What did we learn from the 2017 Emmys?

The Emmys are like the pot of gold at the end of rainbow after dedicating countless hours to watching everything from Veep to The Handmaid's Tale. Except, my "gold" isn't even an award, but mostly consists of yelling either "YES I KNEW IT" or "WHAT, WHY" to winners. And my "rainbow" is mostly just a collection of times I saw my Shrek reflection in the TV after Netflix interrupted my 20-hour binge to ask if I was still a breathing, human woman.

Per usual, I destroyed my soul ahead of the show by indulging in the pre-pre-pre-pre-Red Carpet featuring Laguna Beach megastar Kristin Cavallari. She is actually the one person I don't feel remorse over shit-talking because, based on two seasons of Laguna Beach which I take as gospel, she was an absolute bitch. A literal mean girl. So anyway she looked like a bobble head and I am constantly perplexed at how her flamingo neck holds up that bigass noggin.

Kristin was just the first taco in this 99-cent value pack of E!'s finest. The king bean burrito came through as Giuliana Rancic. To be honest, it feels like it's been so long since she has created a film of self-tanner over my eyes. And I'm just watching on TV! Imagine what the frontlines are like. Actually, here's the ever courageous Elisabeth Moss trying to avoid the fumes, looking like a glass of milk next to a glass of Cheetos dust:

Because you're wondering, yes, E!'s cameras did catch me on the red carpet. I was trying to get Milo Ventimiglia's attention to let him know he left his watch and also his heart at my apartment:

Best dressed

In general, I find Jessica Biel about as interesting as crumpled up aluminum foil, but on Emmy night she delivered. I absolutely loved this ethereal dress like she just came out of an Enya song complemented by an old Hollywood'esque hairstyle. And while yes, she is more bland than overcooked pasta, she has a pretty smokin' bod, so everything looks phenomenal on her. I was also glad to see she continued the mono-leg dress slit trend. 

As someone with a Ph.D. in red carpet studies, I am well aware of how hard it is to pull off a red dress. Issa Rae is now the textbook definition for doing it right. Her make-up is absolutely flawless and despite how creepy this sounds, I wish I could steal her smile. Not in a serial killer way, but I want to copy/paste her smile onto my face (that's much less creepy). I love how this Vera Wang gown has asymmetrical sleeves that let her shoulders breathe, because I can't fully express how often my shoulders have had the urge to burst out of their sleeves. 

One of my favorite things to do in life is wear no pants. Reese Witherspoon agrees and wore this tailored suit jacket that appears to have lots of pockets for snacks. I heard that when Laura Dern hugged her, she crushed her bag of Funyuns and Reese was pissed. And smelled like fried onions. Fucking Dern, always on one. Anyway, I love the bottomless nature to this outfit. I hope Reese optimized use of it by fully Winnie the Pooh'ing at the after party, eating honey straight out of a pot.

Before I saw Laverne Cox, I was actively complaining about both metallic dresses and the slicked-back hair look. But then she showed up and anyway it's the second time I've ever been wrong in my whole life (the first time was when I assured everyone that CDs were here to stay). Laverne makes slicked-back hair look classic, as opposed to everyone else doing it who looks like they just ran a marathon in the rain. And I love the paneling situation on this gown.

Best dressed couple

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This is no shocker as I have Backstreet Boys teen girl screamed about Tom Cullen and Tatiana Maslany so many times. They looked gorgeous together and honestly if another biblical flood happens and Noah has to build an ark, he should def kick off the pair of rhinos because we won't need them but we will need Tatiana and Tom to repopulate the Earth. I have now literally stared at this photo for a long enough period of time to creep myself out, so we'll move on.

I'm pretty sure Shailene Woodley doesn't shower

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I think that's what she means when she says her favorite beauty product is "happiness." During an earlier interview, she was asked what she watched on TV this year to which she said "Nothing. I don't own a TV." Okay and wait, things get even more Shailene'y. She said she doesn't have time for television and just reads books. HAVE Y'ALL EVER READ A BOOK. THAT SHIT TAKES A LONG ASS TIME. Watching an episode of The Handmaid's Tale literally takes 45 minutes. Reading Moby Dick takes 45 years. I timed it.

Big Little Lies did not come to play with you hoes

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Little known fact about me: I love Laura Dern. Literally everything she's been in and by "everything" I mean as the mom in The Fault in Our Stars and of course as Renata in Big Little Lies. I just have a feeling she takes shit from no one in real life and could easily be provoked to kick a guy in the balls. Anyway, I felt the Dern Burn as she took home Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series.

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Nicole Kidman won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series and honestly no one came even close to topping her performance. If you haven't watched Big Little Lies, what are you even doing with your life. To be honest, I'm not even the biggest Nikki K fan, but her performance is phenomenal. And anyway this bitch does what she wants, including kissing Alexander Skarsgard on the mouth in front of her husband as he goes up to accept Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series.

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The show then obviously won Outstanding Limited Series and all I kept thinking of was how memorable that one scene in the finale was with all of the women communicating with each other with just a look. It remains one of my favorite scenes from a TV show and not just because of what happens to Skarsgard following this.

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My boyfriend made history

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Donald Glover, or as I so lovingly refer to him, D.Glo, took home two Emmys for "Atlanta." His first, Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series, made him the first black director to win the category, EVER. And his second, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, has not been won by a person of color in 32 years. THIRTY-TWO YEARS. Plus, did you know he invented looking good in a purple suit? That D.Glo, ever the visionary.

My fiancée also made history

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Riz Ahmed won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for "The Night Of," making him the first male South Asian actor to win an Emmy (in an acting category). I was unable to attend the ceremony due to a prior bucket of friend chicken engagement, so Riz had to settle for sitting next to up-and-coming actress Oprah Winfrey. I'm gonna be straight up with you here and let you know I've only see two episodes of "The Night Of," but I mean, I've looked at plenty of photos of Riz on Google Images so I think it's about the same. 

WHO RUN THE WORLD (answer: girls)

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Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe won Best Writing for a Comedy Series for the Thanksgiving episode of "Master of None," making Lena the first black woman to win the category. And she wore a dope ass suit and Aziz stood there super supportive and cute and my point here is that Beyonce always knew who ran this ship.

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Reed Morano won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the pilot episode of "The Handmaid's Tale," making her the first woman to win the category in TWENTY-TWO YEARS. At this point in the show, I had burned all of my tiny bras.

Selina Meyer 2020

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy for the SIXTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR. Meaning she has won this award for EVERY season of Veep. As someone who is constantly sought after by myself for her opinion, I can without a doubt say JLD is the funniest actress on TV. Veep also won Outstanding Comedy Series and if we're being totally fair which I am about 43% of the time, no other shows should've been nominated. 

Can you request what song interrupts your speech?

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It's great and all to stay on-time, but blaring some random violin/trumpet music while Sterling K. Brown is talking is pretty rude. It made me wonder though, if the Emmys are gonna be rude as hell to you and ruin your moment, can they at least let you choose what song plays as you're being kicked offstage? Because while being interrupted would piss me off, hearing "Work From Home" would cheer me up and The Television Academy wouldn't have to worry about me rage throwing the mic stand into the audience while Hulk tearing my dress apart (this is precisely why I am not invited to any work functions). Just a suggestion.

"YOU GET AN EMMY AND YOU GET AN EMMY AND YOU GET AN EMMY"
 —Oprah to the cast of The Handmaid's Tale

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So Elisabeth Moss obviously won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series because if you've even seen a promo for the show, you understand. This little glass of milk can act. I've seen her in the series "Top of the Lake," which she's also amazing in (even though her "Australian" accent is a little kookaburra). I never really watched Mad Men, but I've seen this gif and based on it I can confirm she was amazing in it.

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The series won Outstanding Drama which, similar to what I said about Big Little Lies, if you haven't watched this show,  I question your judgment as an alleged human being. The story is riveting, the cinematography is gorgeous, every cast member is amazing AND the ladies wear these super cute New York Fashion Week capes and bonnets.

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As a note, Alexis Bledel won Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series (it was presented during the Creative Emmys two weeks ago). Our little Rory Gilmore! It almost makes me forgive her for marrying Vincent Kartheiser's receding hairline.

Lastly, Colbert delivered

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His opening was hilarious and included 1000 of our fav celebs, including Chance the Rapper. Someone else made a surprise appearance but I refuse to associate that person's name with one of my favorite awards shows. Rather, I offer my favorite reaction to his appearance featuring Anna Chlumsky (and Rachel Bloom with the GTFO out face in the background):

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His monologue also mentioned how Trump criticized Seth Meyers' hosting skills back in 2014, saying it sounded like he had a "mouth full of marbles." Which gave us one of the best gifs of the night and not just because you can see my ex-boyfriend Colin Jost:

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And that's it! 2017 Emmys in the bag. We'll see how the competition is next year when Game of Thrones is back in the running (and Tatiana Maslany for Orphan Black). I leave you with this photo of some banana bread because it's what Chrissy Teigen was doing instead of attending the show. Til next time, see y'all on Twitter!

Kristi does: The U.S. Open

As I've mentioned many times, any event involving a gathering of celebrities is of interest to me, particularly events that intersect with fashion. So what fashion-fueled celebrity gathering presented itself to me most recently? The U.S. Open of course.

For those of you who aren't tennis fans (example: me), the U.S. Open is the final tennis major or Grand Slam of the year (other Grand Slams: Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon). It's last because we are America and we insist on the "save the best for last" moniker that has been our senior class motto since 1776. The Open honestly has it all: amazing athletes wearing coordinated Nike outfits, A-listers, cocktails, fried chicken, french fries, beer, pizza, hot dogs, wait, what were we talking about.

Before going to the event, I had minimal tennis knowledge, most of which was garnered from my friend Chloe who played in high school. She imparted this very important wisdom about how to angle your racket while serving: "You cut the cheese then swat the fly" and anyway my tennis lessons did not go much further as I could not stop laughing at "cut the cheese." OH SURE, LIKE YOU DON'T LAUGH AT FART JOKES, PLEASE.

I wanted to go not only because of the celebrities that attend but also because of all the celebrities who attend and sit among the common folk. Can you believe that? Like, I could bump into Anna Wintour and accidentally spill waffle fries on her. Why do they even risk it?

For the record, and don't worry my family and friends know this, if I reach any D-list level of fame I will:
1) Forget all of my friends immediately
2) Insist that my posse refer to me only as the sound "swish"
3) Introduce myself to people by holding my hand out to kiss, but not actually kiss, but air kiss, because I cannot have peasant saliva on my dainty yet famous hand

Anyway, I was lucky enough to see the quarterfinal matches of Madison Keys v. Kaia Kanepi and Roger Federer v. Juan Martin del Potro. Some things I learned from my first foray into the tennis world:

Why can't all sports be in Arthur Ashe Stadium?

It's gorgeous and the roof opens and closes depending on the weather (don't we all though). It's also enormous and can hold more than 23,000 bougie ass people dressed in polos and boat shoes. I have honestly never experienced more khakis and Vineyard Vines and sweater capes (when people tie sweaters around their necks) in one place before. That's saying a lot because I've been to the Hamptons and I went to college in the south, aka, sweater cape heaven. Nonetheless, every seat has a pretty sweet view and you don't have to worry about rain or wind or fucking pigeons blowing in the wind toward you. This is how all sports should be experienced.

Tennis players are fit, but not as top heavy as I would expect

This sounds so scientific because I am a very fact-based individual. I had no idea how hard they hit those balls (hehe balls, grow up you guys). Both the men and women had serves well over 100 mph, so nearly as fast as me driving to Zefron's house after his security gate's code is leaked online. Because of this, I just expected their upper bodies to be a little Hulk like, but anyway here's Roger Federer:

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Let the record show that I'm not body shaming, merely sharing my surprise. 

UPDATE: I just found out Federer made $67 million in 2016, making him the fourth highest-paid athlete in the world, so as it turns out I love tennis bod.

It's a very sweaty affair

And not just from the meat sweats I get after eating 150 chicken fingers. The players looked like they were soaked. At one point, del Potro changed his shirt. Full disclosure, I didn't know how taxing tennis was. Maybe because movies tell me that Nilla Wafers like Kirsten Dunst finish a match with every hair and eyelash in place and negative amounts of sweat (but like "Wimbledon" was kind of a good movie, so whatever). 

There is no halftime show

The fact that Serena didn't show up at halftime to play in a match against her new baby was really disappointing. And to make matters worse, BEYONCE DID NOT SHOW UP. What even is the point in going to a sporting event if Beyonce isn't there? I'll offer this as feedback to the World Tennis Association.

I think I want to be Madison Keys?

Okay and not just because she has flawless skin that I could see from miles away, but also because she's 22, was the first American woman to debut in the top 10 since Serena, is coached by hall of fame HBIC tennis legend Lindsay Davenport and to top it off, she's humble AF. After she won her match in two straight sets, she just said how excited she was for four American women to be in the semis.

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Here's a shot of her almost doing a split while sliding for a shot. A split. You guys. Have you ever accidentally fell into a split position because it's not as delightful as it sounds. If (literally) placed into that position I assume my inner thigh muscles would say "I quit" and exit the legs. I have a lot to learn and stretch if I want to be Madison when I grow younger.

This is the first semifinal featuring all U.S. women since 1981

Reminder that the glorious year of 1981 also gave us the births of our Lord and Savior, Beyonce, and Saint Serena Williams. They both approve of this semifinal. Venus Williams! Sloane Stephens! Coco Vandeweghe! Madison Keys! I love this and it inspires me to actually learn tennis and not just through Wii Sports.

UPDATE: Madison beat Coco in two straight sets to advance and Sloane Stephens came through with the underdog win and beat Venus! For some background, Sloane is 24, came into the U.S. Open ranked 83, and the point here is she's a boss ass bitch, an amazing player whose net game is insane plus she's gorg and I have the receipts:

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It's best to bring binoculars

Per a ham sandwich throwing incident with Katy Perry at a Brooklyn Nets game, I am banned from front row seats at most events featuring humans. But, binoculars rectified the distance issue, allowing me to watch Katie Couric chat with her husband. I also stared for an unreasonable amount of time at a woman who looked like Yolanda Hadid and for coolness factor, let's just say it was her. With my Pandora's Box of creep fully open, I also found James Franco. He was wearing all black while having an oddly intense conversation with the guy seated next to him. Based on his serious demeanor and hand gestures, I'm positive he was listing reasons why Danity Kane is the greatest girl group of all time. Here are my extra HQ shots of both of them:

I know, you're wondering why People magazine and The New York Times haven't asked me for these exclusive shots because the clarity and up-closeness are quite professional. It's important for me to divulge that I quite literally found James Franco using my creeper senses. I was randomly browsing an area of the crowd with binoculars, as one does, and spotted him immediately. If that isn't a marketable skill, I don't know what is. 

And lastly, a summary of how tennis scoring works

Okay so basically the court looks like four Pop-Tarts laid together with two breadsticks on each side. For singles matches, the breadsticks are just for show because if you single you shouldn't be in the breadsticks. 

Serving: If you stand on the left side of the horizontal Pop-Tart, you have to hit into the vertical Pop-Tart on the right, and vice-versa. You get two chances to get into the Pop-Tart. If the ball goes out of bounds, some random man in a folding chair yells "AHHHHH" and your opponent gets a point. Also at this time and any time a ball goes out of bounds, a small child darts onto the court to retrieve the ball like some sort of frantic Hungry Hungry Hippo game.

Points: So you get 15, then 30, then random as fuck 40, then game point to win the game. You have to win 6 games to win the set and then 2 (for ladies) or 3 (for guys) sets to win the match. As a note, if y'all are tied at 40, they don't call this Jay-Z's 40/40 club, instead, they call it "Deuce," because alluding to poop seems much better.

Tie-Breaker: This happens when it's already 11 p.m. and you're dying to go to sleep but two men insist on making a match longer. Federer and del Potro did this when they were tied at 6 games a piece in the third set. There was lots of rallying and honestly it was exciting but made me realize tennis scoring is like a Russian nesting doll. You get points which count for points which then count for points which, SHOCKER, count for points. POINTS IN POINTS IN POINTS.

Winning: Apparently, if you win you have to pose like Tim Robbins in "Shawshank Redemption" when he finally escapes.

I don't find this nearly extra enough. I've given this a lot of thought so as to be prepared for when I win a U.S. Open match, and decided on these two moves as my winner finishers:

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And that's it! I've now been to a major tennis tournament and I'm a converted fan and I don't know, I guess I'll probably be hanging out with Serena and Venus soon enough. Will keep you posted.

Let me know if y'all have something you'd like me to try, which disclaimer, this request has to somehow involve celebrities and/or food. Or both if you're creative. See you next Sunday for the Emmys!