It’s Carousel time! Round & round & round we go in my review of the best of the web!

Alex asks, WHAT IF? in Life Prompts: Luminous Spirals Of What-iffing!

These fantastical queen portraits are so vivid!

I am a sucker for the old “year in review”. Here’s John (aka Halcyon)’s year in review–which is actually what inspired me to take the plunge & post my own last week!

Reasons To Love New York 2010 from New York Magazine. YAY!

From Jeanni:

Project Pledge is all about change. It’s based around the quote by Mahatma Ghandi “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” I’m suggesting that we all take a pledge, or two or three or however many we each want, and aim it toward the change that we each want to see in the world. The pledge can be as small as you want, or as big. It could be just pledging to get up earlier so you can ride your bike to class, or take the bus, rather than driving. Or it could be as big as pledging to write letters to every congress person in support of a cause. Or even bigger! I based my pledges around the change I want to see. I want to see my generation taking responsibility for our actions, turning around the stereotype of college students as frivolous, irresponsible children, and growing up. I’ve taken three pledges in support of this change: I pledge to put my boots on and take the dogs for a walk because my laziness shouldn’t cost them a chance to go outside and get some exercise and go to the bathroom; I pledge to remember when my grandmother has to take her pills because my family is the most important thing in the world to me; and I pledge to square my shoulders and present myself as an 18-year-old adult, not an 18-year-old kid. These may seem like small pledges, but they’re my first steps toward making my change happen. Taking care of the dogs and my grandmother is the first step toward taking more responsibility for the things in my life, and hopefully toward inspiring the people around me to make changes in their lives. For more information, see the Project Pledge page on my blog.

Happy Days: “Eighties party icon Susanne Bartsch returns to save nightlife from bottle service and Paris Hilton.” Susanne Bartsch is legendary!

More Alex, ’cause she’s the greatest! Serfs, Smoking Breaks & Solitude: The ABCs Of Electrified Efficiency. Well, A through F, anyway! Here are her tricks for uber-productivity.

The CEO of Tablet Hotels is–as you would imagine–a voracious traveller. Here, he recaps his top travel experiences of 2010. It’s a cute little piece & I love the traditions he’s created for him & his family!

Psychic Styles: Fashions in Metaphysical Media.

When watching Lisa Williams’s stage performance, I began to wonder why British ladies make such popular and successful psychics. Perhaps their genteel accents hearken back to the heyday of Victorian spiritualism, the era of ectoplasm and ouija boards, séances and tinkling spirit footsteps. Or perhaps they fit the archetype of the magical English nanny embodied by characters like Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, a stock character closely related to those dotty British aunts played in the movies by Maggie Smith and Margaret Rutherford. Or maybe there is a connection to the tradition of Celtic witchcraft, passed along from Morgan-la-Fay, Vivian, the Lady of the Lake and other mythical mystics.

Everyone I’ve Had Sex With by Megan Boyle. I find this really interesting, I don’t know why exactly. I just think human relationships are fascinating. & three brothers?! Way to go!

Afterwards I was hungry, so we got falafel. It was maybe two in the morning. He said grace before eating his falafel. I asked him what that was about. He said one time he did acid and saw god or something, and now he blesses his food. He mumbled a lot and didn’t make eye contact. I tried to get him to leave for about two hours and he finally did at four in the morning. Never responded to his text messages or calls after that.

For more of the same kinda thing, see All The Boyfriends I’ve Ever Had in Chronological Order, Pt. 1 of 4.

The Difficulties of Being Single vs. the Difficulties of Being in a Long-Term Monogamous Relationship.

Being single can elicit a lot of despair. A normal person with normal amounts of charisma and social ability cannot just walk into a bar and happen upon a relationship when he or she desires to do so. Finding a relationship post-college is an arduous and often humiliating process that involves many strategies, the majority of which require the user to subject him or herself to uncomfortable and what some might say are unseemly situations.

How To Be A Complete Douche. (Can you tell that Thought Catalog is my new obsession?)

How To Live In New York City. This is pretty much a summary of the experience every new transplant has!

A Survival Guide for the 26-35 Age Range in 2011.

How To Be My Girlfriend. Cute.

I Like Danger: Getting Scared and Getting Over it at the Kathleen Hanna Tribute Show.

There are a few intimate details my good friends know about me. I hate roller coasters, I still sleep with a binky, and my favorite band of all time is Bikini Kill. It’s just a thing. It’s “one of Lesley’s things.” My whole life I have claimed ownership of these facts, but especially the Bikini Kill fact because even though I’m older and mature and normal and all that, a small part of me still needs you to know that while you may have liked Bikini Kill, I still like them more.

Hahaha!

How To Be A 20-Something. (The comments are stupid.)

Playboy mansion? More like a squalid prison: Former Playmates tell of ‘grubby’ world inside Hugh Hefner’s empire. Surprising? No. But very interesting regardless.

But St James — with big university debts — was more interested in the weekly pocket money which Hefner paid all his girlfriends. ‘Every Friday morning we had to go to Hef’s room, wait while he picked up all the dog poo off the carpet — and then ask for our allowance: a thousand dollars counted out in crisp hundred-dollar bills from a safe in one of his bookcases,’ she says.

Hungry for 2011 horoscopes? I know you are! I am ravenous for ’em myself! Voila: AstroTwins 2011 horoscopes, AstroTwins January horoscopes & Susan Miller’s 2011 horoscopes!

Dr Wayne Dyer tells us we should resolve to get real.

For example, instead of deciding you are going to give up sugar for a year, resolve to go one day without eating sugar. Anyone can do virtually anything if it is for only one day. When you go for one whole day without eating sugar (or any other new behavior), you are a totally different person at the end of that day. Learn to let that totally different person decide on the second day whether he or she wants to do it again on this new day, rather than letting the same old person decide that it is only going to be difficult in a couple of days anyhow, “so what’s the use.” Always let the new you make the decision, and then you’ll be living your present moments.

How to get paid what you’re worth by Peter Shankman. Essential reading for the self-employed!

Hunter S. Thompson: Fear & Loathing in Gonzovision. Oh just click it, would you?

I love Karen Robinovitz’s segment for Powerwomen TV!

Kim (from Wildfox Couture) does the most beautiful illustrations! I really enjoyed this peek into her suitcase, too!

The story of Ted Williams brings tears to my eyes!

I can’t remember if I’ve linekd this before or not… Rainbow vagina cupcakes! Yes, really.

Wildfox Couture’s White Label lookbook is gorgeous. I need that sequin heart on EVERYTHING!

I get a LOT of emails from girls who are having trouble finding work. Luckily, Liz has created Coming of Age in a Crap Economy to keep your sprits high!

ComingofAgeinaCrapEconomy.com (and @CrapEconomy) is the new one-stop web destination for advice, news and news aggregation, and general chatter about being a 20something in the recession. It’s a place where 20somethings can speak out, share their stories, and remind each other that we’re not going through these problems alone.

I love these Marie Antoinette-esque photographs by John Wright!

Whoever styled Jessica Alba for this Elle shoot did such an incredible job! Can I have all of those pieces in my wardrobe please? Particularly the pink & orange Yves Saint Laurent two-piece number…

Photos of the new year rolling in from all around the world! There are fireworks, balloons, &… children wearing bear heads in Romania?! Such a fun collection of pictures!

Here are 20 of the best pieces of advice from photographers & artists in 2010. Love it!

You have to believe that your vision is just as valid as anyone else’s, have faith in that vision, and then approach your own work with rigor. It is the rigor that breeds work of consequence I think. (Andrew Zuckerman)

Animals who think they’re human. Hahah!

Do you have room for a lovely mixtape in your life? Here: songs to lie on your bed & stare at the ceiling to.

Go New Zealand! I love the Auckland City Mission’s everyday angels campaign!

Like every other girl in her twenties, I love photos of the night sky. Here are 20 of the best.

Rune Guneriussen takes photos of lamps… & who ever knew they could be so beautiful?!

Iceland is beautiful, too… but we all knew that!

These layered paper sculptures blow my mind!

The evolution of man & woman. …It made me laugh.

From The Atlantic. Hard Core: The new world of porn is revealing eternal truths about men and women. This article is fascinating. Some of it I agree with, some of it I do not…

Hard-core porn, which is what Internet porn largely traffics in, is undoubtedly extreme. But how is sex, as a human experience, anything less than extreme? Not the kind of sex (or lack thereof) that occurs in marriages that double as domestic gulags. Or what 30-somethings do to each other in the second year of their “serious relationship.” But the sex that occurs in between relationships—or overlaps with relationships—where the buffers of intimacy or familiarity do not exist: the raw, unpracticed sort. If a woman thinks of the best sex she’s had in her life, she’s often thinking of this kind of sex, and while it may be the best sex in her life, it’s not the sex she wants to have throughout her life—or more accurately, it’s not the sex she’d have with the man with whom she’d like to spend her life. The manner in which one physically, and emotionally, contorts oneself for sex simply takes sex outside the realm of ordinary human experiences and places it in the extreme, often beyond our control. “Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness,” Susan Sontag wrote in Styles of Radical Will. Yes, it’s a natural, human function, and one from which both partners can derive enormous pleasure, but it is also one largely driven by brute male desire and therefore not at all free of violent, even cruel, urges.

From Snopes! Claim: January is the “break-up” month for couples. TRUE. Uh-oh! Click to find out why.

Best Fitness Routines Fit Your Personality, Studies Show. If you’ve always had trouble finding a fitness routine you enjoy, knowing more about your personality can help you find something to stick with!

Couples Gow Old, Happy & Sad Together. See also: happiness is contagious, & the longer you’re together, the more alike you will look!

The Tyranny of Choice. Too many options is demotivating! So true!

I was interviewed by My LookBook!

It’s no secret that I LOVE Molly Crabapple! She did a closet interview with StyleLikeU & you need to watch it.

Indecorous Taste made gorgeous flower harnesses for shoes… I want a pair so badly!

This is the New York no one ever sees. A video shot underground. Thanks to Aussie for the link!

WHOAH!!! STFU, Parents just blew my mind! The chasm between “breeders” (ugh, what a term) & “the rest of us” widens! Intense!

You used to be fun. Now you have a baby. If you’re being driven crazy by your friends’ baby updates every time you check your status feed, please feel free to contribute to this blog.

Just found out (yes, I’m a little late) that costumed superheroes aren’t allowed on Hollywood Boulevard any more!

Finally, your fortune for 2011. (Mine? “Imagination rules the world.” — Napoleon)