Basketball

LA Sparks player Candace Parker's jersey is currently outselling Kobe Bryant and LeBron James... could be her dunks (the seond WNBA player to dunk--and has done it twice) or it could be her recent suspension for the melee with the Detroit Shock... I'd like to think, though a Detroit fan, that this little nod to the women's league is all about the talent, because Parker is amazingly talented a player.

Speaking of the Shock-Spark brawl of last week, Cheryl Ford--my favorite WNBA player--is out the rest of the season with a torn ACL after trying to restrain a teammate. So sad.

Sell out?

For a long time, I have had this image of Lenny Kravitz--a musician capable of taking his music to another level that can inspire and move people to action. Perhaps it is how he channels those who came before him, perhaps it is a naive hope of mine to see something transpire in a world where a revolution is truly needed. I held a momentary glimpse when I first heard "Love Revolution" the song has the vision and the movement behind it to do just what I thought Kravitz was capable of... until tonight when I saw this commercial for Kohls, featuring Kravitz and friends.

And a thought occurred to me.

Maybe Kravitz is who I thought him to be as an artist, he's just going another route. Like Andy Warhol before him, sometimes you have to test the boundaries of what is acceptable in art. We already know commercialism links work... but it is such a contradiction to think about a Love Revolution with shopping at a Kohls. Maybe it's a statement. Maybe it's a paycheck. I really don't know, but in order to make sense of this for me, I have to turn to the theories of abstract art.

LiveStrong

I'm happy to annouce the team that I walk with in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer has a team in Philly for next month's LiveStrong Event. Solo Strutters USA has expanded!!

Duelling Worlds

There's been much talk these days of whether we live in one world or if in the USA there are two worlds... indeed, Whoopi and her View co-worker got into a scrap over this very topic a week or so ago and even Barbara Walters could barely get a word in.

And I think the question of whether we live in one world or two is really oversimplifying the issue. There is no one world, there is no two-worlds... look around you and you will see that my world and experience is quite different than many others, and theirs mine... it isn't the P.C. thing to say, but we live in a caste-world, even in the USA. And that is as close to a 1-world description as we will ever get to.

Living in this world, though, doesn't mean that we can't all come to a common understanding; an understanding that the human condition -- the needs and fundamental physics -- are all the same. Sadly, that is where the breakdown happens; and it happens big--because here in the US of A, we don't fuck up small.

Despite my sarcasm and belief that the problem that exists is far grander in scale than what is portrayed (and that is part of the problem), I remain optimistic. Optimistic that there are people who get it, optimistic that the basic good in people will prevail, optimistic that with the right leaders hope can enlighten the rest. We've seen this happen; it's amazing and scary and exciting and long over due of late.

I don't believe the fundamental differences will dissipate, in fact, I would hope they don't, but there is a link between all the worlds that exist. We found it before, we can certainly find it again.

Coco

This week, Lauren alerted me to the fact that Shirley MacLaine was going to be playing fashionista Coco Chanel. I adore Shirley MacLaine, I can't wait until the miniseries airs (on Lifetime)... Here is my favorite piece of the interview she gave, and one of the reasons I love MacLaine:

"She (Audrey Hepburn) told me I should play Coco Chanel. I said: 'Well, Coco Chanel was a little scrunched over and very short.'

"And she said, 'But the spirit of the woman is what matches your spirit.'

"Now I found Coco to be everything between generous and rude, so I don't know what Audrey meant. But she was obviously right."

But wasn't Coco Chanel a lesbian?

"Well, just because you play the whole field, doesn't mean you are a lesbian." MacLaine replied.

A sickness

This was the sight today at my local grocery store... Holiday (as in Christmas) M&Ms on the shelf. Someone has taken this "Christmas in July" shit a little too far.

A bucket of men

Yesterday, along the usual route Lauren and I take back to the office after a coffee run, we came across a site that left us both almost speechless. There was a bulldozer coming down the road toward us (there is construction going on--they finally ended the protesting with the large inflatable rat) and in the bucket of the bulldozer were at least 10 men of Hispanic decent. I nearly had to stop and take a photo, but I did not; however, I did wonder, aloud, if this was Arlen Specter's latest in immigration reform. (Have I mentioned how thrilled I was to go from Carl Levin as my senator to Mr. Specter?)

This site has been, really, a source of great amusement. First it was the inflatable rat, then last week, it was the old guy with the braid down his back, spinning a STOP/SLOW sign and signalling (impatiently) to cars coming from both directions, to GO. And this week, a bucket full of men. I really can't tell what has been done in the last several weeks outside of making a huge mess of the road and creating a treacherous (yet entertaining) driving situation.

Breathing is for Rookies

Going through my closet this morning, trying to find that perfect balance between what is office appropriate (we have clients on site today), what is temperature appropriate for the two extremes of inside versus outside and what would suit my whim this fine Tuesday morning, I remembered the latter is the only thing that truly matters. My whimsy, it seemed hearkened me toward a dress I have not worn since last year. A fabulous purple with Far East accents piece that when zipped has something of a corset effect.

After holding my breath and zipping it up, I glanced in the mirror--who needs to breath when you look this skinny!! I'd have laughed, but I couldn't. It brought me back to bridesmaid dress shopping--when I insisted that we do any and all trying on of dressed before we had any kind of lunch (in actuality, this is how I insist on all clothing shopping). Everyone knows one hamburger and you go from a size 8 to a 14... it's fashion math.

So, am I going to wear this corset-like dress? Yes.
Is it comfortable? Not entirely.
Does it look good? Absolutely.

Channeling Coco

Not the warm, gooey, chocolate beverage suitable only for post-winter activity in front of a sparkling fireplace... that's a thought-gasm for another day. Rather, Coco, as in Chanel.

Friday, I got dressed, pulling out a garment that I had my mother make for me... since it was of my own devices, so to speak, the fabric was one I chose that when you live in Ann Arbor , MI (as I did at the time) wasn't unusual but it was unique. My dress on Friday was casual to me: gauchos, a tank and this wrap shirt over it. To others in the office, it was dressed up... by 2, I was a little tired of the compliments--as ungrateful as that may sound, because you have to wonder at some point--just how bad do I look the rest of the time?

After giving it a weekend of thought, and receiving a fair amount of out-of-the-ordinary attention yesterday I realized that it was not my dress--though "colorful" both days (yes, I an offending the Pennsylvania psyche with my bold use of color)--rather, it was my need to channel Coco Chanel. Friday morning as I applied my seafoam green eyeliner, I wanted inspiration and a thought occurred to me quickly... Chanel!!

The first Chanel I ever bought was in Chicago with J. We were on a quest for something--moisturizer, if I am not mistaken--and as J was toying with various options presented her I was drawn to the array of colors boldly emanating from the Chanel counter. The details of what happened next are foggy, but I somehow decided to try a lipstick... Coco Red. Why? Because I'd never tried a real red lipstick before... and if you are going to try red lipstick, Coco Red is the only way to go. I was skeptical, but J told me I had to because it was fabulous, and she was right. It was fabulous, and every time I wear it, I get a LOT of attention.

While I now have other shades and Chanel accents, Coco Red is my go to. It's a powerful tool and a flaming attention-getter... the latter I always am surprised by, even though I know I should not be.

Just a cartoon...

Sooo, the New Yorker Cartoon buzz has yet to wear down, but folks, it is over. Bottom line is that the media has exploited (yet again) something that is not even worth the effort. Satire, yes. Tasteful, probably not. But to keep asking if it is understood, I ask -- is there anyone that even understands a New Yorker cartoon to begin with?

Yesterday, I posted a link to Jon Stewart's satirising of the media over this... in which he said that Obama should have said that he doesn't care: "It's a fucking cartoon." Now, I understand all the racism, the fear mongering, the indecency in this country... but we will NEVER get beyond it and move forward until we do one thing... just stop. Frank Schaeffer's blasting of Stewart's bit on the Huffington Post today just proves that we need to stop; the dialogue long since stopped being productive. Despite what we are taught, free speech isn't a right, it's a privilege that comes with responsibilities and both sides of the fence and some in between have acted in irresponsible ways. But in a world where only the few random are punished (i.e. Don Imus) and quickly forgotten... irresponsibility runs amok all over the American public.

Gangs Signs in Sports?

The major sporting leagues (specifically the NFL and NBA) are concerned that players are using gang signs. I sense some jealousy... I mean, it isn't like sports would have a gang mentality... with their own signs and rituals. The notion is "ludacris" (as in crazy-ass silly and not the rapper with suspected gang links who is a guest star in an NBA video game).

Oh, and since I understand that there is a global (and in the US, things that happen in the US are considered global) deficiency in understanding sarcasm... I will just point out that this post is quite laden with sarcasm... is it in good taste? Well, seems that Arizona Daily Star is just one of MANY media outlets voicing in on what "good" sarcasm is... ironically, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert both chime in on the concept of sarcasm and media.

Getting by with a little help...

The week started off feeling blase and uggy (really, it's the best description). At some point, I decided I needed something to kick my ass out of it. So, I connected with an old friend--Maybelline Great Lash in blackest black. Admittedly, it was in first effort to not "look tired" in the office where on nights with little sleep or when work is catching up with me everyone asks me "What's wrong?" or "Am I feeling okay?"

That pink and green bottle and wand quickly lead me to rediscover the treasures in my closet; and frankly, I'd rather have the off-handed, "You, um, have, um, your own... style" than feel like a hanger for someone else's ideals. After all, I have always been a firm believer in color; and I don't think pink necessarily has to be worn with pink. Accessories should be fun and flirty and flaunt a feature... and I don't care if they don't match-match--there is something to be said for the fabulously mis-matched.*

It wasn't immediate, and I had to convince myself a few days, but soon my mood followed my fabulously adorned outside and before long, I found myself mischievously purchasing eyeliners in shades of blues and greens simply because I could. And I will say, like any good friend, after a few days, Maybelline sat me down and explained she would not be caught dead with me any longer until I got the bushes above my eyes taken care of.

And aside from good friends like Maybelline, OPI, Chanel, Nicole Miller, Kenneth Cole, BCBG... the real live flesh and body friends also made huge contributions... sending me crazy-assed links to news I should know and now wish I didn't... listening ad nauseum to my sudden life revelations (Does I was drunk on Prada count as an excuse?)... and simply being there -- even when I didn't know it.

*Fabulously mis-matching is not for novices or faint-of-heart; but highly recommended... even Calvin Klein has looked down the barrel of vast mistake but you gotta learn somehow.

This is bat country, my friends

And if the title leaves you scratching your head, read the first few pages of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... and then keep going. It's a moment of pure writing brilliance on so many levels. It came to mind this evening as many random thoughts have run through this tired brain. And, while on my Facebook account this evening, I clicked my Hunter Thompson quote generator for a bit of wisdom from the Good Doctor and got the following (from another book, Hell's Angels):

The Edge ... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

Seemed oh-so-appropriate on my day. This particular quote always feels like F&L to me, like it would fit into the section of the book talking about the wave and watermark. And so, it causes me to pick up the well worn copy of F&L and take it all in again; not sure whether to laugh or cry that in well over 30 years, it is still sharply relevant.

Mole, muy sabroso

After my blueberry adventure, I took my soaking self into New Hope, proper, for some lunch. Friends and co-workers have told me that New Hope is awesome. I had no reason to doubt them. Not sure what I wanted and without a recommendation in hand for a lunch place, I checked a few menus of the establishments nearby and was quickly drawn to one. The Blue Tortilla Restaurant. Sitting outside, watching the weekenders walking by, I began to form an opinion of the kind of town New Hope was, which would be drastically changed during my after lunch stroll down Main Street. But the business of lunch at hand, I was charmed by the owner standing on the sidewalk, talking about the recipes, where they came from what kind of ingredients were used... and so I sat, delighted in finding the menu also told a story of the food and with that I was assured that sign that read "authentic" meant it. I ordered the chicken mole enchilada and a diet Coke. It arrived a work of art... and I was immediately engaged in conversation by the table sitting next to me.

Admittedly, I admired the presentation only long enough to take the photo above and fully savor the smell before pulling out a fork and digging into the rice and mole. And, it is with some confidence that I can say, I have never had mole this good before. I ate the entire plate of food (of course, I ate nothing else the rest of the day for being SO full)! But the mole was delicious. The favors hinting at the three kinds of peppers, the cumin, the cloves, the chocolate.... it was so good, the cream sauce on top didn't even phase me. And while I know I may never achieve this thoughtful preparation, I am struck by the need to work on a mole sauce of my own. I've truly been inspired.

And New Hope, on the surface it struck me as a place for weekenders from the Cities to come and live their uptight city lifestyle in a more colloquial of settings and a retreat for gay men, but then I saw the bikers, the hippies, the not-so-city folkies... and I understood why my friends would like it and why others I spoke to recommended it. It's vanilla enough for the vanilla and just spicy enough for the rest of us.

Blueberries!

Yesterday, I (im)patiently waited out the morning rain and headed northwest about 30 miles to New Hope, PA. There are, from what I have recently learned, a lot of places one can go in this area to pick blueberries, but this one place was especially recommended to me... and I can say with some assurance, I'm as in love with an orchard as any one girl can sanely be. Solebury Orchard has U-pick fruits beginning with this years blueberry and raspberry crop, soon to follow will be cherries, tomatoes, flowers, peaches, pears and, of course, apples. The farm is beautiful and the ladies who were working on this particularly wet Saturday were very helpful and friendly. They even have a cat who situates herself in prime position for being petted by the various people walking through, and I learned as I pet her, she also has a few words of cat advice.

As prepared as I thought I was for the trip, I did not bring an extra shirt and remains soaked for much of the afternoon; with the humidity as it has been, it does not make for a soaking wet shirt to dry very well. But, with a prized six pounds of blueberries, and a strong urge to return next weekend, a wet shirt was nothing.

But a trip out for me is never one without picking up the oddities of human nature. And, as I picked my berries, apparently, a boy named Hunter (who I never heard once the entire time I was there) was terrorizing the farm... or so his mother would have everyone in the orchard lead to believe. There was also the mother who was scolding her child for eating blueberries off the bush--"Don't eat those, they aren't clean!" My German may not be what it should or once was, but the two couples picking behind me snickered and I am pretty sure said aloud what was in my head (as we all chomped our own berries): With a rain like the one we had, bringing them inside will only make them less clean!

Only the good die young

Two scary-assed people died today:

Jesse Helms, Senator from NC whose life was spent fighting against civil rights for all (except white men with resources at their disposal). Fitting he should die on a day celebrated for independence from what was viewed as tyranny.

And scary for an entirely different reason, Larry Harmon, AKA Bozo the Clown. And well, clowns are terrifying for a whole other reason.

Both were in their 80s.

No letters after my name, thank you.

In the last week, I've been thinking a lot about the pile of research and writing sitting in a box in my closet... a.k.a. my thesis. Probably because I've had two separate conversations in the last week explaining its demise and why I never officially got my Masters. And despite a colleagues suggestion that I restart my Masters program here in PA ("Some one's bound to let you write that, it's good."), I am not planning to do so at any time.

I've had friends tell me it's crazy and just to write the thesis that my advisor wanted me to write so I could get the degree. And I'm sure other out there agree; but the bottom line is that I never went to grad school for the piece of paper or the letters after my name (the latter of which I can't stand!). I wen to grad school for the experience, for the chance to follow a passion... so it falls in line that while I have a good 75% of a thesis sitting in a box that my advisor didn't agree with and would not approve that I would not just write a thesis to finish.

Starting over is a concept that I am wholeheartedly aware of and have done a few times... and while I am not opposed to the idea of starting a Masters program here in PA... it would not be in Communications (been there, loved it, done that)... I would follow my other passions.... writing, history, law... but as I face an upcoming, week-long Six Sigma training and am starting to do that work, I am reminded why I am content to write my fluffy fiction, write my cookbook, and do my regularly scheduled career... it is time consuming, not to mention, expensive!

But, I still think my thesis would be a good one and something I could still write a shorter, less academic version of later. And here is the dime store version (with a lot of the rhetorical theory taken out): The media uses references, often, to characters of fiction (The Prince, Alice in Wonderland, Henry V as common examples) and for the most part, they go unnoticed and accepted into our realm of consciousness, but in doing so, the media is creating a whole other fiction. The consequences of doing this are many, and in part, some of the effects can arguably be seen in such shows as "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," and "Real Time." But, it extends well beyond that "Court Jester" role into far more serious implications... the stories that these characters come from have their own meaning and contribution to society, and the literary aspects aside (remember, I was in a communications program--and the literary was the point of contention) it can and I would argue does have profound impact to our understanding of cultures, events and how we in turn communicate.

Of course, I wholly recognize a good literary thesis in there, too. But I wasn't taking the approach of these events and their effects on literature. No, the rabbit hole that I was jumping into was far deeper, more Machiavellian and I will never see my St Crispin's Day moment of defending my thesis on this particular topic. And, really, I am okay with that.