Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Don't try to game the system.

Sure, at 30, you'd think I would already know this. But this year, after thinking about it for almost twenty years, I decided to try laser hair removal. My specific combination of Latvian and black Irish heritage, plus a unique endocrine system to lil ol' me, has equaled a lifetime of anxiety and worry about all the kinds of body hair that women might worry about. If they worry about it, if Jezebel writes about it, I struggle with it. Sure, I've gotten used to it - to a degree - and become more accepting of it - to a degree - but in the mid-1990s when laser hair removal went commercial, I said, someday I will try that!

It took the invention of Groupon deals AND a generous spouse to finally take the leap.

And I thought to myself, well, I better start somewhere that doesn't hurt, doesn't show, and doesn't feel too private. Underarms it is.

But there are two ways you can't game the system, my friends. First, the woman will tell you it feels like a rubber band snapping against your skin. She is right. If that rubber band were on fucking FIRE. And second, don't pick based on perceived pain when you have no context for it. At treatment number 2 - of 6! - the lovely woman told me that she turns up the laser each treatment a bit, and that underarms are, "probably the most painful area to treat." Oh, how I lose. System games ME.

(OK - not true. I don't lose. Because P.S... this stuff WORKS, people. At least on me. After 2 treatments I am already stunned at the effects and look forward to a lifetime of hair-killin' treatments all over the place that have begun NOW!)

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Coming up on the anniversary...

This week will mark 3 years married and 8 years together, and the biggest thing I've learned about my husband is that he has a natural ability to be great at it. It comes as second nature to him to just live the advice in the newspaper columns; he is nice 7 times or more for each time he snaps or snips. He remembers to stop and welcome each morning and evening with a kiss. It's a rare day when he brings a bad mood into our house from the driver who just cut him off in traffic, or from the grocery trip turned into 3 hour quest, or from the Weight Watchers scale that shows a disappointment that week. He is one of the best influences in my entire life, every day, and I love him so much for all his humor, his patience, his intelligence, his drive and his all-but-hidden-from-everyone-else tenderness. So on marriage, this one - the one with the lower case 'm' I'm in - I am happy to admit it's getting better - getting better all the time.

Sunday, May 13, 2012

I'm sure you were wondering...

And the answer is yes. Smitten Kitchen's shortbread IS delicious! Especially with both salt and sugar sprinkled on top. Trust me.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

A dash o' the 'belle

I don't read Jezebel like I used to; I'm not as much of a Jezebelle as I used to be, due to more limited time online each day and week for pure personal surfing.


But this essay is worth clicking over there for, and made me cheer, for great concepts and killer wording, like: "for a society that produces ads and photospreads so airbrushed that they're technically cartoon" and "for men who believe that a woman is only as valuable as she is interesting to their dicks" and "once again, we'd be well-served to emulate Hillary's "give zero fucks" example."


Yeah!!

Friday, May 11, 2012

Locavore Complaint

If you don't live in Portland, it is handy, before reading this, to know that Fred Meyer is a grocery store that also has a Kmart/Target-like store within it - clothes, garden supply, paint department, home decor, pharmacy, etc. Also, the City banned plastic bags at large retailers, so all grocery stores have paper bags and otherwise encourage you to bring your own.

I hope, I wish, I trust - that there might be some good reason why the Fred Meyer in the affluent, trendy part of town (Hawthorne) offers paper bags with handles... and the Fred Meyer in my poorer, decidedly uncool and un-influential part of town (Interstate) only offers paper bags without them.

Do you know why? Is it a better reason than people with money get nicer things for free? Is it a reason that makes sense, and explains the giving of flimsy, non-handled bags to the shoppers using the nearest grocery store to one of Portland's food deserts (the New Columbia development, a couple miles away, where the highest proportion of city residents are without cars and thus, carrying their purchases by bus, bike and foot)?

Do you know the reason? And is it a good one?

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Sin CIty

The biggest difference between New York City (4 trips ago) and Las Vegas (the most recent trip) is not that the Big Apple is aggressively authentic and the Glitter Gulch is appallingly inauthentic. That is merely the second biggest difference.

The biggest difference is that in New York City, where they have quite decent drinking water, there are no bathrooms to be found and yet, they free water at a lot of places. Inevitably, you will end up paying for a bag of chips at a Subway just to pee, I promise you.

And then we find that in Vegas, there are bathrooms everywhere - clean, plentiful and no more than a minute walk away from wherever you are - but the water tastes gross and it is most definitely not free. No waiter offers it, and every bartender charges you $8 for a small bottle of it. Sin city, indeed.