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!)

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.

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.

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!!

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?

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.

Problems in a Pile

So at a comedy venue the other night, the house manager was a beautiful woman, with the kind of skin they probably use to design Photoshop templates. Flawless skin, a great figure, wearing a sleeveless top when she assisted the bus boys in clearing a few tables and picking up tossed-aside programs.

As she made her way through the audience toward the end of the show, cleaning a few items, I found myself admiring her arm and shoulder. I am pretty obsessed with arms right now - I have this vision in my head of what I want them to look like - since the next step of fitness on the Weight Watchers program for me has been adding in strength training, and I'm enjoying the journey of sculpting the arms. To be fair, the arms I really want I can't have... I don't think they'll ever be as thin as I desire... so instead, I am actively trying to make a new goal, and finding beautiful, toned, muscular arms to admire and strive toward.

Her shoulders were tough and strong, not tiny, but oh, so lovely. I can really covet a great arm in a sleeveless top, let me tell you. Add in that perfect skin, and I'm thinking of adding reps to my workout already.

And then she turned to double-back through the room.

And you could see that she had one lovely shoulder and arm; and she also had one smaller, still lovely, shoulder with an amputated arm above the elbow.

Covet away, Emily, covet away. There's an instant lesson for you!!

Have you ever heard of the pile of problems? Bring together 100 people, some you know and some you don't. Pop all your problems into a pile of 100 scraps of paper and choose one. Do you pick someone else's problems - the ones you can see, the ones you can't, and the ones they hide written on their piece of paper? Or in the end, do you pick the problems you know, understand, can handle and own?

78

I'm still pretty tired. Although my face no longer hurts, and my abdominals were not sore this year, by my exhausted-yet-conservative counting, I saw at least 78 sets of comedy at this year's Bridgetown Comedy Festival!

I survived it last April - barely - and had to skip the 4th of 4 days. This year, I planned better. I paced myself better. I made it to shows on all 4 days. (Well... my fellow wine drinkers on Saturday night might disagree about my ability to pace myself and be a fully responsible 30 year old, especially he who drove me home while I chattered the whole way in a voice that could have slurred a feeeeew less words.)

But. 78 sets. Ranging from a few 3-minute opener/host types to Janeane Garofolo, who was supposed do a 15 minute set, but didn't see the red light (she was looking at the wrong part of the theater for it to flash at her) and realized it 25 minutes later. (It was the most hilarious, embarrassed, genuine, huge reaction. She gasped, she threw her hands over her mouth, she ran off stage - apologizing to the crew and staff, mid-joke.)

Next year, I aim to top 80.

And if anyone out there is scouring Google for mentions of the Festival seeking feedback, I'll say this: thank you for bringing more women comics! Also: there were fewer masturbation jokes and I was grateful. But, there were a lot more mentions of pot, the Occupy movement, Portland dudes with beards and parenting/kids. Overall it was a little tamer - though, really, no less drunk on the performers' part - than last year, and if you want to immerse yourself in it with next year, let's! Call me in early April - I'll be plotting out my weekend of shows and picking more of my favorites! This year:

• Gloria Bigelow
• Toby Muresianu
• Ricky Carmona

and Auggie Smith delivered, like always, and Lucas Dick was quite funny well before he told us his dad is Andy Dick! Go Lucas! Bridgetowners like me will enjoy seeing you in years to come.

More Truth in Advertising

You might remember the useful tip at the federal gym, all honesty it was about how we are going to get in shape, as regular people and not super-human will-power machines.

I noticed another sign today, in the elevator. It's above the emergency phone, and it contains instructions on what to do if the elevator breaks, but the perfect part of it is the first line, which reads, in all caps:

TRY NOT TO PANIC!

So supportive! So true! Try not to... even though we know you will, and we would too if we were there with you, because who wouldn't!?!... just try. And even if you do, that's OK, just move on to step two and we'll come to get ya out. Comforting!

CRACK

It's official. Smitten Kitchen's posts are taking over my baking life and I. Need. To. Stop.

Stop baking her recipes, stop reading her charming posts, and stop sharing her gospel with others. It is no exaggeration that THREE people have now described her cocoa brownies (which I have baked for them and forced them to eat) as addicting to the point of being like crack, and so if you know what's good for you, you WON'T click on that link.

The most recent success is the honey cake. Good thing Rosh Hashanah is months away, so I won't have to make it again until September because it is, as described, moist and majestic, and it was, as expected, freaking delicious. (At least I was able to send it all home with guests and not a crumb remains at home.)

Must stop, must stop, must stop. Well, maybe right after I try the Sally Lunn bread... it has been calling to me for weeks... Hey! I'm making it without the honeyed brown butter! That's controlling this problem, right?