Tenth Musee

The song “I Love Paris” has been forever ruined for me by the Meg Ryan film, “French Kiss“. I cannot sing that song without compulsively adding “… because my love is theeeeere… with this slut girlfriend.”  Thank you, Hollywood, for ruining that for me.

I may have mentioned this before, but I get the total heavies when I use a public restroom and the seat is still warm from the person before.  How long was that person sitting there that it they warmed up the seat? Were they writing a book?  Save it for home, sister.  No crapping in Target. Unacceptable. Next stall.

Those ‘wacky, wailing, inflatable, arm-flailing tube men’ used by car washes and Radio Shacks to get people’s attention? Yeah, I hate those. Like hate those. I can’t look at them for too long; I must avert my eyes. Some people are afraid of clowns, though I think that’s pretty cliche now.  I don’t know one person who says, “Oh, yeah, man! I love me some CLOWN!”  Unless, they’re like Juggalos or something.  I can legitimately say these things unnerve me. I won’t pee my pants or run down the block or anything, but I definitely would prefer they not exist.

I have 32 cookbooks, including mixology books (for cocktails).  I don’t know that I’ve ever cooked one thing out of them. Maybe some cookies… but I always have these great plans to cook my way through various cookbooks, but really, I’d rather read the recipes than actually cook them.  Cookbooks without pictures are lame. This one is my favorite.

And finally, I don’t like warm carrots or fresh green beans, in general.  Spicy carrots, sure. But not hot, or warm. Or, at least, I’ve never had a warm carrot I was particularly fond of. I can eat raw carrots all day, but warm it up and I’m out. Green beans are hit and miss for me. If they’re fried and served with wasabi ranch like at Mo’s? Hell yes. But that kind of negates the purpose of a vegetable.  I do like them canned, which I realize these days is a big no-no what with all the creepies in canned foods and sodium out the wazoo, but I just prefer the canned ones. Fresh ones are like eating pipe cleaners. Furry veg fail.

Welcome to my neuroses.

Last night, I met up with danielphillip and richardallen for our standing Monday night happy hour at Mo’s.  (I’ll have to do another whole post on what happened last night.) We usually roll in around 6:30 and we always sit in a center, tall table in the middle of the patio, closest to the bar.  We like to be in the middle of things, to meet new people, to mingle — because we’re fabulous like that — but still be able to sit down and get table service from Marisol, the best server on planet Earth.

Anyway, last week someone was at our table. We don’t officially reserve it, it’s just kinda of understood that’s “our” table. You can’t sit there unless you’re ordering food, so the usual happy hour crowd usually mills around it. And Marisol and the host always kind of keep an eye out, knowing we would be in.  But there was a new hostess and Marisol was busy, so someone was seated there.  Whatever. It was a bummer, but we rolled with it and sat in another area, where we could observe the patio action, if not actually in it.

There were three women at “our” table, all dressed in that special way that says, “This is my first time in the States.”  One, who I’ll call Helga, was wearing a Body Glove wetsuit-style t-shirt circa 1990 with a mini skirt and Teva sandals. The other, who I’ll call Gunda, wore a black hoodie covered in hot pink metallic lip prints. (The third I couldn’t see because she was in my usual seat, behind a pillar/bush.)

This was amusing in itself, but then it got more interesting. A fourth woman joined them, this one wearing a neck to floor prairie-style dress (in 80 degree weather) with a frumpy shawl. It didn’t look like religious wear, it just looked… frau-ish. They were drinking big pitchers of Stella Artois (as told to me by Marisol) and complained about the price — saying they’re only 3 euros in Germany and why are they so expensive here?  Ladies, 3 euros in American dollars is like $4.  That’s just not happening here — not for steins the size of your thigh — come on!

Then they pulled out a few paperbacks and proceeded to have a book club meeting — in the middle of a loud, hoppin’, gay patio happy hour.  That’s fine, I guess — unorthodox, but then so is that hoodie.

I’m not sure why the next thing happened and I don’t entirely understand HOW I missed the opportunity to take a photo of it, but Gunda reached into her bag and pulled out a huge 32 oz tub of yogurt and set it on the table.  Then she rummaged around again and brought out a mammoth, chef-style, Julia Child, no-fucking-around block of butter. Big. Huge. Enormous butter.  She set it on top of her yogurt and they continued talking.

What book were these women reading?  Who brings their own dairy to a bar? Vegans, maybe, but this wasn’t even vegan dairy. This was dairy dairy. Lactose dairy. Full-fat dairy. This dairy was probably milked by Helga in her Tevas. How did I not get a picture of the B.Y.O. Yogurt?!

But I did get a picture of this guy, who the week prior chased me down in the adjacent alley asking me for mints (I tossed some Tic Tacs at him and clutched my purse like an old lady).  This time he spotted me in the open door of Mo’s and proceeded to do a little dance for me to the super diva house music that’s always coming from there.  I was blessed with not only the Cabbage Patch and the Running Man, but his own “humpty dance” rendition, some air smooches and a little tongue wagging.  My heart be still.

This is what a night out with me is like, people. Any takers?

(Please forgive my crappy German. You can thank Babelfish for that.)

My funny friend, Allison, asked her friend, who actually speaks German, and this is what he said:

ihren eigenen?! thats grammatically incorrect
If you said ” Bring deinen eigenen Jogurt mit” that would mean you’re asking people to bring yogurt that they’ve physically made themselves.
It doesnt make sense. It also sounds weird and rude. The people would be like “what?!? I have to make my own yogurt??!?”
“Bring Jogurt mit” works the best in this context.

And now, kind readers, you know how to rudely and non-rudely tell people to B.Y.O.Y.

Now with photos and embarrassing video! Alright, so it’s not as exciting as all that, but we did have a really good time.

I left San Diego Wednesday at noon on Jet Blue, who despite the bird-flipping, slide-exiting, job-quitting flight attendant’s recent escapades, is a pretty awesome airline. The seats were roomy, I could stretch out my legs completely in front of me, there was free DirecTV (so I timed my entire trip by how many 30 minute Food Network shows I watched) and the snacks were tasty items like Terra Chips instead of crappy peanuts. And the pilot got us there almost 40 minutes before he said he would, so that was nice.

I took a cab into Manhattan from the airport and proceeded to spastically tweet about how to tip the cabbie. I’m an overtipper and standard tipping here is 20% for like, everything, it seems like, so with a $50 cab ride, I was concerned about giving too much. Of course, despite the encouraging 10% recommendations from Twitter, I still overtipped.

We decided to escape the hub-bub of Blogher, we’d stay elsewhere… so we booked ourselves at Empire Hotel. We found out after we made our reservations that it’s Chuck Bass’ hotel in Gossip Girl, which was pretty funny. While the staff and management at Empire were really lovely, the place was a total Monet. It’s much better on TV.  It looks beautiful from a distance, but when you get up close, it’s much shabbier than the marketing implies. We knew it was a vintage building that had been renovated, but how long ago? There was water damage on the walls, the chairs were pretty worn, our rooms had cobwebs in the corners and the beds… oh my god, the beds. It was like sleeping in a mausoleum — hard, hard mattresses.  HARD.  We both were in pain by the end of the trip.

Oh, also? Apparently, the rooftop deck bar is the hot place to be on a Thursday night. There were lines of short skirts around the block to get upstairs.  If they offer you the 11th floor, despite the spectacular views of Lincoln Center, don’t take it. You’ll hear remixes of Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam and hooker heels on your ceiling until 3:30am (and heat rises, so the hallways were constantly like, Africa Hot, while our rooms were Meat Locker Cold).  Given that we had to be up at 8am for the conference, we sweetly called down to management — I swear! I even made him laugh — and they moved our luggage to the old people’s floor for us the next day and knocked $75 off our bill for two nights. Like I said, great management, mediocre rooms, granite mattresses.  It does have a lovely lobby bar, though.  We called it our Brokedown Palace. With lube.

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This past week in New York, there were so many phrases and jokes coined and/or shared.  There was also an almost embarrassing amount of Bride Wars quotes flying about.  And that’s not even in my top 10 chick movies. Top 15, at best… maybe 20.

Anyway, one of the newer colloquialisms shared with me last week was “feed the pony”.  The first time Statia said it, I’ll admit, I laughed but thought, “I think I get it…”  Who wants to be the nerd that doesn’t get it?  You might be thinking, “I don’t get it”, too — so here’s the scene:  We noticed someone with an extremely short skirt. Like really, really short. SHORT.  And Statia said, “Whoa, feed the pony.”  You can see where she’s going with it, but Kathy had to thoroughly spell it out for me back at the hotel:  “Dude, that skirt is really short.“  “Yeah, it’s so short if she bent over, you could feed the pony.”

{light bulb}  So, that was new. I embraced it.

This, of course, lead me to think of similar references: going commando, going freebird, flashing, etc.  My maternal grandmother used to say “You’re taking my picture.” which I find totally charming.

As a child, my grandmother was my best friend. I spent many nights at her house (she lived across the street) and I’d often shower there in her mid-century green parrot bathroom and then run around her house in my jammies.  Jammies for me consisted of dad’s old t-shirts or flowered flannel nighties popular with the 6x crowd in 1979.

We’d watch The Love Boat or T.J. Hooker, make dinner and occasionally, my grandmother would have an un-fancy beer, in a proper pilsner glass, like a lady does.

I was big into tumbling as a kid, so I’d often do back bends or somersaults, cartwheels, handsprings, what have you, in the middle of her living room while we watched TV.

[Aside, she called the living room the "J Room" because every person in our immediate family had a name that started with J, except the dogs -- they were named after booze.]

I would cavort and carry on and every so often, my grandmother would say, in her vaguely uppercrust way, “Zsoelle!” — She always pronounced my name with a soft J, like Zsa Zsa Gabor — “You’re taking my picture.”

It took me a few times before I understood what she meant — I was flashing her.  She’d remind me to go put on some panties like “a young lady”.  And I would (with the days of the week on them, naturally) and the cavorting would resume. But I always remember that… “You’re taking my picture.”  So when Britney and her pantie-dropping posse were all over the rags with their business like a billboard, I found “You’re taking my picture” especially amusing.

Come to think of it, my grandmother also used another charming phrase: “You’re winking at me.”

I guess I was running around without underpants often enough to warrant two reprimands.

If only she knew…

So, I attended BlogHer for the first time this year. All of my self-image fears were for naught and I ended up having a great time in general. Sure, I slept on a slab of granite (my review is coming on Yelp, Empire Hotel, don’t you worry your shabby little head), but all in all, I met a lot of wonderful people, hung out with old school blog friends and we partied like it was 2099. See the photos here.

One thing I did have a hard time with at BlogHer was introducing myself. I really have no idea how to do that anymore. Once upon a time, I was “Tenth Muse” and that’s it.  Daniel loves to reference me or introduce me to people like, “OMGYOUGUYS! It’s Tenth Muse!” but let’s not kid ourselves. I was “famous” (air quotes!) on the internet once, but it’s been a long, long time and I hardly ever blog here anymore.  In the grand scheme of the blogosphere, no one knows who Tenth Muse is anymore — I’m under no delusion.

Sure, I’m one of the Moxie Girls of Moxie Design Studios, co-author of Blogging with Moxie and that has some cred, but we don’t really blog regularly there unless it’s business updates. So… well, that’s not my blog either. And while we were there as The Moxie Girls, Kathy is now the very popular SafeMama and rockin’ that angle all over the place, which is fantastic. (Seriously, I was so proud — people flocked to her, it was awesome. I loved seeing her face light up when people knew who she was.)  It was a conference full of mostly moms and many green bloggers, so she was hot commodity and for the first time… well, I was kind of the sidekick. That was weird for me. I’m usually the extrovert, the talker, the proverbial jazz hands, if you will, but this time, she was the star. And I was happy about it!  I’m not bitter, it was just… new.

I have Put Down the Donut, of course, but… well, that’s also an awkward spot. Once upon a time, we were one of the first fitness/weight loss blogs out there. Or at least, one of the most popular. We were nominated for a Bloggie, we were published in national magazines, but due to the volume of work at Moxie, I just wasn’t able to maintain it. And in that downtime, fitness blogging blew up and despite the many requests for us to come back, I have to work much harder now at getting the word out about the Donut.  Again, not upset about it… it’s just different. read more >

Let’s talk about Twitter… because I have nothing else to talk about.  But I want to get your take on something: if someone follows you, do you feel obligated to follow them back?

I used to have this list of personal guidelines for Twitter — my personal preferences, not rules for everyone else.  Over time, I’ve bent and/or broken a couple of those guidelines… like, I now follow more than 100 people. I used to think that following more than that wouldn’t allow me to personally interact or catch everything. But, I’ve found that not to be true, so I’ve upped my follow list. There are a lot of interesting people out there and not all of them tweet consistently, so it’s easier to follow more, but I’ll never be that person who follows thousands of people. I still believe in quality over quantity.

And to that end, I won’t just follow someone simply because they follow me. I’m not tweet-easy… tweasy? And I treat Twitter the same way I treat prospective shags — with a thorough once-over.  No one is getting into these twitter pants without an evaluation.

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After one lousy post my desire to start posting more here seems to have waned. The stuff I want to talk about right now is probably better suited to Put Down the Donut, which by the way, is back! I mentioned it in the comments on my last post, but I totally forgot to announce it to the handful who still follow this blog and might want to know.

We’ve been back online for about a month now and I’ve been enjoying posting there almost daily, so if you are interested in food/fitness reviews, day-to-day weight loss whatever and generally anything to do with food/fitness and healthy lifestyle, check out Put Down the Donut.   You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

I just don’t know what to blog about here right now, things are pretty mundane.  Aside from working out, my life consists of primarily lots of work, which I’m really grateful for.   I do have another site or two up my sleeve slated to launch this year (I hope!).  There are also some major changes happening in the next few months and I’ll certainly need this space to write about the weirdness sure to ensue there.  I hope you’ll stick around!

*deep breath*  So.

Over the last several years, I’ve managed to reacquire much of the weight I lost back in 2003… you know, my magnificent achievement and all that jazz.  In fact, I must have lost and gained that same bunch of pounds a few times over during the last 7 years. I’ve eschewed carbs, I’ve counted Points, I’ve made half-hearted attempts at the gym and I’ve continuously, non-stop, talked about when I would reach my goal weight or how I would reach my goal weight, but the bottom line is… I never actually did anything about reaching my goal weight, at least, not with any results that stuck.

I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been so, so busy I’ve had no time for myself — believe me, I really would — but I have to admit: that’s a crock of crap.  There’s time if I make it. There are boundaries I can set with my work and my personal time. I don’t need to DVR every show on the planet. I don’t need to grab take-out, even if it’s Subway, because I’m too tired to grill a chicken breast.  And I’m tired of making excuses not to hang out with people I care about because deep down, I’m embarrassed about the shape I’m in and maybe moreso, ashamed about my failure.

Dun dun DUN. I said the F word. Failure. I lost 97lbs back in 2003 and I failed at keeping it all off. I failed. Failed, failed, failed. They say a fear of failure is the greatest motivator.  But what do you do when the fear of failure is no longer an incentive? What do you do when you’ve already failed? You could get the hell over it and remind yourself that failure is just a result of trying and not trying is worse than sucking. You could say failure is just a word to describe an experience that ultimately builds character and shows that, at the very least, you tried, right? Right?!

So, I’m accepting the failure. I think. I’m working on it anyway. I don’t think anyone welcomes failure, but I have never been one to not accomplish what I set out to achieve for myself. I’ve survived a lot of things, I’ve accomplished a lot of things, but this… this has been my albatross.  I want to let go of that initial “journey” of weight loss (ew, how touchy-feely). It’s been tough because I never reached my goal the first time… I made great strides, but I never actually got there.  My first experience on Weight Watchers was like a Chicago song from the 80′s: good for the first 3 minutes, then trailing on indulgently until fading out interminably.  In hindsight, I’ve been desperately grasping at the success of that first weight loss and well, it’s just over. That chapter is over. I’m almost a decade older, I’m a different person now and I need to start anew.

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So, I have this neighbor –  he’s an older man, probably in his late 60′s, maybe even 70′s.  I sometimes run into him on the stairwell or in the parking lot, bringing in our groceries or whatever.

He’s always been super friendly. My front door is right at the top of the stairwell, so I often see him walk by through my ‘ice cube glass’ windows near my desk.  When I moved in, he complimented me on the happiness my yellow hibiscus brought him when it bloomed.  And I thought how nice it was that someone even noticed besides me.  He looked like a nice old man, what I envision a “grandpa” to be.

Cut to a week or so later, when I’m tempted into downloading a Sex Offender Locator app for my iPhone. You can see where this is going.  Grandpa indeed.

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I love Target. No, really.  I LOVE Target. I could go there once a day and see everything in the store 40 times and not get tired of going there. It’s soothing, it’s comforting and oddly seductive. If Target were a person, I’d marry it, jack my hair like Kate Gosselin and become it’s baby machine.  I. love. Target.

What I don’t love is the “new” Target store brand, up & up™.  Target Home products, their former store brand, used to be so good. I could buy any Target knock-off of the fancy brand and know, quite certainly, that it would be just as good.  Since they re-branded their store brand to up & up™, everything’s gone down & down.

Take, for instance, the toilet paper — I used to buy the blue label Target Home brand premium paper, compared to Quilted Northern Ultra.  Not the pink one, compared to Charmin Might-As-Well-Be-a-Towel Ultra Premium, just your garden-variety mid-range bathroom tissue.  It was totally the same as the name-brand, as advertised.  I bought the same brand for years… and a lot of it. Not because I have some weird bathroom habits or I’m a hoarder, but because I have a very staunch 6-roll minimum rule in my house.  At 6 rolls I have to start reminding myself to buy more — if I go below 6 rolls, I’m down to the last square on the roll before I remember to get more.

Sometime, last year I think, they changed to up & up™ and when it came time to buy Ye Old Faithful TP, it was replaced by what I assumed would be the same product in a different wrapper — more like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.  This paper is a mere suggestion of what it once was.  It still says “Compare to Quilted Northern Ultra”, but it was like they took one-ply paper, peeled it apart and called it two-ply.  It was like half-ply. I wouldn’t TP a house in this paper, let alone my business.  After enduring it for a full 12-pack, I grudgingly bought yet another 6-pack because it was that or Scott Tissue and sandpaper ain’t my thing.

The next time, I bought the actual Quilted Northern Ultra and found it to be the toilet paper I knew and loved. I just have to get over paying a little more for it. But, in my opinion, I’d rather pay a little more for a quality product.  I believe ‘generic’ store brands can be awesome — take Costco’s Kirkland brand, for instance. Fabulous, especially when their vodka is rumored to be Grey Goose.  It just seems like when Target changed brands, they may have changed manufacturers.  So far, I’ve not tried an up&up product that’s been decent — not the “compare to Glad Forceflex” trashbags (flex? yes. force? laughable.), not the “compare to Ziploc” sandwich bags (the bags separate from the zipper constantly or the zipper is inside out), and certainly not the toilet paper.

I’m curious to know if anyone else has experienced this, or if perhaps my ass is just spoiled.