), I still pretty much hate glitter.  [And even in polish form it's a pernicious beast, requiring extra effort with the remover, and once you FINALLY dissolve that ish with buckets of acetone, the glitter is FREE to take up permanent residence on every other thing in your home.]

HOWEVER!

This quickly became my most popular pin of all time. So popular I had to change my email notification settings because my inbox was blowing up. [Does America still say "blowing up?" I am not asking because of recent acts of horrific terrorism, but that is now making me think I should delete all of this and choose more benign wording. No, I really want to know about American slang. There's all this side eye and shade throwing and "go home [insert misbehaving noun], you’re drunk” on Twitter and I feel like a mom trying to decipher the conversation between her teenage kids’ friends in the backseat of her SUV crossover. SIGH.]

ANYWAY, I decided that 326 (and counting) repins and another 100-some likes meant that I should give this look a try. So I bought me some gray nail polish (Essie Power Clutch, which is actually a good bit darker than the shade up there but is my new favorite, but more on that later) and some gold glitter polish (Revlon Top Speed Hearts of Gold FX, which literally has glitter hearts in it, which is pretty unfortunate but I was able to dodge them). And I queued up some old episodes of Happy Endings and had myself a little polish party.

AND IT IS AMAZING.

Apologies for subjecting you to my crappy cell-phone photography, not to mention hideous monster hands, stubby nails, and imperfect polish application. It’s especially embarrassing when you scroll between the photo I pinned and my photo. I have no fucking CLUE how the people who post your average “fingers clutching the polish bottle” photos on Pinterest manage to get everything looking so tidy and perfect. I am not those people.

But, one more note before I hit publish: when I was writing up my hierarchy of makeup spending, I said that I don’t normally spend a lot on nail polish. ALL THAT HAS CHANGED. [And boy do I hate how often my makeup spending seems to shift in that direction compared to the other way around!] In South Africa, the cheap-ass nailpolish is much worse than it is in the states to the point of being unusable. And moreover, the price difference between mid-range polishes (like the Revlon I used) and your more fancy OPIs and Essies is about 10 Rand or a little over 1 US dollar. So it’s worth it to go up.

Because I have found, using polish more, and more importantly, using it on my fingernails which are up in my face all the time rather than my distant and forgiving toenails, that higher quality polish really does make a difference. Mainly, it is easier to apply evenly and neatly (like, I couldn’t believe how nicely Power Clutch went on, because I normally find it impossible to put on creme finish polishes without super streakiness), and it lasts longer than 15 minutes without chipping. Also, generally less likely to be made entirely out of poison, if you care about that sort of thing.

So all this is an incredibly convoluted way to say, check out my mani!

00:00 Intro
00:22 Sorry we skipped last week!
01:01 Collin went to Cape Town institution Mizoli’s



03:42 Robin dented the car, making it even crappier!

04:22 New and exciting comedy things for Robin in Cape Town!
05:30 Talking about my improv roots and acknowledging the end of an era
08:11 Hanging with my friend Kristen, whom I hope to have as a guest on the podcast soon
11:12 It’s almost Robin’s birthday week!
13:41 Collin had a paper accepted to a journal!
14:10 Happy birthday, Tom!
14:22 Skyping with our niece Gia!
15:45 Outro
16:02 EXTRA BIT (please weigh in on the controversy!)

View from the top of Skeleton Gorge

View of Camps Bay from Table Mountain, with mist rolling in from the ocean

02:30 We saw gigantic King Proteas up there:

03:50 We went through Echo Valley on the top of Table mountain
04:05 I faked this (and not very well)
04:17 We HAVE been through this
05:05 We make fun of Safe House for inaccurately representing Cape Town life, as though we weren’t used to silly movie geography after living Pittsburgh (the Hollywood of Western Pennsylvania!) for years
06:28 I said the Liberty Tunnel but I meant the Armstrong Tunnel
07:15 The best part of watching Safe House was following the tag on Twitter
09:44 Nearly the first ten minutes of this podcast is about the day we recorded it
10:45 We make fun of a terrible Mexican restaurant
13:30 Birthday shoutouts! But we forgot a Twigg! What a horrible oversight! Anyway, happy birthday, Andrew!
14:07 Outro
14:22 EXTRA BIT

00:00 Intro
00:22 Don’t call it a comeback
00:48 Collin ran the Two Oceans Ultra marathon

01:33 We missed the Fun Run the day before the race because we were confused about what day the actual race was
04:30 The foundation of any good marriage is making fun of your partner
04:45 There’s a million public holidays in South Africa at this time of year, in contrast with the US
05:40 We went to a Passover seder with a bunch of newbs
07:00 I LOVE being make fun of for my American accent
07:28 The weather is changing! It’s autumn here!
08:08 Consumerism solves all problems!
08:28 We went back to Noble Hill wine farm with our friend Tara

09:35 I haven’t been paying attention to March Madness and I guess that’s a good thing.
10:00 Collin’s taking a trip to the US in June. I’m jealous!
11:17 I gush about my baby brother being awesome!
12:47 And then we gush about the actual babies in our family, including new addition Max
13:17 And congratulations to newly engaged couple Scott and Brittany
13:36 If you aren’t listening to Addi’s Add It Up podcast, you are MISSING OUT. You can also like it on Facebook!
14:38 Collin talks about the cats. Again.
15:01 Outro
15:00 Extra bit!

00:00 Intro (correct episode number this time!)
00:22 Most of the raw footage was just us laughing
00:27 Slander
00:39 Some more clarifying information
01:13 If Norm were here…
01:22 “Hey Jason Isaacs!”
01:52 Kaitlin just said “iTem.” FIRE HER.
02:07 Terrible attempts at South African accents
02:47 Kaitlin was really sick.
03:10 Let’s take a peek into my editing process
04:24 Shout out to my in-laws!
04:36 Americans are bad at world geography!
05:12 Tiny bit of comedy discourse
05:44 Schmoopiness, sorry.
05:56 I’m sorry, Namibia.
06:25 and I feel bad for Madagascar
07:01 My Cousin Vinny is always apropos.
07:33 Abby wants Ohio Nosy Bitches to come to the Arcade Comedy Theater
07:50 “Did we do good?”
08:00 Sign off
08:12 EXTRA EXTRA BIT

I have for you a Very Special Episode with some of my best friends, who came all the way from the US to visit me in South Africa. We recorded almost an hour of raw footage, which I was able to easily pare down by cutting out our laughter. The rest you’ll get as a special all-extra bit montage later this weekend, and then we’ll be back to our regular posting schedule with me and Collin this Monday.

I hope you enjoy this podcast 1/100th the amount I enjoyed Abby, Liz, and Kaitlin’s visit, because that will be an incredibly fun experience for you.

00:00 Intro [sorry I got the episode number wrong! I was my last night with my friends and I drank too much! Pretend I said 37!]
00:22 Welcome our guests Liz, Kaitlin, and Abby:

01:08 Liz acknowledges that visiting Cape Town and living here aren’t the same
01:29 We all crammed in our tiny apartment, but it worked out because of the power of love (and lawn furniture)
02:44 So sappy, already
03:22 Everyone shares their most “spiritually funriffic” experience on the trip
03:37 Abrupt Factsy edit
03:40 Everybody loves penguins

05:52 There were also Dassie, which freaked all of us out, except for Liz, because she loves rodents
07:11 I would show you these pictures, but Abby is notorious for not uploading photos until they’ve aged at least six months
07:55 Liz’s most spiritually funriffic moment was on the game reserve drive (the same one we did with Jessica)

08:30 Although this time, we had the World’s Sexiest Ranger, which made it even better
10:38 Reminder of rhino poaching tragedy
11:47 “What the nonsense!?”
12:04 We also did the wine and chocolate pairing at Lanzerac wine farm and loved it!
12:32 And we went to Robben Island (by the by, get well soon, Nelson Mandela!)
13:39 Frankly Scarlett was reunited when Abby and Liz came to my improv class

14:35 If you live near Pittsburgh, check out the Arcade Comedy Theater! Actually, you should check it out regardless of where you live.
16:39 Because Abby (along with Liz) is one of my comedy soulmates
17:00 A few more notes about the game drive (and not about our guide)
17:30 Poop spitting. YOU HEARD ME.
18:14 Long, grateful and then morbid outro
19:12 It’s not really the last episode!
19:24 There’s no EXTRA BIT right now, because there will be an episode-length montage of outtakes up this weekend! You’ll love it!

[Dolly was robbed!]
00:32 This is not actually a special episode because we actually did stuff this week we want to talk about
00:45 Things are going better for Collin at work
01:30 We went to a cricket match!

02:36 I make the dubious argument that cricket is more similar to roller derby than to baseball
03:15 This was a Twenty20 or T20 cricket match
04:00 Our rough summary of the rules of cricket is probably hilarious to anyone who actually understands cricket, which I assume is exactly zero of our listeners.
05:36 “Sticky wicket” is not a familiar idiom to South Africans and Australians
06:00 We object to the dramatic structure of a cricket match
07:44 We went to an improv show, which made me feel more at home
09:30 My friends are coming! My friends are coming! Today!
09:56 Collin possibly resented how much I cleaned up the apartment in preparation for my friends’ arrival.
12:15 Outro
12:38 EXTRA BIT

00:00 Intro
00:22 Collin was super duper tired when we recorded this because of a 22 mile run
01:22 35 episodes in and we’re already recycling material
02:38 Defrosting the freezer (this episode is full of thrills)
04:08 Robin babbles about the Oscars
04:38 I mean seriously
05:30 Collin is a PRETENDER
06:22 My favorite celebrity gossip of all time (illustrations)
08:25 Collin valiantly tries to segue away from celebrity gossip
08:40 We had to be boring this week to recover from last weekend and prepare for my friends visiting next week
10:02 Happy 2nd birthday to our niece Gia!
10:40 Anniversary shout-outs
11:57 We bought eye masks and it might save our marriage
14:16 Seriously, we’re the boringest!
14:40 We have special episodes coming up in the next two weeks to make up for this.
15:20 EXTRA BIT!