2 things and a reality check

3 things have happened to me the past 2 days that have gotten me very e-motional

1. Last night i stayed up late to watch the obama special online. And regardless of politics and waht he said and crap, that was a great special. I felt so in touch with American, Americans, etc etc. The special showed the interconnectedness not the division. It showed that we are hard workers striving to help each other and our families even in the hardest of times. And it made me, for the first timein a long time, really proud to be an American. I mean i have been volunteering and i talk about the elction all the time and blah blha but it made me remember how important all this really is. It's not about who has teh better tax plan or who is or isn't muslim. It's about getting back to the America that my parents told me about, the America that they gave up everything to come to. They didn't leave their homes to be someone's maid or gardener. So that they could deign to exist as second class citizens to the "real americans." they came here because this was the land of opportunity, where anyone, regardless of where they came from could make it. Where the daughter of a lunch trucker could go to Stanford. THIS was the America i was told about. But for so long this has not been the America i have seen. There is so much anger and divisiveness coming out right now, revealing all of these festered wounds. so when did we stop believing in america?? When did injustice and not striving for ideal equality become acceptable in our eyes?? This is not the America of my father's dreams. this is not the America that he abandoned everything for. So as many writers have written, if what we have lived in for most of my life has been "real america," then i'm ready to give it all up and try something new to try to strive for the America that i have read about. Because this isn't it.

2. And then i read this which really moved me. I started thinking about what it would really mean to have a black first lady and all that goes along with that and if it actually happens i think i will cry. Not that it will mean all the bullshit of this country is over, but that it will mean the american dream can still live on. And i have lots of mixed feelings about the American Dream, but i also feel that when the idea of the dream dies then we are no longer America. I have this memory that has been coming back to me lately of a girl i went to middle school with. Her name was dominique and since we went to a christian school which doesn't promote halloween (aka devil day) they told us we could dress us as our heroes. It was a lame idea. I came as dorothy from the wizard of oz because that was my costume from halloween and my mom had spent hours putting sparkles on my ruby red slippers, so she would be damned if i didn't wear that thing as many times as possible. But Dominique showed up wearing a skirt, white button down, blazer, and tie. I went up to her adn i said "what are you?" And she said, "i'm my future hero, the first woman president." clearly her mother had inculcated her with this costume idea because her mom was a pretty liberal lady. but what is sadder is my reaction. I may have actually said, but definitely thought, "women can't be president. That's just stupid." When i think back on this, no amount of coaxing could have changed my mind, because reality is and was reality. So when i think about the power behind this election, and what it can do for the future, i am so very moved. If someday a kid can show up dressed in a suit and say "i'm barack obama, the first black president" than maybe a girl dressed up as her future hero, the first female president won't seem so stupid and unrealistic. i want to be able to tell my kids that they can do anything or be anything, but more importantly i want to be able to mean it.


now here's the reality check
3. Today one of my students, this white working class girl, came up to me. I felt so terrible. Her parents died and she's been raising herself and taking care of her grandma since she was 12, living on welfare and foodstamps. Now she's here in college, among all these rich as fuck ungrateful brats and she's too scared to take on loans because she doesnt' understand teh banking system, so she has all these jobs in addition to her financial aid. She went to the health clinic and due to various symptoms they think she might have a pituitary tumor. Here's the terrible part. She has no insurance, and they don't require you to have insurance to register here. She needs an MRI to see if it is in fact a tumor but those cost over $2,000. She's too scared to take a loan and medicaide isn't going through for her and she's trying to find a way to get that money while still maintaining a class load of 5 courses, AND dealing with the fear that she might have cancer, which her mom died of. Oh and this possible tumor is affecting her vision and giving her terrible headaches. She confessed to me, fighting off tears that her worst fear is that she will have to depend on others to take care of her, like her mom depended on her when she had cancer. And i think she's scared of depeneding on people, because she knows that there is no one to depend on. THAT is some upsetting real shit. I don't know what to do about this

ooooh fashion

Ok so i am only defending "she whose name shall not be spoken" because i am a shopaholic and it's not fair to judge people based on their desire to look good in well fitting clothes. It IS on the other hand, fair to judge people based on their hypocrisy (I am a working class, real american {read white}). So on the one hand i say...Sarah Palin, YOU SWEAR!

but on the other hand i say, do not judge a woman for her Cole Haan boots! Granted i do not exactly love the outfit she chose to wear them with. It might have been better with, like, a sweater dress or something.
The full on suit and suede boots was not working for me. But this photo montage about how they don't know what she spent all that money on because she just bought more expensive versions of the clothes she had bought at Kohl's, i admit, is a bit fucked up. But that's kind of what you get for claiming that you are "real." I mean, I believed it when JLo said it cuz she confessed to her "rocks" and, i mean, she grew up Puerto Rican in the bronx and now she bathes in creme de mer, with no shame. Whereas this is just straight up lying. But I do think this focus on her wardrobe is unnecessary. Because, shit, if Tom Ford wanted to dress me up in his love i would be like, BLAZE! But i don't imagine that the highly homossssssexual fashion industry would ever volunteer to dress her anti-gay ass up. So unfortch for her she had to buy her own wears at Needness Markup, instead of receiving awesome free schwag like Michelle Obama.

So in conclusion, hate the sinner, not the sin...oh wait

north carolina

So the campaign just told Nick that his region is being uprooted and moved to North Carolina on Thursday. NORTH CAROLINA! they figure they are winning most of michigan and so they need to spread their manpower. guys, i'm super bummed.

I was watching grey's anatomy the other day and Izzy is trying to find someone to move in with her and no one will help her out and at one point she has this crying scene where she's like "i used to have people, family...what happened, i have no one and i used to have people." i kind of feel like that right now. My friends have either moved away or are essentially shacking up with their sig others and so i guess for a while i started doing that too becuase it was either shack up with my man or sit around in my house watching tivo. And now he's moving, and i have this feeling like....what happened to my peeps?? I used to have tons of friends, something to do during all of my free time. And now that Nick is moving i just feel like...ugh anyways i'm real upset about the situation. Granted it's just until the end of the election but then after that who knows what will happen or where he'll have to move or whatever. And we were going to spend election day together, since it would be the culmination of all the hardwork from this summer. And now he's gonna be in North Carolina and i'm gonna be here, sitting in my living room.

maybe i'll take up excercising again or something. damn you, barack obama!! Orges and i started thinking that maybe this is adulthood...people shacking up, getting married, having babies, moving to the burbs, etc. but waht if you don't want to do those things. Being young, single, and awesome is only fun when you have friends to do it with. otherwise it's just sad and lonely. is this all there is to growing up???

burrrrberrrrrry

ugh i just watched the debates, which were not as bad as i thought they were going to be. But really, how unfortunate is it when you have to say "it was better than i expected!" because you expected nothing. Anyways palin is full of shit, and apparently i'm a socialist and would rather live in europe (ie the future) than in redneck america, so whatevs.

What i do want to talk about, to get our minds off of all this sssseriousssssnessss economic shit is, my burberry trench. Yes, the irony is so thick, and YES I AM THE PROUD OWNER OF A BURBERRY TRENCH!! i know, can you even believe it?? I am one of those stupid americas who is paying off debt (and will probably never get out of it) so that i could buy something stupid and materialistic. Hoorraaah for "Joe Six Pack"!! I will tell you all that there were many reasons why this purchase was necessary

a) i live in a cold place, and will live here for a few more years, so investment in a good coat is not that wasteful
b) i bought it at a pre-sale at nordstrom in chicago, so i got it HALF OFF! I KNOW, die now
c) and this was the real selling point. I found a petite size 2. A PETITE SIZE 2!! the burberry stores don't even sell petites. They are so rare that they only sell like 1 in each color at flagship stores where there is winter, so basically like chicago and new york. FOR REALS! IT WAS NECESSARY.

this jacket (petite size 2 that actually fits my 5'0 frame) is basically the unicorn of trench coats. It's mythical!!

here i am in my coat



and just to inspire hope in all of you....the cutest baby ever!!! BENNY!! for reals why is he so fucking cute??!! I mean am i on crack or does this kid just make you want to go "DAH!!"

money money money

as abba once said, "it's a rich man's world." Guys, I haven't been paid in 2 months. 2 MONTHS with ZERO income. my mom lent me some money but for the most part i have lived off of 300 dollars the past 2 months. John Mccain spents almost 3 times my income to fill the gas of his cars. The university doesn't pay us for the month of august, and I stupidly forgot this so i used this massive load of cash i had left over at the beginning of august to pay some credit cards. responsible? yes. Good planning? NO! so whatever few hundreds i had left went to my rent. And initially I had been told i would be payed on the 22nd of September so i was holding out. so i check my account yesterday and...nothing. so i called payroll, and the department had noted incorrectly our paydate. We are actually not getting paid until the 30th. that is a whole week longer that I will have to scrounge and eat ramen. I have actually been eating ramen because i can't afford real food. And don't talk about the party that my house threw this weekend because i didn't pay for it. The worst part about all this is that i HAVE a decent sized paycheck coming in on the 30th along with lots of extra smaller amounts from my various part time jobs. But until then i just keep cutting more and more from my "necessity list." I mean i guess one good thing is that i realize that i can live on dollars a day.

I had this realization about a week ago, and it's gotten worse since then, that despite my "elite" lifestyle or whatever, i actually make probably a little more than the working class people who are so disenfranchised in this election. Anyways i have like....no retirement and 33 dollars in my savings account....The only things i have are a few designer purses left over from my days as a secretary and a burberry trench coat (yes reread that first sentence and mock me). But my point is not to show how poor i am and how badly i budget my money because i think i do a pretty good job given what i'm working with. MY POINT is to say that if our economy plumets, as appears to be the case, i am ROYALLY FUCKED! i have like NOTHING to fall back on. This scares the shit out of me. Is anyone else scared of our impending doom??????

so in conclusion, for me AND FOR YOU please vote for barack obama and volunteer in swing states and make phone calls and talk to those undecided voters. I have been volunteering more so because my man is an organizer in a white working class county and this is how we spend time together. But in addition to that i am getting so much perspective from the experience!! Just to give you some idea of what it's like where he works. Ann Arbor gets about 90 volunteers in the office a day. his county gets on a good day, 5. So i say again, if any of you want to volunteer to phone bank on weekends or weekdays in a white working class county of undecided voters in one of the most important swing states in the country (michigan) PLEASE CONTACT ME. stop talking about doing it and actually do it, people! Also, send me care packages of food and supplies!

so i went out karaoking (is this a verb?) last night and unfortunately it's the beginning of the year so our dive bar that is usually empty turned into the fun new ironic hang out for the business school kids. DAMNIT! So instead of being full of sad locals pouring their hearts out over karaoke it was a bunch of asshats. Case in point the 3 former sorority girls who were all dressed alike in typical, uninteresting outfits going on stage singing "like a virgin." they thought they were such hot shit, dancing around all cute and pretending to be sexy. And yes, i have done like a virgin before, but i really DID like a virgin. I didnt' go up there and vapidly sing the song. anyways there was also the mandatory "i like big butts" and when my friend sang "bad moon" a former frat boy came up to him and threw up his fists screaming "YEAH!!!!! FOGERTY!!!! WOOO!!!" A couple of people went up there to sing "friends in low places" but as seems to be the case when amateurs do karaoke they didnt' know all the words, just the chorus so it was like this

"blame it all on suuu.....ttaaaa ssuuuuuuu......IIIII GOT FRIENDS IN LOOOW PLACES!"

I was like...people, when you sing a song make sure you know it. why does karaoke ettiquette bother me so much? Anyways so this place has a new system where they have what i would definitely call the poor man's "live band karaoke." It is nowhere near the caliber of alix's bar, cathy. It's one guy on guitar, and another on bass who sometimes switches to a keyboard that sounds more like a synthesizer. And then there is this wretched woman running the karaoke machine who we call "karaoke nazi," which i know is a totally un-pc term but, really, sometimes there just isn't a better way to describe it. so yeah, they have the karaoke background music and then the band, basically adds to it with their own real music. It ends up being sounding a lot like guitar hero. Anyways, so this woman has all these rules if you want to sing and she yells them into the mic throughout the night when they are broken.

"NOOOOO drinks on stage! if you bring your drink on stage you will be kicked out of the bar"

"please keep a 2 foot distance from the stage!!! step back from the stage!!!!!"

And she yells this into the mic and if you are drunk it totally kills your buzz. But the best part about her is that during certain songs she will do the background vocals. Case in my point, my friend sang total eclipse of the heart and the woman did the "turn around" part. It was so great! and she got really into it closing her eyes "turn aroooouuund." and right at the end she even added the "turn around BRIGHT eyes" part. It was at that moment when i decided i officially loved her.

Oh my god i was about to end my post by saying "so in conclusion let me just go over the main points of this post. I hate b-school students and i love the karaoke nazi." Jesus, i've been writing way too many papers lately.

lean cuisines

this is a really brief, not really, update just to say that being in the microwave room in the psych dept at lunch time is really fucking sad and pathetic. Remember that scene on my so called life when angela laments about how unfortunate it is to see the sad excuse for her teacher's lunch? it's like that, only this is my life and i am the teacher. from about 11:30 til 2:00pm the halls are filled with the pungent aroma of various lean cuisines. And i'm talking like the beef stroganoff lean cuisine. the public fridge is filled wiht frozen dinners and prepackaged fruit cups and for some reason all of this just make me feel wretched, and i can't figure out why.

anyways that is kind of all for now. peep my fishing pics on facebook. super hot

sorry i haven't posted in a while. Life has kind of been stressful and sucky. Key friendships fell apart, were put back together, and then fell apart again only to be put back together once more. This emotional roller coaster was exacerbated by a junior high style web of lies where i told someone a secret who told someone a secret who told someone a secret who told someone else a secret, who happened to be the person the initial secret was about.

Lessons i have learned this summer:
1. I do NOT enjoy keeping people's secrets. AS much as i love a good chisme session next time i here the phrase "ok you CANNOT tell anyone this" i am going to say "stop! i don't want to know!"
2. i need to have multiple friend groups/worlds so that i can have places to escape.
3. I need to remember NOT to mix my worlds otherwise there is no escape.
4. Friends should not date other friends in your circle because it complicates things and adds to the aforementioned "web of lies." Which concludes with the realization that as much as my high school fantasy was for my best friend to fall in love with me, this really does not work in real life, and thus i am growing up and getting over my Pacey/Dawson/Joey love fest.

On another note, barack obama has stolen my boyfriend. And on yet one last note, my life has revolved around books, articles, and a windowless office for 6 hours a day. I have all this shit to do before sept 15th so i can reach candidacy so that i can dissertate and get my phd 3 years from now. My friend Hugo just defended his disseration yesterday and afterwards it left me wondering, "is that all there is to grad school?"

The only real outfit i put together last week. Otherwise i dressed like a slob for the most part

Shirt = converse for target, cut offs = citizens self made, belt = banana republic, green polka dot flats = coach, earings = mom's hometown in Mexico.

monthly mixed tape party tonight with the theme "boogie nights." Yesterday i managed to procure a totally amazing zip up, short sleeve, denim full body suit. Can you guys even handle that?? can i even handle that???? will post hopefully tomorrow if not too hung over.

Michael Phelps...have 10,000 of my babies

guys i am OBSESSED with this guy.

yes it's true, i am just like every other American right now but blaze. and it's ok because Nick is also obsessed with him so we can actually bond about our common obsession. He likes to retell a story about how he drank at a bar with Michael Phelps, since he was a student here at U of M. The truth story is that Michael Phelps was at a bar at the same time as Nick and they drank....at the bar....across from each other. but when he retells it you swear that they were bff or something.

anyways the olympics are ruining my life. I am not functioning properly. I have been averaging about 6 hours of HD surround sound Olympic action a day and it's driving me crazy. And i can't tivo it because the quality is so bad and once you have seen it in HD you can't go back. I saw the fucking particles of chalk dust during the gymnastic competition. SERIOUSLY!! Anyways i have terrible headaches from all the high definition awesomeness and knots in my back from the tension i feel as i watch the girls do the parallel uneven bars and my voice is almost gone from screaming last night during the 400m relays! seriously! are you guys watching this shit!! thank god i don't have a real job otherwise my 4 hour morning olympic watching session would be cut.

One last one for the road. MP, I ruv you.

cleaning and where i live

Guys i normally don't talk about meals i cook because a) i don't consider myself a great cook worth noting and b) my meals tend to be extremely utilitarian and uninteresting. But today i have to talk about what i made because IT WAS BOMB! I've been missing my parents a lot lately because i know that i won't see them for another few months and i've just generally been missing home and my family so i was craving something that felt like home. Now this next sentence is going to have so many douche elements that you will just have to hold your breath...are you ready.

So i was riding my bike back from Nick's place this morning and on my way home i decided to stop by the farmer's market. Sara you would die because i live a block away from the local farmers market that happens twice a week...I know. So i stopped by and grabbed a few things and then i went into my local grocer (i am a member of a food co-op. I KNOW!! i hate me too) and purchased some amish grown jalapenos. And then i chatted it up with my butcher and got convinced to buy a chicken sausage.

So i sauteed some potatoes and shallots, and then cooked up my chicken herb sasuage (cased in real intestine!), then i roasted some tomatoes and jalapenos and whipped up a salsa and put it on top of a fried egg. it was amzingly delicious with a bit of avocado.
but onto my butcher, because i have one. Gguys i kind of secretly but not so secretly love where i live! it's like a foodie's paradise. I live in kerrytown, the old historic district, where there are still brick streets and old houses and locally owned shops. And there is a coop that like i said i'm a member of which is where i get most of my bulk grains and things. why just the other day i made my own rice, lentil, tvp, mung bean blend. But then there is sparrows which is this small BiRite type shop (but swears less) where they sell normal stuff but also rare things like swiss yogurt and ALL GRASS FED MEATS and hand made sausages and locally grown shit and rare things liek vanilla beans and stuff. And then another block away from there is Zingerman's Deli which makes it's own bread and cheese and sells rarities like grey sea salt. And all in this 3 block radius is where they have the local farmer's market and people ride their bikes from all over town and buy shit and they bring dogs and children wearing crocs and everyone has their own canvas bags from the various organizations they are members of. And then there is my house, and a short walk from there is a river where you can kayak. and it's just like, I DONT' KNOW WHERE I AM BUT I FUCKING LOVE IT.

I love living in a small town and seeing parents carrying icee eating children (an old lady sells icees for 1$ at the farmer's market on weekends along with eggs and flower bouquets from her garden) on their shoulders! I love talking to my butcher and saying, "when are you getting that potato sausage" and he says "i'll make some special for you tomorrow morning." I love that i can take in my bottles and get money for them instead of just recyling them. And it's not just eco minded peopel that do this. EVERYONE does this. so you see white trash looking people with their 24 packs of keystone getting their deposits back. I love this shit! And for some reason the fact that it's located in the midwest makes it waaaay less douchey then when you see shit like this happen in california. It's like more real and organic, like people are doing it because they care not because they are trying to be smug and hip and better than you. It's like this is the way they have been doing things around here forever. I love seeing the old lady who sells catnip on saturdays!! no one buys but she blazes. and today the cutest thing ever...an old lady selling t-shirts and canvas bags that she had bedazzled herself with rhinestones reading "OBAMA 08" selling them at the FM. Like seriously how can you not love this shit!

So anyways i cleaned today, jen came over, and we watched lots of tv and did laundry together. Then Nick came over for lunch and was like "don't take this the wrong way but your bathroom looks OCD clean...like you just moved in and no one lives here." here is a pic. Note i was washing the rugs so it looks more empty than usual. But like i didn't even clean the baseboards today so it was technically not as clean as i would have likeds
he said it was weird that we had nothing but hand soap on our counter tops. The truth is i think that having shit on your counter is kind of gross. My bathroom has lots of storage and it's the main bathroom that guests use and i don't feel like my guests need to see my netty pot and tooth paste. Back me up Casey! I mean having clumps of hair everywhere and rust stains on your sink and brown stains in your toilet and mold in your shower DOES not make your bathroom look lived in. It makes it look dirty like you don't ever clean. What he didn't know was that i also regularly soak our trashcans and recycling containers with bleach water. That part i acknowledge is a bit excessive.

anyways i also cleaned my kitchen. I still think it's a bit cluttered but i did my best.


i know, it has absolutely no personality. thus is my life.

pictures of where i live
where the farmer's market happens

For Ester

Today i saw sisterhood of the travelling pants 2...and it was really good. I won't go into detail other than to say that i enjoyed the womanness of it all, but woman things always make me think of my grandma. Not because she was a particularly good example of the kind of woman one should be, but because she knew she wasn't the kind of woman she wanted to be and tried her damndest to make us learn from her mistakes. Then i went for a jog because it was just such a nice day outside and i started listening to an old This American Life about this brother and sister who had this really fucked up relationship with their mom. She would threaten to send them to orphanages and told them having them was her biggest mistake and as they got older the son stopped talking to his mother. But the sister took care of her and called her every night because she realized that there were things about her mom she would never understand and she really did try her best, even though her best was fucked up. This to me embodied my grandma, a terror of a woman full of bitterness and regret who just tried her best but often failed.

But there was a part during SOTTP when Blake Lively's character finds old cards and letters and things that her grandma had sent her over the years. It made me think of my grandma because my grandma was the only person who throughout my life sent me birthday cards. My mom isn't much of a believer in sentimental things and birthday cards are one of those things she just doesn't do. And i saw the rest of my family often enough that birthday cards weren't really ever sent. But my grandma always sent cards in the mail. She did it for all of her grandkids even though she lived no more than 15 minutes away from us and we saw her at least once a week. And i remember watching tv and hearing kids talk about how they looked forward to getting birthday cards from their grandparents because it usually meant they got some large check or a gift card or anything fun and interesting. These were the complete opposite of my grandma's cards. They were never funny or personal, usually some ugly card with tacky flowers or something about how granddaughters are special written in English, even though my grandma didn't read, write, or speak English. And they always said the same thing in her almost disturbingly perfect penmanship. It was a message i can't remember written in Spanish about how she wished me a happy birthday, and a happy life. Every card was the same message no matter if it was my Birthday or Easter or Christmas. And she would address it to me with the name Acosta instead of my last name. Like that was my true last name. She only did this for the girls, but it was like her call to arms, "remember who you are, you are and always will be Acosta women." It's haunting now that i think about it and it's one of the many things i wish i could ask her about, what this name meant to her.

She went into the hospital on december 14th, of 2003 the morning after i came back from my semester abroad, and she died on the 20th. During that week i came home from the hospital one day and there it was in our mail...a Christmas card addressed to me, with $20 (the first i had ever recieved from her) in it, wrapped of course in a well folded tissue. See my grandma had pretty severe OCD and one of her many compulsions was that she would wrap things in tissues or napkins. I opened the card, looked at her hand writing, knowing it would be the last time i would see it, knowing that since she was brain dead, lying in a hospital bed, waiting for her body to catch up with her mind I would never be able to thank her properly for all the cards she had given me that i had so carelessly thrown away throughout my life. I put it back in the envelope, money, tissue and all and placed it in a corner of the kitchen cabinet. It's still there, and sometimes i open it to remember her, to look at the precise folds in the tissue square that she probably creased for half an hour until she got the perfectly symmetrical fold.

And now that i get older i miss those cards and every time my birthday comes around I know that something is lacking. More importantly though i realize how much it cost her to send all of us, her grand children, those cards 3 times a year. My grandma was not a very independent woman. She couldn't drive or take the bus or communicate in English. She depended on one of her five daughters to take her anywhere she needed to go. And as i got older i realized that for her to go to the local super market and pick out what i thought was a tacky card was actually quite a feat. She would have to call one of my aunts or my mom to take her. And then she would take an average of about 3 hours to "get ready." Like i said, she was OCD, so leaving the house was a major event. And those cards that i thought were so impersonal...turns out she would ask her daughters to translate them for her so she could pick one that she felt reflected her thoughts.

This was her at 16, when my grandpa came back from America and decided that he would marry her, the prettiest girl in their town.
at 36 after having 7 children and burying 2.

In her late 40's fluffing my dress because it needed to be perfect for the picture
and in her 50's with her 2 favorite granddaughters.
I believe in naming children after important people, and i often wonder if she would count. She was named after one of the only 2 women who were worthy enough of receiving a book title in the Bible, and whether or not she lived up to that name i just don't know. I asked my mom once if she thought it would be ok to name a daughter after my grandma and she said, "why would you want to destine them to unhappiness like that. Names are supposed to be after people who lived good lives, not people who were miserable." And that's always how i think of her, a woman with the potential for greatness, but the lack of opportunities. And I wonder what she would think of me now, at 26 living on my own away from home, unmarried, no children, no responsibilities, doing exactly what i want to be doing right now. And i think she might be proud, like i was the only one who listened to her and took the things she said to heart. and 1 out of 8 is not bad.

recipes

peeps! i have an important question to my 4 readers!!! My man's bday is tomorrow and i was contemplating baking something in honor of this event. Any recipe suggestions??? i work better with stuff that has pictures attached to it. He likes chocolate...but really he'll eat anything.

Tucked in shirts? Yay or Nay?

guys, so remember how at pitchfork we discussed our predictions for fashion trends that will blow up? the most important ones being overalls and doc martins and Indian chic (which i do NOT approve of). Aaaaanyways i have another prediction to add. I think that tucked in shirts outside of the work place are going to be all the rage, and inspired by this, here are my outfits for this weekend.

amazing orange linen overalls from salvation army. Along with this purchase i also got an almost new Levi's light wash jean jacket. I have been wanting one forever but i could never rationalize the cost, and there it was for 7 bucks. Awesome.
soul night outfit. It felt 50/60's alterna kid style. also i wore animal print shoes EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT FALL because it was soul night.
Hair = by Sexy Straight Hair, Leopard Print wedges = Steve Madden, Black skinny Jeans - Lux @ Urban Outfitters, gold belt = Michael Kors, White Safari Button down shirt = converse for Target, Red Bead necklace = Bargain World thrift store, Sunglasses = forever 21.

guys i have to say that sitting around posing for myself to post on here makes me feel like a bit of a jackass so tell me if you all appreciate these clothing posts or would rather i not. Like i said, it's inspiring me to explore my closet as i would recommend you all do, but if you all think it's stupid and wasting your time please let me know.

Saturday afternoon outfit for heading to the farmer's market and eating. I ended up wearing this outfit for a total of 1 hour since i went blueberry picking afterwards and clearly had to change into "work" clothesLinen stretch pants = theory (i paid far too much but they looked good. I have this fantasy that when i actually have to wear work clothes i will buy theory suits), Belt = purchased in mexico many years ago, button down = converse for target (as you can see this is my new favorite shirt. go and buy yours RIGHT NOW). Sunglasses = Chanel, bangs = BY ME! not bad, right

How are you all feeling about my tucked shirt prediction??? I'm kind of digging it but maybe it's because i'm getting old and old people tuck in their shirts. thoughts? also i really want some kakhis for fall so that i can...you guessed it...tuck in my shirts. Does anyone have suggests for straight leg kakhis for short people?

today's coffee shop outfit. I was heading to a coffee shop on my bike that is like 4 blocks away up a slight hill and therefore i thought it would be ok to wear some non flat shoes. WRONG. do you even know how hard it is to bike in platforms with a backpack on?? I didn't realize that usually i'm drinking when i attempt to ride my bike in heels which accounts for why i never noticed the difficulty. Just imagine pedaling on your tip toes. Not cute at all
Gold strap wedges = Ann klein, floral dress = some brand i got at Brass Plum Nordstrom, belt = the Limited.

AND i am proud to note that every aspect of this outfit was purchased years ago which means NO NEW CLOTHES WERE USED TO MAKE THIS OUTFIT. hoorah for exploring my closet for things i haven't worn in a long time.

Brrrrrueberries

Guys, so i had my first experience of fruit picking this weekend. We chose blueberries because apparently raspberries have thorns so no thank you. I didnt' quite know what to expect. I assumed there would be gigantic rows of blueberry bushes as far as the eyes can see, like when you are driving up the 5 from LA to SF. And i imagined LOTS of people in overalls with head scarves and buckets picking away. Well the truth is we drove for about 30 minutes on some back roads, turned into someone's private farm land, and there we were. There were about 6 rows of blueberry bushes that extended the distance of like 2 blocks each, and a young girl working in a garage weighing berries. So you get these red buckets and you just pick and eat as you pick, and whatever you get is $1.59 per lb. amazing really. About 30 minutes into the endeavor we were hot and sweaty and our buckets were amazingly empty and we realized that this is why they charge so much for foraged goods. This shit took forever! and in the end i had 2.14 lbs of berries for an hours worth of work. obviously this was cheaper than buying from the store and also made for a good theme outfit opportunity and obviously memories and stuff.

what blueberry bushes look like
the premier of my linen orange overall purchased for $5 at the salvation army!! they are so comfortable and i believe they shall now replace my mexican dress as my house clothes. Look and pose inspired by Meryl Streep in "mamma mia" and her blue linen overalls.
Jen and Wendy are very excited
and we picked!
i eat straight from the bush and it was delicious
macro shot of some type of bug that could easily be mistaken for a blueberry
brrrrueberries
as you can imagine, i won the blueberry picking competition. my 2lbs blew away both of their 1 lb buckets
wendy lost among the brrrrueberries
jen, eating straight off the trees....mmmmm pesticides
our loot

Soul Night: the results

So i went to soul night and i have to say...it was not that bad. For all you who are wondering who this new mystery man is in my life here is a photo.

huge dork. He and his public policy peeps. This girl is half black. Also she was one of the 2 black people there that night. silvia soul night was like the equivalent of Singapore
Adam from Maine who may or may not come to the cape with us and who used to date ramit's girlfriend's sister. small fucking world!

re casey:

ok so i wasn't saying that everyone should stick to t heir own kind and never try anything new. But i guess what i was trying to criticize was the way that white people dont' acknowledge and appreciate their own cultural things too. So yes, taco night...but appreciate the value and cultural heritage that exists in a meatloaf.

so yeah that's what i was criticizing, this lack of appreciation for their own distinct white americanness.

blaze

bbq's

what i wore on sunday. Guys, i gotta admit, putting outfits together is getting hard since i've been busy with school. This was a no brainer that i threw on the other day.

Denim = citizens, Gladiators = Sam Edelman (found on clearance in chicago), top = MNG in spain, infamous red sweater = benetton germany (for reals i wear this damn sweater so much), amber necklace = prague

We had a BBQ this weekend, and it was totally successful. I made a great motown mix and we blazed until like midnight after which point we decided to head to a bar. Bad idea. drinking and eating meat all day do not make for good going out moods later. But anyways, the BBQ. We don't actually have a yard so we used a parking space in our lot and the small grass space between our house and the sidewalk.

sausages!!
big O being extremely manly with his grill
our neighbor's daughter came over and started doing our hair
so many ladies
the men were surrounding the grill

soul night

Now you all know my issues with "when white people co-opt other people's stuff." I am referring to things like ethnic garb, cultural practices (hello, salsa dancing!!), food, music etc. This for some reason always bothers me and i'm not really sure why. Americans have this love of taking other people's stuff. And in my travels America appears to be the only place that does this. You will never see an italian person eating non Italian food. it's part of who they are it's a means of expressing themselves. Like there is no such thing as fusion. Mexicans eat mexican food and thai people eat thai food. My mom has never made anything non mexican in her life, except for the one time i asked her to make spaghetti so she bought a jar of prego. And for some reason i feel that this is not an uncommon practice for non mainstream Americans to have "food theme nights" once a week in their house. "Jimmy, it's taco night!!" OR how they love taking ethnic names from other cultures/languages. "this is my daughter xochitl. It's nahuatl for flower." Ok xochitl is probably not on the top 10 list of ethnic names that white people choose for their children but it was the first one to come to mind

Yet in America we/they (i can't exclude myself from this) love to have this idea/fantasy that we/they have no real culture. "oh I'm american and this exempts me from having heritage that is my own so i need to sample other people's heritage to find out who i am." It is this idea that they live outside of a context that truly bothers me, because when you are living outside of THEIR context in the fucking margins you realize that they have a HUGE fucking contextual/cultural identity. and it also assumes this "norm" "control group" type thing like when i try to do research and people tell me i need a "white control group" as if white people are the normal ones and everyone else is in some fucked up social experiment where the experimental condition is being done to them....but that is all for ANOTHER post.

But anyways I started contemplating this as i was riding my bike home for lunch. I concluded that this adopting of other people's cultural heritage really only happens in the overly educated upper class. The farmer in the town over from me i'm guessing does not try to make paella. We also have a ridiculous access to random things in the US that you don't get access to in other countries which makes "fusion" possible. It reminds me of the wealthy girl in "the namesake" whose family throws dinner parties and buys foreign cheeses and cooks fancy (read ethnic) cuisine and are shocked to hear that the main characters parents only eat indian food all the time in this really condescending way (guys the book is way better than the movie, i'm just saying). And the truth is that i'm part of the overly educated elite so maybe all of this is just my own attempt to deal with my own issues with myself...but i'm just saying, it bugs me. On the one hand i love that we are a culture of blending but on the other hand i hate this idea that people take from other cultures in this very pretentious "i'm gonna take your poor cuisine and make it haute" kind of way. Is this ringing a bell with anyone???

the point of this whole entry was to say that tonight i'm going to the monthly Soul Night at our local hole in the wall venue. I have very mixed feelings about soul night as it tends to be a white dude from nebraska (he really is. My roommate is friends with him) mixing soul beats with white hipsters dancing all around in a small dingy room, and not a single black person in sight. I don't know why but something about this bothers me immensely. And usually within 15 minutes of dancing i come to realize that no one is looking at me BECAUSE I BLEND and really i'm part of the whole problem. And one time i went with some Black people and they were like....this is whack...cuz for reals it was, but we blazed nonetheless.

But there is something bothersome about a bunch of privileged White kids taking this things called soul which is meant to be an expression of black culture, both now and historically, and turning it into another fad. And it makes me wonder...do they actually get it?? It's like if somehow magically Mariachi music were to become this cool fad that hipsters adopted (this will NEVER happen) and all these white kids were to start buying vicente fernandez records and ernesto galvan records and setting up mariachi theme nights centered around tequila shots and gritos and trying to talk to me about what vicente means to them. That would piss me off cuz vicente is something sacred, like waking up on weekends hearing your parents gardening/drinking in the yard listening to this music because it's a reminder of where they come from. It's like an anchor. And it's this same feelings that i think people might associate with Soul and here we are, turning it into a weekly theme night, that completely excludes them. This is just like my issue with suburban White mom's having Taco night!! But also it's my issue with wealthy chelsea residents spending hours perfecting a curry.

so guys....DISCUSS as i am getting a little too heated. But i guess i'm asking for my White friend's opinions on this issue. Respond via your own blog (wow we are douches) or in the comments below. Why do you choose to adopt other people's stuff and what does it/tacos/soul/mariachi mean to you???

Also take my anger and high horseness with a grain of salt as i go make myself some chinese herbal Kombucha tea.

Vacuum cleaners and fishing expeditions

le sigh it's friday and i have more editing to do. le sigh le sigh. i just want this project to be done so i can move onto my next project looking at latino identity in literature.

So a few things:
1) casey, i finally started watching "the secret life of teenagers." Dude as usual brenda hampton knows how to take a good concept and fuck it up with terrible dialogue and bad background music. It's the same music from "7th heaven." But the truth is, i kind of care about these characters and i feel like if it was written by the people who write "kyle xy" it would be BOMB. Oh have i said too much about my tv watching habits? I agree that i dislike how the one latina girl is the ho, but i do like that the black girlfriend is the only person with common sense in the whole show. First they stop negatively characterizing black people and the latinos will be next!

2) did i tell you guys i'm going fishing at the end of august...wait for it...IN THE CAPE!! yes, my roommate's dad is a harvard educated psychologist/professional fisherman and he's taking us deep sea fishing on his boat for tuna!! e-magine!! it's like the kind of thing where you have to wear a belt around your waist and strap the pole to it and belt yourself down so you don't fly off. i know, i might die of joy or of actual danger. so serious question: what am i going to wear?? I mean on the one hand it's the cape but on the other it's a fishing boat...suggestions please

3) my plan is to write for 3 hours and then go home and clean, then shower, than head off to an obama fundraiser/sitting around a bonfire and jamming with guitars and various other instruments party. Oh the midwest, you never cease to bring me joy with your love of bonfires. so question, i really want to steam my carpets, like with those rented ones from the super market. has anyone ever done this? if so please comment

4) and finally, my outfit for the day. Pardon the shadows. my whole room had terrible lighting. I was browsing through an old j crew catalogue and was inspired by something i saw. PS did i anyone see that creepy spread they had with children dressing up as adults? it was super unsightly.

shoes (which you can't see) - indian inspired sandals by Aerosole (i know), shorts - forever 21, brown leather belt - purchased on a trip to mexico like 15 years ago, yellow wife beater - forever 21, sweater - forever 21, faux silk headband (also known as polyester) - forever 21, red bead necklace - Bargain World thrift shop,

Independent Woman

So guys, did you know i had a bike? it's true, i have truly gone "green." ok all jokes aside it's a legit bike, a Trek to be exact. I bought a used one at this bikeshop on campus. Anyways the other day my tire exploded and i thought "fuck! what do i do know." Luckily my handy dandy man friend knew exactly what to do and he came over and fixed it the other night.

This is not the important part of the story because who really wants to hear about a bike tire. The important part was that while he was fixing he was describing it to me as though it was something i might do in the future: "so when you unscrew this you will do it like this and then you take off the tire you will have to remember to do this and this." And then finally when it was all done he said "So now you know how to fix a tire for when it happens again."

I just have to say that being a woman this rarely ever happens. When people do stuff for you they almost never do it as a way to show you how to be free and independent and do it yourself. It's almost always a service being done for you with the assumption that if and when it happens again either they or someone else will do the same service. But it really struck me when he said that he was showing me so i could do it myself later. I realized...this guy really gets me! It's exactly the kind of thing my father would have said! My dad is a bit more crazy and probably would have made me take off the tire and rechange it all over again just so he could be assured that i did in fact know how to do it. But the point is he gets that i need to be indepedent and self sufficient and he doesn't seem to be threated by that. I mean really that's all i wanted to share. But yesterday my brakes weren't working and instead of waiting for him to come over and help me or taking it to a bikeshop where they would charge me 15 dollars in labor i took out my tool box (purchased by my father because he felt it was essential. mind you i am the only person in my house of 2 men who have a toolbox) and i assessed the situation for a minute...and then i did it! i fixed my own fucking brakes! and i haven't died today which means that i must have done it right.