Battle of the Fonts

Pros of graduating with a degree in a design-oriented field:

• Your resumes, cover letters, and other employment paraphernalia have a decent chance at being really pretty.

Cons:

• You've developed a nervous tic which manifests itself in perfectionistic over-design mania.

Or, in other words, a five-hour long tic deciding what font to set my resume/cover letter in.

After the first full hour of staring at little letters, I gave up and got on the fbook resourcefully consulted my peers:

And it goes on for 21 comments. I love it when the geeks come out to play.


The following represents an incredibly abbreviated account of my struggles, once I hunkered back down into the world of productivity:

(Look out, world, I discovered how to embed animated .GIF files into cover letters.)

Japan

My heart is breaking to look at footage of the murky water, and realize there were people in it. Their houses, their belongings, their pets, their photos, even many of their lives; all swept away by the wall of ice-cold, salty water.

Honestly, most of the time it's hard for me to feel genuine, sincere empathy in reaction to something that happens across the planet. But for a place that I called home for six weeks, it horrifies me to imagine the cheerful, friendly, tidy, calm yet bustling neighborhoods and cities transformed into the wreckage I see in the news.

Wishing them peace and strength.
Help here if you can.

A few more posts on the topic from fellow writers:
10,000 and One
Quote of the week
There are no words... 
japan.
the news sucks.

Things I have in common with Tinkerbell

I vividly remember boxing up my shoes when I moved out for college, and being struck with the realization that I didn't own a single pair that would look strange if a man wore them.

{click to zooooom in on those flying mud globules}

Running shoes, Birkenstocks, and trashy Goodwill boots. That was it.

Ta. 
Da.

You know where this is going: I've come a long way in four years (or should I say, 10 pairs of girly flats later).

Surprise! I had two extra legs you didn't know about. And no, of course I don't have time to shave all of them.

Honestly, though, it's times like these I really appreciate the fact that Jason is extremely secure in his masculinity. And wears the same shoe size as me.

So, while I realize the following will irrevocably tarnish my tomboy reputation, I've just gotta say... THESE are now my favorite pair of shoes that I've EVER owned:

EVER. Which will forever be the one & only thing I have in common with Tinkerbell.*

I can't write about girly shoes without quoting a hilarious little musing from my pal, Kristie:

"Today I wore some flats (the cute ballet-looking ones that have been in style for a little while now) that I stole from my sister. I rarely wear flats because they give me the distinct impression of cross-dressing. I feel like a drag queen right now."

She nailed it! That's exactly what had constrained me to man-shoes the first two decades of my life. And PERHAPS this is even the same reason I had to bribe Jason to wear them...? Eh. Who knows.

I distinctly remember the first time I wore a pair of girly flats: Jason looked at me all day with a slightly-smiling, head-tilted-to-the-side "awwww" face, and I got over my macho complex. Apparently I'm a sellout for the "awwww."

Something that still makes me feel like a man dressing as a woman, though? PURSES. I don't care how much "awwww" gets sent my way, I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT carry a purse. I can hardly even hold them for my friends when they need a free hand... they make me feel as awkward as Sylvester Stallone in tights and a tutu.

And, while it's not exactly the shocker of the century: above all else, blonde wigs REALLY make me feel like a drag queen.

Although.
That's how this shoe thing started out.

*Unless a giant boy in green tights grabs me & shakes me up & down like a pepper shaker to get my Tinkle-powder-or-whatever-it's-called so he can fly. What a friend YOU were, Pete, what. a. friend.

Elevator music

It's been a busy week for me in terms of job-hunting (this is a good thing! I'm patting myself on the back!), but that doesn't mean I'm not going to skip out on giving you, dear readers, some major distraction from whatever else you were doing before you decided to visit.

First of all, prepare to never look at a plastic bag the same way again. (Note that this is voiced by Scar, which makes it all the more credible:)



Oh, yes. That really just happened.

• Another cute little guy that I want to watch over & over & over (the first "cute little guy" being the bumbling little plastic bag, of course).

Also:

• When former spelling-bee geeks grow up to be activists.
• And what they do in their spare time.
• And what they really, really want for their birthday which happens to be coming up in 36 days ; )

{via}

Furthermore:

• Say goodbye to the next five minutes, at least. (Hint: hit your "refresh page" button to clear checked boxes.)
• Instant daily karma.
• And some awww factor (aside from the plastic bag & frisky fox.)

(P.S. Cross your fingers for me!! I'm really looking forward to rockin' the cubicle life-- not even kidding.)

Premature Maturity

I'm turning 24 in about a month, but lately you'd think it's four times that number.

The last things I do before I go to bed at night include:

• worry that I'm becoming senile. (i.e. the most recent debacle where I lost my apartment key, borrowed Jason's key to check in the storage closet, and promptly locked HIS in the storage closet. Those were our only two keys.) (I may have Alzheimers, but at least I don't have Alzheimers.)
• trail off on long tangents. Where was I? 
• Oh yesss, things I do before bed: take pills for my hip injury. (Not pain pills, chillax.) (Wait, Chillax sounds like some sort of anti-anxiety medication, doesn't it?)
• slather on the anti-wrinkle cream (I'm a vain little old lady.)
• consider seeing a doctor about my bladder issues. I wish I were kidding.
• (as you can imagine, at this point Jason's all, "Hubba hubba, baby.")
• and check on my beard.

Once you consider my genetics, it's not so surprising. Meet the Papa Bear.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a teeeeny little bit. It's only one (although very manly) hair under my jaw, but I like to call it my beard to make the lonely little straggler feel like it has a place in the world. (Me constantly yanking it out probably contradicts this, but no one's pointed that out to it yet.)

So the last time I went to remove it, I could feel it with my hand, but I couldn't see it in the mirror like usual. When I finally tweezed it out, I understood why. IT HAD TURNED GRAY. I could see the exact point at which it had given up on melanin, too-- the last 25% of it was dark, and the rest of it was a bright, shiny silver. I can now tell my wee grandbabies that the first gray hair I ever got was my entire beard, all at once.

I told Jason that I'm thinking of growing it out, just to see how long it gets. I assured him that since it's silver, people probably won't notice it. At least until someone asks me a philosophical question & I have to pause, raise an eyebrow in deep thought, and slowly stroke my 8-inch silver strand thoughtfully between my thumb and index finger. Oh, the wisdom this shall impart.

Guacamole in a Jar

It's been bothering my OCD that I have more blog posts tagged under "FOOD" than anything else, yet have never actually shared any recipes. (Kinda came close during "Operation Thanksgiving" in Sweden, but then I got sidetracked by talking about cannibalistic crows instead).

On that note: 

Guacamole in a Jar

All you really need is:

• 1 leftover glass pasta sauce jar* & an electric mixer
• 1 semi-smooshy avocado, cut into 1" cubes, or 1/40ths (sorry, blame the Matthews-er in me)
• salt & pepper
• 2 tbs (at least) of lime juice-- fresh, or from a bottle, OR you can also substitute lemon juice & it will still be awesome.

But here's some optional awesomeness:

• 1/4 red onion, diced (you can use other varieties, but red onion just tastes more Mexican to me. Awkward but true.)
• finely diced jalapeño
• chopped cilantro (I just grab a bunch in my hand and hack at it with scissors) (...the cilantro, I mean)
• OR: a couple spoonfuls of salsa because somebody already cut all the stuff up for you.

*Why a jar? We wash & save jars to store all our leftovers in. It's cheaper than tupperware, won't melt in the microwave, won't stain/absorb weird smells, and is probably healthier than plastic. This habit led to just making guacamole right in the jar, because doing dishes sucks.

1. Put everything in the jar.

2. Put one beater on the mixer, & beat away.  

Revolutionary!! HAHAHA. Ha. Haha. So punny.

3. I was going to say, "Don't forget to lick the beater," but it's just too awkward when it's part of something's face and makes you think of horrible, horrible conjunctivitis.

( Herman is special, he only needed one sticker.)

4. Spoon onto burritos, oh heck YES.

5. Hopefully, you saved the lid from that jar. Screw it on & stick the leftovers in the fridge!

...If there are leftovers.

We went on a diet and it was hard and I barfed

Yup. So don't read this if you don't want to hear details about puking (because I think it's hilarious).

Also, if you are one of my friends who is vegan you might come kill me in my sleep after reading this (although that wouldn't be very vegan of you), so carry on with whatever you were doing before this.

And also any people who are offended by the idea of evolution, adiós for now. Unless you want an anecdote to have handy when arguing that believing evolution makes you barf. 'Cause it did.

But this post also has praying in it, so good times can be enjoyed by all.
Except the vegans.

I'm going to tell the whole story with disclaimers before I even tell the whole story. My bad.

So before anybody stages some sort of body-image intervention, we WEREN'T trying to lose weight. Actually, if I lost any more weight (post-Sweden jet lag was hard on me) I'd have to start buying bras from the little kids' section again, so No Thank You Very Much.

Our gym (Crossfit, which we looove, love, lovelovelove) suggests everyone try the "Paleo Diet." It's definitely not mandatory, but they recommend it for more energy and better athletic results. The basic idea behind it is to limit your diet to things that were available for the majority of human evolution (before we invented cooking and agriculture), because theoretically we should digest those things most easily.

Like most diets, you can eat whatever you want to eat. Except grains. And legumes. And potatoes. And dairy. And processed food/food additives. This kind of made sense to me, since people have trouble digesting many of these things anyway (gluten, lactose, those magical little fruits known as legumes). The sciencey-side of us was intrigued. Time for a little experiment... on ourselves.

If you want to know more, here's a little propaganda video for ya.
For more sciencey explanations of why the forbidden foods are bad for you, this is a cheesy yet interesting video. 
Or if you'd rather read about it, a great article from Runner's World.

The bag of banishment

We cleared our cupboards of all the banished foods and put them in this giant bag. We went to the store and filled our cart with free-range meat & eggs, nuts, and colorful produce. It looked delicious. I looked forward to the challenge of cooking new things, and smugly doubted that I'd experience any willpower issues.

In those first few days, I learned something about myself. I LOVE LEGUMES. I was hardcore missing-- no, mourning-- peas, hummus, tofu, fake "chicken" nuggets (I'm not a vegetarian, but I love strange, processed soy foods), and for the love of all that is edible, refried beans. Black, pinto, I didn't care. I just needed a big pile of smooshed-up beans.

Also, I realized that unless we ate a LOT of veggies, we were going to have trouble getting enough calories from carbs to not lose weight. And protein was out of the running for a main caloric source-- not only is protein expensive, but my conscience has a bit of a problem with eating that many animals. So, I resolved to get my calories from fat. Cashews, raw coconuts, olive oil, eggs, bananas fried in coconut oil... I ate a lot of fat.

By the fourth day, we'd started craving starches (bread, potatoes) like Edward Cullen wanted to shred Bella in that first Chemistry class. No friendly amber-colored vampire eyes here, amigos. F***ing RED. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. We were strangely hungry... our stomachs burned, but all food sounded gross other than, basically, waffles. We forced down taco salads instead, literally scowling like four-year-olds. I had gained a huge, huge respect for those who have to diet and still manage to have friends. ...Also for "vegetarian" vampires.

Other than that, though, we definitely felt more energetic & were having great workouts. Maybe there was something to this Paleo Diet business.

That night, we had salmon patties and asparagus (dipped in lemon juice & olive oil for the extra calories). Sounds pretty awesome, right? Not after 92 hours of this stupid, STUPID diet. Bitter much? You bet. I was literally having olfactory hallucinations of cake.

Why do you need to know what we had for dinner that night? Foreshadowing, my dears.

the best late-night barfing companion

I woke up around 1AM that night with a horrible burning in my stomach. And thanks to high school anatomy class, I knew that it literally was my stomach: a J-shaped pit of mortal agony on the left of my torso. I turned the lamp on and started reading to distract myself, but it got worse. WAY worse. I hadn't experienced this much pain since I broke my tailbone a decade before.

I started getting a weird feeling all over my body. I thought it might be nausea, but I'd only thrown up three times in my life so I wasn't really sure. I moved myself and my book to the bathroom just in case. An hour passed, then two hours. I started crying from the horrible, tight, searing sensation in my stomach.

Now, I'm not the most religious person, but I do pray pretty often. I never ask for specific things to happen, because I trust that God knows what he's doing; I usually just say, "This situation sucks so I'd appreciate if you'd reveal whatever lesson I'm supposed to get out of it," or, "Thanks, the world is awesome and I'm really enjoying being here." (And then rainbows and little heart-shaped bubbles start floating around my head.) (Kidding.)

But that night, I just felt stuck. I felt stuck in this horrible pain; I was tired of sitting there feeling it get worse, and I wanted it to be over with. (The agony, that is, not my rainbow-and-heart-shaped-bubble Carebear life.) I tearfully begged God, Please give me peace, fix my writhing stomach, let me know what to do to make it go away.

Silence.

...Amen?

And then as if given a shove from behind, I lunged over the toilet seat and started hurling my guts out. HARD. It sucked.

Dear God, 
   You're a funny, funny fella.

And since you really must know, this was some weird barf. There was no stomach acid, no liquid, just chewed up, undigested, pink and green dinner. My sister told me not to write this, but I think it will really benefit you to know that it was so thick, I seriously felt like I was pooping out of my throat.

And because this was only the fourth time I've ever thrown up, ever, I slumped against the toilet for a while feeling confused and violated by whatever the hell kind of trick my stomach had just pulled there. Then I climbed back into bed, shivering, wrapped Jason's arms around me and finally fell asleep.

In retrospect, I'm somewhat embarrassed to tell you that the following morning I continued on with this dieting business. I did some online sleuthing to figure out what had caused the weird stomach pain and the whole little regurgitation trick. Apparently, I learned, fat requires a lot of bile to be digested. If you eat too much of it, you can temporarily run out of bile.  Basically, my stomach had said,

"We're sorry. Please try again later."

Then I looked up the Crossfit workout for that day, and I swear to rainbows and heart bubbles I am not making this sh*t up:

Run 1 mile.
Complete, in any order and any increments:
100 pull-ups
200 pushups
300 air-squats
Then RUN ANOTHER MILE.

Or, you know, DIE. Whichever happens first.

So we went. And I did it. And it sucked, but I didn't die. Plus I got to tell people my awesome barf story.

And then, in our sweaty workout clothes, we drove straight to our favorite Mexican restaurant and I ate THE BEST PLATE OF BEANS AND RICE I've ever had. And it stayed down.