Saturday, March 24, 2007
self-pampering and well-being
most of you who know me now would likely be very surprised to learn that i used to be a foofy-girl. as a teenager, i was one of those girls who never had a bad manicure, whose toenails were either fire engine red, pearly pink, plum purple or flashy fuschia, who spent all of her extra spending money on hair care products, lip glosses, body treatments and polishes of various sorts. probably because i don't have nice boobs or a shapely body or a hot booty, i focused all my attention on maintaining a blemish free, smooth, buffed, almost perfect integumentary system. during that period in my life, leg and armpit hairs were never allowed to reach more than 24 hours maturity, manicures and pedicures were paint-chip, callous, dry skin and cuticle free, and the epidermis was soaked, exfoliated and lotioned with great ceremony and frequency.
sometime between being a care-free teen and a serious college student, i stopped painting my fingernails and wearing mascara and lip gloss every single day. sometime between being a serious college student and a not-so-serious master's student, i stopped soaking and exfoliating. sometime between being a not-so-serious master's student and a very poor immigrant working as a volunteer to keep the resume current, i stopped buying nice hair care products and face washes. somewhere between being a very poor immigrant and a low paid non-profit administrator, i stopped having my hair trimmed regularly and buffing the callouses off my feet (i NEVER wear shoes inside, and i wear shoes outside only in deference to the fear of having a hookworm burrow through the soles of my feet and find its way to my intestines, hence the persistent development of callouses).
now that i am a part-time research analyst and novelist with more free time and a bit more money on my hands, i am beginning to rediscover the sense of well-being that such self-pampering engendered. i am eating healthfully. i am exercising regularly (albiet resentfully). on thursday, i soaked, exfoliated, and lotioned my feet, and then painted my toenails a fabulous color (OPI's chica-go-get-a-manicure, if you're interested). my feet look and feel excellent. ;) i bought some nice shampoo to combat the effects of the bad highlight job that damaged the ends of my hair, and the curls are starting to bounce back. this morning, i shaved, exfoliated with the body shop's coconut scrub and lotioned with body shop coconut body butter. i smell good, my skin is soft as a baby's ass, and i feel awesome.
i feel so good in fact that i'm asking myself why i ever stopped my self-pampering routine. of course, part of reason is money, or a lack thereof for a long period in my life. but i realize now it's not about the type of 'product' you buy. it's about taking the time to care for yourself, to get in touch with what's going on with your body. it's almost a kind of meditation. you have to parce out a segment of time devoted just to your physical self. i don't have any problem giving that time to 'intellectual' or 'social' persuits -- i always make sure to spend time reading or writing, catching up on the news, catching up on my favorite TV shows, spending quality time with chris because these things are important to me. until recently, i've never made that kind of time to take care of my physical or material self -- i'll put it off, or not think about it all. i lived in my head so much that i forgot that my body needs just as much attention as my mind. today, i remembered.
sometime between being a care-free teen and a serious college student, i stopped painting my fingernails and wearing mascara and lip gloss every single day. sometime between being a serious college student and a not-so-serious master's student, i stopped soaking and exfoliating. sometime between being a not-so-serious master's student and a very poor immigrant working as a volunteer to keep the resume current, i stopped buying nice hair care products and face washes. somewhere between being a very poor immigrant and a low paid non-profit administrator, i stopped having my hair trimmed regularly and buffing the callouses off my feet (i NEVER wear shoes inside, and i wear shoes outside only in deference to the fear of having a hookworm burrow through the soles of my feet and find its way to my intestines, hence the persistent development of callouses).
now that i am a part-time research analyst and novelist with more free time and a bit more money on my hands, i am beginning to rediscover the sense of well-being that such self-pampering engendered. i am eating healthfully. i am exercising regularly (albiet resentfully). on thursday, i soaked, exfoliated, and lotioned my feet, and then painted my toenails a fabulous color (OPI's chica-go-get-a-manicure, if you're interested). my feet look and feel excellent. ;) i bought some nice shampoo to combat the effects of the bad highlight job that damaged the ends of my hair, and the curls are starting to bounce back. this morning, i shaved, exfoliated with the body shop's coconut scrub and lotioned with body shop coconut body butter. i smell good, my skin is soft as a baby's ass, and i feel awesome.
i feel so good in fact that i'm asking myself why i ever stopped my self-pampering routine. of course, part of reason is money, or a lack thereof for a long period in my life. but i realize now it's not about the type of 'product' you buy. it's about taking the time to care for yourself, to get in touch with what's going on with your body. it's almost a kind of meditation. you have to parce out a segment of time devoted just to your physical self. i don't have any problem giving that time to 'intellectual' or 'social' persuits -- i always make sure to spend time reading or writing, catching up on the news, catching up on my favorite TV shows, spending quality time with chris because these things are important to me. until recently, i've never made that kind of time to take care of my physical or material self -- i'll put it off, or not think about it all. i lived in my head so much that i forgot that my body needs just as much attention as my mind. today, i remembered.
Monday, March 12, 2007
frakkety frakking frak
as most of you know, i am a battlestar galactica whore. i gobble up BSG episodes like i've been known to gobble up dairy queen ice cream cake. as a result of my near total immersion in the BSG world of skin-jobs, toasters, the CAG and tyllium fuel, i have picked up a very useful new word: frak.
frak is how the brilliant writers of BSG manage to get past the FCC and let the main characters curse like the soldiers they are, and i have shamelessly incorporated it into my vocabulary. i walk around the grocery store wondering where they moved the frakking shake'n'bake, why that frakking lady at the meat counter cut in front of me in line, and whether or not i have few enough items to go in the frakking express lane. i've been known to utter, "holy frak, that's expensive!" while picking out curry paste.
the very very best thing about frak is that i can walk around cursing loudly as i am prone to do in the most mundane circumstances and feel not one iota of guilt! i am not cussing in public! my mother used to chastise me when i let loose with a string of swear words that would make little old ladies and suburban housewives look like they'd swallowed something nasty. i wasn't trying to offend, it's just that going to the grocery store is very stressful for me, and i am a firm believer in letting your stress out through a non-physical pressure valve: in my case, cussing. i'm not trying to be obscene. i'm just trying to keep from going postal. it really does make me feel better. with the help of frak, the little old ladies and suburban housewives still give me looks of disgust, but now they are primarily made up of confusion and "what a weirdo" rather than "how uncouth!"
frak is how the brilliant writers of BSG manage to get past the FCC and let the main characters curse like the soldiers they are, and i have shamelessly incorporated it into my vocabulary. i walk around the grocery store wondering where they moved the frakking shake'n'bake, why that frakking lady at the meat counter cut in front of me in line, and whether or not i have few enough items to go in the frakking express lane. i've been known to utter, "holy frak, that's expensive!" while picking out curry paste.
the very very best thing about frak is that i can walk around cursing loudly as i am prone to do in the most mundane circumstances and feel not one iota of guilt! i am not cussing in public! my mother used to chastise me when i let loose with a string of swear words that would make little old ladies and suburban housewives look like they'd swallowed something nasty. i wasn't trying to offend, it's just that going to the grocery store is very stressful for me, and i am a firm believer in letting your stress out through a non-physical pressure valve: in my case, cussing. i'm not trying to be obscene. i'm just trying to keep from going postal. it really does make me feel better. with the help of frak, the little old ladies and suburban housewives still give me looks of disgust, but now they are primarily made up of confusion and "what a weirdo" rather than "how uncouth!"
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
to all my fan(s?)
today, while chatting with margarita, i was very politely berated (it wasn't really a beration, it was more of an encouragement, but she called it that, so i must respect her agency in naming her words) because i don't post on my blog enough. she is completely right. totally and completely. it's not as though i don't have time. it's not as though i don't have shit to talk about -- i must, for all the time i spend chatting with you all on various chat programs. and then there's my own blog habit. my list of bookmarked blogs is now about as long as my very large flat panel computer monitor and i check them all at least once a day. so i am READING blogs. i'm just not WRITING my blog. (by the way, i'd be totally pissed if any of my blog peeps that i regularly read didn't post for as long as i go between posts. and yes, that's a threat AND a promise.)
now, on to our soon-to-be-regularly scheduled posting...
so i just re-read the entire harry potter series. fucking fabulous. i mean, jk rowling is a genius. i appreciate this even more now that i've been writing my own novel. she is able to weave together plot elements like magic (mwhaha), and when she does the big writing no-no -- including a scene that doesn't advance the plot or reveal something about the characters -- it is always so much fun to read that you don't care if it advances the plot or not, you could read her writing about opening a can of alphagetti.
now, i've been finished with HP and friends for a couple of weeks, so in bookless desperation, i cracked open one of chris's nelson demille books, called charm school. i like him and his stuff, generally. in fact, some of his books are downright fantastic -- see the lion's game, cathedral, talbot odyssey. this one, though... not so much. for one thing, he is writing in third person, and when the character thinks something to himself, it is put in quotation marks!!! i know it's a small thing, but it's driving me nuts, cause i keep thinking.... is someone else in the room that i missed? secondly, there are these incredibly long descriptive scenes. i know, it's the pot calling the kettle black cause i've been known to enoy writing the odd descriptive scene myself, but these are like.... about antique shops in moscow and shit. makes me wonder if he's cutting and pasting from his travel journal. oh, oh. and the sex scene! ugh! i don't expect wonders from male writers when it comes to sex scenes, but this one was just... why even have it in there at all? went something like this.... little bit of foreplay, insertion, and then... and i quote, "she grabbed his buttocks as she came." new paragraph. "he came." i do not lie, and i have not omitted anything. it was so ugh, ugh, ugh, from both a writer's perspective and a romantic's perspective. but mostly from a writer's perspective.
the point of all this is not to discourage you from reading the book, but rather to explain a VERY important realization i came to while trying to force myself further into the novel before putting it down for good. this was one of demille's first books. he's come so far as a writer and a novelist since that first one. the first one is always going to be somewhat less than perfect. it will probably have parts that are messy, parts that are awkward, parts that are anti-climactic. parts that are over-descriptive, parts where the dialogue is stilted and forced. so i don't need the first one to be perfect, i just need it to a) tell the story that's rattling around in my head and b) tell it well enough to get an agent and get that first publishing credit under my belt!
now, on to our soon-to-be-regularly scheduled posting...
so i just re-read the entire harry potter series. fucking fabulous. i mean, jk rowling is a genius. i appreciate this even more now that i've been writing my own novel. she is able to weave together plot elements like magic (mwhaha), and when she does the big writing no-no -- including a scene that doesn't advance the plot or reveal something about the characters -- it is always so much fun to read that you don't care if it advances the plot or not, you could read her writing about opening a can of alphagetti.
now, i've been finished with HP and friends for a couple of weeks, so in bookless desperation, i cracked open one of chris's nelson demille books, called charm school. i like him and his stuff, generally. in fact, some of his books are downright fantastic -- see the lion's game, cathedral, talbot odyssey. this one, though... not so much. for one thing, he is writing in third person, and when the character thinks something to himself, it is put in quotation marks!!! i know it's a small thing, but it's driving me nuts, cause i keep thinking.... is someone else in the room that i missed? secondly, there are these incredibly long descriptive scenes. i know, it's the pot calling the kettle black cause i've been known to enoy writing the odd descriptive scene myself, but these are like.... about antique shops in moscow and shit. makes me wonder if he's cutting and pasting from his travel journal. oh, oh. and the sex scene! ugh! i don't expect wonders from male writers when it comes to sex scenes, but this one was just... why even have it in there at all? went something like this.... little bit of foreplay, insertion, and then... and i quote, "she grabbed his buttocks as she came." new paragraph. "he came." i do not lie, and i have not omitted anything. it was so ugh, ugh, ugh, from both a writer's perspective and a romantic's perspective. but mostly from a writer's perspective.
the point of all this is not to discourage you from reading the book, but rather to explain a VERY important realization i came to while trying to force myself further into the novel before putting it down for good. this was one of demille's first books. he's come so far as a writer and a novelist since that first one. the first one is always going to be somewhat less than perfect. it will probably have parts that are messy, parts that are awkward, parts that are anti-climactic. parts that are over-descriptive, parts where the dialogue is stilted and forced. so i don't need the first one to be perfect, i just need it to a) tell the story that's rattling around in my head and b) tell it well enough to get an agent and get that first publishing credit under my belt!
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