raqs

11:27 pm: And another thing that makes me wrong...
I'm so in love with this bag.

BUT.

I have reached the end of the money. Certainly for a while. So this is an unrequited lust thing. For now.

*looks at bag*

*chews lip*

*has never been good at delayed gratification*

Tags: shopping, shoppingwithoutmoney

11:23 pm: I apologize.
I love this Heineken commercial so very much. (This isn't the version that they just now showed - it's cut slightly differently, and to my eye a little less well - but this version gives you the idea and all the peepul.) I am a twisted person draining all the innocent joy out of things and replacing it with juicy perviness, because part of what I love about this commercial is imagining, fleetingly, that every single pair of people who share the love/Heineken in this commercial have mad monkey sex. I particularly approve of that incredibly hot black (or biracial) chick doing that fragile emo blond chick. She really looks like she needs to cut loose. I believe the black chick is dragging a boy along with her who could also be pressed into service if necessary. I also think that that big fuzzy bearded mountain man who laughs so heartily would be awesome in bed, and I think that middle-aged Indian woman would show him a good time.

Then there's the gang-bang in the sauna with the ballerina, but that's a different story.

11:52 pm: cranky.
My bruise is turning exciting fall-oriented colors. I will post photos at some point. (Be warned - hairy leg comin' at ya!)

I'm so overcommitted and failing on so many things. I want someone to come over with a shovel and FIX this place. Actually I AM chipping away at it. And today I located an unfinished wood furniture store, so I can try to get something for SK to store his shit in. I don't want him to feel like a squatter. He lives here.

Is it wrong that I find it really depressing to think of going back to plain old cheap IKEA furniture for my living room? I have to replace my couch and chair, or get them repaired. They actively hurt me, and I'm tired of my back hurting. (It's getting better slowwwwwwly, but frequently after I get up out of these pieces of furniture, I walk like Groucho Marx. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life in one of the bedrooms while SK sits out here alone.) IKEA furniture is so cheap and relatively sturdy... but I enjoyed having stuff that looks nice! I wish I knew just what to do.

I think if I get much smaller pieces, my living room will just look weird.

Thinking about fall clothes...busy busy busy at work but I'm trying not to let it get me crazy... the cat is now PEEING in other places than her cat box and driving me to cry. (I tried removing the liner - I know she is often afraid of plastic - hopefully this will help.)

You know what I like? Books. I REALLY liked Elizabeth Moon's _The Speed of Dark_, we read it for book club. Does anyone want to hear about that?

I feel extremely un-eloquent, inarticulate, and uninteresting. I'm hoping to God this means my period may finally arrive. (It's thirteen days late. Don't get excited, SK doesn't provide sperm, he's a stingy bastard. I'm just perimenopausal at 40. Imagine my excitement!)

I'm going to bed.

12:23 pm: Idiots.
--
"When we saw women starting to drop out in the early part of this decade, we
thought it was the motherhood movement, women staying home to raise their
kids. We did not think it was the economy, but when we looked into it, we
realized that it was."
- HEATHER BOUSHEY, a senior economist at the Joint Economic Committee of
Congress.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/business/22jobs.html?th&emc=th
--

I object to the easy assumption that women who chose to work in the first place and were doing well then chose to stay home to raise kids. If that were true, it would be interesting; to assume it without data was stupid.

09:59 pm: via executrix: writers' block poll
Describe yourself in one sentence.

"A brilliant stumbling woman, mistaking her way to unreasonable levels of success."

05:05 pm: What do YOU all do about farting shoes?
They're not really farting, they're just hissing air, every time I walk. I find this highly unpleasant. My fashion guru says that eventually they'll stop doing that (what? they'll break in??), but in the meantime I find it yucky. Plus, I'm not sure I believe her.

I think the possibilities would be to plug the hole - which I'm sure would be bad for the integrity of the shoe, as I'm sure it's there to keep it cushy, with air going in and out - or to WIDEN the hole so at least I wouldn't hear it. I dunno.

11:51 pm: raqs fall down, go boom
I cannot even find the words to express the exact right levels of annoyance, embarassment, dismay, chagrin, disappointment, and, yes, resignation I feel about what went wrong in my day.

I had a Big Day o' Fun planned today. After my fun morning with SK, we drove into the city to give his car to his brother temporarily, and I met up with the Book Club ladies. I felt since I had suggested that we read the current book - and since I loved it - I kinda had to go, even though today was also the big Long Island bellydance festival and I really would have enjoyed taking some classes. And I am rusty and my brain is empty. But no, book club.

So I did that and THAT was fun, and I ate too much, but it was a late lunch and I was starving.

Thence to Penn station...

You know how they tell you to mind the gap?

Or is that the tube?

Anyway, they tell you to WATCH the gap or something.

Well, I didn't.

My foot slid into it as I was rushing to get around some slower people, and down I went.

You can fit a lot of a raqs' leg in the gap between the train and the platform at track 15 in Penn Station. Thankfully, though, it won't all fit, and eventually I scraped and jammed to a halt - and then twisted to land on my butt, which is good, because I sure as fuck didn't want to break my leg.

Let me tell you something: your outer thigh? Not really built for all your weight landing on it and scraping to a halt.

So THAT hurt like a sonovabitch.

Several people helped me up and someone told the conductor and he was all "Do you want me to call the EMT? They have ice. But they'll make you get off the train to treat you."

And I was all "No no, it'll be fine," in that stoic way you have when you wish you didn't have 100 people around you who just saw you fall on your ass and FUCK it hurts.

I realized about two minutes later, though, that this puppy was going to swell if I didn't cool it.

I didn't want to get off the train, though. The LAST thing I wanted to do was spend more time in Penn Station.

So I poured some cool drinking water I had on my handkerchief and put that on. And it was really surprisingly cool, plus cleaning the little scrapey spots.

And I got some smarts and texted the friend who was supposed to pick me up and asked if she could bring me some ice packs?

Which she did, so I spent the rest of the evening - a too-early Indian dinner that was nonetheless delicious, and a decent bellydance concert - with ice packs pressed to my knee and my skirt oh-so-indecorously hiked up. (Thank goodness it WAS a skirt.)

And I'm still annoyed, because it was a nice day, goddammit, and now it's all contaminated by my owie. Which is going to be some spectacular bruise colors, I suspect. SK suggested we photograph its day-by-day development. He already took a picture. So you can stay tuned for exciting wound photos. Or, you know, not.

05:50 pm: For _minxy_ and perhaps others interested in the sudden rise of sexual harassment in Egypt:

http://community.livejournal.com/bellydancing/2126484.html

06:13 pm: Further adventures in sniffing
Just time to report that the sampler pack I ordered from http://theperfumedcourt.com came, and I am interestedly sniffing various things which I have bought samples of. All I can report on so far is that L'Heure Bleue, Blue Hour, the perfume so famous it was mentioned in a Heinlein novel, is indeed incredibly complex - but dried down almost immediately on me to nothing more than a slight smell of incense.

I don't know if it smells like Art Deco, but it does smell INTERESTING. I can't imagine anyone constantly wearing it (though I suspect I know someone who does - having smelled it now, I can associate it with a faintly musky, incensey, grown-woman's perfume that I've smelled on women, and in particular a friend of mine, before.)

I need an icon for "severely, ridiculously girly."

Tags: perfume

05:10 pm: The end of the lip gloss road?
I still want to try O-Glow, which changes to your body chemistry (mood lipgloss, anyone?), and the new lip gelatos from philosophy, but not enough to shell out for them.

Lip gloss is still extremely important to me, but I believe I've found perfection: C.O. Bigelow's line of Mentha lipglosses. They are smooth, not tacky, taste great, look fabulous, wear well, and cost only $7.50 a tube. They are available in fun flavors like vanilla cola and orange mentha.

Yes, I do have a tube of Bare Escentuals' Buxom lip gloss in my purse and yes, I do put it on every morning. I like the plumping, coloring action; I like the combination of coffee and peppermint smells. But there's no denying that there's a little glitter grit to it. It's not for everyone, and it's not for every situation. (It's also undeniably sticky.)

Nope, Bigelow's is the ultimate.

That is all.

P.S. I have further musings about bags - quite deep emotional ones, actually - but that's a longer post for a future time.

09:45 pm: Shopping squee!
I do need to stop shopping, I do. But I just scored the CUTEST little leather pouches at the mall.

I really enjoyed shopping at the mall. I so seldom have the time to go wandering around in there any more! I returned some headphones I am not going to use (I thought they folded - they don't), and got some things I needed, like a new swim cap (I don't known WHERE my swim stuff went but it all went there!), and some things I didn't, like the new rice face scrub at L'Occitane. Remember when The Body Shop had those fabulous scrubbing rice grains? And they were discontinued? Well, L'Occitane has a new similar product.

I got some plastic pencil cases at Wal-Mart (all the women at in_my_purse are using them for bag organization, they looked cute, and I'm tired of all my Stuff rattling around in my desk drawers at work), and certainly didn't need to buy these much more expensive pouches. BUT I DID! One will fit my iPhone beautifully, and the other is a nice smallish size for beauty products.

Crabtree & Evelyn also had really cute Vera Bradley pouches which all the people on that comm also have. They would probably even be lighter, but I didn't get THAT carried away. Gotta save something for next time. ( cute pouch pic! )

Dinner was yummy salade nicoise, after a fashion, and two pieces of the Olive Boule bread from Trader Joe's, toasted and spread with butter. SO. DAMN. GOOD.

Tags: shopping

05:17 pm: Any Windows users out there with a rec for an AIM client better than the one AIM gives out?

12:46 pm: Library pr0n!
I know many of you will appreciate these pr0ny shots of gorgeous, luscious libraries. The Rio de Janiero one just kills me!! I want to touch it...

10:17 pm: Another weekend down.
Didn't get a full swim, but I squoze in 22 laps while SK fed the kids and took them home. The kids discovered the Wii and boxing game. They both have bloodthirsty instincts I lack - especially Young Miss SK, whom I think has the physical aggression to be a contender. We have watched almost all of season 3 of Avatar, too. That show continues to kick ass.

So we unwind by alternating TV channels between the Miss Universe pageant and footage of the 1970 Calgary concert in "Festival Express". Janis Joplin is apparently the antidote SK needs after ogling Miss Universe contenders for a while. Me, I could watch a lot more of that stuff. The evening gowns are pretty, and I like playing "Those are real/Those are fake" in the swimsuit competition. I admit I've lost interest since Miss South Africa was eliminated. She had amazing hips. All the top 10 look almost exactly alike.

I was expecting eeknight to be blogging it live but he's apparently doing something else. :-)

12:53 pm: Takoyaki!
I find it amusing that QVC is selling on special what is essentially a takoyaki pan, a pan for the making of octopus fritter balls. (Item K14450)

These pans are popping up everywhere, I've noticed - I've seen them in stores (for more, about $25). They may be starting a craze among Americans for making "pancake puffs". I'm sure they're cute as hell, as well as delicious. But the plain truth is those pans were originally for making octopus balls. I wonder how many Americans would eat octopus balls. :-)

Me, I've been dying to try making octopus balls. But I just can't bring myself to buy a pan that only makes one item. I guess if I wanted I could try making "pancake puffs" for the kids.

Speaking of pancakes and kids, we had pancakes this morning. Various combinations were had around the table but *I* went all out - chocolate chips IN the pancakes, and blueberries and syrup ON the pancakes. I am now very full. They were very good.

Tags: bento, food, meme

10:24 pm: Meme response: Food
dervishspin challenged me to get out of my blog comfort zone by writing about food.

Truth is, I'm not sure how out of my comfort zone that is. I blog about food from time to time. In fact, alizarin_nyc originally started reading my blog regularly not for the Stargate fanfic but because I posted something about food which caught her eye.

As one may gather from my posts about perfume, I am a sensualist. I would write as enthusiastically about sexual toys and positions and fun practices except that Good Taste Forbids It and that I'm not that interested in making everyone I actually know uncomfortable. I like clothes and other nice things partly because of the way they feel. (I certainly don't wear linen to look crisp and tailored; I wear it because it is cool and moisture-wicking and soft against my skin.)

So when it comes to food, I'm all about the pleasure, but as a lifelong fat girl I have also given a great deal of time and effort to thinking about nutrition. I sure as hell eat a lot more healthfully now than I did when I was half my age (I'm getting to you, emmieyiza.) I listen to my body more and eat more accordingly. But at the end of it all, I still eat food often for the pleasure of it, indeed for the comfort of it.

As I've aged I've discovered some food preferences. I dislike the idea that anyone closes off a whole section or item of food by saying they don't like it, but there are some things it's just pointless to resist about myself.

• I don't like cooked vegetables. (Though I will eat them in curries and stir-fries.)
  
• I LOVE raw vegetables.
  
• I don't like "cinnamon-flavored" anything, like candies, but
  
• I LOVE cinnamon buns and cinnamon in baked goods.
  
• I don't much care for fruit, but
  
• I love cherries. Cherry anything is by far my favorite fruit flavor.
  
• I love making bento. (Even though I'm not doing it much these days, what with one thing and another.)
  
• I love cooking GEAR. I am not a gadget-head, but I think a great deal about my tools, as much as anyone else who loves to build thinks about power tools. I am much more comfortable with my cooking on my new non-toxic nonstick pans, for instance (marketed as SandPans or GreenPans).
  
• I love the zen state of composing. I love putting the ingredients together and making them come out. I love creation. I love doing it quietly, in my kitchen, with no one bugging me. I am not a social cook.
  
• I have learned to eat food without sauce. For a long time I couldn't do this. At least some sort of butter, salad dressing, or mayonnaise was required. Knowing my SK, I have learned to eat naked food. A naked grilled chicken breast and plain steamed broccoli are not without their pleasures. And while I'm not sure it's why HE eats that way, for me, I've discovered the flavors of the foods themselves. (This also makes it easier to pack bento, where dry foods are infinitely preferable to wet ones.)
  
• I have developed the habit over the years of making a variety of substitutions that I still think are good ideas. That includes things like grapeseed oil for butter in some baking recipes (not puff pastry, but pancakes and bread dough, for instance). Yogurt cheese, especially made from Greek yogurt, is an awesome fat-free alternative to cream cheese.
  
• But I don't eat fake food. I wouldn't ever eat margarine, for instance. If I'm going to eat butter, I'm going to eat BUTTER - full-fat Plugra European fresh butter, preferably.
  
• And perhaps notably, I miss eating Indian food. A lot. I still miss living on a street where there were four GOOD Indian restaurants. I miss being able to get Indian whenever I want. I eat too much greasy takeout because my only "good" takeout option is sushi, and I don't always want sushi, and it's expensive. If I could walk down the street and get Indian - mmm, I so would.
  

I'm not sure what else dervishspin wanted, especially since I already gave her the recipe for fatoush, my all-time favorite salad, perhaps one of my favorite foods ever. So I will close with this recipe for salsa verde.

Back in my youth when I was cooking for a partner who wouldn't eat tomatoes, I discovered a LOT of ways to cook without them. When you just HAVE to have a sauce, this green sauce is an amazing alternative. Good hot or cold, I have put it on meat, white pizza, salads, bread, fish, and cold pasta, and I wouldn't hesitate to serve it at any picnic or dressy visitors dinner. Try this recipe and don't mess with it (though you could cut down a little on the olive oil depending on the texture and brightness of the final product you need), and let me know how you like it. And don't whine about the anchovy, I don't want to hear it. Like many of the best recipes, truly rich flavoring agents like the anchovy meld right in and become unnoticeable.

I hope you appreciate this, dervishspin, because as I'm sure you know typing up recipes is the most tedious type of typing in the world.

This is from Michael Field's classic cookbook "All Manner of Food", a book I recommend highly to all food afficionados. He explains cooking as well as gives great recipes.

Salsa Verde:
4 medium scallions, incl. 2" of the green tops, chopped (to make 1/2 C.)
Parsley, preferably flat-leaf, enough to make 1/2 C. finely chopped (parsley, the forgotten herb)
Fresh basil, 1 tbsp finely chopped. (I have used dried or left it out. It adds a richness to the herbal flavor.)
Sour dill pickles (they recommend cornichons which I have NEVER had on hand), 2 tbsp finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped fresh garlic
6 flat canned anchovies, finely chopped
1 medium potato, cooked, cooled, and finely chopped (NOT mashed), to make about 1/4 C.
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 C. olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper.

You just mix this gently. You can do almost all of it in a food processor and then add the last four ingredients in a mixing bowl. Don't try to do it all in a food processor, as you will have potato puree salad dressing, which is NOT what you want. (Though that might be useful for something else. Abusing a cooked potato carries its own punishments.)

Chill, as the author says, and then serve it with what you like, including "hot or cold boiled beef; the deep-fried scallops...; or the cold artichokes" for which he also gives recipes.

Any other thoughts about food?

Tags: food, meme

11:53 am: Via ozarque, who is musing interestingly about whether or not living longer is desirable: One thing they know for sure causes animals to live longer is eating less.

I've read a number of articles on this, and one thing I'm pretty sure of, is that this is one anti-aging trick that isn't going to be deployed at my house.

12:05 am: You are free to hate me.
I am so premenstrual, and I hate SK so much.

Big Kahuna said he wouldn't want to be either of us right now.

I have people coming to clean my house tomorrow. Because I can't keep up with it any more and I am made of fail. They will probably do it All Wrong and break or steal my stuff and take all my money, but I am going to try it anyway, all on the (probably mistaken) theory that if I can just get someone else to wipe beard hairs off the sink and toothpaste spots off the mirror, I will magically get the free time to do some writing, or at least clean out the closets and find room for SK to inhabit this apartment along with me, or at least read stories to the kids or something.

My period is two days late, I spent too much at Muji (though admittedly I love every little thing I got,) I got Sephora to swap the Inner Grace eau de parfum and perfume oil for ones that actually smell of something, mostly Inner Grace (I think I got a bad batch through mail order), and I'm pretty fucking grumpy.

On the other hand, I have a Muji planner. This is the day planner with circle layout. I am convinced this will enable me to keep all my Work and Personal Shit organized. Since I double-booked myself for the 19th I'm thinking I need a paper organizer; plus I can carry it around at work and have ONE place to make important notes to myself, instead of the combination of my meeting notebook, my purse notebook, zillions of little post-its, and the back of my hand. It could be that I'm just optimistic, though.

Or an idiot.

11:59 am: Well, I'm home.
I can't tell you how indescribably good it is to be home with my sweetheart, my cat, my own bed.

I also can't explain how bad it feels to leave my baby brother behind, because if I do I'll get all weepy.

I am supposed to go into work this afternoon. It's going to be hard putting on work clothes and going in and taking all those silly people seriously.

I didn't get ANY writing done on my l'il vacation. I didn't read any of the three novels I took with me. But I feel it was a VERY EXCELLENT vacation. I am rested and my brain is reset and I have a slight sunburn from playing in the pool with my baby brother. I don't know how it gets any better than that.

10:26 am: ON THE ROAD AGAIN!
Oh I'm on the road to Kalamazoo with my fat baby Carmalou!!

*points for getting the quote*

*not you, hol*

CLEAN. PACKED. GOTTA GO!