52 Lists Vol. 1: List the Words that Touch Your Soul

I recently ran across the 52 Lists writing prompts at Moorea-Seal.com and thought it looked like a fun exercise in reflection. She posts a prompt each week to inspire the creation of a list on the topic. I am a little late to the game as they are currently on week 9, but I'm going to join in anyway.

What would you put on your list? Go!

What I Read: The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

The Daughter of Smoke and Bone is the first in a trilogy and the first I've read by Laini Taylor. I definitely want to go back and read her Lips Touch: Three Times, a National Book Award Finalist. Let me tell you, she does some very fancy footwork with the plot in this tome and it is genius. Genius! I am so glad that I went ahead and reserved the second one at the library so I can begin it immediately.

"She tastes like nectar and salt. Nectar and salt and apples. Pollen and stars and hinges. She tastes like fairy tales. Swan maiden at midnight. Cream on the tip of a fox's tongue. She tastes like hope."

This novel is about a human girl named Karou, living a sort of gypsy life, but temporarily settled in modern day Prague, Czech Republic. She has no memory of her parents or where she came from, just that she was raised by Chimaera, a conglomerate of various races of supernatural human/animal hybrids from another realm who consort with humans on the fringes of society conducting secret business to which she is not privy. She is tough, curious, and independent. She is an artist and and she has been trained in the martial arts. She's seventeen years old, but she feels older and more mature. Her character development is perfect and I at once believed that she is was teenager and that she wasn't. I was so curious to know about her past. 



Illustration of Karou by Jim Di Bartolo. Via Smoke and Bone Wiki.



"A bruxis. That was the one wish more powerful than a gavriel, and its trade value was singular: The only way to purchase one was with one's own teeth. All of them, self-extracted."

Karou was primarily raised by a Chimaera shopkeeper of sorts who deals in the business of teeth and wishes. Meaning, people will bring him teeth, both animal and human, and he pays them in wishes. Karou sometimes assists in these trades by acting as messenger and picking up teeth from various trusted suppliers around the world. Karou has no idea for what the Chimaera use the teeth even though she had witnessed some of the harvesting. One pickup assignment takes her to a market in Marrakesh, where she comes face to face with Akiva. 

"Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. The knowledge pounded through her on the rhythm of her heartbeat: the fire-eyed stranger was the enemy... She was caught between the urge to flee and the fear of turning her back on him."

The Chimaera have been in a war with angels, the Seraphim, for millennia and even though neither side remembers why they are fighting and their legends blame the others, natch, they still battle in the name of vengeance. The Chimaera think the Seraphim are narcissistic overlords and the Seraphim believe the Chimaera to be dim-witted beasts. Anyway, events are set in motion that thrust Karou to the center of this age-old disagreement. She learns about her past and the value of magic, hope, and wishes.



In one description of Chimaera they are likened to figures from a Hieronymous Bosch painting.

"...and when he turned away she experienced a sudden unspooling, like the snap of a cable and all her restraints giving way, and she couldn't bear it anymore."

Both the writing and the storytelling in this book are impeccable. The plot took some really unexpected turns, especially near the end, but they all work. It seems like a tired old trope that two people from opposing sides of a deep-seated* and ill-remembered squabble would fall in love. Star-crossed lovers, if you will. But Taylor manages to tell the story in a way that is entirely new and fresh. And heartbreaking. Actually, it is really trite to describe the story this way. There is much more to it that that and after reading only the first book in a planned trilogy I am feeling a little hesitant to define it in these terms. I felt seriously jolted at the end. Pleasantly discomforted. Is that a thing?


Text I sent to my girl Lacey immediately upon finishing.

Have you read this? What did you think? Do you like young adult urban fantasy as much as I apparently do? Care to make any recommendations? Are you excited for the movie?

*I had to look this term up. I say it all the time, but had never written it out and was unsure if the correct term was deep-seated or deep-seeded. I am inclined to use deep-seated, like an idea or feeling that is seated deep in your being. But deep-seeded makes sense too, like firmly-rooted. Thankfully, Grammarist was able to settle my deep-seated internal debate by stating that the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "having its seat far beneath the surface." Language Log has a good discussion of the confusion, humorously, in my humble opinion, citing Fox News as using it incorrectly.

P.S.: On a separate note, I learned in this book that shark fetuses will compete in the womb and cannibalize each other. I had never heard this before and thought it was morbidly, gruesomely fascinating, albeit evolutionarily counter-productive. Or is it properly Darwinian? When I told Donnie he was like, "duh, everybody knows that." Maybe if you are terrified of sharks a shark enthusiast like him. It is called intrauterine cannibalism. You can read about it here and here. In honor of my learning this new fact I will leave you with a new word for your vocab: Adelphophagy: eating one's own brother. You're welcome and I hope you have no other occasion to use it besides when discussing baby cannibal sharks.  

Amanda Palmer and the Art of Asking

I know this is nearly two weeks old and in internet terms that is oooooold news, but I thought I'd post it here in case anyone hasn't seen it because it is really beautiful and inspiring.

Via Ted.com

What I Listened to: Nemesisters by Babes in Toyland

I got my hair cut last night and two songs from Babes in Toyland's Nemesisters record came on my hairstylist's Pandora. When I was in middle school, at the beginning of what I like to call my enlightenment, this was one of the few records I had on repeat, with the notable additions of Hole's Live Through This and Veruca Salt's American Thighs, so it was a major blast from the past to hear these songs.


All Images via Amazon.com

After my sushi and cosmos dinner date with Lacey I was eager to put Nemesisters on and listen to it in its entirety on my long drive home only to find that I had a mere two songs on my iPhone. Somewhere in the span of nearly two decades (how has it been that long?) I have managed to lose the rest of the songs. I listened to these two songs on repeat and lamented the lost songs, figuring I'd get over it by the next day. Turns out my yearning could not be quenched, so I promptly ordered a used copy of the CD this morning for $0.99 on Amazon and that is a bonafide steal, my friends. Curiously, I noticed the ratings for this album were pretty low (3.5 stars) for a record that I consider an essential part of my grunge rock education, an early cog in the feminist, riot grrrl awareness I would eventually develop in my later teen years.


Kat Bjelland. Source unknown.

I understand that music is subjective, not just due to one's taste in style, but for the emotional connection people often have with music which is largely dependent on how well it articulates one's personal life experience and the memories thereof. Maybe you can tell by my affinity for this record, but I was a hella angsty teen and this spoke to me on a visceral level. Even listening to it now brings back vivid memories of sitting in my dimly lit or rather dark vampire's den of a bedroom, listening to music, smoking cigarettes, painting, and brooding. This time in my life contributed heavily to the development of my world view as an adult, for which I am grateful. I will always have a soft, fond place in my heart for depressed, arty, emotional, disrespected, and misunderstood teens. When I became an adult and my life became my own to control my taste in music broadened and became much more nuanced, so when I listened to this record on Grooveshark today it was not as good to my older self as it used to be, but there were certainly some familiar gems.

Kat and Courtney. Source unknown.

Kat Bjelland, the singer for Babes in Toyland and later Katastrophy Wife, was dopplegangers* with Courtney Love during their heyday, but where Courtney has become a joke of a trainwreck in recent years, Kat has kind of fallen off the radar. I did find a link to the 2010 Behind the Music episode for Courtney Love and Kat looks like hell, so presumably life has not been good to her in recent years, but I could find very little online about her other than her relatively recent admission that she has battled schizophrenia for years. I have a biography of Babes in Toyland that I got at a used bookstore years ago, you can find it here, and I remember being kind of shocked that such a book even existed because for me, as a 13 year old girl experimenting with fringe music, Babes in Toyland felt a little off the radar. Of course I bought it, but I have yet to read it. Story of my life.


Babes in Toyland: The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band

I added this to my 100 Book list because one of my reading/home organizing goals is to deal with all the books at my house one way or the other and now I am feeling inspired to read it. If I were a believer in fate of could say that by it coming up on Pandora at the hair salon the universe was telling me I needed to start listening to it again and read this book. That sounds silly, doesn't it? I want to curate a thoughtful collection in which I have read every book I own and deliberately chose to keep it, so I guess now I will be dealing with this one. Also, can I just say that the cover artwork is abysmal? I know that mainstream 90s style was about as ridiculous as mainstream 80s style, but come on. Who the hell thought this screamed kinderwhore grunge rock? It is nausea-inducing in, I think, an unintended way.


And a playlist! You're welcome:

Babes in Toyland: Highlights from Nemesisters

*The first time I typed this it came out "gopplegangers." I tried to correct it when editing and changed it to "bopplegangers." It probably would have been best to just leave it that way.

40 Day Shred Challenge and My First Lent

I was not raised religious. The few times that I went to church as a small child were when I was invited by friends and these always felt like fun voyeuristic opportunities. Once I went with a friend to her catholic church and she took the communion rite. This was fascinating to me because being raised in the South, Catholicism is not that prominent here. Later, in my early teen years I did start going to a Baptist church with my dad on the weekends I would visit him, but I always just felt like a visitor. Now my father is very involved in his Baptist church and I sometimes accompany him to services as a courtesy, but I am very uncomfortable there because they hold so many beliefs that my progressive heart finds abhorrent. Now that I am older and have a child of my own I am finding myself yearning for the kind of like-minded community people often find in church, but I am not yet sure where to find this for myself and my family. I really want to expound on this in a later post, but the purpose of bringing it up here is to explain that religious traditions are really foreign to me. Confession: I had no clue what Ash Wednesday was until I was in college and I remember having a serious miscommunication with a customer when I worked in the mall because I didn't know that before it was a capitalist holiday, Black Friday was a religious holiday.  The memory of this conversation is really embarrassing to me now and was likely incredibly offensive for the person to which I was speaking. Can you imagine it?

Me: This will be on sale for Black Friday.
Customer: Black Friday isn't for months...and why would it be on sale?
Me: Noooo, Black Friday is next Friday. You know, the biggest shopping day of the year.
Customer: *blank stare* ... *eyes narrow*... Black Friday is the day Jesus died on the cross. It's the Friday before Easter.
Me: *blushes*

Do you remember when the term "Black Friday" was not a marketing term, but rather was used by those of us in retail to describe how much it sucked to work the day after Thanksgiving? It used to be an industry insider term that has only recently been repackaged by the marketing machine of the holiday season. Now when I think about the origin of the term Black Friday and the fact that it probably now conjures up images of sales papers and endless checkout lines for most people I find the evolution of the term curious...or perhaps even downright sacrilegious. At the very least, it is disrespectful to those who hold these holidays in high esteem. Did you know that Black Friday of the religious variety is also known as Good Friday? I didn't, but now I will make a conscious effort to refer to is as such to distinguish it from the shopping holiday. Not that I say it that often since I don't go to church or participate in religious holidays.

Anyway, My friend Lacey was raised to participate in Lent every year and when I met her (in my early 20s) I didn't know what this was. For others who aren't familiar with this practice, Lent is observed by many Christian denominations and typically comprises the period of time between Mardi Gras, also know as Fat Tuesday, and Easter. This timeline actually can get much more complicated depending on your religious denomination, but for the purposes of this discussion, Ash Wednesday (which happens to be today) is the day after Mardi Gras and the first day of Lent. Practitioners either fast or give up luxuries or vices during this time as penance. Lacey almost always gives up sweets (sometimes dairy) and then rewards her accomplishment with Easter candy, specifically Starburst Jelly Beans. This is a really simplified explanation of Lent so if you are inclined, you can read about it in more detail here and here. I have never participated in Lent, but Lacey inspired me to do so this year.

Let me give you a little more background. I am trying to develop healthier habits in an attempt to lose some weight and feel better about myself. To this end, I recently joined Weight Watchers and discovered (like I didn't already know) that I drink way too much wine. I have a very European attitude about wine. I like it red and I like to drink it when I am cooking, having dinner, and socializing, even if it is just with my husband. I don't think this is a bad habit, but it is definitely not conducive to weight loss. Since beginning Weight Watchers I have blown all my extra weekly points on wine on the weekend and since my week starts on Friday, I have no extra points for the rest of the week, which is very demotivating. I also really struggle with doing any exercise at all and have never earned any activity points despite the fact that I own zillions of workout DVDs. I tell myself that it is okay because I have a 14-month-old and who can workout when they have an active toddler to look after? But to be honest, I could get up a little earlier in the morning, while Lucas is still asleep, and workout. If I weren't so lazy, that is. In order to combat this problem I decided to do the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels starting today.

I had lunch with Lacey yesterday and was telling her about this plan and my struggles and she informed me that I had inadvertently timed the beginning of my 30 Day Shred Challenge with the beginning of Lent and she suggested that I give up wine for Lent and be wine-free during my 30 Day Shred Challenge. This will help me tackle my Weight-Watchers-Points-busting wine habit and allow me to introduce healthier social indulgences after Easter. I thought this sounded like a really excellent idea and I am feeling super motivated.  Lent typically lasts 40 days (not including Sundays) to commemorate Jesus' 40 day fast during which he was tempted by Satan and practitioners feel the observance of the Lenten season brings them closer to God. I am going to do the 30 Day Shred DVD for the full 40 days instead of just 30. While I don't see my participation in this challenge as explicitly bringing me closer to God, I will be giving up a luxury and beginning a healthful practice in order to kick start my healthier lifestyle. This will represent a major accomplishment for me that will improve my life and be incredibly rewarding and I think that is a spiritual act in itself.

And in honor of today being Ash Wednesday, National Geographic posted this interesting linguistic archaeology article detailing the origins of the words "February," "Lent," and "Easter."

Do you participate in Lent? If so, what did you give up this year?

Lucas Library Haul

1. The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

2. Skippyjon Jones in Mummy Trouble by Judy Schachner

3. Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems

4. Olivia Forms a Band by Ian Falconer

5. Lyle, Lyle Crocodile by Bernard Waber

Operation Natural Hair Color...Psych.

I have not so much completed this goal to go back to my natural hair color as I have redacted it.

For years I have dyed my hair black and spent a lot of time experimenting until I found a color that was as black as they get, but still natural looking. I have very fair skin and I think it suits me well. My grandmother has natually black hair and last time I went to visit her a couple of her friends told me that they could tell I was Carmel Lee's granddaughter because of my black hair. In actuality, my hair is a warm light brown, which I have never appreciated and have been coloring since I was 15. For several years in college, including when I met Donnie, I even had pink hair. It had become my signature look, but was a tedious color to wear because I felt like my entire wardrobe had to be muted or I risked looking like a clown.


Me and Lucas at my sister's wedding in July 2012. Black Hair. I should definitely make this face more often since it is so becoming.

Then I had a child. Everyone always comments about how much he favors Donnie and he does look remarkably like Donnie did as a small child. When commenting on his looks my mother-in-law will often console me regarding Lucas' lack of my genes by telling me that Lucas has my mouth. And he does, but you know what? He has Donnie's smile. He does have my natural coloring. He has fair olive-toned skin, which is incredibly sensitive like mine (sorry, baby), and warm light brown hair and sometimes this pulls at my heart strings and makes me want to go back to my natural hair color.

Me and Lucas at Christmas 2012. Black Hair.

It would cost a small fortune that I don't have to lift the black out of my hair, not to mention the fact that it would likely wreck my hair with so much processing. My sister-in-law recently had black lifted from her hair to go a rich red and she survived the assault on her locks. I fear I might not be so lucky since I do so much heat styling and the texture of my hair was once dramatically altered by bleaching a smallish streak. Since I use a deposit-only color that has to be retouched regularly I thought my best route to be gradually use a lighter color as it fades. My stylist agreed that this should work fine as long as I don't let the color process too long on the ends of my hair. In preparation, I grew my roots as long as I could tolerate so that the black would be faded as much as possible and instead of my usual (racist-ly named) Oriental Black, I purchased a box of Black Brown.

Then, I had a change of heart. The black suits me and I love it. I get a lot of compliments on how striking it is with my skin tone and often get inquiries as to whether or not it is natural. Side note: Why do women always ask each other whether or not some trait they have is natural? I often get this question about my hair and my eyelashes and it makes me uncomfortable. It is not the same as asking "What mascara do you use?" or "How do you style your hair?" It is more personal than that and sometimes I feel like it is an accusation in the form of a question. And, frankly almost no body is natural. We all get up in the morning and have some sort of grooming ritual. I do, however, appreciate knowing that people aren't convinced my hair color is not natural. That is hypocritical, I know, considering my recent statements, but we are complicated creatures, so be it.

I went ahead and used the box of Black Brown because I am not one to waste money, but as soon as I need to color again I will go back to my beloved Oriental Black.

Freshly colored black-brown hair.



Close-up. Do you like my bath towel backdrop?



Obligatory car shot highlights my poor attention to detail. Notice light roots. I promise to do better next time.

Do you have any hair color stories to share? I doubt the color I use is cruelty-free, so my continued use of it is contradictory to my goal to switch over to only cruelty-free products. Do you have a good cruelty-free black hair color to recommend?