Delicious Vegan Frozen Treats

Cherry-Chocolate-Chip Freeze

1 bag of frozen cherries
3 shots Cointreau or triple sec
2 TB cinnamon
1 TB cloves
1 TB nutmeg
1 shot creme de cassis
3/4 c chunked dark chocolate pieces or chips

Soak cherries in above ingredients in the fridge for a few hours (I did four, but as long as they marinate at least 2 hours, that's fine.)

Blend 1 box silken tofu in a food processor until silky. Pour into a a mixing bowl or pan. Coarsely chop cherry mixture in the food processor. Fold the cherry mixture into the tofu mixture. Once well blended, place in a shallow pie pan or muffin tin in the freezer. Wait 30 minutes, or until it achieves a desired consistency.

Nomnomnom. There are no pictures. We ate it all.

Author Solutions Inc. -- REMOVED PER HR REQUEST

BLOG POST REMOVED PER REQUEST OF HR DIRECTOR OF AUTHOR SOLUTIONS

Definitions, escape velocity and other minor moral dilemmas of a painful nature.

Made a decision yesterday that pleasing my father and my family and THE MAN was no longer worth it.
Decided my personal happiness and sense of self-worth was what was most important.
Decided to fight to protect it, tooth and nail.

I went home. I cried. I cried. I cried on J., bless his heart, while Elodie fed me tasty pasta salad and I cried. Exhausted, I laid on the couch and called in sick of broken heart and mind. I love my job; I believed in my job. What my job had become was a travesty. It was lies, it was cheats, it was unreal how false and fake I had to be all day long. I had to lie with a straight face and break contracts and tell customers that no, it was all their fault. Even my embracing of my inner corporate pirate was insufficient for what I was told to do.

I dressed yesterday as a pirate, channeling Captain Jack Sparrow I took the office by storm. I spent three hours writing a manifesto, explaining how and why and why there was something rotten in the state of Denmark. I took it to multiple upper management desks. I signed it only as myself. I removed accusatory statements and edited. I had it reviewed by three people. I tweaked and channeled my father’s business English. It was beautifully crafted and it closed, “I am tired of my sweat lining someone else’s pockets.” It explained that I was tired of feeling guilty if I didn’t work an 80 hour work week. It channeled the frustration of the exhaustion of my department.

“You have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them…”

I laid my cards on the table; fully believing I would be fired, escorted from the building. I took a deep breath and plunged in. My critique was well received, was treated by upper management as a path for change, to create the change within the corporate culture that was exceedingly necessary. I spent three hours creating solutions and generating ideas with one manager and we created a game plan.

I left the office somewhere in the upper stratosphere – Cloud 11, for sure – my department had been broken, and I was actively fixing the parts that weren’t working. I had a plan, I had connections, I was going to make it better for my employees. I was so blessed out.

I came in the next morning, refreshed, no longer bitter, ready to go! I begin one initiative, a cross-brand project to benefit my department internally. I am querying one employee about processes on break, and run over. I call her direct supervisor and also e-mail him, asking permission to discuss this further with her and to discuss her place in my project with him.

No response. So, in the next 10 minutes or so, we finalize a plan, options, details. I am saving it when the brand manager shows up, drama queen diploma in hand, starts to make a scene. He underestimated, though, he goofed. There he was, wanting to provoke me, wanting a scene, wanting me to scream. I was out of energy. I looked at him:

“It seems you’re a little upset Mr. H. Perhaps we should schedule a meeting later today when we’re both more calm to discuss this.”

Not well received.

“Very well, let’s step outside and we can have a short chat, okay?”

Mr. H. storms out of my segment of the office and I proceed to follow him carting along laptop, cell, smokes, expecting to talk in the office park. He’s instead in a fishbowl glass bubble room glaring at me.

I enter. I explain, in a calm voice. I apologize if my intentions and actions were misunderstood. Then I show him the plan, take his abuse, and go on about my day. The fact that upper management had done that? Or created a corporate culture where it was okay for a brand manager to approach a team lead working on a special project for an upper-level manager and castigate her?

It killed me. I left for lunch, distraught, unfocused. I didn’t come back. I’m tendering my resignation. Apparently his actions were poorly received by HR and his boss. That doesn’t fix how they hurt me. I don’t need a work environment where that is even possible.

Hedonist Dilemnas....

L: What time is it?
X: Eh, 5 a.m. ... well, okay, 4:50
L: The kittens, they'll be awake soon, I should really go home and play with them...
X: ::shrug::
L: There's some trouble though; I like the thread count of your sheets and your arms around me too much to go.

Office Hours: at the Vid, 10 p.m. Thursdays

This exercise is a great success. I ran into a casual friend on the way to my office hours and explained the concept.

That I was newly supervising a department, but hadn’t been given much in terms of tools for success or structure from upper management. I needed to hear the meat and potatoes of what was going wrong or right from my employees – in a neutral place where they could feel comfortable venting all of their frustrations.

So, office hours, over PBR, at a local hipster bar. He asked if he, too, could come and complain. I bowed dramatically and answered, “The complaint department, it is right here.”

He missed the inside joke, but I didn’t.

Making them women of good carriage...

"I dreamt a dream tonight"
"And so did I."
"Well, what was yours?"
"That dreamers often lie."
"In bed asleep while they do dream things true."
"O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you..."

This is what I quoted last night; what I wanted was a line from further down, but I had forgotten the middle.

"This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she,--"

My partner in martinis and politics understood why this illustrated my thoughts; also appreciated it. The moon hung in the sky, the winds whispered in the trees, the cat waited for us to walk us up the street to the house. It was the kind of evening you trap in a bubble and remember for eternity.

The slowest quick death...

Courtesy of a friend and old-time b-town girl, I was invited to plus-1 on the annual Bluebird (a local bar and music venue of venerable age) summer-pontoon boat-on-Lake Monroe event. The opportunity to start drinking at 9 a.m. on a Sunday with professional, card-carrying alcoholics was just too much to turn down, plus I would be a PIRATE all day long.

Arrrrrr! Even NinjaLiz could say, "Ahoy, Matey!" as a perfectly respectable form of address.

I recognized some, couldn't place others, realized I had seen most of them, as J. would say, blitzed, which was why I was having recognition issues. I had dated another Bloomington bar and bartender the preceding summer, so I could approach the situation with the same verve and complete lack of tact that I had previously.

Since I knew the ninja, but not many of the other inked-out pirates it was both an opportunity to people-watch, but also an opportunity (rare ones, that) to be completely a version of myself that many people don't know. This is a Lina that drinks like a fish, talks shop like the service-industry veteran she is, and cuts no corners, hides no scandal, but also mentions none. Fabulous stories? No. Rather half-way hints, asking the invitation to tell the story. This Lina is great at picking your brains, and is curious to force your hand to tell your own story.

After spending a lot of time with vegan-raw foodist-yoga extremists, I have a great eye for energy of the hippie sense, when someone is radiant with life and a sink of well-fueled, high-octane operating body. This also means the reverse is true; the staff, VIPs, and ladies of the Bluebird were in the slow process of acceptable suicide to vanquish their demons.

As a member of this process, but not a particularly dedicated one, I find it easier to see and find fellow folk seeking that slow death. "Smoking is the most acceptable American form of suicide," wrote Kurt Vonnegut in the introduction to his short story collection Welcome to the Monkey House. There's also a certain beauty about dying by emptying the liver of all ability to effectively do its job.

There was ink and black and hangovers; the women were that rail-thin ribs and hips and knees jutting. Stylish sunglasses, no cleavage to be found, these women were embodying the hipster ideal. Bobbed hair and well-matched beach garb, ink both intricate, in process, and multi-colored. Once I had been dying to join them; (un)fortunately I'm still a little too fond of things like breathing, brie, and quintessential bacon eating. I do still have a mad case of beautiful-ink-envy. Nom.

I was lucky to be sufficiently hung-over to be a card-carrying member for the morning; the wine, the not sleeping, and other forms of bodily abuse meant that I had that certain je-ne-sais-crois that partying gives to the dedicated. As with other boat members, I started drinking around 9 a.m. to solve this head-hurts-ow and body-is-achy issue. Why recover from a wine hangover when one can drink one's way through it?

K., it turned out, is a Bluebird VIP -- funny because of how I know him best and remember him and it wouldn't even be fair to trot out his pure dorkster, 'cause it reveals all of my street-cred in a painful, painful fashion. I hadn't seen him in an easy three years, and he had gained that polish and veneer of maturity -- I hear paying bills and living life with its consequences will do that. Somewhere along the way he'd become good looking, or maybe the SCA has just over-developed my preference for tastefully well-groomed facial hair.

It was a relief, though. I know that chivalrous folk often mix drinks at bars, but knowing he was there was effectively my a-ok to be blitzed for a second day running in broad daylight before noon. No matter how much I imbibed or where I passed out, I knew that I would have that curious safety brought by chivalrous gentlemen everywhere. (I refrain from defining, in this case. That's another post.)

In discussing my vices, I learned he was raised SCAdian, so I picked the hell out of his brains. Oddly, when I last knew him, he was chivalrous to a degree that caused him great emotional pain, but at the time I had been unable to place from whence this came, because he was running with a chivalrous crowd of men. I was also an unabashed flirt -- my self confidence was somewhere under the boat, what with all the stickly-thin girls, all of whom came paired with one schluppy guy or another, in spite of, or despite perhaps, all of their hawtness.

The staff of the Bluebird were more than entertained by my lavishing of attention on K. -- I didn't have the energy or sobriety to be discrete, nor any actual reason to be. He wryly noted that it was likely being photographed, at which I shrugged. I was pretending that I believed I was sufficiently beautiful to be on that boat, which meant I must have been fine. Fine-looking. Good enough. Also, he was enjoying it and he may have asked me out years ago; I think I turned him down? [wince]

I rocked the staff with my empowered vegan-refined-sugar-free smoothies (until cut with a bit of lemon-lime generic soda, because the thickness was off -- I had been blending without the rum at 7h45, sorry Elodie!) that were oh, only 1/3 to 1/2 rum. Coconut milk, fresh mango, frozen peaches, a bit of H20 so that the blender doesn't die. They needed raspberries, also maybe a bit more fizz or some honey. Over-all once mixed though, even the head bartend wanted one. *cracks knuckles*

I swam and drank and didn't really bother with eating (hotdogs, squICK) until I passed out in the sun on the top-deck of the pontoon boat for the most deliciously dream-free mid-day nap in the high sun. I have a rockstar sunburn in spite of careful spf 30 application from the combination of swimsuit ties, hair, and towel-about-the-waist. I was so amazing that now, well over 16 hours later, my electrolyte balance is still off. Pretty decadent to be nursing the morning-after hangover at 6h30 p.m.

Too many new people? A bit of wounded self-esteem? A boat full of bartenders and a chivalrous guarantee of certain safety? Yep. Drunk as a skunk, if by skunk you mean pirate. There was a bit too much rum, and in spite of our best efforts, it was not all gone (meaning there could be no quoting of Johnny Dep... I mean Captain Sparrow). Even better? Barkeeps can't be arsed to judge you, take care of you, or criticize your liquor intake. No judgement, no criticism. Just unabashed drinking. A recipe for certain disaster of liver-rending proportion. I am so. ill. egads. Also, I would do it again, once I convince my liver to continue processing and my stomach to start digesting.

I think K. is coming out with us all to Chapel Perilous though, or at least dropping by after work. I insisted, in that way that girls who pretend to be pretty do, that it was essential that he attend and that no other answer than, "I will see you there" would do. K. is also wary wary wary of me; not that I blame him. I am a classic case of single-Lina, which means I am becoming my worst nightmare.

I wanted this less to be an analysis of my path to my state or lack therein this a.m. and I do want to write about these women with whom I drank; perhaps I'm not ready, or too sober, or just have honestly killed too many brain cells this weekend. Until I regenerate the lost I suppose I will save that post and instead offer the debauchery up to the family-members who can now find me here. Hi B.! I promise I don't do this often, okay? Also, my liver is FINE and also Irish and also Eastern European. FINE.

J: What made it a pirate ship?
L: Hmmm. The quantity of booze on board? The amount of that booze that was rum? The number of hangovers and the quantity of amazing ink? Maybe it was the black or the ennui?
J: Okay, okay. So it was a pirate ship in spite of being a party pontoon.
L: Yes.

In full, 02-21-06, 9:18 p.m.

Academically Frustrated [Feb. 21st, 2006|09:18 pm]
[Current Mood | cranky ]
[Current Music | le mai's rap selections ]

All scholarship is intrinsically flawed. There are no real concrete answers. Every study ever done has multiple systematic failings.

"This theory was accepted, until (name date) (name date) (name date) refuted his studies with a different perspective. This dominated the field until work by (name date) proceeded to question its applied variables. The questioning was continued by (name date) (name date name date) in a successive series of studies applying three primary cases. The flaws in the doctrine applied by (name date) as well as the vagaries of the cross-sectional data application of (name date) have created a renewed need for research in this field."

Everything I read sounds like that. For twenty pages.

In full, dated 03-01-06, 12:04 a.m.

When I grow up... [Mar. 1st, 2006|12:04 am]
[Current Mood |amused ]

Assuming I'm not kidnapped off the bat when I go to the Phillipines, Le Mai assures me that I can follow the career path:

actress --> politician --> president

7,100 islands give or take 10 depending on the level of the tide! Alllll mine!

I might have to learn to Tagalog. And convert to Catholicism. These are minor details.

Excerpted, dated 03-07-06, 11:16 a.m.

P.S. Acceptance letter from the Hogwarts Masters Program has yet to arrive. I hope that they'll let me specialize on the historical development and practical applications of the elections system of the Ministry of Magic. If not, I might have to respectfully decline.

excerpts sort of... 03-09-06 9:39 p.m.

I haven't finished processing today, but it feels good. Even after being drenched in a rainstorm and crossed in love, today feels refreshing. I played Zelda all the way home, because I felt like walking in the rain, and then it turned into a torrential downpour capable of annihilating small dogs and large cats. There were waterfalls, cars throwing up spray four feet high, baby rivers, and massive puddles. I definitely needed a leaf in order to catch the winds to jump the worst of them.

Home was a whirlwind of drying, changing, eating, and a metamorphosis into a creature more rain-appropriate -- skirts, tights, tall ankle boots, and cute jackets. Then it was time to celebrate Hungarian independence, eat food, and inevitably: Monsieur H.Toker was there. Playing the accordion. Announcing to Joel and I his first gig as a male stripper (tonight! at 12a.m.!) because of his ennui and lack of desire to lower himself musically to accompany music school students.

Joel stepped away to get some dessert. Monsieur H.Toker's voice was crisp, and pained, as he bitterly inquired, "So, are you dating him? Or about to?" He must find me unchanged from the thoughtless briseuse des coeurs that I was at 18. (Is that functional in French?) I replied in a rush of coquetry-filled words, relaxed, confident.

Sins of the past: it's been five years. Five years. We only dated three or four months. One would think, I don't know, that maybe the world had rebooted since then and that all was forgiven and forgotten. Evidently, that is not the case.

...

PS Love to my roomie, Cody. He diagrammed "men" as a set on the hall-way wall for me last night, explaining why it would be easy for a clever girl like me to progress by becoming a trophy wife. Intelligent men, he gestured, were up here, indicating the wall about 5 inches above our heads. Geeks, he noted, were in a strata above that. The rest, he said, the rest are stupid. A sweeping circular gesture encompasses the entirety of the lower portion of the wall.

In full, 03-10-06, 3:39 p.m.

Le Petit Prince [Mar. 10th, 2006|03:39 pm]
[Current Mood |a bit distressed ]
[Current Music |ani - ok ]

"... toi aussi, tu viens du ciel! De quelle planete es-tu?"
"... you too, you come from the heavens. From what planet are you?"

Apparently, Planet Hypocrite. I'd previously assumed everyone had already read about Ladder Theory. It turns out that that was a false assumption. For the edification of the previously unexposed:

http://www.intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html

I was a walking, talking, flirting example of the ladder theory last night. *sigh* This is where I mumble about societal constructs and how I'm helpless before them. Then I think about Marie Dariessecq's (what a name!) book Truismes and the consequences of subscribing to societal constructs (transformation a la Kafka, in this case).

I'm speechless with dismay at myself. There's nothing left to say.

Excerpted, dated 03-11-06

It's that stage in the morning wherein one approaches all complex systems warily. The world is blurry, confusingly not due to a lack of glasses. I'd been passing the coffee maker on my way to feed the cat and other basic tasks and shooting it looks. One of these days I'll start leaving it set so all I have to do is hit "on" and not worry about pouring and measuring and complicated early morning actions.

That said, I think maybe there is coffee now. (There is.)

This is what happens when I let Le Mai go home. I have to fend for myself, as opposed to painstakingly filling my mug with coffee and waiting impatiently for it to kick in and functionality to begin.

Excerpted, dated 03-15-06, 10:27 a.m.

End result: I'll be fine. But my cat now has a CRIMINAL record. She had to go on file with the city because of her panicked behavior. The nurse *said* it was a formality, but Sir Oliver Skitten, your mafia catnip smuggling ring will soon crumble and you will never see the antler-man again.

In full, 03-16-06, 4:44 a.m.

An open thank you letter to a rather formative person [Mar. 16th, 2006|04:44 am]
[Current Mood |hurting ]
[Current Music |tori - pieces ]

In many ways, people are shaped by their friends; what their friends expose them to in terms of music, media, people, ideas, experiences, etc. As my life is littered with examples of your influence, it only seemed proper to thank you.

Thank you:

For giving me a critical perspective on film. Exposure to such classics as A Clockwork Orange and Citizen Kane. For an intimate knowledge of Akira Kurosawa's oeuvre. Teaching me a higher level of film appreciation and analysis.

Thank you:

For food -- sushi appreciation and the curative properties of nabeyaki udon. For improved chopstick skills. A comprehensive exposure to freezer food. An expert's view on marshmallow presentation in rocky road ice cream. Deli-made pierogis.

Thank you:

For being a door to the more mundane world of video games, with a specialization in Nintendo products. I can hold my own in many a video game-centric conversation -- this I credit to you.

Thank you:

For diversifying my playlist. My soundtrack with you is so disastrously comprehensive that it is inescapable.

Thank you:

For teaching me that fiction is more than science fiction, and that the fantastical can be found in books outside of fantasy.

Thank you:

For inspiring in me a new fascination with the natural world and all its wonders. Every time I see a glamorous bug, or a glittering snake, or rescue a turtle, I will think fondly of you.

Thank you:

For showing me what a creative family is. I treasure the memory of my time at Montclair Court.

Thank you:

For leaving me so dependent that I would collapse without you; an act that would eventually teach me the depth of my inner strength.

Thank you.

Thank you for everything.

I have no regrets.

In full. 03-17-08, 2:19 p.m.

the truth [Mar. 17th, 2006|02:19 pm]

[ Current Mood | distraught ]
[ Current Music | ahem ddr tunes. ahem. ]

"karma is why i keep going. i just know pat robertson will be struck by lightening and bush will drown in oil and all those aggresive drivers will hit trees eventually." - betsy

Excerpted, dated 03-19-06, 6:48 p.m.

I still end up curled in a ball on my bed, in a corner, leaned on chair, across the couch, against a door frame, trapped in emotion; letting it burn through me in waves as I attempt to solve...everything. Old habits die hard. I'm having trouble eating, and have reinstated my mostly-nutritious-liquids-only diet in an effort to keep running. The world doesn't stop just because my heart does; so I continue to stumble on whille puzzling out the actions of both myself and others.

The answers aren't easy.

Excerpted, dated 03-27-06 2:48 p.m.

I'm going to languish on the couch, convalescing. There will be ginger ale and saltines and pretzels. There will be tea and reading about Romantic Writers and their Passionate Lives. There will be good tunes and Sex in the City endlessly. I shall be sick with style.

When I proclaimed my plans to be sick in style to Emil after lunch, he said that I was a character from Oscar Wilde's 'A Picture of Dorian Grey'. I was rather flattered, because who *doesn't* want to be a dandy?

Excerpted, dated 03-30-06, 7:09 a.m.

"I also dreamed I was getting married. Prior that day I swam in a chlorinated pool. It turned my face into flaking scary skin. The room where I was to be married had mold growing over the walls and smelt rank. No one realized/would do anything about it. I looked bad in my dress because I was bloated. I was putting on eyeliner and my father started to yell at me, saying it looked terrible. I begged my mother to tell him that yes, it was ok, I could wear charcoal grey eyeliner. She would not defend my choice. I was in tears. Many people were there, none were offering me any kind of comfort. I was rushing about in my wedding gown, big, awkward, bulky, feeling fat and ugly and unwanted and unloved.

I woke up feeling sad and strange.

Then I had to UN airlift food to France's starving populace and that made me happy. If I didn't feel like death on toast, I would be very excited about life, today, and the weekend.

Epic Fail Before 7 a.m.

The kittens, the birds, my own unrest. These things wake me, lead me to stumble into the shower and closer to coherence. Dressed, primped, vaguely more alert, I stumble, drawn like moth to flame to the coffee maker.

What have I done? Taken the most recently-purchased pound of coffee to the office. There is nary a single bean in the kitchen (decaf in the freezer, not an option). Dismay -- at 6h15, the only option for the purchase of coffee is the Kroghetto.

To drive to the Kroghetto for only coffee beans is in violation of the summer principle: the car is used for transit to work, for transiting multiple people, for massive grocery hauls for parties, or for multiple essential errands wrapped into one trip. The car is NOT and expressly not for runs to the store for 1 or 2 items.

I broke the gas-is-$4 principle, and drove my sorry self to the Kroghetto. It's worth noting that a whole bean organic fair trade coffee not over-roasted by Starbucks does not exist at smallish Krogers located in neighborhoods of questionable repute. [I lived in this neighborhood. For the record, its repute is in great question.]

So here I am, drinking a multiple-origin organic "Serena" blend coffee. It's over-roasted six ways to next Sunday, even though it is supposedly a "medium" in Starbucks vernacular, not a "dark" or "bold", their words for burnt and scorched. The planning; the plotting. With a little more care I could be drinking something wonderful.

Anyone who can't taste over-roasted in a cup of coffee want to swap me for about 10 oz of premium, hippie-guilty-conscience-friendly coffee? I'll even mail it to you...

When I was fat.

I didn't break 100 pounds until I was 18. I was always the stick-thin girl, who people always thought was about 8 years younger than I was.

At 22, the movers at my parents' thought I was 11. At a wedding when I was 15, the quote was, "You like you're eight, talk like you're twenty, and look like I did in the 70s," a bit of a double-edged compliment. I was just not-carded for the first time ever buying hard alcohol for a fabulous single ladies' martini night. Admittedly, it was top shelf, and when the woman asked how I was I noted, "I've been better. My room mate (insert confidential here)." With my angst and gothic eyeliner she decided that to prevent me from buying alcohol would be a bad idea. Good call, checker lady!

I've always been the one who's been carried, lifted, tickled and marveled over.
"How is it you are so small but eat so much?"
"Lina's so little and the kettle is so big!" This from a co-worker because in order to stir the 50 gallon pasta pot on the Vulcan stove at work, I needed a footstool and looked like some kind of exotic witch in cargo shorts, a wife beater and an apron, hair wrapped in red bandanna, purple against pale skin. This was common where I worked, a 90-pound girl hauling 50-pound sacks of flour and 30 pound boxes of potatos off of the Sysco truck. I would be buried behind stacks of dishes taller than I, warring with the ceramic in all of its hot hot heat and heavy burning weight. Carrying 60 pounds of mozzarella at the pizza joint where I worked last summer was an accomplishment that caused everyone to open the cooler door for me.

At 17, my prom date and boyfriend Rob and I had been taking swing lessons and he was able to swing-flip me through the air and it was amazingly hot.

I celebrated with my best friend and room mate my freshman year when we both finally broke 100 pounds. College hit, and I started drinking too much soda, eating at the dining hall, and not taking care of myself. Then France hit, and I drank my weight in beer and wine and vodka. Next thing I knew, in the winter I was chubby. How? When? What?

I was shocked and crushed and surround by drop-dead-gorgeous French women. Spring came around, with allergy season and no central AC. I dropped the weight in about three weeks (when you can't eat for the nausea, at all, for the first 6 hours of any given day, that initial fasting burns off pounds.) This isn't a healthy system, and in my old age I've become more creative about liquid calories (current solution: Berghoff Genuine Dark Beer nom nom nom.) It still makes April, May, and June a bit of a puzzle -- how do you eat when you're starving but you physically can't without throwing it all back up again?

I put all that weight back on the next winter. I was living with an extremely emotionally abusive room mate, who had such great lines as, "You spend so long getting ready in the morning in the bathroom. It's a shame you don't come out looking any prettier." I was eating as a carnivore for the first time in years, ground beef and too much cheese and Le Mai's Italian-Vietnamese-Philippina cookery. I put all that weight back on and some. I weighed in at 120-odd pounds. Nothing I owned fit me anymore, most particularly my pants.

When I went shopping over Christmas break with my mother and my shame, I found two pairs of pants that sort of fit (as in they were baggy and not fitted and had to be hemmed because of length and belted extensively at the waits because nothing would fit my thighs and my waist/hips or lack thereof in the same fucking pants. These fat pants have haunted me ever since, and I dreamed of wearing all my hot fun pants from France that were effective sized 00 - 2. I was a size 4-6 and it crushed me.

Then I picked up a hipster BFA boyfriend and started running with that crowd, hot and cold running alcohol, too many cigarettes, too little sleep, too much caffeine. The weight melted away through this painfully unhealthy lifestyle in combination with spring allergy season. I became gaunt, painfully so.

I weighed in at 105 pounds. "Too skinny," a friend who had lived (effectively) with me over the summer said many months later.

I was finally happy with my thighs. I was so beautiful, so thin, and so many pretty pretty boys would try to pick me up at the Vid, perfect hipster artist musicians using pick up lines from NY Times headlines.

I was wasted away, and so genuinely happy about it. Over that summer I picked up (or was picked up by) a talented Canadian music producer. I knew, that were I ever to gain weight, he would love me less. It's a cruel reality. I was working as a bus-girl dishwasher at a local pizza joint, Mother Bear's, and a barista at City Bakery. Croissants, leftover day-olds, for free. Extra pizza slices. Full-fat milk lattes. All the dairy butterfat I could possibly consume, for mostly free with my labor.

The weight came, and I was ashamed. I was embarrassed, and I knew Peter wanted me less. I knew I wasn't as sexy for him. I hurt everywhere from this. I was afraid. I doubted myself. I feared that I wouldn't be able to cut it when I moved to LA/NYC with him. I was terrified of the body-beautiful culture of these two cities. I knew I couldn't hack it, that I wasn't like them, that I would never be as beautiful, no matter how I starved, no matter how little I ate.

The summer came, I started cooking (or not cooking) raw foods. I went vegan and cut out all of the easy food in my diet. I stopped eating refined sugar. I became that hot sexy stick girl of spring and summer again. I picked up regulars at the coffee shop and at the adjoining bar. (Coffee and beer, next door? Made of win.)

I was working on my feet for 8-12-14 hours a day, and carrying loads of boxes of thirty-pounds of mozzarella and bus-tubs crammed with dirty dishes. I had muscle tone and energy and calves of steel. I was fit, and muscled, and balanced for the first time... ever. I ditched the Canadian; I believed in myself. He didn't like that much. It wasn't convenient for him if I had any self-esteem.

I lost it with my first desk-pushing job this past winter. I had a loving, wonderful boyfriend who told me constantly that I was beautiful. I didn't believe him, not for one single dirty second. He thought I was beautiful, but he was deluded, and I knew this. I was the ugly duckling, the over-worked career girl, who worked 10 and 12 hour days and had no time to cook or eat. He loved me anyhow. He loved me with my baby paunch stomach and my un-muscley arms. He loved me, even with my thighs. His love was a tonic for a lot of the poisons that my ex-room mate and Peter had filled me with.

For that I am eternally grateful.

Now it's spring again. I can hardly eat, especially on weekends with no 8 to 10 hours of AC filtered air to help my allergies. I'm drinking my calories in a creative vegan hippie fashion. I eat when I must, light-headed and spacey from hunger that I cannot feed.

Now, even with my thighs, I believe I could be considered beautiful. For the first time, in so long, I believe it more than 50% when people tell me I'm desirable.

I almost hurt someone, physically, at Indy PRIDE when she was talking about the body of a girl I had slept with a few years back. She had "saggy boobs" from her "health problems" and was all "fat". This lady is curvy, voluptuous, and fucking hot. Her breasts, her curves, she was a delight. I've never been so insulted in my life, to have some stick-thin girl in her early 20s telling me that a woman that I value and treasure, who is loyal as a dog and beautiful as a rose was ugly and unattractive.

I exorcised my closet a few days back. All of the fat clothes. All of the winter clothes. Almost everything I wore the winter I lived with Cody. Almost everything I wore in the winter in France. I pulled it from my closet, from my life. I took it from me -- that is not me, that baggy-clothes wearing slip of a thing, so afraid of being perceived as fat and unattractive.

Certain that a bit of pudge, a wobble or a ripple or a fistfull of extra flesh would mean the end of people and men specifically perceiving me as beautiful.

"Elle sait que ses fesses sont son ticket-restaurant."

I know how I get ahead here. I know that since I've started dressing cute-tiny-girl corporate goth at the office that I've made leaps and bounds with the (mostly) male upper management. They respect me and trust me and value my ethic and smoothness with customers, even the uptight male ones.

I know that if I were fat, even if I was stylish and smart and well dressed, they wouldn't think as much of me. They wouldn't believe in me.

I wouldn't believe in myself.

This disordered thinking has broken so many talented beautiful women that I know. I strive to tell my women friends often how beautiful they are -- because it must be repeated to even begin to believe. I've been doing this since I was 16, and I plan to continue.

You. You are beautiful. You are sexy. You are loved, you will be loved, and you have been loved. I know this. I want you to believe this. I am dying to believe this about myself.

Pirate Kitteh

Pirate Kitteh, perched on my shoulder and watching me write, will be adopted! Three kittehs to go, you know these cute, cuddly, well-trained and adorable wretches want a home with you, yes you!

We still have Strawberry, already a cocky alpha male at all of his 2 pounds. We have the sensitive and inquisitive Raspberry, who knows when you're upset and investigates everything. We also have the loner-snuggler Blueberry, who just wants your lap, but won't ask you for it.

For $70, 2 of these kittehs could be yours -- June is 2 for 1 for cats at the shelter. If you can't adopt, please consider donating food, water, or animal supplies. Due to the flooding in neighboring counties, there has been exceptional strain on the shelter's facilities and resources.

The spinster aunt is drinking...

A chocolate milkshake. Erm.

1/2 cup of Extreme Chocolate Moose Tracks Private Selection brand (all that was left! crisis!)

2 oz of vodka (Citron, again)

I had no creme de cacao.

So I put in 3 oz of sparkling R.W. Knudsen Cranberry juice.

It's a milkshake with vodka instead of milk. And I'm drinking it out of a wine glass. The next time I'm going to blend in fresh raspberries from the garden patch (and by garden patch I mean riot of untamed wonderful dominating the back yard.

This looks boring, and thusly requires no photo. It's brown liquid in a blue wine glass, and I didn't garnish it because I was in a rush to consume liquid calories.

Next time maybe it will be vegan, especially given my new higher intolerance for all things dairy (including cheese, fuck it all...).

Do you just wake up this beautiful?

"By renormalizing the model's waistline, Maxim Mexico takes a bold socio-political stance in the ongoing battle of the politics of representation, clearly referencing the oppressive reification of male-gaze heteronormative modes of synthesis in a semiotic blancmange of post-structural teakettle barbecue hatstand fishmonger."

From http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2008/06/
maxim-mexico-another-victory-for.html via www.bluishorange.com.

I think it was when I weighed 104 pounds at 5'4" that I was finally happy with my thighs. This surprises people; my default size is small, and I'm at about the right weight when I can fit into size zero clothing. I didn't break 100 pounds until after I turned 18 in college and didn't actually gain any substantial weight until I was 21 and started drinking rather than eating my calories.

Somehow, in spite of being what is perceived as tiny, I still wasn't happy with my thighs. Or my stomach. Or my arms or ... How is it that we live in a culture that is this broken? When I'm healthy and clocking in at 115 or 120 I don't feel skinny enough, I don't feel beautiful, and I worry that my partner will find me less attractive for those extra pounds. (And regrettably have had several who have explicitly said as much, I'm not sure if that is worse than those who said it implicitly...)

I didn't realize this was a demon men faced as well until I discussed it with the writer of http://geektheory.wordpress.com/. I was shocked; men didn't become "hags" in the media when old; there's a reason or six that George Clooney is still making film with his pick of amazing parts while great actresses like Jodi Foster have to fight for a few bit character parts.

Men age with grace, and they can have a bit of paunch. Hell, Bill Murray is still adorably sexy, as showcased with Scarlett Johannson in Lost in Translation. It makes sense that Scarlett's character is drawn to him, but were the ages reversed, the film ... just wouldn't have worked in today's media.

I remember vividly the amazement the girls I was studying in France held for French women. These women, regardless of body shape or conventional mass media beauty were somehow glowingly gorgeous all the time. Something about their hotness was there, you knew it, without make-up while in pj's, scrambling eggs sleepily. Part of it was certainly confidence, part of it was style. I've read French feminists, I've read American feminists [meat for other posts, in fact] but I can't say I've fully parsed what makes French women so notoriously, internationally known as beautiful.

My girlfriends, many more of them than I like to admit, they count every calorie. They know how many calories are in a 1/2 cup of celery or 6 french fries. I don't know where they store all this data. They can rationalize drinking lite soy milk and eating only shredded carrots for lunch. I can respect a careful, nutrition-savvy eater (and am a bit of a health-food-nut myself) but this behavior baffles me even though I see from whence it comes (the megatheocorporotocracy) and to whence it goes (anorexia, bulimia, a lifetime of misery).
[Term: megatheocorporotocracy lifted from www.blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com]

I wish they all knew in their hearts and souls that they are beautiful, each and everyone of them. What is needed is to have someone to tell them so on a daily basis. Because, on a daily basis, that's the only way to kill this beast. To have someone who cares for you and loves you and respects you, who looks you in the eye and tells you, "You are beautiful" without any caveats, with sincerity and belief.

Tell a women today that you've never told how good looking she is. It's not sleazy or smarmy -- it's true, and they need to hear it, again and again and again.

Quand on est en Aix, on fait comme les aixois

France was a turning point for me in terms of personal growth, strength, figuring things out. I was single for the first time in years, and found myself empty without another "better" half. I tried all types of solutions.

The one that hasn't left is cooking a tasty meal, dragging friends with wine over, then closing it off with coffee and/or tea, nargile, and chocolate. I've decided the Midwest needs more of this type of debauchery-soft, wherein the point isn't to be drunk or riotous, but rather to lounge and converse and be brilliantly relaxed. Many of the best parties I've hosted have ended/become this since, and they are the memories I treasure.

This structure was in part due to a loss of media (no DVD collections, no awesome media-set-up, no Gamecubes or Xboxes) in part due to the euro-dollar exchange rate (why go out when you can stay in?) and also due to the company. The people I had lounging in my living room (and bedroom, as it was both) are still people, even if they aren't currently with me, whom I know best. There are people I lived with for a full year in the dorms, other folks I've known for years -- but I don't know them. A movie is on, video games are dominating the room, there's always some distraction designed to prevent talking and to entertain us.

JF used to complain about this with my friend group, insist that there didn't need to be a movie, didn't need to have a board game, but rather that we could just sit and talk. I tried to explain that we weren't sufficiently comfortable in our skins enough to sit and talk and find that to be ok -- but I took that gem of knowledge and carried it with me.

I want to know people again, to get them talking, to have them tell their stories. I love the stories, the tall tales of epic fun and epic loss. La Maison Jaune, home to myself and Elodie (room mate, not her real name) and two fabulous felines (Lady Olivia and Sir Eli, her knight in shining armor) will be in full operation this summer before cold, seasonal affective disorder, and PhD level work kick in this fall. (Well, PhD for Elodie, grad school apps plus workensking for me.)

Come, crush a cup of wine, and tell me your stories. I'm curious, fascinated, and listening. I might even tell you one or two myself...

Blogroll, of sorts...

I've been a dedicated blog reader since my time in France, specializing in reading all of the archives available to me. The ones that I've stuck to, the ones that I can't but help coming back to again and again tend to be the Web 1.0 bloggers, those who blogged when the internet was small and cozy and kept out the rifraff and the big money. Even now, with the internet a changed 2.0 space that is monetized and full of anonymous angry-e-mail and commenters, they write and they make me laugh, cry and experiment with new foods, ideas and activities.


www.bluishorange.com

Out of Austin/other towns in Texas. Lately I suspect we're channeling the same brain-waves. I fear the apocalypse when someone will kill me for a tank of gas too, on a daily basis. I fight this fear by gardening and fencing; she has some solutions too.

www.littleyellowdifferent.com

Asian, gay, out and on the cutting edge of web-employment, out of the Bay area. What he says is has truth in it you don't see elsewhere on the web

www.dooce.com

Reality and snark about depression and pop culture and her life with Lena, her daughter out of Salt Lake City, by way of CA. She's famous now, but I found her back in 2004 before she was that cool.


www.blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com

Twisty Faster, a spinster aunt eating dinner in Austin -- my favorite feminist primer/awareness creator. She makes me think, even when I disagree. She also makes me angry in a burning, frustrated, angsty fashion.

wwww.mightygirl.net

Maggie Mason is amazing, and her style is impeccable. She writes from SF, and makes me want to live there all the time.


www.foodonthefood.com/

Food on the Food is by Tammy out of the Boston area, and she's a brand-new favorite. I want to be her blog friend and mail her baked goods. Also, I plan on delurking to beg her for a better zucchini cake/bread/muffins recipe

www.buggydoo.blogspot.com

One Good Thing -- She runs a sex-toy store out of her garage in Chicagoland. Posts about feminism and kids and life at Big Machine. I love her realism and her funny way of story-telling.

www.defectiveyeti.com

He snarks thoughtfully about politics, movies and snobby board games. Matthew Baldwin is always a fascinating read.

www.postsecret.blogspot.com

Reading this is a Sunday morning ritual, and my favorite one by far. Those of you who have known me for a long time know of my love affair with snail mail of the post-card variety. Stay tuned, please for the Great Postcard Arts and Crafts Summer of 2008!


http://finslippy.typepad.com

I cried when I read about her miscarriage. It was the first time I left her a comment, 1 of 600-800 comments offering her love and condolences. She writes beautifully about being a mum to her son from NYC.

My secret? Sometimes I tell their stories as the "story of a friend" and I mean it when I say friend. I don't know them in the flesh, but I cheer for them and hope for them and wish them the best of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. They've made my life a better place by writing about their lives. Thank you, the internet, for bringing amazing people together.