Everywhere I go, I get this same half freaking inch of sugar at the bottom of an iced coffee. What is that about?? This happens to be a Honey Dew creation but they are far from the only perpetrators. I am convinced that people aren't jacked up on caffeine, but on sugar. Why is this necessary?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
I Have A Question
And that question is..."why?"
Everywhere I go, I get this same half freaking inch of sugar at the bottom of an iced coffee. What is that about?? This happens to be a Honey Dew creation but they are far from the only perpetrators. I am convinced that people aren't jacked up on caffeine, but on sugar. Why is this necessary?
Everywhere I go, I get this same half freaking inch of sugar at the bottom of an iced coffee. What is that about?? This happens to be a Honey Dew creation but they are far from the only perpetrators. I am convinced that people aren't jacked up on caffeine, but on sugar. Why is this necessary?
Monday, September 14, 2009
Makeup is Easy: Vampires in RoMa
Apparently I am having either a mischievious day or a surly day because I took about nine zillion pictures today in the process of documenting this makeup and in ALL of them I look either homicidal or like I am up to no good. Even this one, if we're honest, is weird.
What is that? It's somewhere between "I'm picking your pocket RIGHT NOW" and "you're shittin' me." I don't know. I had gotten caffiene in my system by this point, too. Probably not a good sign for anyone in the office
So okay tonight I am going out to The Citizen with my friend Rose for her birthday. Rose is awesome and writes books about vampires and likes her coffee like she likes her men...covered in bees. I tend to have fairly pensive showers in which I consider everything that I am doing that day, but since I am going out with Rose I was kind of like "heh, vampires" and apparently this is what happens when I think "heh, vampires." I was also thinking of the new Sephora catalog in which they announced the arrival of...pretty much exactly the same trends from last fall, to wit - dark lips, grey shadow, etc.
I covered my whole lid right up to the brow with First Class Con, then gave the lid a dusting of Moonlight Whimsy. I threw out my black-black liner in a fit of pique a while back, so I used this charcoaly-black mineral liner (can't remember the brand, but I'll check and post it in the comments when I get home) and a skinny brush. (Sorry if this is gross for you but)I usually just dampen the brush with my tongue to give the powder more definition and me more control when I am using it as liner. To get a good catlike line, you have to work against your intuition; when your eye is closed, line straight across the lashline and continue STRAIGHT out from the eye. Don't curve it up or you'll look crazy. The main thing is getting an even narrowing of the line, and if you botch that you can dampen a Q-Tip and pull it firmly and carefully on a diagonal from below the line to above to sharpen the edge.
Once I had finished the line, I wasn't really happy with the look. I felt like the line was kind of just sitting there pointlessly and didn't cohere with the rest of my face. I decided to skim some of the darker grey from my NARS Paris eyeshadow duo over the lid, and then top it with a little more Moonlight Whimsy to blend everything in since the dark grey is matte and everything else was sparkly. I then lined my lips with CoverGirl Outlast Smoothwear lipliner in Burgundy and applied the Buxom Lips in Vanessa that I mentioned in a previous makeup note. The effect was ALMOST there but not quite, so I pulled the Moonlight Whimsy a little further into the hollow beside my tear duct and around to under the lower lash line, then lined my waterline and the logical line between lower and upper lid. THAT worked out, because the eye was one unified whole and the lighter Moonlight Whimsy opened up my eyes a little bit.
What is that? It's somewhere between "I'm picking your pocket RIGHT NOW" and "you're shittin' me." I don't know. I had gotten caffiene in my system by this point, too. Probably not a good sign for anyone in the officeSo okay tonight I am going out to The Citizen with my friend Rose for her birthday. Rose is awesome and writes books about vampires and likes her coffee like she likes her men...covered in bees. I tend to have fairly pensive showers in which I consider everything that I am doing that day, but since I am going out with Rose I was kind of like "heh, vampires" and apparently this is what happens when I think "heh, vampires." I was also thinking of the new Sephora catalog in which they announced the arrival of...pretty much exactly the same trends from last fall, to wit - dark lips, grey shadow, etc.
I covered my whole lid right up to the brow with First Class Con, then gave the lid a dusting of Moonlight Whimsy. I threw out my black-black liner in a fit of pique a while back, so I used this charcoaly-black mineral liner (can't remember the brand, but I'll check and post it in the comments when I get home) and a skinny brush. (Sorry if this is gross for you but)I usually just dampen the brush with my tongue to give the powder more definition and me more control when I am using it as liner. To get a good catlike line, you have to work against your intuition; when your eye is closed, line straight across the lashline and continue STRAIGHT out from the eye. Don't curve it up or you'll look crazy. The main thing is getting an even narrowing of the line, and if you botch that you can dampen a Q-Tip and pull it firmly and carefully on a diagonal from below the line to above to sharpen the edge.
Once I had finished the line, I wasn't really happy with the look. I felt like the line was kind of just sitting there pointlessly and didn't cohere with the rest of my face. I decided to skim some of the darker grey from my NARS Paris eyeshadow duo over the lid, and then top it with a little more Moonlight Whimsy to blend everything in since the dark grey is matte and everything else was sparkly. I then lined my lips with CoverGirl Outlast Smoothwear lipliner in Burgundy and applied the Buxom Lips in Vanessa that I mentioned in a previous makeup note. The effect was ALMOST there but not quite, so I pulled the Moonlight Whimsy a little further into the hollow beside my tear duct and around to under the lower lash line, then lined my waterline and the logical line between lower and upper lid. THAT worked out, because the eye was one unified whole and the lighter Moonlight Whimsy opened up my eyes a little bit.
Makeup Is Easy: Petsitting is No Excuse for A Drop in Fabulousity
I was geriatric-animal-sitting this weekend for my parents and for some reason my act is never together when I prepare to bivouack at their house ten minutes from my own, so today we will be having a lesson on how you can survive with nothing but a random assortment of cosmetics that you snatched out of your bathroom in a strangely panicky fog of haste.
On my face is Prescriptives foundation and Cashmere Stockings powder from The She Space, as well as the mascara that I slept in because as we have discussed before, I have poor cosmetics removal habits.
If I just relied on good face coverage and slept-in mascara, my makeup would be boring as hell, so I applied Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips (full color, not gloss) in Vanessa. I put it on over Lemon Head Lip Balm from Stella Marie Soap Company because it does get a little feathery and vampirey without a good foundation.
On my face is Prescriptives foundation and Cashmere Stockings powder from The She Space, as well as the mascara that I slept in because as we have discussed before, I have poor cosmetics removal habits.
If I just relied on good face coverage and slept-in mascara, my makeup would be boring as hell, so I applied Bare Escentuals Buxom Lips (full color, not gloss) in Vanessa. I put it on over Lemon Head Lip Balm from Stella Marie Soap Company because it does get a little feathery and vampirey without a good foundation.
Cannonball Read #46: The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
It's interesting to read The Definitive Texts of political and social movements that have either decayed or evolved since the time said texts were written. Usually, you find a strange mix of unrelatability and startling current fact, and that is the case here. Feminism has become controversial again simply as a result of its divisions - people feel a need to define what kind of feminist they are as a result of some more extreme permutations. Sarah Bunting has a terrific article about feminism called "Yes, You Are" which reminds us that feminism isn't about bra-burning or wearing lots of flannel or being humorless or any thing else besides believing in "the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes." It's exactly that simple, but the journey towards anything approaching a majority embrace of the idea has been a long and complicated one.
The Feminine Mystique explores the idea that women are forced by society into an unfulfilling existence wherein their worth is contingent solely on marriage and child-bearing. It is the new feminism - less clear than the lack of suffrage, less obvious than forced prostitution, less dramatic than the assembly of harems - but is equally important. When TFM was published, women had political rights but still were often subject to oppression of their souls. Friedan runs through a variety of doctrines that she thinks have contributed to the Mystique, and her points follow logically. I found it somewhat difficult to evaluate these arguments from a modern day standpoint, because the landscape has changed so dramatically for women since groundbreaking writers like Friedan were revolutionary. Do Freudian interpretations of the psyche still shape our gender attitudes? Maybe. If nothing else, I think the effect is significantly
Whether or not the specifics of Friedan's work are still actively applicable, many of the phenomena that she describes still exist. I think the Mystique has mutated rather than vanished. Many women still feel pressure to be that perfect housewife, but many others feel pressure to be a full-time career woman as well. The real problem seems to be the call for women to decide and declare themselves early on in life. (This is not to say that men get off the hook - in fact, men have even fewer options, as it's generally assumed that they will work and be primary breadwinners.) There is a very serious question to be answered in regard to whether a person can be an active, engaged parent AND a serious businessperson, but that women are routinely pressed to declare themselves as one or the other without dedicated public discourse on the matter is supremely unfair. That happiness rarely factors into this forced decision is even more tragic...both genders should have joy in their lives, and the current expectations from society - whatever their cause - limits this possibility.
The Feminine Mystique is a fascinating read and is worth a look for anyone interested in gender dynamics or social structure. I will warn you that the prose is excellent but not necessarily light, so be prepared to read actively and be able to dedicate some serious concentration to it.
384 pages
The Feminine Mystique explores the idea that women are forced by society into an unfulfilling existence wherein their worth is contingent solely on marriage and child-bearing. It is the new feminism - less clear than the lack of suffrage, less obvious than forced prostitution, less dramatic than the assembly of harems - but is equally important. When TFM was published, women had political rights but still were often subject to oppression of their souls. Friedan runs through a variety of doctrines that she thinks have contributed to the Mystique, and her points follow logically. I found it somewhat difficult to evaluate these arguments from a modern day standpoint, because the landscape has changed so dramatically for women since groundbreaking writers like Friedan were revolutionary. Do Freudian interpretations of the psyche still shape our gender attitudes? Maybe. If nothing else, I think the effect is significantly
Whether or not the specifics of Friedan's work are still actively applicable, many of the phenomena that she describes still exist. I think the Mystique has mutated rather than vanished. Many women still feel pressure to be that perfect housewife, but many others feel pressure to be a full-time career woman as well. The real problem seems to be the call for women to decide and declare themselves early on in life. (This is not to say that men get off the hook - in fact, men have even fewer options, as it's generally assumed that they will work and be primary breadwinners.) There is a very serious question to be answered in regard to whether a person can be an active, engaged parent AND a serious businessperson, but that women are routinely pressed to declare themselves as one or the other without dedicated public discourse on the matter is supremely unfair. That happiness rarely factors into this forced decision is even more tragic...both genders should have joy in their lives, and the current expectations from society - whatever their cause - limits this possibility.
The Feminine Mystique is a fascinating read and is worth a look for anyone interested in gender dynamics or social structure. I will warn you that the prose is excellent but not necessarily light, so be prepared to read actively and be able to dedicate some serious concentration to it.
384 pages
Cannonball Read #45: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
"Only letters which have come down from the founders can make it possible for the founders to speak directly to the latest heirs. It is then self-contradictory to wish to return to illiteracy. We are compelled to live with books. But life is too short to live with any but the greatest books." Leo Strauss, "What Is Liberal Education" (1959)
There are many variations on the above theme, but Strauss' here is particularly relevant since it comes in the context of educational development. I have had to read this book no less than five times in the course of my meandering college education, and I have to tell you, I do not understand what the hell academics respond so enthusiastically to in this damn book. It's not a bad book, and it's not a hard book, and it's not an uninteresting book. It's just overused...pointlessly. Not ONE of the five professors who assigned the book have come up with a concrete statement on its relevance. Some books defy concrete definition of their "point" - philosophical texts in particular are more likely to be discussion which teach us methods of thinking rather than solid proofs - but still have value. This isn't a waste of time, but its only prevailing point seems to be "Ethics can be tough to navigate, morals are hard to express concretely, and sometimes white people and religion are bad," and that is simply not enough to justify the damned tonguebath that this book routinely gets. The reviews on the cover and inside page sound like they were pulled from the jacket of the Republic. This is not the Republic.
Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, who is a villager of Umuofia. He is kind of a jackass and is largely insensible to the virtue of everything that is not power and war. He has built a grand life, but has done so largely at the expense of healthy family life (even by the standards of his village) and his own moral sensibility. He winds up in exile ostensibly for a horrible accident but more likely because of his involvement in the death of Ikemafuna. The story then turns to his son, who rebels against this life much as Okonkwo rebelled against his own father's example. The whole tale works in the shades of grey that one encounters in the course of ethical discussion, and provides an excellent examination of varying theories of relativism.
The problem is that those relativist themes are pretty much it for Things Fall Apart, and it routinely gets held up as this all-encompassing statement on ethical thought. Examining one dusty corner of philosophical thinking on ethics isn't enough for the level of cachet afforded this novel, particularly if said corner is bullshit (sorry, there are absolutes). There was a time when I liked this book, but that time passed three readings ago and I don't think this is one of the great books one should spend time with if he wants to obtain a deep working understanding of ethical theory. If professors and publishers alike could stop promoting the book as such, it would be much easier to appreciate what it DOES offer - an engaging story that presents interesting questions about ethical behavior to be considered - and judge it on its own merits.
224 pages
There are many variations on the above theme, but Strauss' here is particularly relevant since it comes in the context of educational development. I have had to read this book no less than five times in the course of my meandering college education, and I have to tell you, I do not understand what the hell academics respond so enthusiastically to in this damn book. It's not a bad book, and it's not a hard book, and it's not an uninteresting book. It's just overused...pointlessly. Not ONE of the five professors who assigned the book have come up with a concrete statement on its relevance. Some books defy concrete definition of their "point" - philosophical texts in particular are more likely to be discussion which teach us methods of thinking rather than solid proofs - but still have value. This isn't a waste of time, but its only prevailing point seems to be "Ethics can be tough to navigate, morals are hard to express concretely, and sometimes white people and religion are bad," and that is simply not enough to justify the damned tonguebath that this book routinely gets. The reviews on the cover and inside page sound like they were pulled from the jacket of the Republic. This is not the Republic.
Things Fall Apart is the story of Okonkwo, who is a villager of Umuofia. He is kind of a jackass and is largely insensible to the virtue of everything that is not power and war. He has built a grand life, but has done so largely at the expense of healthy family life (even by the standards of his village) and his own moral sensibility. He winds up in exile ostensibly for a horrible accident but more likely because of his involvement in the death of Ikemafuna. The story then turns to his son, who rebels against this life much as Okonkwo rebelled against his own father's example. The whole tale works in the shades of grey that one encounters in the course of ethical discussion, and provides an excellent examination of varying theories of relativism.
The problem is that those relativist themes are pretty much it for Things Fall Apart, and it routinely gets held up as this all-encompassing statement on ethical thought. Examining one dusty corner of philosophical thinking on ethics isn't enough for the level of cachet afforded this novel, particularly if said corner is bullshit (sorry, there are absolutes). There was a time when I liked this book, but that time passed three readings ago and I don't think this is one of the great books one should spend time with if he wants to obtain a deep working understanding of ethical theory. If professors and publishers alike could stop promoting the book as such, it would be much easier to appreciate what it DOES offer - an engaging story that presents interesting questions about ethical behavior to be considered - and judge it on its own merits.
224 pages
Cannonball Read #44: Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
My Dad really likes diners. Genetics are strong in our family. That's pretty much all of what brought me to pick up Empire Falls, and MAN am I glad I did.
About eighty percent of Empire Falls is a still life. It tells the story of a town rooted in grand industrialism eventually brought down by hubris and some deep brokenness in the family that founded it, and of the life that has flourished in the ruin of the old factories. The people who wander in and out of life at the Empire Grill are superbly average. You know all of them; it's the Office Space of small towns. Miles Roby runs the Empire Grill and the Grill runs him, and he spends his days allowing people to run over him again and again. No matter how easygoing you are, you can't take abuse from everyone in your life forever. Miles adores his teenage daughter, and when she is threatened both by the idea of staying in Empire Falls forever and by a shocking event in town, Miles is pressed into drastic action that will rework his entire life.
Richard Russo is a masterful writer. His descriptions just sing of the glories of dirty, grimy small town life. Were it not for his lovely prose, this approach to this story would drag horribly. Instead, we are left to enjoy richly developed characters and brilliant little details that make the setting tangible and real. The best part of this slow, skillful development is that the eventual shock of the book's climax feels just as crisis in a small town truly does. Russo banks on real emotion here, and that is damn hard to do in a long novel that spends much of its time without movement.
I read this in summer, and much of the story takes place in summer, but for some reason I feel like it would be a wonderful read for Christmastime. It's full of the warmth of family and the way community makes us who we are for better or for worse. All the things that the holidays are about are in this book. That being said, it really should be on your Must Read List regardless of when you get to it.
496 pages
About eighty percent of Empire Falls is a still life. It tells the story of a town rooted in grand industrialism eventually brought down by hubris and some deep brokenness in the family that founded it, and of the life that has flourished in the ruin of the old factories. The people who wander in and out of life at the Empire Grill are superbly average. You know all of them; it's the Office Space of small towns. Miles Roby runs the Empire Grill and the Grill runs him, and he spends his days allowing people to run over him again and again. No matter how easygoing you are, you can't take abuse from everyone in your life forever. Miles adores his teenage daughter, and when she is threatened both by the idea of staying in Empire Falls forever and by a shocking event in town, Miles is pressed into drastic action that will rework his entire life.
Richard Russo is a masterful writer. His descriptions just sing of the glories of dirty, grimy small town life. Were it not for his lovely prose, this approach to this story would drag horribly. Instead, we are left to enjoy richly developed characters and brilliant little details that make the setting tangible and real. The best part of this slow, skillful development is that the eventual shock of the book's climax feels just as crisis in a small town truly does. Russo banks on real emotion here, and that is damn hard to do in a long novel that spends much of its time without movement.
I read this in summer, and much of the story takes place in summer, but for some reason I feel like it would be a wonderful read for Christmastime. It's full of the warmth of family and the way community makes us who we are for better or for worse. All the things that the holidays are about are in this book. That being said, it really should be on your Must Read List regardless of when you get to it.
496 pages
Cannonball Read #43: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
I find gender politics fascination, perhaps nowhere more so than in South and Latin America. I think there's a great push to define them as good or bad and I think in the end it's simply affecting. Men can suffer just as women do in cultures where social power is skewed to one gender or the other. (Obviously this is not true of all cases of uneven gender dynamics; don't email me.) This is beautifully presented in Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Oscar is a geek. I relate! The problem is that beyond simply being a geek, he's a Dominican geek, and this makes all the difference in the world. In the world of Dominican power politics, there's no room for a man so invested in science fiction and writing. There's no room for a man without that outsized Latin swagger, or for one who can't even fake it. The story follows Oscar's life, but it also traces his history and all the small victories and massive failures that his ancestors have endured in the process of arriving at his tortured Dominican-American life. Oscar is a disaster with women, and this feeds on itself until it brings about his early end.
Oscar is a disaster with women, and this plagues him throughout - his friends leave him behind, his family mocks him or pities him, women never rise above friendship. This tale of woe is interwoven with his family history. Said history is full of mysticism and the same tragedy that plagues Oscar, and Diaz does a beautiful job pulling all of the strands of the family along through time and into the modern day. I feel like giving more detail would be a mistake, because the minutae of the family story and Oscar's life are what make reading the book such a joy.
Discussion is due of Diaz's superb writing. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and the award is well deserved. Writing is more than just stringing words together, though Diaz is terrific at that part of it. The inclusion of political commentary, geek lore and both Dominican and immigrant culture is seamless and adds incredible depth to the whole novel. This is all the more remarkable given the complete disaster that these topics are for lesser writers; I find that political commentary in particular frequently feels forced, and it absolutely sings here.
This is a great and more importantly unique book. A hearty recommendation for this one!
352 pages
Oscar is a geek. I relate! The problem is that beyond simply being a geek, he's a Dominican geek, and this makes all the difference in the world. In the world of Dominican power politics, there's no room for a man so invested in science fiction and writing. There's no room for a man without that outsized Latin swagger, or for one who can't even fake it. The story follows Oscar's life, but it also traces his history and all the small victories and massive failures that his ancestors have endured in the process of arriving at his tortured Dominican-American life. Oscar is a disaster with women, and this feeds on itself until it brings about his early end.
Oscar is a disaster with women, and this plagues him throughout - his friends leave him behind, his family mocks him or pities him, women never rise above friendship. This tale of woe is interwoven with his family history. Said history is full of mysticism and the same tragedy that plagues Oscar, and Diaz does a beautiful job pulling all of the strands of the family along through time and into the modern day. I feel like giving more detail would be a mistake, because the minutae of the family story and Oscar's life are what make reading the book such a joy.
Discussion is due of Diaz's superb writing. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and the award is well deserved. Writing is more than just stringing words together, though Diaz is terrific at that part of it. The inclusion of political commentary, geek lore and both Dominican and immigrant culture is seamless and adds incredible depth to the whole novel. This is all the more remarkable given the complete disaster that these topics are for lesser writers; I find that political commentary in particular frequently feels forced, and it absolutely sings here.
This is a great and more importantly unique book. A hearty recommendation for this one!
352 pages
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