At the train station about a month ago when it was still cold, I saw this little old lady buying a ticket, and by that I mean she was exactly the image conjured when you hear the words "little old lady"—headscarf, old wool coat, thick beige nylons, white nondescript sneakers. She saw a couple pennies that had been dropped on the ground by the machines, and made a noise as if she had found someone's lost engagement ring. She approached a CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) employee, and tried turning them in to her. At first I didn't understand what her little-old-lady logic was. Did she think someone was going to come back to the Jarvis station and check the lost and found for the two pennies he or she had dropped? It can be confusing and slightly irritating when little old ladies do stuff like that. It's something my grandmother would have done, but she grew up in the Depression, so somehow that makes it understandable. Remembering that made me wonder what this little old lady's story was. Perhaps she had lived through some time in her life where every penny counted?
In any case, the CTA employee refused to take the pennies, explaining that they weren't allowed to take money from people. Little Old Lady's voice was too soft for me to tell if there was a language barrier, because she didn't seem to understand. She tried putting the pennies on the counter and the CTA employee got all snappish and said, "You can't do that! You can't put those there!" That was even more irritating. I wanted to get involved and say, "Come on! She's not giving you money, she's a little old lady trying to do the right thing by turning in dropped pennies. Do you think you're gonna get fired for taking them? Just take the fucking pennies and say thank you and throw them out afterwards if you want!" But I'm fairly certain that would have just pissed off both parties even more, so I just let it go and walked upstairs to catch the train.
Moral of the story: When a little old lady hands you something, just fucking take it.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
just say "red" to this book
Yes, it's been awhile since I've posted. Even two classes doesn't leave a lot of room for fun writing. I really enjoyed my classes this semester, and would encourage anyone looking for a good book to check out the blog that my classmates and I all contributed to for my Reader's Advisory class. It covers almost every genre, so there's bound to be something in there to appeal to anyone.
So after a semester of reading good books, I decided to turn off my brain and read the book everyone is reading right now. Do I even have to say it? Yes, I read 50 Shades of Grey. I was expecting it to be bad in a cheesy so-bad-it's-good way. In the words of Enid from Ghost World, "This cycled past good and went right back to bad again." I know it started off as Twilight fan fiction, but it didn't even remind me much of Twilight, except for the obvious bits about Christian and Edward being so handsome, and Bella and Anastasia being clumsy. To me it felt like reading a Sweet Valley High novel. If Francine Pascal had thought to get Elizabeth Wakefield and Bruce Patman together and throw in some S&M (well, technically she did, but it was much more vanilla), it would have been this book. Although the writing would have been a lot better. Think about what I just said.
To give everyone who has resisted the lurid song of 50 Shades a taste of what they've been missing, here's my take on a typical 50 Shades scene.
"Anastasia, I'm going to fuck you fast and hard," Christian muttered as he thrust his enormous penis inside me. At least, I think it's enormous. I've never even had a sexual thought in my life until I first laid eyes on Christian Grey, so it goes without saying that I've never seen a penis. Holy cow! I gasped and bit my lower lip. "Don't bite your lip, you know what it does to me!" he murmured. My subconscious looked up from her copy of "The Feminine Mystique" and tutted at me while my inner goddess did naked cartwheels around the room, the slut. "Okay, you can come now," he commanded. I gasped and immediately had fifteen orgasms in a row.
That's pretty much it. The rest of the book is mostly text messages and emails. Seriously. Henry and June it ain't. In fact, as far as S&M goes, it's pretty tame. The first book is just spanking. There are two sequels, so maybe it gets more intense. I hear the next book has butt plugs.
I happen to know a thing or two...not very much, literally just a thing or two...about the fetish community, which might be why a lot of this seemed far fetched to me. First of all:
1. Men like Christian Grey who are very rich and very powerful are rarely doms. It makes sense that they would be right? He's a control freak so that means he needs control in every aspect of his life, right? Nope. It's men like Christian who go to dungeons and pay women good money to stomp on their testicles while wearing stilettos. It's very rare to want that sort of control in all aspects of your life.
2. Which is probably why so many middle class moms are eating this story like candy right now. When you're spending your days changing diapers, herding the kiddos to school and soccer practice, making sure all homework is done, cooking three meals a day, and all those other things that moms are expected to do, it isn't a surprise that the idea of being tied up and blindfolded while someone else does all the work sounds enticing.
3. Safety words exist for a reason. There are a few times Christian goes over Anastasia's boundaries. This isn't hard to do because Anastasia, despite bragging about how high her GPA is for the entire book, has the communication skills of a rock. I kept yelling at her in my head, "Say 'red', Anastasia. Just say 'red.' He told you to say 'red' if things got out of hand. How about 'yellow'? Oh never mind, you just had ten orgasms anyway. Stop crying."
4. One thing that the book got right? Anastasia emails Christian (half the book! I'm serious!) and simpers about how he scares her sometimes and makes her want to run away, but she can't because she'd miss him and blah blah blah. He writes back, "What I think you fail to realize is that in Dom/sub relationships it is the sub who has all the power. That's you." Yes! Finally, the book gets something right! In other words, JUST SAY "RED", ANASTASIA!
So after a semester of reading good books, I decided to turn off my brain and read the book everyone is reading right now. Do I even have to say it? Yes, I read 50 Shades of Grey. I was expecting it to be bad in a cheesy so-bad-it's-good way. In the words of Enid from Ghost World, "This cycled past good and went right back to bad again." I know it started off as Twilight fan fiction, but it didn't even remind me much of Twilight, except for the obvious bits about Christian and Edward being so handsome, and Bella and Anastasia being clumsy. To me it felt like reading a Sweet Valley High novel. If Francine Pascal had thought to get Elizabeth Wakefield and Bruce Patman together and throw in some S&M (well, technically she did, but it was much more vanilla), it would have been this book. Although the writing would have been a lot better. Think about what I just said.
To give everyone who has resisted the lurid song of 50 Shades a taste of what they've been missing, here's my take on a typical 50 Shades scene.
"Anastasia, I'm going to fuck you fast and hard," Christian muttered as he thrust his enormous penis inside me. At least, I think it's enormous. I've never even had a sexual thought in my life until I first laid eyes on Christian Grey, so it goes without saying that I've never seen a penis. Holy cow! I gasped and bit my lower lip. "Don't bite your lip, you know what it does to me!" he murmured. My subconscious looked up from her copy of "The Feminine Mystique" and tutted at me while my inner goddess did naked cartwheels around the room, the slut. "Okay, you can come now," he commanded. I gasped and immediately had fifteen orgasms in a row.
That's pretty much it. The rest of the book is mostly text messages and emails. Seriously. Henry and June it ain't. In fact, as far as S&M goes, it's pretty tame. The first book is just spanking. There are two sequels, so maybe it gets more intense. I hear the next book has butt plugs.
I happen to know a thing or two...not very much, literally just a thing or two...about the fetish community, which might be why a lot of this seemed far fetched to me. First of all:
1. Men like Christian Grey who are very rich and very powerful are rarely doms. It makes sense that they would be right? He's a control freak so that means he needs control in every aspect of his life, right? Nope. It's men like Christian who go to dungeons and pay women good money to stomp on their testicles while wearing stilettos. It's very rare to want that sort of control in all aspects of your life.
2. Which is probably why so many middle class moms are eating this story like candy right now. When you're spending your days changing diapers, herding the kiddos to school and soccer practice, making sure all homework is done, cooking three meals a day, and all those other things that moms are expected to do, it isn't a surprise that the idea of being tied up and blindfolded while someone else does all the work sounds enticing.
3. Safety words exist for a reason. There are a few times Christian goes over Anastasia's boundaries. This isn't hard to do because Anastasia, despite bragging about how high her GPA is for the entire book, has the communication skills of a rock. I kept yelling at her in my head, "Say 'red', Anastasia. Just say 'red.' He told you to say 'red' if things got out of hand. How about 'yellow'? Oh never mind, you just had ten orgasms anyway. Stop crying."
4. One thing that the book got right? Anastasia emails Christian (half the book! I'm serious!) and simpers about how he scares her sometimes and makes her want to run away, but she can't because she'd miss him and blah blah blah. He writes back, "What I think you fail to realize is that in Dom/sub relationships it is the sub who has all the power. That's you." Yes! Finally, the book gets something right! In other words, JUST SAY "RED", ANASTASIA!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The School for Dangerous Girls
Last week we had to read a suspense novel. Think John Grisham and the like. I'm not a big fan of that genre...I mean, I like suspense, but not the OMG THE CLOCK IS TICKING AND THE BAD GUYS ARE CLOSING IN GO GO GO variety. I asked Trench to lend me something, so he gave me an Elmore Leonard book. I was bored in two chapters. I only had a week to read something, so I decided to look for a YA novel with suspense in it. I found "The School for Dangerous Girls" on Novelist, like a good library student. It was perfect for the assignment and I breezed through it on my Nook in a weekend.
Fifteen year old Angela is troublemaker and her parents have had enough of it. To get her away from her older boyfriend, she gets sent to Hidden Oak, a school for troubled girls hidden away in the mountains of Colorado. Angela makes two very different friends...Carmen, sweet and quiet, and Juin, loud and brash. After the first month, girls begin getting sorted into different groups. The gold thread is for girls that show hope of changing their dangerous ways, while the purple thread is for the girls the school deems to be lost causes (but don't want to just expel because then they would lose their parents tuition money). Carmen is put into the gold thread and Juin is put into the purple thread. Angela walks the line, but ultimately is thought to be just smart enough to go gold. After finding herself with the "good girls", Angela can't stop asking about what happened to the purple thread, which is a big no no, and she's severely punished for it. This just makes her more curious, until she finds a way to contact Juin and finds out that the purple thread girls have been left to fend for themselves Lord of the Flies-style in an abandoned gym, and are punished harshly for trying to escape. Angela, Juin and Carmen figure out the school's dark past and find a way to stage a rebellion and bring down the school for good.
During Angela's counseling sessions, her psychiatrist tells her that her problem is that she only acts on what she wants that minute rather than what would make her happy the next day. If Present Angela wants to run away with her boyfriend, she will do it without a thought to whether Future Angela will be as happy about it. At the end of the book, Angela has to choose between the quick getaway with Juin, which she knows will end badly because there's nowhere for her to go and Juin is kind of crazy, or staying behind with Carmen and helping to bring down the school (or possibly stay trapped there if things go wrong). Angela's arc is complete when she chooses Carmen.
What goes wrong: (SPOILERS HERE!) The girls are winning! Incriminating tapes have been found! The evil staff is outnumbered! Angela takes off for civilization with her sexy love interest (sigh...there had to be a love interest, even though it was unnecessary and lame), and he warns her that this still might not go well. The authorities rarely listen to girls like her, and they might side with the school no matter what's on the tapes. The final chapter is the epilogue, which takes place two months later. Angela and the dude return to the school, where the rest of the girls are.
Angela: It all totes worked out, just like I knew it would! How do you like my haircut?
Seriously, that was the ending. Everything wrapped up beautifully with a big fluffy bow on it, and no one even mentioned what happened to Juin after she escaped with the teacher she seduced (yup).
If I have to give it a grade, I'll give it a B-. If you like YA novels that are fast paced and suspenseful, give it a read.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Valentines Day: What I've Learned From Seven Years In the Beauty Industry
- Everyone knows that February 14th is Valentine's Day...but February 13th is V-Day for the mistress. Good to know that as the wife, you retain all rights to the 14th, but if you're ever feeling suspicious, find out what your husband is doing February 13th.
- A popular service at the spa on V-Day is a Couples Massage, where you and your partner get massages in the same room together. Massage therapists hate the couples massage because rather than being romantic, it's just a way for control freak couples to make sure their partner isn't getting a happy ending. One partner will keep craning his/her neck to make sure his/her significant other isn't enjoying the massage too much. Also, massage therapists will usually spend the whole time making goofy faces at each other and trying not to crack up.
- Also, if the couples massage you are booked cancels at the last minute or doesn't show at all, it's safe to assume that they broke up.
- As an esthetician, you are almost more likely to work on ladies who are single and decide to treat themselves to a facial or a waxing.
- (Please, I beg of you, don't snicker at the word "facial". The joke is less funny when it's your profession. How would you like it if I snickered every time you mentioned that you had a "conference call" or "power point"?)
- V-Day only registers for the newly in love. Those who are married or have been in a relationship for a really long time are all, "Huh? It's Valentines Day? Whatever. I guess we'll order in sushi or something."
- If you are a gentleman booking a day of spa services for your girlfriend, please spare the staff the embarrassment of booking her name as "Dreamgirl." And then forcing everyone to call her "Dreamgirl" the entire day. Yes, that happened.
- Tip generously. Your esthetician has had to look at a lot of vagina all day, and your massage therapist's hands are going numb.
Friday, February 3, 2012
magic onions!
So recently I learned through the Power of the Internet that if you put the white parts of green onions into a glass of water, they will magically regenerate and you will always have green onions. I figured it was worth a shot, so the next time I used green onions (for miso soup), I put them into a small glass of water. And lo and behold!
I took that picture last week so the onions are even taller now and ready to be sliced up the next time I'm peckish. Never ending onions! Thank you, Internet! Now I have to ask...do those of you who have green thumbs have any other tips like this? Is there another vegetable that will magically regenerate if I put it in a glass of water? As crafty as I can be, I've never been able to get into gardening because I make plants die.
In other cooking news, I managed not to succumb to the siren song of sushi takeout, and made myself a quick soup. Can of white beans, onions and red bell peppers that were already chopped up and leftover from another dinner, a whole head of garlic (yeah, that's right), can of green chiles, veggie broth. Boil, simmer, eat. I like it when it's simple.
In other cooking news, I managed not to succumb to the siren song of sushi takeout, and made myself a quick soup. Can of white beans, onions and red bell peppers that were already chopped up and leftover from another dinner, a whole head of garlic (yeah, that's right), can of green chiles, veggie broth. Boil, simmer, eat. I like it when it's simple.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
let's add some teal
The Great Moth Infestation has finally been handled. Any yarn that wasn't thrown out was put in the freezer, thawed, microwaved, rinse and repeat several times. Sweaters were taken to the dry cleaners. Blocks of cedar/lavender sachets/cedar and lavender sprays were purchased. The salvaged yarn (mostly acrylics and cottons) were re-wound with my swift and ball winder and put into ziploc bags. Take that, you little fuckers.
Quite frankly, my knitting corner was asking for it. I had yarn hanging out in baskets and boxes. Even with all of that gone it was still a mess. I had knitting/other crafty books spilling all over an end table.
Yes, they were filed away neatly at one point. Shut up! Know what else is a mess? Your mom!
Trench and I took a trip to our favorite little gem in Chicago, Nadeau, which sells furniture from India and Indonesia for WHOLESALE PRICES! We combed through the warehouse and finally settled on this beauty.
We moved the table off to the side and will most likely be getting rid of it. You can't tell under all those books, but it's an antique that I grew up with. I'm sad to part with it, but I'm hoping someone in my family will take it back. Otherwise I'll try finding it a good home elsewhere. Here's how the cabinet looks filled up with books and yarn.
It would be prettier if the yarn wasn't stored in ziploc bags, but unfortunately ziploc bags are now an indispensable item. I did try to organize by color (which wasn't hard because I mostly have purples and reds). I was shocked that almost all my books fit on the bottom shelf.
I don't think this would have held even half of what I used to have, but I think I was due for a purging anyway. I've decided not to add anymore to the stash until I get through some of what I already have. I haven't done much knitting in a long time, mostly because the old light fixtures we had were so dim, but we're replacing those too so things are better. I just cast on for a new project and I'm falling back in love with the craft.
Besides that, we also found this little table that we couldn't resist getting.
We almost always watch TV by hooking it up to the laptop so we can watch Hulu. The laptop would sit on a dining room chair. It was such a fixture that we decided the laptop needed its own table to sit on.
I'm liking the way this corner looks now, although in its natural state there are a lot more wires and such hanging about. Next on the agenda...a new lamp, ditching the old end table, and replacing our not-very-old purple chair that our cat Bowie decided to turn into a scratching post.
Quite frankly, my knitting corner was asking for it. I had yarn hanging out in baskets and boxes. Even with all of that gone it was still a mess. I had knitting/other crafty books spilling all over an end table.
Yes, they were filed away neatly at one point. Shut up! Know what else is a mess? Your mom!
Trench and I took a trip to our favorite little gem in Chicago, Nadeau, which sells furniture from India and Indonesia for WHOLESALE PRICES! We combed through the warehouse and finally settled on this beauty.
We moved the table off to the side and will most likely be getting rid of it. You can't tell under all those books, but it's an antique that I grew up with. I'm sad to part with it, but I'm hoping someone in my family will take it back. Otherwise I'll try finding it a good home elsewhere. Here's how the cabinet looks filled up with books and yarn.
I don't think this would have held even half of what I used to have, but I think I was due for a purging anyway. I've decided not to add anymore to the stash until I get through some of what I already have. I haven't done much knitting in a long time, mostly because the old light fixtures we had were so dim, but we're replacing those too so things are better. I just cast on for a new project and I'm falling back in love with the craft.
Besides that, we also found this little table that we couldn't resist getting.
I'm liking the way this corner looks now, although in its natural state there are a lot more wires and such hanging about. Next on the agenda...a new lamp, ditching the old end table, and replacing our not-very-old purple chair that our cat Bowie decided to turn into a scratching post.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
entre-vu
Trench and I moved into our condo almost two years ago. We had a fit of decorating/organization, threw a housewarming party, then promptly gave up. We're finally picking up where we left off and doing projects like putting our CD collection on itunes so we can sell the CDs (except for a few sentimental favorites), and organizing areas that have gotten cluttered. Today I fixed up our front entry way. We did a good job of decorating when we first moved in, but it's been starting to look a little shabby. I had a couple of nice pictures that were just sitting out without any frames. I decided to finally go buy some today. I went to the closest neighborhood with cute boutiques and couldn't find a damn thing until one furniture shop owner recommended that I check out Equinox. I did, and it became my new favorite store. There were shelves of cute frames! Big enough for my 5 x 7 pictures! Huzzah! It has all sorts of cute items for the home as well.
So here's a shot of my now much more put together front entry way:
The large picture on the wall is actually a stick-on decal from Blik. We've named her Matilda.
So here's a shot of my now much more put together front entry way:
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