My naturally glamorous friends will want to know about this site, Make Your Cosmetics.
Several convergent events this week point toward my exfoliating and moisturizing more assiduously than usual:
1.) It is past Memorial Day, and so although the summer solstice is still a ways off, it feels like summer, which equals yards of glowing and moisturized skin.
2.) Around my period I get the most ungovernable urge to scrub and clip and generally prune myself down. I think this might be a racial memory, as it sounds like the practices used by the ancients and described in Blood, Bread, and Roses.
3.) I am going to a wedding shower on Saturday and don’t want to look like a warthog, lest I jinx the event somehow. It’s just respectful to leave callouses and patchy skin at home.
In other news:
I am simply pining to shave my head, as I do once a month for the abovementioned reason. The talisman for banishing my PMS is either baldness or total seclusion, and, optimally, a combination of the two.
There are actually air guitar contests. Did you know that?
In NYC, Apartment Therapy holds the Worst Closet Contest. If I didn’t live with Rod, the neatnik, I’m sure I could have been a contender.
I’m sure that granita recipe I posted the other day would work well if you substitute unsweetened cocoa powder for the espresso, or perhaps a mixture thereof. Think about that for a moment. Drooling yet?
I made scallion pancakes last night because they’re Rod’s fave, and they weren’t bad. Planning on incorporating crabmeat into the recipe next time.
What would you do with a month of unemployment in one of the majorly happening cities of the world? Here I am, in New York frickin City, and most of my activity has been in my apartment. Am I unimaginative? Am I an agoraphobic? I would prefer to write a novel and experiment in the kitchen rather than rub elbows with the trophy wives in the middle of the day at the Museum of Modern Art.
Random Things I’ve Been Obsessed with for the Past Five Days:
1. I need a sun hat.
I’ve tried every single one of these hats at Pearl River, and they are all so lightweight that they blew off my head in the slightest wind. Extremely frustrating. Therefore, most of the time I use a parasol for sun protection. This is wonderful except for when I need to have both my hands free, for instance when I’m lugging groceries home from the market. The problem is that I am too—let’s call it frugal—to invest in a decent sun hat of diva proportions with a six-inch-wide brim.
2. The Swingers soundtrack.
Probably because Rod was away this past weekend. This is an album he chooses often as dinner music, and I listen to it when he’s not around, to invoke him. Also Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, mainly Whipped Cream and Other Delights, of which Rod was enamored at any early age because his father used to play it often, and there is a naked lady on the album cover.
I’m convinced it exists, and that it isn’t an altogether unhealthy impulse. It can be used in much the same way that toxic and poisonous plants are used in homeopathic remedies. Incidentally, do you see how I would make a lousy fact checker, since I use wikipedia so often?
4. Moosewood Ginger Miso Dressing
from Moosewood Daily Special
makes about 2 cups
3/4 C canola or other vegetable oil
2 tbsp. dark sesame oil
1/4 C cider or rice vinegar
1/4 C light miso
3 tbsp. grated fresh ginger root
1/2 C water
Combine oils, vinegar, miso and ginger in a blender and whirl until smooth. With blender running, add water in a thin, steady stream; the dressing will become thick and creamy. This dressing will keep for several weeks covered and refrigerated. If it separates, just shake well, whisk, or repurée in blender.
5. Maxine Hong Kingston
6. Perfecting my shoulder shimmy
7. The sound of brass instruments
8. Frozen grapes for dessert
9. Endive salad
10. What makes a piece of writing erotic?
Two unsettling dreams this morning, one of which is a recurring dream: I am still living with my parents, and Rod and I have to find an apartment in New Brunswick. Simple enough on the surface, but can’t divine its meaning. Obviously since I’m a grown woman and living with my parents it’s a form of nightmare, and there’s a tremendous amount of anxiety in the dream. It’s either the beginning of the month or the end or the month, or the end of the school year so the Rutgers students will be flooding home, leaving a bevy of empty, beautiful apartments that we must swoop in and locate.
The other was a basic job-anxiety dream. I was working in a gorgeous, tall, circular building with floor-to-ceiling windows, on a high floor. I was continually messing up even the most routine tasks, coming in hours late to the office, and uncovering secrets about my coworkers that we’d all rather I not know. One woman was moonlighting as a belly dancer, and had been in a horrific car accident, and so needed heavy body makeup to cover her scars when she performed–that was her secret.
So this morning, even though my Yahoo! horoscope and the tarot deck told me to play today (pulled The Fool card), I’m feeling out of whack and not at all playful. And that insecure feeling reminds me of a phenomenon that I’ve witnessed a lot lately, and which I used to do much more than I do now. I still do it when I’m not 100%, like today. It’s a perverse sort of armor.
I call it Self-Deprecation Theater. Essentially it’s making compulsive, funny, damaging remarks about yourself to foreground your own worst qualities before anyone else can do it. I did it constantly growing up, always having been a nervous wreck and incredibly insecure.
I remember being about twenty-six and consciously deciding not to do that anymore, when one of my oldest friends sat and listened to me rip myself to shreds for a good fifteen minutes like he was watching a comedy routine. Which of course, he was. And he was equally adept at deriding himself in an entertaining manner. It struck me suddenly that I don’t want friends who are going to let me say terrible things about myself, and I don’t desire the company of people who can’t control this tendency in themselves.
I’m incredibly lucky that I now know plenty of people who find little need to indulge in Self-Deprecation Theater, as it makes it easier for me to stop doing it.
“Why do you want so bad not to be a human being?” guest star Elias Koteas said to Dr. Gregory House on “House” during the season finale, and I remembered how desperately I wanted the same thing, and for how long I tried to make that happen. That’s where all the self-hate came in.
Eventually I understood the body-mind connection, and how circumstances do not seem so overwhelming when you eat something more than an apple a day and maybe don’t smoke a pack and a half of cigarettes in twelve hours.
I used to have friends who made fun of me for this, on the order of, “You think that your life’s going to improve just because you eat whole grains and take up yoga?”
Um, yeah, I did. And I do. Because it has. Did my thoughts become elevated because I started eating more fiber, or did I start taking better care of myself because I made the choice to rid my mind of the junk thoughts? I don’t know.
Just so you know, I’m eating potato chips for breakfast, clearly demonstrating that I have a long way to go in practicing what I preach.
All I know is that during the past week I’ve hung out with plenty of people I like, who don’t like themselves as much as I like them. Which hurts me. I am incredibly sad for anyone I like who doesn’t get the basic message that if you feel you deserve crap, then crap is what you’re going to get.
I am embarrassed to tell you how many hokey New Age tricks I’ve used to drag my self-esteem up from the gutter, but I can’t argue with results. Slowly, I’m even coming to gain a smidge of equanimity around my family. Especially since I heard that my parents still consider me unstable. That was the last straw, and it made me once and for all hand their basket of crazy back to them instead of hanging it on my arm and dancing in circles singing “A-Tisket, A-Tasket.”
Made granita today, substituting matcha green tea powder for espresso powder, and dispensing with the lemon zest. It was delicious! I can’t believe how easy it is to make Italian ices, and I look forward to trying not only the espresso version but also the cucumber aquavit recipe also listed on epicurious.
Also managed to put together hummus with dill, and spinach lentil barley salad before Rod got home. We ended up at Hello Berlin for lunch, in a gift-of-the-magi moment on my part, since this restaurant is Rod’s fave. I was rewarded for my selflessness—the currywurst I got was unexpectedly wonderful, given that the chef has finally managed to produce pickled red cabbage that is not inedible because of the excess vinegar.
Rod in the Hizzy
What do I do to welcome back my favorite redhead? I cook vegetables.
I introduced him to broccoli rabe, and one of my proudest moments was when, one Thanksgiving at his parents’ dinner table, he gave thanks for this vegetable that looks like broccoli but is actually part of the turnip family.
In our wedding vows, I included, “I will always provide dark, leafy greens.”
Because nothing says I love you like a spinach barley salad in ginger miso dressing with some avocado diced into it. And because I really did plan on saving him some of the stir-fried cabbage I made the other day, but I so didn’t. Forgive me, it was delicious, so savory and so spicy.
It seems to be a bit hot outside for the miso soup I’m craving—not everyone is like me and requires hot soup and hot tea year-round—so I might opt for gazpacho.
Mmmm. Gazpacho weather.
I can’t keep track of all my culinary desires, and this makes my shopping lists epic poetry. I’m on my way to the store this morning and my inner monologue sounds like: corn chowder broccoli rabe bok choy tuna salad with capers and kalamata olives stromboli with escarole pasta e fagioli hummus scallion pancakes salsa curried cauliflower martinis hamburgers turkey meatloaf grape leaves stuffed with dilled rice…
You get the picture. I will not be able to prepare even a portion of this for the man before he comes home. I’ll be lucky to get to the store,which I should do right now instead of spending any more time brainstorming the shopping list, as I will be thrown off course by what’s actually in the market.
Man makes plans and God laughs. But that’s okay if God provides zucchini blossoms on sale in the spur of the moment.
Yahoo! news headlines are mainly what keep me up to date on current events. I can’t help browsing them when I’m checking my email; otherwise I have no use for the news. I just don’t want all that horror in my consciousness. Fear is what sells the news, and I have enough of that being only a Very Small Animal, as Winnie-the-Pooh’s friend Piglet says.
This morning I found out that Paul Gleason is dead. You might remember him as the principal from “The Breakfast Club,” a movie that worked me around to Molly Ringwald’s comic genius as her acting chops on “The Facts of Life” had never done (I was a Jo fan), a film that cemented my lightning-hot hatred for Ally Sheedy. Who went on to flirt with my husband when she worked at the Jane Street Theater where he was box office treasurer. The ho bag.
Perhaps because I have never been ingenue material (even when I was young enough, I was “too ethnic,” which means “not blonde and shaped like a Pixie Stik”), I feel a kinship with character actors, those Hollywood ambassadors for us Just Folks. And sometimes those representatives for the castoff parts of ourselves.
Paul Gleason’s passing won’t receive a tenth of the attention that the Brangelina spawn will be getting this holiday weekend. And I know it’s Memorial Day and Fleet Week and the bars are crammed with uniformed military personnel and I should be thinking about how our country is at war, but again: Consuming the news makes me feel helpless and powerless against the forces of evil.
I retreat into art as the only agency I can reclaim, to try pouring joy into the wounded, seething world. Therefore, in my world view, character actors are among the unsung herores. Paul Gleason’s performances made me happy. Even his miniscule screen time in “Arthur” was enough to keep me cracking up for about five minutes straight. And I wouldn’t trade him for ten Brad Pitts, so there.
I have mastered the art of brewing crappy generic Sunrise Mart matcha tea lattes.
There is nothing wrong with my whisking skills—I just didn’t understand how big a bowl is needed. I used a soup bowl and had no problem. Even got some highly creditable foam on top.
Can I get a hell yeah?
Veil dancing is not as easy as those accomplished in this demanding and muscular art make it appear. I took a double class at Serena’s today after hearing yesterday that the Monday bellydance class at MPHC has been cancelled for the summer. The second class I enjoyed today was devoted to learning how to work a veil, and to practicing some simple rhythms on the finger cymbals.
Thanks to my being laid off, I have had plenty of time over the last month to advance my zill work, which definitely showed at class this afternoon, and which consoled me for my abysmal veilwork. Believe me when I tell you that I looked like a toddler doing Mickey Mouse aerobics while flailing her mom’s dress around her head.
I’m convinced that my entire upper body will ache tomorrow, and I’m delighted to have found such a rigorous upper-body workout as provided by veilwork. It beats the hell out of lifting weights, which I have only ever done with regularity when I belonged to Lucille Roberts. I have absolutely no desire to hear strange men in desperate need of attention grunting volubly while I’m trying to lift weights, and therefore I only do so in an all-female environment.
That means that my upper body is—ahem!—not what it once was. Until now, yo. Is there anything belly dance isn’t good for?
The woman who teaches on Sunday afternoons is easily one of the best belly dancers I’ve ever seen, and I think that’s what makes her look as if she’s standing over an open sewer when she teaches the beginner classes. It would be like Mozart trying to give music lessons to the uninitiated who are preciously low on natural genius.
I splurged on some wakame and some rooibus tea. I plan on making some miso soup either today or tomorrow, and I’m going to attempt once again to brew a decent cup of matcha tea, now that my neighbor gave me a tip about whisking—after I asked her what she thought I was doing wrong. Apparently I need to use a bigger bowl. I’ve been trying to whisk it in a measuring cup, which doesn’t allow enough surface area.
This is one of the many reasons I love my neighbor, who is one of the few people I know who never gives unsolicited advice. It’s a rare gift, do you notice that? Most of the time I try to ask people whether they want my opinion before I offer it, as I’m aware that I’m extremely opinionated, and I know for sure that it puts people off.
And as I used to tell my mother all the time, “You are entitled to your opinion, but I am not necessarily entitled to your opinion.”
In other news, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior is frickin amazing. I am loving every minute of reading it.
When Rod is away for the weekend, as he is this weekend, our loft bed seems especially big and empty. I just can’t get used to his not being there at night, particularly because his pillow still smells like him. I had strange dreams of abduction, of houses coming alive with me imprisoned in them. Of those houses running away on metal legs tall as skyscrapers.
It reminded me of baba yaga and her house, which gallops through forests on chicken legs. Baba yaga is a glyph for the Crone aspect of the goddess. The Crone is my life card in the tarot, and it has to do with creative solitude, and also with being at a crossroads in life, a time of decision and renewal
I found my life card in the tarot by adding up the numbers of my birthday (12/26/1969) vertically. That adds up to 2007, which I added horizontally to get 9, which is the number of the major arcana of the Crone.
Years ago I found this trick in one of Mary Greer’s books, Tarot for Your Self, and I was not surprised that my life card is the Crone, since she has been close to me since I was a very little girl. For example, willow trees are sacred to Hecate, another Crone goddess, and weeping willows have always been my favorite trees.
I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to choose a Crone image for a tattoo, maybe because although Medusa is a gorgon, she’s never appeared wholly Crone-like to me. After all, Athena cursed a beautiful young woman to look like the frightening Medusa–can’t you see the vibrant young woman walled up behind the face under the snake hairdo, as all old women must still feel simultaneously every age they’ve ever been?
X3: The Last Stand is the name of the game today. We have tickets for tonight and I can’t wait. Rod always gets nervous going to opening-night showings at either of the Forty-Second Street Times Square cinemas, but I think if we can brave the Harry Potter crowds we can handle anything.
And I’m not so much concerned with plot, special effects, or dialogue as I am extremely interested in watching a gigantic picture of Hugh Jackman in tight pants. Yeah, I said it.
I pulled the Death tarot card today. Sometimes I choose two more cards, for clarification, and I got the daughter of cups, reversed, and then the Chariot. What all that says to me is that I should spend more time writing and less time looking for a traditional job. Death is all about change. Daughter of Cups is a clarion call to honor your emotions. The Chariot means I can midwife exactly what I want into the world. Is it so crazy to think I really could sell this novel?
On an unrelated note, one of these days I am finally going to belt that neighbor baby into silence.
PMS means all frittata, all the time, so today’s is going to be pasta, escarole, and parmesan, with maybe some red bell pepper for color. I checked with Rod, just in case any of you are worried for him and think I’m sullying his stellar nutritional legacy of sausage extravaganza. He gave me the green light.
I’m starting to jones for some of the pricier groceries, which I’ve not allowed myself to purchase this month: prosciutto, kalamata olives. I have some ripe pears which are actually calling to me from the fruit bowl “bring us some Italian cured ham to wrap around us! Then put us on a bed of mesclun greens and toss in some walnuts and goat cheese!”
