Love and New York

This past weekend, I had the supreme pleasure of singing in the wedding of my dear friends Julia and Olivier.  It was nerve wracking and occasionally frustrating and absolutely amazing.  I love singing, and this is the first time I've sung for friends with whom I am this close.  Luckily, I was able to sing the processional - "Ave Maria" - from the side of the altar, thus staving off a complete sobby meltdown upon seeing Juls come down the aisle in her stunning dress.  The ceremony was beautiful and I felt like I was getting a special treat as I sang from the front of the church; looking out at all of the happy faces there to celebrate Juls and Liv's special day made my heart grow three sizes with every hymn and psalm.

I spent that weekend in the company of old friends - Juls, Liv, Ben, Lucy, Katy, Lee, Dan, Tiff - and new ones.  The night before the wedding, Lucy and Lee and I went to see The Hunger Games while we waited for Ben to make his way to New York, then engaged in a traditional Olivier orgy of food and drink.  On the day of the wedding, Liv, Ben and I went on a rescue mission to the post office to pick up presents for the mother and father of the bride that had been trapped there.  (It's not a wedding until you've defrauded a government agency!) Later, I curled my hair perched on the edge of the couch while Ben napped and Katy buzzed around getting ready.  I felt so lucky to share this stunning weekend with people I love so much and for so many reasons.  These are people who know me better than anyone, and who bear me up when all else fails.  I am nothing without my friends.

Normally, any weekend with this group leaves my heart singing, but this weekend in particular was exceptionally stunning.  I felt throughout as though I was in a museum dedicated to love - love of all kinds, of all shapes, of all sizes and details.  From the time I arrived on Thursday for the rehearsal, much was made about the impending clash of cultures - Julia's family is Irish, stoic, dryly hilarious, and somewhat feelings-averse, whereas Olivier's French/Puerto Rican blend is effusive and more or less a whirling vortex of bisous and hugging.  There was only one sure thing: it was going to be spectacular.  And so it was - there were so many moments of beauty in these connections and interactions.  Those two families are definitive proof that love is a many splendored thing.

That's what I thought about, the whole weekend: just how many kinds of love there are, and how many were on display.  The ease of conversation between long-distant family members brought back together.  Little stories about everyday life that shape sisters and parents and children.  The drive to produce an orgy of food for visiting friends the night before your wedding.  Fussing over getting everything perfect for the ones you love; snapping when it isn't, glowing when it is.  Worrying about the welfare of a pigeon who has taken up residence on a balcony in Queens, and her two eggs.  A musical war between inappropriate rugby songs and old Irish songs and, mysteriously, rap.  Unfunny non-jokes made to ease the nervousness.  Shaking hands at the podium.  Hugs and yelling and dancing.  Tears.  Nested hands.  They're all manifestations of love, and it is nothing short of miraculous that so many of these wove a soft blanket around this wedding.  I believe in miracles, yes.

There is one more love that I couldn't help but notice that weekend...the love you can have for a place.  The reception closed with Sinatra's "New York, New York," with the dance floor packed with dangerously-high-kicking friends and everyone singing along.  There are New Yorkers who can be obnoxious about New York, but there is no denying that there is something special about it.  You cannot visit New York and not feel it's frantic, beating heart, even in the quietest neighborhoods, and you cannot, having felt this, question that your time in New York, there in that moment, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, is just one small part in a long, grand, strange, wonderful story that has been written for centuries and will go on for many more.  At 3 in the morning I looked out the window of the Cuckoo's Nest, from the afterparty, and watched Juls laugh with her friends, in her stunning, billowing dress, head sailing back, one small moment in the life of the City but so in control and the sole owner of the night, and thought, "this is a special place."  And it is.

Congratulations, Juls and Liv.  I couldn't be luckier to know you.

Sometimes I Text My Mom from the Train

Me: Were you afraid of Russia in the 80s?

Mom: No

Me: Why not? 

Mom: I was too busy beating you children

Aaaaaaaaaand I snorted out loud on the train and freaked out the lady next to me.  THANKS MOM.  The hits continue...

Me: I'm reading Rachel Maddow's book "Drift: the Unmooring of the American Military" and the first couple chapters are about Reagan's development of a"RUSSIANS ARE SCARY" motif 

Me: Obviously since I was busy being beaten/an infant at the time it's hard for me to know how effective/pervasive it was

Mom: I honestly do not remember being afraid of the Russians. I was more mortified that a B actor was president of my country

Mom: I had no idea what madness lay ahead...

Mom: W!!!!!!!!

The Closest I've Come to Being in a Cult Was Taking a Shower in New Jersey

When I was little, I had to constantly be reading.  When I was eating my breakfast, I was reading the cereal box.  And the milk.  Later, I'd start reading the paper, or a book, or a magazine.  When I was in the shower, I'd read shampoo bottles.  This took an interesting turn when I visited my aunt and uncle's house in New Jersey, because they used Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap, which has a label like this:

Click to enlarge

I took really long showers when I was in New Jersey.

For those who don't have 20 minutes to read this, let me say this: the passage "For one God's Spaceship Earth, with Bomb and Gun we're all-One or none!  All-One!  All-One!  All-One!  Exceptions eternally?  Absolute none!" happens, and it's not even the most frantic thing on there.  Dr. Bronner was an interesting guy, and the company is still run by his family following his death in 1997.  The soap, incidentally, is really good.  It rinses cleanly and it doesn't dry out your skin.  Plus, it's a culty-fun adventure for the whole family!

I grew up with this soap, and as I got older, I realized that Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap was the kind of thing hippie-type folks were prone to having on hand, which makes sense given my context for it.  I recently read about coconut oil being great for your skin (and a million other things; Jenna Marbles sums it up nicely), and wanted to try it - regular readers of this blog may remember that I usually clean my face with olive oil - and someone suggested that Dr. Bronner's was the best place to get coconut oil.  I was disappointed to discover that there is no pseudo-religious babble on the coconut oil container, though it does say "Dr' Bronner's MAGIC 'ALL-ONE'," which I suppose is pretty good.  It IS fair trade and organic, which in reality is probably better than having a bunch of rambling on the label, so it has that going for it.  However, I'm sitting here, having used some Dr. Bronner's coconut oil on my face and some of it in my morning smoothie, about to take my multivitamin and "Women's Treasure" herbal supplement with my nettle infusion as recommended by my herbalist (the fantastic Melanie St. Ours), and I'm kind of realizing that hippie is genetic and there's just no escaping it.  And you know what, I'm cool with that, because since taking my herbs my hair and nails have been super strong and luxurious and my whole life is more balanced, and right now guys my face is as smooth as the most angelic little cherub's butt.  I embrace the hippiedoodlery.

Note on the coconut oil: barring any weird skin freakouts, I will be switching over to coconut oil for everything.  I find that the olive oil still removes makeup a little better.  However, there was always the "smelling vaguely like a salad" aspect of using olive oil, and now I can instead smell like a coconut, which is preferable by far.  Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I bet you could add in some other essential oil to make a scent you might prefer, as long as you chose something that wouldn't irritate your skin.  The main challenge would be blending it properly; the coconut oil is a solid at regular room temperature, so I guess you could warm the oil in a pot of water (i.e. put the open jar in a pan of water), mix the additional oil in, then let it set up again.  I'm going to try it!  I will report back soon.

DIY Pore Strips: Getting To Know Your Ingredients

Pore strips: the most entertaining grossness-based bathroom activity this side of the neti pot.  Also?  Not cheap.  A while back I came across Michelle Phan's video for pore strips and thought "huh, that seems neat," and then forgot about it for about a year and a half, obviously.  Listen, The Lucy just told me she took my advice on Makeup Forever's HD Foundation after two years, therefore two years is an acceptable and standard unit of procrastination BE IT SO ORDERED.

Anyway, to make your own pore strips, you take a tablespoon of unflavored gelatin and a tablespoon of milk, mix them up, nuke 'em for 10 seconds, then slop it on your nose (or wherever) and let it dry.  Here's Michelle's video.

I tried this today, and I have to say I'm kind of lukewarm on the result.  It may be that I pulled it off a little early, because I'm not good at being patient about pore strips in the best circumstances, but I didn't find the experience as thrilling as the storebought version.  That said, it did take a bunch of the oil off my face, and that's a plus.  Here are the pros and cons of my personal experience with this method.

CONS!

• Not as effective at dredging stuff out of your pores.  While oil came off easily (yay!) I got a minimum of those creepy plugs that come up with the Biore strips. 
• You have to find Knox gelatin.  If you can't find it on your own, you will have to ask a teenager at the supermarket.  They will not know what it is.  
• It smells like a foot.  Oh my sweet jalopy does it smell like a foot.  This would be less of a concern if you were applying this to, for instance, your own foot, but since it's likely going on your nose, it's kind of an issue.  If you're sensitive to smells, this is probably not a great option for you.
• It will look like you have gross boogers all over your face.  

PROS!

• WAY cheaper.  Knox gelatin costs about $1.86 for a box of five packets (each packet a tablespoon).  Biore strips are $6.89 for six strips on Drugstore.com.  That box of Knox is at least five uses per box, and maybe more...I didn't try saving and reheating the goop, so it's possible you could get more than one use out of each packet, and you could certainly get a greater area out of each one than the strips allow.  
• It's much easier on the skin.  Sometimes the Biore strips can be a little aggressive, but this method peeled off easily and without yanking my skin.  It was also minimally drying and either absorbed or removed a lot of excess oil from my face.  
• Easier on the environment.  With Biore strips you have a cardboard box, foil packet, plastic backing and a cloth or paper strip.  With the gelatin you have a box and a paper packet; less materials and all the way recyclable.  Fight your wasteful American ways!!
• It will look like you have gross boogers all over your face.  I list this here because it is hilarious and I am four.

I'd say this is worth a try, especially if you're a little light on the funds, but I did not find the results to be equivalent.  It's possible that with time I will get better at it, but I have to say this isn't the top of my DIY successes, unlike the use of olive oil for cleansing or apple cider vinegar and baking soda to clean my hair.  Give it a try and tell me what you think!

I Have Some Thoughts on This Sandra Fluke Thing

1. Hormonal birth control does not increase in volume per fuck.  If I don't fuck anyone, birth control requires 28 pills, one ring or one patch per month.  If I fuck ALL the people, birth control requires 28 pills, one ring, or one patch per month.

2. Not everyone takes hormonal birth control for birth control.  I know this sounds crazy to people who don't have vaginas but that is indeed the case. I was one of them.

3. The above point, which has been raised in the media, is none of your fucking business.  It is the business of the owner of the vagina in question and the doctor said vagina-owner chooses.

4. None of the above points, nor anything about anyone's medical history, tells you a damn thing about their sexual history nor gives you license to comment on it.

5.  Ignoring point #4 makes you an outrageous misogynistic asshole.

6. As desperately as I would like to not have to think about point #5, it's a little bit hilarious to watch you - and obviously here I mean Rush Limbaugh specifically, but most of the right-wing media personalities generally - show just how ignorant and gross you are, several months before an election, by being all "HERP A DERP DERP, HOW DO LADY PARTS WORK" from inside your own ass.  Keep it you, you slut-shaming assholes.  Looking forward to November.

Land of the Free

On Monday, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Sa'ud appeared at the National Press Club, and journalist Sam Husseini asked him a question that I'm sure was extremely uncomfortable, to wit: 

There's been a lot of talk about the legitimacy of the Syrian regime, I want to know what legitimacy your regime has, sir. You come before us, representative of one of the most autocratic, misogynistic regimes on the face of the earth. Human Rights Watch and other reports of torture detention of activist, you squelched the democratic uprising in Bahrain, you tried to overturn the democratic uprising in Egypt and indeed you continue to oppress your own people. What legitimacy does you regime have -- other than billions of dollars and weapons?

After some dancing around and several inquiries about whether or not Husseini had been to Saudi Arabia (...?), Prince Turki finally did respond, sort of:

Anyway ladies and gentlemen I advise anybody who has these questions to come to the kingdom and see for themselves. I don't need to justify my country's legitimacy. We're participants in all of the international organizations and we contribute to the welfare of people through aid program not just directly from Saudi Arabia but through all the international agencies that are working throughout the world to provide help and support for people. We admit this, as I said that we have many challenges inside our country and those challenges we are hoping to address and be reformed by evolution, as I said, and not by revolution. So that is the way that we are leading, by admitting that we have shortcomings. Not only do we recognize the shortcomings, but hopefully put in place actions and programs that would overcome these shortcomings. I have mentioned the fact that when you call Saudi Arabia a misogynistic country that women in Saudi Arabia can now not only vote, but also participate as candidates in elections and be members of the Shura Council. And I just refer you to your own experience to your women's rights, when did your women get right to vote? After how many years since the establishment of the United States did women get to vote in the United States? Does that mean that before they got the vote that United States was an illegitimate country? According to his definition, obviously. So, until, when was it -- 1910 when women got to vote -- from 1789 to 1910 United States was illegitimate? This is how you should measure things, by how people recognize their faults and try to overcome them.

Husseini raises an excellent point in his post about the incident, and his commentary explains why he is both a better man and a better journalist than I ever can or will possibly be: 

I was very glad to get the question in and and I was happy that Turki responded. I think his response opens the door to a lot more serious reporting. For example, Turki's response that Saudi Arabia gets legitimacy because of its aid programs is an interesting notion. Is he arguing that by giving aid to other countries and to international organizations that the Saudi regime has somehow purchased legitimacy, and perhaps immunity from criticism, that it would otherwise not have received? This is worth journalists and independent organizations pursuing.

Oh...it might seem like I'm giving him too much praise for being open minded about Turki's response.  I give him an extra measure because the same day, Husseini was suspended from the National Press Club for his question.

Here's the thing.

The United States has allied itself with Saudi Arabia for decades because we need two things: their oil and their oasis of reasonable calm in a turbulent region.  I am not one to immediately brush off alliances made for economic resources.  While we Americans refuse to work towards a less oil-dependent nation, we need to get oil from somewhere, and right now that means either from nations of problematic politics in the MENA region or from Canada via the proposed affront to the environment that is the Keystone XL pipeline.  It sucks, but here we are.  If you need things and someone else has them, you trade for them.  That said, it is incumbent on a nation that prides itself on its moral stature to occasionally say "this nation's human rights violations are too much to bear," and to at the very least separate the diplomatic fawning from the economic transaction.  There are plenty of countries we do trade with - serious, big time trade worth significant chunks of GDP - that do not receive nearly the endorsement, defense or encouragement that we lend to Saudi Arabia.  It is frankly unseemly for us to be castigating other nations in the region to act right and stop oppressing their people while shoveling money and support into Saudi Arabia as they commit the same sins.

Saudi Arabia has some serious shit to answer to, and so do we.

What worries me, though, isn't even Saudi Arabia's behavior or the fact that they send members of the royal family to the National Press Club to answer soft questions and lie to the world, but rather that the National Press Club, which despite its name is not an organ of the US government, but a private club for journalists, would suspend a member for asking a question that is extremely relevant to US foreign policy and also raises an important point about legitimacy of rulers and sovereignty generally.  This is precisely the kind of soft despotism that so concerned Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835.  Tocqueville was concerned that in a democracy, one would find not the despotism that jailed you or beat you or tortured you, but an even more insidious form, which would trick you into policing yourself.  He feared that citizens in democracies would become so brainwashed by the conventions of their societies that they would suppress their own freedom, without any prodding from the state.  This kind of incident seems to prove Tocqueville's concerns valid, and that is a really worrying proposition for America's present and future.

The Unfuckening

I've been following this tumblr, Unfuck Your Habitat (...hee), which is a string of somewhat violent exhortations to clean interspersed with GIF-based praise for follow through.  The idea is that cleaning in small chunks is much more productive and long-lasting than cleaning marathons that make you hate yourself and everything you own.  It's SO TRUE YOU GUYS.  The author suggests going in rounds of 20/10...20 minutes cleaning, 10 minutes of planned break.  Here's a before shot:

Shit everywhere, hasn't seen the business end of a vaccuum in ages, nine thousand projects going on at once.  Here's what it looked like after two rounds of 20/10s:

Vacuumed, organized, cleared.

As you can see, it didn't take me just an hour, because I had a couple non-great-room 20/10s thrown in.  For instance, I took the shoes you see under the chairs in to my closet and did a 20 in there organizing my shoes and closet (more on that in a bit).  But the planned breaks made everything a million times easier, and I feel super accomplished!!  I highly recommend following UFYH and following the directives.  Love it!