Men's Locker Room Candle

Read this article today about a new line of candles geared toward men, with smells like 'Lawnmower' and '2x4.' What they really need to make are a line of candles that smell like men's accoutrement, such as 'Men's Locker Room When All The Soap And Cologne Mingle Together And They Are Only Wearing Little White Towels.' A guy in a little white towel should be on the label. I would buy the sh*t out of that candle.

Other ideas:

• Men's Neck Smell
• Blue Eyes and a Cute Smile
• Green Eyes and Dimples
• Playing With Your Hair
• Nice Hands
• Holding Hands Walking Down A Busy City Street Then Stopping For Street Food Yum
• Cuddling On A Bench Waiting For The Subway To Start Running After A Night Out
• Sweating After Doing A Hard Task
• Men's Soft Hair 
• Fire (Oh wait I think they have this one already.)

This is just off the top of my head. I could go on. 

Crash! A Timeline.

My new bike. Not as cute as the other one, but this one has 7 gears instead of 1 (I live on a mountain slope so this is pretty nice) and was in stock and on sale. Sold.

8:30 PM: Outside the store. My brother and I realize my bike will not fit on his car's mountain bike rack because it's a GIRL's bike, so the bars are in a different places. Oops.

8:45 PM: We finally jimmy-rig a way to fit the bike in his car (my dad's truck is at the ranch house, my car is smaller than his) with the trunk shut and everything. I think my brother is secretly an engineer in his spare time.

9:00 PM: Get the bike in the back parking lot behind my building to test out the seat height with my brother watching me. I stand next to a fence for balance, because I haven't been on a bike in 2 years and I'm a bit shaky. I insist on wearing my helmet (silver), because this was engrained in me in China. I take a short ride around the parking lot.

9:02 PM: While getting off the bike my fitted denim skirt catches on the seat and I lose my balance, falling to the ground in a dramatically graceful action, pulling the bike over on top of me, elbow and helmet hitting the pavement to break my fall. I'VE BEEN RIDING THIS BIKE FOR 2 MINUTES AND CRASHED.

9:02 - 9:05 PM: I laugh my ass off on the ground while my brother tries to help me up, asking me if I am laughing or crying, but I can't answer because I'm laughing so hard. Ask my brother to take a picture of me on the ground, but he won't. I must look pretty undignified.

9:05 - 9:10 PM: Can't stop laughing while adjusting the seat and my brother gives me the great advice to not wear a fitted denim skirt while riding this bike. Noted.

Going back out tonight for a ride. Need to get comfortable before I start adding baskets and stuff. Wish me luck!

Summer Things

Orange and electric lavender eyeshadow, fun and bright for summer. No upper lid eyeliner because this was daytime, but you could make this very dramatic with eyeliner and false lashes. Make Up Forever brand, #s 18 (orange) and 9 (purple).

I picked out this bike and then it was sold out! Waiting for it to come back in stock. I'll attach a basket to the back for groceries and whatnot. If there's one thing I learned from T. it is the importance of me wearing a helmet while biking, haha, so I hope to find a semi-cute one. (We only had one helmet and I *always* had to wear it. "No offence", he'd tell me, "but you need this way worse than I do." He was right. I can't wait to send him pictures of me on my bike with the helmet, he'll love it.)

Gold leather high-heeled sandals. Very impractical for summer walking, so of course, perfect. (Actually, pretty comfortable due to the cork platform and Sofft-brand cushioning.) 

And, so far there has been no great Song of Summer, a la last summer's Give Me Everything. So, I am forced to recycle this jam from summer 2010, which came out just as I was leaving China and the bartender at Cafe Paname in Chengdu played it for me every night I was there that last week before I went home, jamming it up with my fellow PCers and let's not forget The Night The Marines From The Consulate Showed Up AKA my best night in China, ha. I don't hear this song without thinking of that night. If you haven't seen me dance you've only seen 75% of my personality. You might be surprised. 

Hope you all have a great summer!

NYC Photo Video, Now With 100% Less Blocking

My NYC photos video. Here are the links, they'll open the video directly:

PC/Mac, click here: Video link
iPhone, click here: iPhone link.
iPad, click here: iPad link.
Android phone, click here: Android link.

Mobile versions are about 60 MB, so might take a few minutes to load.

Hope you like it.

Bra Houdini

This morning, in my bleary-eyed state, I succeeded, without trying, in putting my bra on inside -out. When I realized my mistake, I couldn't get it off, because it's really hard to hook and unhook an inside-out bra? I have no idea how I managed this without even trying?

This is what I get for putting on a bra before noon on Saturday. Either that, or I really missed my calling.

Of Sexual Attraction and Self-Esteem

This is awkward for me to write because I don't have much experience with men. This scene was too familiar for comfort, though. Have you ever liked/been attracted to someone who doesn't like themselves a lot so they can't understand why *you'd* like them and they self-sabotage because they just don't think they deserve it? I have, and it sucks. It hurts to see someone walk away because they don't believe they are worth having. Who actually says, "People don't like me once they get to know me" and you realize later they really believe that. Heart-breaking, in fact. I cried a lot over this dude. But there isn't any way to make someone believe how wonderful they are if they can't believe it for themselves. And because my life isn't a tv show or movie, things don't work out and you lose them in your life. (The other difference is that I never had sex with him.)

I've also experienced men who treat you like a victor's match, who are more interested in winning as an ego boost than enjoying you as a person, and that sucks too. The good news is they are pretty easy to recognize once they start pulling this crap. The bad news is you don't realize what's happening until you've given them your attention and time. I wish they wore bells!  Being caught in the cross-hairs of someone else's self-esteem issues isn't fun. (Women do this too, absolutely, but as I am not involved with women on a romantic level, I can's speak for what men think of that.)

The Social Construct of Texting (And Why It's Stupid)

I forgot to bring my phone to work today. When I realized I didn't have it, I wasn't so concerned about me needing to use it as I was about people contacting me and getting silence in return.*

That's stupid, though.  

I try really hard not to ignore text messages, iMessages, phone calls or emails, even when I don't like getting them. I don't carry my phone everywhere and I set silence timers at night and in the morning so I'm not disturbed, but definitely I feel pressure to respond in a timely manner. I don't know where that comes from. Did we have a meeting and say "Here's the guidelines: respond to texts within a few hours, phone calls within 24 hours, emails within 1-5 days, respond to letters whenever you feel like it because you'll get one a year, maybe." I think texts are even a generational thing. Kids today probably have a 1 minute response time expectation. Truthfully, I usually try to respond within 10 minutes when I get a text. I just don't always get texts within 10 minutes of when they are sent. I don't check my email all that often anymore because it's mostly spam these days. Anything important comes in a text. Every time my phone rings, I think someone died. ("She was born in the 80's, she still uses her phone as a phone!")

I think communication used to be based on the actual technological constraints: how long it took to write and mail a letter, etc. In the early days of telephone use, it seems like you always answered, because it means it was important news. Now, with everything so immediate, it's based on some personal timetable that might or might not conform to your communication partner. 

It's a weird, arbitrary system. And kind of stupid.

* I went to this weird shop during lunch with my coworkers and oh! I sure did miss having my phone camera. I use that camera all the time, now that I think of it. Way more than I use the phone for talking! 

Your People

Who are your people? I come from hardscrabble, independent Texans and outspoken, fun-loving Chileans. What impact do our people have on us? Are characteristics inherited, or just a function of nurturing? I have no idea. But here are two of my people:

My Grandpa Foster (on the far left; I'm the little scowly one below him), who as a young man had a Model-T and hauled ice in a secret compartment for bootleggers during Prohibition in exchange for gas for his car. How cool was he? He was also a rock/mineral hound and used to take us out rock hunting when we were kids. I was determined to find a geode and always asked, "Is that a geode, Grandpa?" "No, that's a leaveitright. Leave it right there." But he would take home my rocks and cut them open with his rock saw. (No geodes!) I appreciate now all those rocks he cut open for me.

My great-grandma Abby, who died when I was about a year old:

Her husband (my great-grandpa) in this photo died away from home in an accident at age 27, leaving her with 3 small children. He was buried before she even knew he'd died, due to a storm and the telegram being delayed. It's a tragic story. She was urged to live with her in-laws in Texas, but she  earned her own homestead. She outlived 3 husbands and died in her late 90's. Amazing woman.

She loved to write and kept a detailed scrapbook and wrote her personal history, which I have bound. My dad scanned every page of her huge brown-paper scrapbook so we could have a copy:

I often wonder why in the hell I write online, or write at all. (I write in a personal journal as well, the juicy stuff!) Who really cares? But it's just something I like to do, because I think maybe we all have things in common and it's nice to know those things? I often think about closing down this site. But, it's kinda fun to know if my Grandma Abby were alive today, she'd understand feeling compelled to record things, no matter how we record them today compared to her day.

The Charming/Lickable Axis, Plus The Avengers Broke My Brain

I never realized how charming Seth Meyers is until I watched some SNL episodes on Hulu. So charming! Right down to the mole on his neck. (Nice tongue target.) He definitely crosses the XY axis of charming/lickable. Here is one of my favorite Weekend Update skits, Stefon on St. Patrick's Day activities:



Remind me the next time I'm in NYC to give out some "Kiss Me I'm Irish" buttons! (I teased my sister she could be a hoomba, because she's so tiny. She was not amused.)

In other news, I saw The Avengers this weekend; I've never seen their stand alone movies, so I was a bit lost at first and kinda bored. If I had been alone, I probably would've left. But, the last half hour or so picked up and then I enjoyed it. However, seeing it on 3D Imax was a leeeetle too much for my brain-- I left the theater nauseated and headachy. I prefer to skip this 3D step and wait for straight-up holograms. And now, my opinions about the Avenger team:

• Captain America: He looks computer generated. 
• Thor: Well, at least he had long hair to distinguish him from CA. Not my thang.
• Iron Man: He loves Gwyneth Paltrow, so no.  
• Hawkeye: Meh. 
• Black Widow: I like her outfit and red hair. The most stylish of the group. I didn't buy her deep pain, though. This might be an actress issue. 
• Dr. Banner: The most interesting and 'alive.' Lives in Calcutta to help people! The only appealing member of the group. 

I think this movie would have been better if Wolverine were in it. Rawr. 

Action Movie!

I've been working on a one-off media project for work and for part of it we taped short action sequences using an awesome iPhone/iPad app called 'Action Movie.' (By Bad Robot.) It's free in the App store for 1 effect and you can pay for more effects. (All of the effects costs $4.00 total. Pretty cheap!) Kids and adults alike love it! I can't show the footage we taped for the project, but here are some samples I made in the car while playing around with it. They are short, about 10 seconds each. I can't wait to make movies at my next family gathering! Btw, I'm almost done with my NYC photos/video. I expect to have it posted this weekend.







I've shot around 100 GB of footage at various locations for this project in the last few days; it's fun but oh boy I am not used to hauling around all of my shooting equipment (cameras, tripods, lights) to the different locations! I'm so sore. I need a photo boy asap! Or a massage boy.