IMPOSSIBLE

I woke up this morning to the news that David Bowie had died.
IMPOSSIBLE, I thought.
How is that possible?
Was he even human?
He's been around forever and made an insane mark on humanity and art and everything and now he is dead?

Unfathomable, really.

I have spent all day trying to wrap my head around this news, and it hasn't gotten any easier as the day has worn on.

I was just reading an article about his new album.

I was just reading and article about him and Elizabeth Taylor. For realz.

Every time I see his picture in my newsfeed, or one of his songs pops up on the radio, my brain tries to comprehend the world where he is no longer, and fails spectacularly.

Remember when Michael Jackson died? Like, that was awful too, and I woke up with MJs songs running through my head for weeks afterward. Every god damned morning. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I had suspected for some time that MJ would check out much earlier that we would hope. So when it actually happened, it was remarkably sad and tragic, but it was somehow... as we expected, I suppose.

But Bowie? IMPOSSIBLE. He just made a new album for fuck's sake. How could he just go an die like that?

I've never owned a Bowie album. I never saw him in concert. But somehow, he became such a regular part of my life that his loss is as surprizing and unbelievable as if my eyebrows suddenly disappeared off my face.

Weird.
I am as surprized by this reaction as I am by his death.
I am still not able to process it fully.
I thought maybe writing something for my long dormant blog would shake something loose, but it seems to have not done the trick.
I suppose I will drive home tonight, hopefully singing along to a Bowie song that arrives on the radio, and maybe I will go and buy my first Bowie album, like a good GenXer should have done, ages ago.
 

My Friday in Sexism

So, this is the thing I have been walking past on my way to coffee on the weekends for a few weeks now. Every time I look at it, it makes me mad. And maybe because I am always in need of coffee when I see it, it took me this long to figure out why it makes me so mad.

Because being the prettiest is important.
Because being 'happy' is ideal for a girl.
Because I have been dealing with this shit for YEARS.
Because when I was six or seven, when I would get mad about something, and be a little bitchy about it, my dad would tell me to stop, because I was a nice girl. Which only made me more angry.
Because strange men on the street feel compelled to tell me to 'smile'.
Because some schmuck thought this was a good enough idea to actually make a mass produced product with this drivel on it.
Because someone must be buying this shit, or it wouldn't still be in the window.
Because... UGH.

As a tangent to the being happy (aka NICE), as a girl should be, I was watching the Andy Murray match at Wimbledon, and the commentators were talking about Andy's new coach, Amelie Mauresmo. I know a lot has been written by this supposedly unlikely duo. The sexism had been thick. So I am casually listening to the two men talking about the match, and they throw out this little gem (paraphrased):

Commentator one: "Andy has been known to get angry and frustrated on the court, and take it out on his coach by yelling at him. I wonder if he'll do that to Amelie."
Commentator two: "Well, I certainly hope not!"

Oh yes. God forbid that Andy Murray yell at the delicate woman during one of his on court tantrums. The delicate woman who excelled in her sport for years. Who was at one time ranked number one, won Wimbledon and the Australian Open. Who took the silver medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Who is a Fed Cup captian! Yes, please oh please, let's hope that Andy Murray treats her like the delicate, fragile woman that she is... GAH.

Seriously, people. You have all totally ruined my Friday.

UPDATE: A friend shared this on facebook today. Fight the good fight, ladies!

I'm a Star!!!

Today I was stopped by Lynette Adams of WHEC Channel 10 news at the Calkins Road Wegmans to talk about 'pink slime' in ground beef. Apparently, what I had to say made the cut! Hee.



Oh, what I would have given for some lipstick and blush... 

Oh honey.

Cold sores suck. I have been fighting the good fight since I was a wee lass, and have tried all kinds of funky things to try and get rid of the damn things. They are tricky, and since they aren't deadly killers, science seems to be kinda MEH on finding a cure, or even something that actually works awesomely to alleviate the pain and crustiness and blerg of a cold sore outbreak.

Lysine worked for a good many years, but somehow just quit being effective at all. Then a friend told me to try the Abreva, but you know what, that crap gave me a rebound cold sore bigger than the one it had maybe, possibly made one day shorter. Honestly, that possible, maybe one day doesn't really make a heap of difference when the other days are still painful and crusty.

So, I was trolling the interwebz one day, looking for some kind of natural relief, and I found that there are a bunch of people touting honey as the miracle cold sore remedy. Simple, bee-made honey. There is no freakin' way this is gonna work, I thought to myself. Honey? Really??

Unlike many cold sore sufferers, I rarely get that tingly warning sign that an outbreak is coming, so I gotta be vigilant. Constantly on the lookout for the next attack. And the first time I sensed a crusty one coming on, I grabbed the bottle of honey sitting on my desk and put it on my lips a la lip gloss. Put it on about every two hours, and made sure I got some on before I went to bed, and what do you know, I never did get an outbreak.

I was shocked, to say the least. Of course, it probably was a false alarm, I thought. No way honey, that stuff I've putting on toast and spinning into my tea all these years, could stop a cold sore dead in its tracks. But ever since that day, every single time I do the honey trick, that potential cold sore never arises! For reals!

I don't know, but if stopping a cold sore is that easy, why is no one shouting this from the rooftops? I'll let you know if one sneaks though.

10 Weeks In... I Don't Need No 'Poo!

No shampoo, that is!

My current great experiment in life is to see if going the no shampoo route would work for me. Ten weeks in and everything is going quite well. There have been exactly zero people who have run from me in horror due to weird smells emanating from my head. Nice!

The past year or two has been one discovery after another, culminating in the repeated crushing of the conventional wisdom of our day, and a lovely layer of simplicity threaded through my daily existence. Now I can eschew the chemical laden shampoo for good if I want, and it is awesome.

Not that it was easy at first, but I have been heading for this for years (ha!). I have dry, naturally curly hair, and some time during college was told by a girlfriend that washing my hair every day was 'crazy', and that I should try every other day, or even every third day. I immediately began every other day, with just running water through my hair during the shower. A nice warm water rinse, and conditioning the ends. The result was so positive that I quickly went to washing my locks only two or three times a week.

A few years later I had a stylist tell me that I washed my hair too much. It was getting all dried out and broken, so she told me to refrain from the suds to once a week at the most. When my Hispanic girlfriends whom I worked with found out, they applauded my new membership in the 'Stinky Head Club.' My hair was easier to manage, and the breakage problem corrected itself quite quickly. Even before my recent stoppage of shampooing, my stylists stopped mentioning my split ends, because I barely had them anymore! Even through sun and wind and shoulder length hair, my hair was easily healthier than it had ever been.

Now I am two and a half months without shampooing, and my hair is soft and smells nice. I rinse it in the shower a couple times a week, and still put conditioner on the ends, and no one is the wiser. Until now. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would for my hair and scalp to adjust, and the very few days of extreme oiliness was easily masked by headbands and ponytails. I even recently discovered that I could still lighten my hair while in this 'dirty' state. Hooray! I wonder what my stylist will say the next time I walk in her salon. I have come this far, I am pretty sure I am not going back to the routine of shampoo.

Holy Cow! aka - What Have I Done?

So I have decided to participate in the official National Novel Writing Month this November, and it is much harder than when my friend Jess and I did it for fun, on our own, back in March. Maybe it's because I have no earthly idea how this one is gonna end, or that I actually have some semblance of a life going on, as opposed to the sheltered life I was living back in the nascent springtime. Regardless, I spent a significant amount of time this Sunday trying to play catch up with my word count, and am still woefully behind. I have my word count widget posted here on my sidebar, and I am gonna do my best to become a first time NaNoWriMo winner!!! Wish me luck.

PS - I am writing a post-apocalyptic love story... what was I thinking?!
PPS - If you have taken on this 50,000/30 day extravaganza like I have, may I share two of my favorite sites to help with the writers block and desperate decision making?

• Self-induced harassment to keep writing: Write or Die

• When you can't make another decision about your stupid ass characters: Mystical Smoking Head of Bob

Rochester: A Year Later

It has been a whole freakin' year! since I was unceremoniously booted out of Brooklyn by the crappy economy and moved back to what I consider my hometown, Rochester, NY. Rarely do I say this, but time surely does fly.

A recent visit by my friend Fran opened my eyes to what was around me, and gave me that little burst of appreciation of the city that I needed. This really is a lovely place to have been booted to. And not for nothin', but the neighborhood I ended up in isn't too shabby. Plus, after YEARS of living with someone, I finally can afford my own place. Heading home to a quiet little apartment all my own is super nice.

Yes, Rochester isn't as cosmopolitan as other, bigger cities, but I am close enough to many bars and restaurants that I can get my drink on like a New Yorker, and walk my drunken ass home, while enjoying bunnies, deer and wild turkeys wandering around in my backyard. Best of both worlds!

Having a car for the first time in 12 years has been an adjustment. I have to remind myself about things like gas, oil changes and I seem to have acquired a lead foot in all those car-less years. Not to mention I have had to carve out time for reading, something that consumed much of my commute time back in Brooklyn. It was quite the shock to realize how much reading I was doing on the subways, and how little I have been doing since I've moved here. I have a huge stack of books to be read mocking me from the corner of my bedroom. In New York, it seemed like there was never enough to read.

Another benefit of having a car and being so close to the country is roadside stands. Oh my, nothing like stopping on the way home for some freshly picked blackberries, eggs freshly laid that day, or spry and crunchy lettuce cut an hour earlier. Plus, Mom had some fantastic tomatoes and gigantic garlic that busted out of her garden this year, and I got to enjoy some. Along with lush bunches of basil and mint! Next on the list is to find a good dairy that isn't afraid of raw milk and cheese. Mmmmm...

So, yeah, there certainly isn't the same immediacy here, and there are days where I miss NYC terribly, but Rochester has a lot going for it, and I am getting used to the vibe once again.