Apparently there is a first time for everything, and last night there was a first time for me and crop tops.

I don't wear crop tops.

I don't especially love showing off my waist, and also: I am not twenty, and do not have a particularly long list of places that I go to which non-bathing-suit-related torso-exposure would be considered especially appropriate. Besides, I'm grumpy when I'm cold, and...if not exactly "shy", certainly shyer than "hello, here is my stomach."

But I do wear a lot of sweaters, tees and tank tops that are so slouchy that they're practically falling off, and a significant percentage of them are of the see-through variety, so I've been on the hunt for awhile now for something that I can wear under them and look like I actually meant to have it seen. Not like a camisole, or like a bra. Not like my sequined thing; it catches on everything.

When I was in seventh grade, my best friend and I decided - for whatever reason - that pajama tops (preferably faded, striped ones that looked like they could have belonged to someone's grandfather) were the height of fashion. Every Saturday afternoon, we headed over to the Salvation Army to scour the nightwear and undergarments section (in retrospect, probably not the most in-demand department), and over time I developed quite the collection.

It's been about two decades since I embraced the pajamas-as-daytime-wear thing, so I thought it was time for a revisit. Of course, Grandpa's Old PJs don't make the cut nowadays; if I'm wearing nightwear out and about in public, I want to make sure it doesn't look like I just straight-up forgot to get dressed (because trust me...that does happen all on its own from time to time).

Oh my goodness, I had so much fun hosting the White House Black Market holiday collection party with Marie Claire last week (above, I'm with my cohosts Christine and Julie). I started by getting to catch up with old friends (including some college buddies I haven't seen in ages), met a bunch of new ones...and then ended with Shake Shack on the Metronorth back home, and that is a fantastic night if I've ever heard of one.

Thank you to everyone who came out - you totally made my night!

I’ve always loved the idea of a charm bracelet, but I’ve yet to own one. Or rather I did own one, but only for about a week: Kendrick bought me a vintage chain link bracelet and a small bird charm as a wedding gift, but it slipped off my wrist somewhere in Bangkok.

No time like the present to start over, right?

In the summer after ninth grade, my friends and I started hanging around a certain block on the Upper West Side, right near the Burger King. It was a pretty well-known gathering place for a particular group of kids at that time: a casting director for the movie Kids - an extremely bleak but not entirely off-base portrayal of what teenage life was like in New York City in the mid-1990s - actually hung around there and ended up putting a few of our friends in the film. On Friday and Saturday nights, dozens of us would stream in as the sun set, calling out to each other to see what the plan was - because in the time before cell phones you actually had to stop into places to find out what was going on - then use the pay phone on the corner to page friends who hadn't shown up yet. There was a code for "meet at Burger King", but I can't remember what it was.

When we'd gathered a big enough group, we'd wander through Central Park, head over to the East Side to stop into the apartment of someone whose parents were out of town, and then usually end up sitting in the grass outside the Met after night fell, our backs leaned against the slanting glass wall of the Egyptian exhibit, doing our best to get into trouble but mostly only playing game after game of "I Never."

There was this one summer when a girl named Hannah seemed like the center of it all: she had long, dark bangs, wore glitter eye makeup and perfect bellbottoms and her hair in two high, twisted buns on top of her head, and was best friends with the boy I had decided that I was in love with for the moment. She seemed comfortable in a way that I wanted so badly; I never could figure out how to be at rest with myself with too many people around - especially people who I very much wanted to be just like. While we walked in large packs down the cobblestone streets bordering the park, yelling and laughing and shoving each other, I always had the sense that I was hovering somewhere outside of myself, looking in at my awkward way of holding my arms, my spotty skin, my not-quite-right sneakers, and seeing just how much I didn't fit.