50 Shades of Lame

Everyone is talking about the book series, "50 Shades of Grey."  Mostly females, of course.  I've seen the media dub these books as "mommy porn" and I've also read that these books are opening up the conversation about S&M and helping women to open up and explore their sexuality.

I'm like... "What??"

Now, I felt the need to read these books for research.  Seriously.  I work for an event production company and one of our clients wanted to do a theme that was based off of these books.  (Obviously not to recreate the "Playroom" but they apparently thought a party theme based on this was going to be "edgy."  What the fuck does edgy really mean, anyway??)  So I felt obligated to read as much of the books as I could.  Honestly, I did read the first two books but the third one has been so utterly ridiculous/painful to read that I haven't made it all the way to the end.  Someday I do hope to read it all, but the third book (50 Shades Freed) sucks so much.  It's like an entirely different story, it's some nonsensical "Oh some people are trying to get us/split us up/kidnap me" mystery fiction bullshit.  Don't get me wrong - I love a good mystery.  But if I can guess the perp and the motive before the author has even suggested that something is amiss, then it's just not well done.

I digress.  Let's talk about the FIRST book in the series, "50 Shades of Grey."  This book has a kinky factor of maybe 7 out of 10.  If nothing else, it's slightly educational regarding which S&M tools are most commonly used these days.  Personally I didn't know that riding crops were so popular.  Other than that, there is nothing believable about the story whatsoever.  A gorgeous, thin brunette that has zero confidence and self worth, and has never KISSED a GUY??  Or been on a date ever?  And she's about to graduate college?  The premise is totally ridiculous.   

Come on.  If this was realistic, then a girl with no self-worth would have slept with 50 guys by the time she finished freshman year.  Who are we kidding?  lol

Another thing that bothered me the most about ALL of these books was the writing style.  I cannot comprehend why a British "author" would choose to set her story in Washington state, yet she continues to use British colloquialisms all over the place.  I mean, she obviously did EXTENSIVE research on S&M toys, yet somehow missed the boat when it comes to learning how Americans actually talk?  I don't FANCY that, mate!


Things I Learned from Reading the Fifty Shades Series:

• If you've never dated a guy before, try to date a multimillionaire stalker who will manipulate you into doing really kinky shit that you never would have imagined.  Then you will never have to think for yourself again!
• Riding Crops = Good.  Canes = Bad.
• "Vanilla sex" can be fun... but only sometimes.
• Oh yes... a helicopter can and WILL be sabotaged by an angry ex-boss.
• All submissives should drive Audi's.
• People still take time to write witty Re: subject lines in emails, as well as clever little signatures at the end of their emails.  Riiiiight....
• There are still some college graduates out there who don't know how to use a Mac computer.
• It's cool to go to your boyfriend's parents' party with heavy metal balls shoved up your vag.
• Feel extremely threatened by a woman your fiance hooked up with over 10 years ago and is now just a business partner.  Feel pity for your fiance's psycho and more recent ex, who broke into your apartment and is holding a gun.  (Priorities!!)
• Found a box of photos of your lover's ex-submissives, all tied up with who-knows what else might be going on in the picture?  Cool.  Don't get mad about it, just ask him to take pictures of you like that too so he can add you to the box.

It's Girlfriends Day!

Men around the world might be thinking, “As if Valentine’s Day wasn’t enough…”  Today is Girlfriend’s Day!  I say, why not?  Married women get a wedding anniversary.  (Although my boyfriend and I celebrate an anniversary of our first date every year.)  Well, girlfriends can never have too much attention!
This made-up holiday (who makes these things up anyway?) isn’t limited to the boyfriend-girlfriend-couples genre.  It is also intended for celebrating girls that are friends!  I found a website that lists a bunch of ways girlfriends can enjoy this holiday together:

SheKnows.com – National Girlfriends Day

It’s pretty stereotypical if you ask me.  There is one suggestion that I do like – donating clothes.  Girlfriends share clothes all the time!  Why not share some of your least-used tops with the less fortunate?  I’m all for helping the needy.  They need it! 
Personally, what I plan to do is leave facebook messages/blog comments/etc. for my female friends, to at least make them AWARE of this festive day!  Most likely, nobody’s heard of it.
Why are there so many of these ridiculous holidays anyway?  I found some great resources with random holidays and such, and I plan to share the best ones with you all, as often as I can!

New Haircut

Last week I finally got a haircut.  Hooray!  Then it occurred to me that I had promised to post photos of said haircut and then promptly forgot.  So here are some pics I took!

This pic was taken the day of the haircut.  So of course my hair is all nicely blown out and purdy.

This pic was taken yesterday.  I tried to straighten it myself.  It'd been a while since I used my straightening iron, and I put a little too much product in my hair so it didn't really come out how I wanted.  Ahh well!  I'll try again and post more pics if I'm bored lol!

Microcosm of a Macrocosm

Sometimes I feel depressed about things, like my health problems, not having a creative job, having to live so far away from my boyfriend, not being able to pay my bills, or missing loved ones that have passed away.  You might think, "Wow, that's a lot to be depressed about."  Or maybe you're thinking, "Wow, she really likes to bitch and whine."  (If so, you suck!  lol)

But when you start to feel down, or maybe just when you're really bored, it helps to try and keep things in perspective.  If you stare at the tip of your finger, you can see your fingerprint.  If you keep staring, maybe a little bit closer, you can see little bumps of skin cells.  If you had super-powered microscope eyes, you could see even deeper and see the clusters of eukaryotic cells that compose your skin cells.

I dunno about you, but if I look at that cell structure long enough, it starts to look kind of like a little world itself.  I wonder if we could shrink down to molecular size, what it would be like to enter a cell?  The parts of a cell are somewhat similar to what we'd find in a town:  mitochondria are like little factories, the endoplasmic reticulum is like a super highway, and the nucleus could be city hall where all the decisions for the area are laid out.  (Can you tell that I used to be a bit of a science nerd back in the day?)

Cell structure is one thing, but microcosms don't end there.  We are in a microcosm right now.  Since I've moved back to Long Island, I can actually see stars in the sky again.  And seeing stars reminds me of how big the universe is, how far away those stars might be, and what lies beyond them.  I love going to planetariums that show us how small the Earth is, in terms of the size of the Milky Way, and how small the Milky Way is, compared to the rest of the Universe.

One of my favorite singer/artist/musician/phenom people, Jason Mraz, recently posted a REALLY cool link on his blog that I found both inspiring and somewhat frightening.  It's just a simple flash animation, and the actual drawings within it aren't very detailed or well executed.  But the point gets across VERY well and really shows us how small we can look on a molecular and QUARK level, while at the same time shows us how deep and vast the universe is - and how little we know about the universe's expansiveness!  I definitely recommend everyone take a moment to realize how small we are, and how petty our daily problems are in the grand scheme of things.

The Scale of the Universe

Back Home Again

Well, I've been back at home for almost a week now.  My back is hurting worse than ever, because I've been trying to DO things like push heavy boxes.  Moving is a bitch.  Thankfully my mom gave me a back brace that she used to use... so that helps.

I'll take a picture of my room, because I actually really like it a lot.  There's a little section for my cat Twinkie to hang out, I have my orange armchair set up in front of the TV for optimal gaming, and my bed is lined up along some shelves for a makeshift headboard.  This room is nice and big so I can't complain about that!

Danny came to visit yesterday.  I made tacos for him and my parents, it was lovely!  But I just wish Dan could have stayed longer.  :(  It's so weird not having him here every day.  I miss him so much!  He's so cuddly and smells amazing....  Sigh.

I'm gonna try to get a haircut on Wednesday, since I'm off from work that day.  My hair is getting SUPER long and static-y and I just can't take it anymore!  I still want it to be long and past shoulder length, but since now my hair is like two feet long, I'm sure I'll be able to cut 3-5 inches off and it'll still be long enough for me to be happy lol!  I wonder if I should get any styling?  I'll have to think about that.  Layers always SEEM fun until you have them and have to worry about straightening your hair all the time.  I'll be sure to post pictures when I get my haircut!

You Learn Something New Every Day...

Anyone who has been around me lately knows that I've really been trying to eat healthy and get into better shape.  It's a shame that I waited until I had digestive and spinal problems to do so, because if I'd started this a few years ago I might not have all the health problems I face today.  Ahh well.  Since I can't turn back time, I have to just do my best to take care of my body now.  (At least by moving home I'll be less likely to smoke cigarettes, since I'll have to smoke outside in the cold.)

My healthy living regimen right now consists of a specific routine:

1. Wake up around 10 AM.  Feed the cats.
2. Do my lower back stretches and modified ab crunches.
3. Weigh in with WiiFit.  (I met my first weight-loss goal yesterday!  Wahoo!)
4. Do 20 minutes of low impact Step Aerobics.
5. Do 10 minutes of "expert" level Rhythm Boxing.
6. Cool down with 5-8 minutes of Rhythm Marching and some basic Yoga moves.
7. (On weekdays) Turn on Dr. Oz and make my iron supplement drink.
8. Eat lunch and watch the show!

On weekends or days when I'm feeling extra strong (i.e. back isn't killing me as soon as I wake up) I will also include 10+ minutes of medium-high impact cardio by playing other WiiFit games, and add some strength training (usually push-ups, plank and lunges) too.

OK now that I've written that all out, I will be even MORE likely to stick to my routine!  :P

Anyway, today I really liked the Dr. Oz episode.  He was talking about different alternative remedies from around the globe.  I'm really into alternative therapies, because it seems to me that a lot of modern medicine treats the SYMPTOM of a problem, and not the cause.  I don't see much point in that.  Why cover up the effects when you could try and fix the actual underlying problem??

Two items I will look for the next time I'm in a health food store:  Arctic Root and Devil's Claw.  Arctic Root is a plant that grows in Alaska, and has shown to help de-stress and relax the body.  (I'd much rather try this natural solution than just start popping anti-depressants!)  Devil's Claw grows near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, and is a natural anti-inflammatory.

Something else that I learned on the show today was REALLY interesting to me.  It was about common beauty mistakes that make you look older.  The first one that I was shocked by was when to wash your face.  I always wash my face first when I get in the shower.  Apparently that's a big mistake, since when you're shampooing, oils from your hair flow down onto the skin on your face.  Today when I showered, I washed my face with my acne wash LAST, to ensure that my face was going to stay as clean as possible.

The final thing I learned was the importance of moisturizing your neck.  I admit I almost never moisturize my neck.  But I learned that the skin on your neck is even thinner and more fragile than the skin on your face - making it quite deserving of moisturizer and retinol!

So yeah I learned things today!  Hooray!  :D

My Personal Stylist

Things I Won't Miss About Staten Island

• The People:  Orange skinned and self absorbed.  With the exception of Dan and his friends and family of course.  :P
• My Landlords:  Blasting loud music to make the floor vibrate, screaming children during the morning, insufferable pitbulls in the yard...  need I go on?
• Buses EVERYWHERE.
• Being so close to the water that every rainstorm feels like a hurricane.
• Airplanes and helicopters seem louder here than anywhere else I've lived.
• STINK BUGS AND CENTIPEDES.
• Hard water.  My skin has been soooo dried out.  (Though I don't really know if that's just my skin aging or what.)
• City cigarette prices.
• Nothing is really in walking distance except the park and the bus stop.
• Being far away from my family and friends.
• The "lovely" view of New Jersey power plants across the river.
• Staten Island Yankees.

Starting Over

I have too many blogs. One for health, one for gaming, one for art, apparently I had started one for sports too... it's just gotten a little ridiculous. I've decided to ditch those other blogs and start over. It's fitting because in my life I'm about to start over too, in a way.

It's kind of like I had to press the RESET button on my life. I've been living with my boyfriend in Staten Island for the past 2-3 years. For the past 4 years or so, I've been suffering with health problems that make working full time very difficult for me. So I've been doing a work from home job, but I make shit money at it and it doesn't pay the bills. Unfortunately that means that Dan and I have to give up our apartment and move in with our parents. Separately. He'll be staying on Staten Island and I'm moving back to Long Island. Sigh... It'll suck but hopefully we will get through it.

What makes everything even worse is that last month I found out that I have a spinal injury. I have two bulging discs around my L1 and L2 vertebrae. This makes finding a better job even harder, because now I know why I feel so much chronic pain, and I know it's never going to fully go away. I can't sit or stand for an extended period of time. I don't know what full time job would allow you to get up from your desk every 30 minutes and take a break. And retail seems out of the question because I'd have to be standing during the entire shift. So I kind of feel like I've hit a brick wall in my life.

I need to focus on more positive things. I've been working hard at trying to eat right and lose weight. I had some success a couple weeks ago but I've kind of hit a plateau in my weight loss, and I haven't even come close to my goal weight. That probably means I need to do more exercise and eat even less. It's just tough cuz with my spinal injury, I'm afraid to push my body too hard.

Anyway I don't want to harp on all the bad things in my life. I promise that not all my blog entries will be about that. I plan on importing some recipes from my health blog, maybe upload some photos and game related stuff (yes, I admit I play Pokemon games and I'm a total dork) for funness. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer! I resent that moniker so I will do my best to not become that. :P