Photo Booth: Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Happy Halloween! May you be filling your face with candy. Sadly (but fortunately?), I am candy-less. Here's a little eye-candy for you--my costume!

My talk bubbles say "I'm simply adorkable!" and "Manic Pixie Dream Girl will mystify and enchant you!" There are hearts and smiley faces all over both. I have a third sign that says "Quirky but not threatening." The hat and scarf that I am wearing I knitted; the hat is from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears. I am wearing orange, red, dark teal, blue, grey, purple, and black because Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a riot of clashing colors and emotions! Also, she is whimsical! ("Edgar Allen Bro" is standing behind me.)

I'm a little disheveled here because I was hot, so you're not quite getting the full effect. I also wore a powder blue polyester coat from the 70s. I will post better pictures once my friends share with me. :) As I expected, two people got what I was supposed to be.

May your evening be filled with the nicest sort of tricks and the most delicious sort of treats! I'm going to make myself some hot chocolate and settle down with some True Blood DVDs.

Bloggers for Health, Week 2: Workout Plan, Plus Progress

My progress on the goals I posted last week was affected by a stomach virus, but I did make progress--either because of, or inspite of, the wretched, wretched virus.

• I wrote in my journal twice this past week. Being stuck in bed or on the bathroom floor offers plenty of time for reflection.
• I did not do yoga or any other form of exercise, due to being housebound and consuming nothing but juice, water, and Pedialyte Pops. Once I felt better, my stomach was the size of a hazelnut, so I got full after one serving of yogurt. I decided I could not exercise on one serving of yogurt. Now that I've eaten some higher-calorie food (frittata!) without pain, I'm going to try a new Pilates class!
• I did eat out once I felt better because all my produce was wilted and I couldn't gather the energy to go to the grocery store. Since I ate minute amounts (see: hazelnut-sized stomach), it's all good. I'm back to cooking.
• I didn't eat any sweets at all until last night, when I suddenly craved chocolate chip cookies, so I baked some. I ate three and put the rest away (I baked nine and froze the rest of the dough in logs). I took that as a sign that I'm ready to exercise again. At least I didn't buy any crappy, preservative-filled cookies!

Week 2 of Bloggers for Health addresses workout plans. I've been working out consistently since 2009, when I purchased a gym membership. My workout plans change over time, depending on what my goals are and what I'm emotionally and physically ready for at different points. I'm ready for another shift.

"I like just to let myself go": Journaling and Freedom

Journaling, for me, has been about the freedom to be as boring, as erratic, as strange, as loquacious as I want to be, whenever I want to be it. I think that's what journaling has been for women throughout history: a safe space to be the inner self without consequences. I don't have any journals dating before 2005 anymore, but I do remember the sorts of things I wrote about and how I went about writing them, so I'm making up some choice sample entries for you all to illustrate what I mean.

When I wrote in my diary (that's what I called it then) as a child, I wrote about whatever happened that day, which was boring to read over later. A typical entry would have looked like this:

October 27, 1990. Dear Diary, today Mama cooked a big breakfast before school. She cooked eggs, grits, bacon, and biscuits. It was good. I went to school. I read through PE. My book was quite good. Now I am at home, watching Doogie Howser, MD. He is so cute. One day I will marry someone just like him!!! 


You know, I think my day goes just about the same way now, except I make the breakfast and I know I will never marry Neil Patrick Harris, nor will I marry a 16-year-old doctor.

As a preteen, my journals (because "diary" sounded too childish) became overrun with what people now call "fanfiction." I stopped writing about myself and started writing about fictional characters and celebrities, who are basically living fictional characters.

Photo Booth: Teal

I'm still at home, coping with this stomach flu. Boo! So, there's no food content, no work outfits, no exercise talk. But! There are colors. Here are some of my favorite blue/teal photos from last week.

A set of steps in the Quarter, along with a little bit of my shadow.

A Mid-City house, where the air-conditioning unit's cage is decorated with beads (in October)

A weekend "getting stuff done" outfit, featuring my favorite jeans, a loose t-shirt (with a lion and a giraffe riding an oldey-timey bike!), and Chucks. Not pictured: whimsical socks.

Sad Buzz

I have to say that this stomach flu/flu flu is doing wonders from keeping me from eating candy. However, I am a sweaty and miserable mess. :( I am both grateful that I never get stomach flu/food poisoning and that I clean my toilet obsessively. Wish me well, readers!

Saints Fever

I'm not into sports, but I know football brings many great joy. Football fever also brings ridiculous products, like Saints booty shorts.

(That is a mannequin. I would not take a picture of a real person's butt!)

Saints fever also brings out a spirit of solidarity between the people of Louisiana. You see things like this everywhere:

Best of all, people have Saints parties and invite their family and friends. That is my favorite part: going to hang out with my family who are all in high spirits from the game, playing with my toddler cousins, and just having a good time. Someone should have another Saints party soon!

Bloggers for Health: The Start

Bloggers for Health invites bloggers to support each other in creating and leading healthier (not necessarily weight-related) lifestyles. They're starting off by asking a few baseline questions.


How do you see yourself right now? 


I see myself as active and eating a fairly well-rounded diet. I have a habit, though, of eating cookies and candy on top of all the fruits and vegetables.


What are the areas you would like to improve on? What are your goals for the future?


I would like to stop eating out so much and stop eating so many sweets. I want to focus on eating food that I make for myself, or that my friends and family make and share with me. My goals include losing these last six pounds of my "Ten Pounds by Christmas" goal.


I've been overweight since a few months after Hurricane Katrina, and it is time for that last bit of unhappiness weight to come off me. I've been working toward being my old, positive, creatively productive self again and I'm mostly there, writing poems and essays, making things, and looking closely at the world around me for the hidden bits of beauty. Christmas time would be the best time to celebrate being my old self, inside and out, again. 


Also, the more in shape I get, the less ill I am. It's a winning situation all around. So, I suppose I'm reaching for equilibrium as well as a fit body.


List five ways that you could change your life to make it healthier (changes you have to stick to for the rest of the event!<3) With a short explanation of each one.

Bloggers for Health

I'm joining up with other blogs to do Bloggers for Health, in which bloggers will post once a week on a health-related topic.

I'll be starting this Saturday. Bloggers will be posting on certain themes each week. This will help to encourage us all to stay committed to a healthful lifestyle! If you'd like to join, click here (at Unladylike) and sign up!

I clearly need some accountability, what with the crazy stress cookie, pizza, and candy eating I've been doing all week. I've been maintaining the same weight and shape, but all this junk food is slowing me down and not giving me the nutrients I need.

(Brief) Book Reviews: Women in Stressful Situations Loaded with Baggage from Parents (and Their Cultures), Considering Their Identities

That title up there was my best attempt at describing the general theme that's been present in the last four books I've read: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel; The Good Muslim, by Tahmina Asam; Breath, Eye, Memory, by Edwidge Danticat, and Keeping the Moon, by Sarah Dessen.

I'm going to start with the one I just finished yesterday. Fun Home is a graphic novel, but it is not what you think of when you think "graphic novel." It is a memoir about Bechdel's relationship with her father (and mother, to some degree), her relationship with her sexuality, and her father's relationship with his sexuality. Furthermore, it is also about their relationship to literature and to art. The story is gripping; I kept picking up the book for snippets of reading while waiting for things like the water to boil, the sweet potatoes to finish baking, and so on. It is a sad book, but there's a hint of hope in Bechdel's examination of the forces that set the tragedies into motion--like the same things won't happen to her and whatever family she creates (if she creates one) because she has self-awareness and the ability to be honest about her sexual identity, due to shifts in American culture. Read this book! It's good.

Crocheting and Costumes

I am costuming as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (which maybe fifteen people will get--thirteen being readers of Jezebel, two being people I told about it) for Halloween. All of the components of the costume are coming from my wardrobe and from my hands.

So! I am crocheting a scarf out of colors that, together, can make you have a headache.

The pattern is from a Japanese book called Crochet Motif Item. This is the first time I've ever made recognizable squares! Japanese crochet patterns use charts with mostly standard symbols. The parts I didn't understand, I muddled through using common sense.

The rest of my costume will include either hearts or cupcakes, a fascinator, colored tights, the color red, an apron, and plenty of wacky facial expressions and nonsensically adorable sayings. I will probably bring cupcakes or muffins to whatever party I attend. I may even throw homemade confetti at people.

It will be straight up ridiculous, with a touch of feminist wryness thrown in!

Photo Booth: Orange

I'm pretty excited that I can fit into this orange skirt again! I love how obnoxiously loud it is.

Shirt: Gianni Bini (old); Skirt: Thrifted; Shoes: Clarks; Necklace and Earrings: Trashy Diva

I'm also pretty pleased that I finally found an orange bubble necklace like this. I've been looking for an affordable orange necklace for a while now. I wore this getup for a fun day of thrifting and eating. Yay!

Things I Love: A Close Read

When we drive around our cities, we don't notice the details. We're determined to get where we're going, so we tune out what's along the way. When we walk or jog, taking a different path, we see all the little things we never noticed before.

The French Quarter and the Treme have been photographed extensively. Most of those photographs include red-faced tourists holding their neon, tooth-shakingly sweet Hand Grenades aloft in front of any given Bourbon Street establishment (not Galatoire's, usually). On my weekend constitutional, I looked at the little things on the side streets, and a few on the main avenues.

This was on a wall outside a residential building. Are the tenants tomatoes? Has this been a tomato-only building since 1817?

Iced Coffee For Two (or, Iced Coffee for One for Two or Three Days)

This is how I do it!

1. Scoop four tablespoons of coffee (medium grind; I use CDM Coffee and Chicory, the one that comes in the yellow package) into two cups of water in a lidded container. Stir.
2. Let this mixture sit in your refrigerator overnight, or for twelve hours.
3. Pour this mixture through a filter (I use a reusable tea-steeping filter) into the container in which you intend to keep the coffee concentrate.
4. Serve on ice with a touch of milk--no sugar is necessary because the natural sweetness of the coffee comes through, without the bitterness that comes from hot-brewing, when you cold-brew it. The ice will help dilute the concentrate.

Enjoy!

Entertaining at Home: It's Cheap(er) and More Fun than Going Out

The economy sucks; we all know this. Everything costs more than it used to, but few of us are making more money than we used to. We want to have fun with our friends, but that usually involves spending money. When times are a little tighter than normal, we feel the need to cut back.

Like everyone else, I've been cutting back, too. Aside from my "survival bills" (like electricity, medical stuff, food, and internet--I tried to live without internet for a month, then caved in, because really, I can't sacrifice my access to Netflix), my only entertainment/frivolous spending is on Netflix, shopping for clothes and household goods, and going out to eat with my friends.

I cut back on my entertainment spending. I opted to cut back to Netflix streaming only, when they raised the fees for the DVD-and-streaming plans. I shopped less; when I did, I shopped more often at thrift stores. (I basically never buy any fashion item full price, except for shoes and very cheap costume jewelry, so "shopping less often" was my only real way of cutting back.) I stopped going out to bars and clubs, thereby cutting out the temptation to buy awful bar food.

I couldn't quite give up the going out to eat at nice restaurants with my friends, though. That is my main method of socializing. How can I give that up? Even though eating out costs a lot, both in money and in the amount of sodium and unnecessary calories I consume, I like it a lot.

Last week, after I went out to eat sushi and udon with a friend and somehow gained two pounds overnight from eating half a bowl of soup and four sushi rolls (sodium! you dastardly bastard!), I decided no, this cannot continue.

When the same friend asked if I wanted to go eat on Thursday, I said, "I'd rather not go out to eat, but why don't you come over and I'll make some fish with sweet potatoes?" She was okay with that.

I baked the tilapia with dill, s + p, and butter, sauteed spinach and roasted garlic, roasted mushrooms with garlic and a bit of butter, and roasted some sweet potato "fries." Lemon was on the side for the mushrooms and fish. The plate was covered in white, green, brown, and orange. My mother always says that a colorful plate is a healthy plate; I'm going to add that a colorful plate is an extra-delicious plate.

That meal, along with the spinach and Comte strata I made on Saturday for the weekly brunch that my friend M. and I usually eat at a restaurant (where the meal would be upwards of 1000 calories, unlike the 600 of my sumptuous, cheesy strata, which could actually be cut up into 6 servings or more, if you were to add more spinach and some fruit on the side, to lighten things up), was better than a restaurant meal. They were so satisfying and so affordable. The costs of both meals, for the entire amount of food I cooked, were less than the cost of one serving at a restaurant and I am pretty sure they were both less fatty and salty than restaurant food. All my ingredients were fresh.

Plus, at home, the atmosphere is better for having catching-up conversation with the girls. At home, you can sit as long as you like and make as much noise as you want, unlike at restaurants, where they frown upon such things. Also, for the strata and iced coffee brunch, we sat on my shared balcony and enjoyed the breezes. At a restaurant, the balcony is the most coveted place to eat on a cool autumn day--we would not have been able to get a seat and we would have had to shout over others to be heard, unlike on my balcony, where I provided the seats and the only sounds were of cars and bikes passing by.

Finally, I really like hearing how my food tastes good.

I am going to make this entertaining at home a regular thing. It's a no-brainer. I get to try out new recipes that I would feel silly making just for myself, and I get to spend time with my friends without any of us worrying about how much we're spending. All I need to do is get crafting nights scheduled and I will be set for my sedate, adult nightlife!

Photo Booth: Schoolgirl (Plus, Vegetable Sandwich!)

This outfit makes me feel a little bit like I'm in the eighth grade, going to Thanksgiving dinner. It's got a touch of the Clueless about it.

Shirt: Gap (several years old); Woolen Skirt: Limited (also old); Tights: somewhere?; Shoes: Nature Mary Janes

Wearing tights and dress-up shoes (or work shoes, as adults call them) makes me feel holiday-ish, still, even though I've been working at a job that requires me to wear something other than sneakers for five and a half years now. The sensation of a stockinged foot sliding against the inside of a shoe as I walk takes me back to a time when I was required to dress up for the holidays. This skirt reminds me of a red plaid kilt with a ridiculously large safety pin holding it all together that I wore one Christmas in middle school (with some white tights, mmhmm--that's how we did it back then).

I love tweed skirts. This is one of the two I own. Sadly, this one is about two sizes too big; I wear it much lower now than it's supposed to be worn, but I cannot let it go. I may have paid too much for it during one of those group shopping frenzies--I need to get the maximum number of wears possible out of it! The shirt is too big, too, but it's hard to find a plain black shirt that isn't too tight, too baggy, or too casual looking, so it stays in my wardrobe.

The temperature was 85 the day I wore this. The temperature in my office was about 55, though, so I decided it was time to pull out the woolens. I think I need to invest in a cape. It's a sort of fashionable adult blanket, right? I can't wear a blanket and be chic, but I can wear a cape!

Now, the vegetable sandwich. It consists of the following: a spoonful of pesto, 1/2 cup fresh baby spinach, 1 c finely chopped roasted broccoli (roast the broccoli in bite-sized chunks, then chop it smaller after it cools), and one "sandwich pocket" (I used a brand containing flaxseed that I found in the grocery area by the veg at Target; use whatever pocket bread you like). Heat up the broccoli in the microwave. Next, stuff all the veg and pesto into the sandwich pocket. Then, eat and enjoy the sandwich. Finally, go to the bathroom and floss because you will have beaucoup pesto in your teeth and nobody needs to see that. (I learned my lesson after the first day of eating this for lunch.)

This sandwich is super good and amazingly filling; it must be all the fat in the pesto. You will be surprised!

If you were to pack your sandwich fixings for lunch, you could do it this way: pesto and spinach in one 1 cup container, broccoli in another container, and the bread in a slightly larger container that will double as your plate. That way, the broccoli is already separate for the microwaving. I am ridiculously detail-oriented when it comes to packing lunches, but that is another post entirely.

Christmas Knitting Has Commenced!

I haven't knit regularly in several months. Why?

For one, it's been ridiculously hot: we've had four or five months of air so hot, and rainstorms so few, that I would break out into a sweat walking into my apartment after work. I had to take a cold post-work shower many of those days. I can't even go near wool in that sort of heat.

For two, there hasn't been anything good on TV. I multitask when I knit. I have to be either watching (listening to) TV or talking with other people; otherwise, I get lulled into sleepiness and I feel unproductive (unless I am knitting on a plane or in a waiting room--then I let my imagination take me places, or I work out problems).

For three, I've been feeling out of sorts. I don't know why people stop doing pleasurable, soothing things  when they are in a bad mood or a funky life place, but they do, and I do it, too. In addition to not writing as much as I normally do, I have not been knitting; I've been holding it all in...which is not good.

Today, I felt the spark of wanting to create things (that aren't edible) again. At lunch, I started making my Christmas lists. Unlike my childhood lists, these are lists of things I want to make and buy (but mostly make) for others. I made a family list, a friends list, and a work list in red (extra Christmassy). Then, I wrote a list of poetic forms I want to work with. Then, I started to write a rap song about boys who try to flirt and don't get much besides dirty glances. Then, I got distracted by scansion. Then, I ate a vegetable sandwich. (I will share this magical veg sandwich concoction with you another day this week. It is surprisingly filling.)

I'm excited about this desire to create. I cast on for a hat tonight. I love getting stuff done. I love feeling a little more like myself. I love fall, the holidays, giving people things, making and eating food, and spending time with all my loved ones, blood-related and almost-family alike. I also love vacation. I have a lot of good things to anticipate!

Evocative Lines

One of my favorite things about reading is stumbling upon a brilliant, evocative line of verse or prose: the sort of line that makes you feel "ways about stuff." These lines are the umami to the dish; they take the whole thing to the next level, and leave you with a good taste in your mouth.

Here's one. On page 107 of Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl, Leo (the protagonist) says of his girlfriend Stargirl, "She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day."

Wow! In the middle of this book set in high school, an ordinary high school filled with ordinary children, our main guy says something exalted about the only ethereal person in his life. Boom! I will remember this image for a long, long time. Who wouldn't want to be thought of as light filling up and touching everything in someone's day?

Here are some other evocative lines from a variety of places that have stuck with me for a long time.

"nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands" --e.e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond (link)


"Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee" --Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Carrion Comfort" (link)

"I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is poetry / as I needed it" --John Cage (link) (I clung to this quote in high school. Doesn't this encapsulate the high school poet's experience? It's all defiant in the face of people saying that the young poet says nothing of importance.)

"Nothing would give up life: / Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath." --Theodore Roethke, "Root Cellar" (link) (I used this as an epigraph for my poem "Mourning Station.")


"Night rests like a ball of fur on my tongue." --Rita Dove, "Adolescence II" (link)


I read all those poems, except for "Carrion Comfort," when I was in high school--which is to say, I read those poems for the first time over a decade ago...about fifteen years ago. Roethke's poem and Dove's poem were in the anthology we used in my creative arts high school. We weren't assigned those poems to read; I read them on my own, burrowed down under my covers and reconstructing those images in my mind.  I read "Carrion Comfort" in another class's anthology (on my own) in college and fell in love with Hopkins's poetry (even though it is religious). These images and word rhythms are indelible now. Words are powerful!


Are there any literary or lyrical (song) quotes that have stuck with you over time because they are powerful or beautiful?

Last Weekend's Pizza

I made this on Saturday. I used Smitten Kitchen's pizza crust recipe (1 c unbleached ap flour, 1/2 c whole wheat flour) rolled out with a rolling pin, 1/4 block of low-fat mozzarella cheese, a couple slices (crumbled up) of parmesan, two finely diced cloves of garlic, a handful of fresh basil, a handful of spinach, and a few spoonfuls of diced tomato from a can, along with a few shakes of oregano and red pepper flakes and a pinch of fennel. I spritzed the top with olive oil and tried to scrunch up the edge crust so that the cheese wouldn't slide off. Then, I baked this for 15 minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit on some cornmeal on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

(Edited to add details; also, saute the garlic before adding it to the pizza if you don't like super-sharp garlic flava on your pizza.)

This was, as Rachael Ray would say, yummo. This was one of the few instances in which my crust had not gone soggy and my cheese browned on the top. The trick, I suppose, is to put as little wet stuff as possible on the pizza. It provided me with three meals: three small slices the first meal, then two small slices for each subsequent meal, totaling seven unevenly sliced small slices. You could probably get more slices out of this if you did better in geometry than I did (which you probably did).

If you make this, or some variation on this, let me know how it went! Making crust is super easy and very relaxing; if you haven't done it before, you should give it a try.

Representation without Racialized Jokes: Parks and Recreation

During my weekend of being angry about representation (among other things), I watched some Netflix to soothe my troubled soul. I decided to re-watch the third season of Parks and Recreation, which recently became one of my favorite shows. (It starts off slow, but the subtle, sweet, wry humor really shines in seasons 2 and 3!)

Parks and Recreation is one of the few shows on a major network to have multiple cast members who are minorities. About half of the central cast members are minorities. It is one of the only programs that does not frequently make jokes based on the characters' races (except for that time Leslie Knope told Ben Wyatt that he couldn't start a speech with a rap because he was "too white," and a joke or two based on Spanish-English confusions).

In fact, race is barely acknowledged on this show. The character Tom Haverford is played by Aziz Ansari, an man of Indian heritage who, like his character, was born in South Carolina; they wrote a one-sentence explanation of Haverford's name in one of the first episodes, and never mentioned it again. Rashida Jones plays the non-racialized Everywoman in every TV show and movie I've ever seen her in. No character ever mentions her race or makes jokes based on it, except for that episode of The Office in which Michael Scott  asked her character Karen if she were Italian and she didn't respond, which indicated that the question was, appropriately for Mr. Scott, inappropriate. Donna and AprilI bet the show cast people based on talent and not based on them fitting what a character "should look like." I applaud that!

I love how the characters all get along with each other and (mostly) care about each other. I also love how the characters accept each other for who they are. It's a good show, guys.

I'm going to stop beating the dead race horse now and go back to writing about food, poems, exercise, and clothes!

Are There Any Black (Or Brown) Manic Pixie Dream Girls?

What Tami Said posted an article recently called "Who is the Black Zooey Deschanel?" In this article, she says a couple of things that resonate with me:

The wide-eyed, girlish, take-care-of-me characters that Deschanel inhabits on film are not open to many women of color, particularly black women. We can be strong women, aggressive women, promiscuous women...we can do Bonet bohemian and Earth Mother (as Andrea pointed out), but never carefree and childish. Even black girls are too often viewed as worldly women and not innocents.

Also, the affectations of the manic pixie are read differently on black women. A streak of pink in the hair goes from quirky and youthful to "ghetto" on a black body. Thrift store clothing leads to a host of class assumptions. (para. 11-12)

I have seen these assumptions in action. Black (and brown) women get to be strong, scary or sexy (or sexless), and earthy Erykah Badus or super-professional Michelle Obamas. We tend not to be classified as "adorable." The bright neon shades of hair can come off that way to others, unless that hair is on the cartoonish (and somewhat fascinating, in terms of her image manipulation) Nicki Manaj, the "Black Barbie" with raps so harsh sometimes I lean away from my car speakers when she comes on the radio. (I may have to write a whole post on Minaj at some other time. She's an interesting and troubling figure, in terms of feminism.)


However, I would say that there are PoC women out there who love adorable things, who bake, who knit and craft, who wear their hair in pigtails sometimes , who enjoy vintage and thrifted stuff, who wear wacky things, who say quirky and sometimes ridiculous things--and who have jobs, are strong and self-sufficient, are adult, and are taken seriously by others. I would say I am one of those women. 

I borrowed this vintage dress from my bestie for grad school prom. 

My hair was about a foot and a half shorter back in 2006.

(Cut because I'm about to get verbose up in here...)

When Sally Met Weights

There is one fellow at the gym who makes the most unearthly sexual noises while he is lifting weights. Mr. Chunk O' Muscle is all, "Whrrrrruuuugh! Woo! Ughhhhhowwww! Woo!" as he stretches an enormous rubber band or lifts 300 pounds with a pinky finger or whatever. His howls, moans, and exclamations pierce through my Yeah Yeah Yeahs playlist. That I can hear him over Karen O says something about the quality of his shouts.

It's all very distracting.

One day, I should position myself nearby him with my 12-pound dumbbells and do squat-thrusts, yelling, "Woooooouuuuuuuuuugh WEIGHTS! Oh, yes, WEIGHTS! WEIGHTS!!!!" and fling my sweat everywhere and see if he can focus on his sets then.

Since life isn't a movie, I will not make any sexy weight noises that will make other people demand a set of lunges with tiny barbells.

But I'm tempted!

Power Songs!

There are certain songs that get me excited. I feel strong when I hear them; they put a little swagger in my step. Here they are, behind the cut!

Update on Ten Pounds by Christmas...?

So, I haven't lost any weight over the past week. I'm going to chalk this up to that pizza I ate over the course of two days. (It was mushroom, bacon, and yard egg pizza. Y'all, it was delicious. I was almost hoovering it up off the plate. I ate three pieces by the time my friend ate one and a half. I have no pizza self-control. I would like more pizza now, but that is not a good idea.)

It's okay! I know weight loss happens in fits and starts; I also know that the last ten pounds are the hardest to lose. Also, high sodium consumption makes the body retain water, and that pizza was a great big (delicious) salt pie. I'm not going to stress out over it. I've been working out daily (except for this past Saturday, which should be called Shoppingday, and Tuesday, when the light in the natatorium was out and no one knew how to turn it on). My meals have been balanced and small. I'm good.

Also, my inner cheerleader voice has stopped being me ("Keep going! You can do it! You are strong! Don't stop! Well, maybe you can stop. You've had enough. Let's eat pizza!") to being  verbally bold and flamboyant Lafayette from True Blood ("Hooker please, you is too sexy to stop! Keep yo fine ass going!"). It's pretty hilarious and effective.

Things I Love: Produce Stands

I wish every neighborhood could have a produce stand with bright, fresh fruit and vegetables beckoning to pedestrians and drivers as they pass by.

I will pull over for produce most of the time. "JUICY PEACHES," you say, sign? Yes, I'll take five! "Watermelons real good," are they? Sure! I'm such an impulse produce shopper. I get extra giddy if the goods are from the hood (meaning Louisiana or Mississippi).

Mr. Sal, who graciously allowed me to photograph his sign, is the best. He's so sweet. Sometimes he'll give me an extra fruit or vegetable, if it's odd-looking or small. I got cucumbers three for a dollar there. I love his stand!

I posted a photo of Mr. Okra a while back. He drives around the city in his painted truck, singing songs about what he has that day. He's a beloved character around here. He's like an ice cream man, except he sells healthy stuff. The grown-ups come running, waving their money and reusable shopping bags, when he sings through his amplifier: "I got bananas...I got peaches...I got plums...and bananas..."

My cousin's grandpa grows okra and corn in the strip of land between the driveway and the next lot over. They've also got a lot with newly-planted fruit trees. It's an urban garden with some of the most beautiful okra I've ever seen. They don't sell it, though.

It's finally feeling like fall here and all I want to do is eat roasted vegetables. I ate sweet potatoes and carrots tonight; tomorrow, I will roast broccoli and the wee purple potatoes I impulse-purchased at Whole Foods. (I am obsessed with orange and purple vegetables right now.) Oh, I love fresh food!

Book Review: Vaclav & Lena, by Haley Tanner

Vaclav & Lena: A Novel tells a sweet and sad story of two friends who become separated through events totally not under their control and who meet up again by chance and desire. It is also a story about believing in magic and in the ability to connect with others on a deeper level. The magic is not fantasy magic, but magic tricks and the ability to make people see you in different lights, the ability to shape one's self into something different. Vaclav & Lena also includes many lists that mostly delight, but sometimes sadden me.

I like this book.

Vaclav is the son of Russian immigrants; no one knows about Lena's parentage until the end, but she only speaks Russian until she is about seven or so. They become friends because Rasia, Vaclav's mother, sees what an awful situation Lena lives in and wants to help, so she sets up a playdate for Lena and her son. The story unfolds from there.

This book is dark, but it is also light. It feels honest. I would recommend it. It would probably be upsetting (in parts) for people with children--it was certainly upsetting to me--but the overall tone of the book points to hopefulness. It's not labeled as a YA novel, but I can see older teenagers reading this.

Also, this is the first story or book I have read about Russian people or having a Russian theme that wasn't all misery, hunger, desperation, and despair all the way through. Maybe it's because the focus isn't on Russians living in Russia under any of the Russian governments of the 20th century; the book is set in the contemporary United States and it focuses on two children--not adults grappling with crippling social forces--two children finding themselves and each other.