"If you can't be pretty, you might as well cause trouble" – Florence King
You know those crinkly, tissue-paper toilet seat covers you get in a lot of public restrooms?
I once worked with a woman who called them “butt doilies.†Another woman I knew called them “butt gaskets.†Considering that adding the word “butt†to just about anything instantly makes it funny, and considering that I’m unnaturally enamored of both the words “doily†and “gasket,†you can imagine the levels of pleasure and merriment I got from these respective coinages.
Jan 5th, 2010 by Meetzorp
A tutorial from your very own in-house, non-smelly hippie.
I take a lot of care not to be a stinky girl. It is very important to me to not smell like an old goat. People generally like you better and take you seriously when they can comfortably get within 3 feet of you and still breathe through their noses. The importance of personal daintiness…who’da thunk it?
I don’t use commercial antiperspirants or deodorants, not because I am a granola-gnawing hippie, but because antiperspirants make me itch, and I’ve not had very good luck with commercial deodorants. Either they don’t de-odor (Kiss My Face), or else they do other unwanted things, like get foamy when I get sweaty (Tom’s Of Maine). Eew.
Thanks to having been a hippie for quite some time, I’ve come across a lot of little bits of information over the years about how various essential oils and other shit works. What’s a good antimicrobial, what’s good for cleansing, and so on. Turns out a lot of stuff I would have around the joint anyway could be compounded into a singularly effective deodorant.
Here’s the goods for making a paste-type deodorant.
1 stick of Queen Helene Cocoa Butter
Baking Soda (5-6 tablespoons)
Grapeseed or Sweet Almond oil (1 tablespoon)
lavender, tea-tree, cedar, rosemary, & sage oils, (approx 6-12 drops each, varying per your preference)
Here’s the cocoa-butter in Pyrex measuring cup, about to go into the microwave for approximately 1.5 minutes.
This is how it looks once it’s all melty. Now is when you add your essential oils. I tend to do about 6 drops of Tea Tree (it’s really pungent) then 12 of lavender, 12 of cedar, 10 of sage, and 6 of rosemary. Also add the tablespoon of grape-seed or Sweet Almond oil.
Add between 5-7 tablespoons of baking soda, depending on how stiff of a paste you like. I usually add about 6 tablespoons, as I like a very spreadable deodorant. Less, and I think it is too runny, more, and it can be crumbly, but the texture can vary depending on how much essential oil you have added.
Decant it into your storage container of choice.
Make sure it has a well-fitting lid. You now have a stock of deodorant for about 4 months. Congratulations!
This particular mixture is really effective. I am a very active woman and unaided, I would be a terribly smelly one, too. I can get through a typical day without re-applying, though in high-summer I will top up at lunch-time.
The beauty of this formula is that you can change the oils to preference. The mixture I recommended above is chosen for its particularly effective antimicrobial properties, as it is the bacteria on one’s body and in sweat that are the principal cause of B.O. But if you aren’t that smelly of a person, you might choose other oils that are more to your taste. Maybe a blend of orange and sandalwood oils, or a rosewood/sandalwood/sweetgrass blend. Whatever suits your fancy and body chemistry…you can tailor it to your preferences.
I also do a spray-on deodorant. It was inspired by the Bert’s Bees spray deodorant; in fact, I have been continuously re-using a Bert’s Bees bottle for about two years now. I keep one in my back pack so that I can top up at work if I need to.
The ingredients are pretty similar to the ones for the paste deodorant, but Witch Hazel is the base of the spray deodorant. I fill the old Burt’s bottle up to about 5/6th of the way to the top, then I drip in the essential oils to preference. I usually put about a dozen each of lavender and sage, about 15-20 of cedar (it gives a really pleasant, sweet, slightly piny scent), and about 6 each of rosemary & tea-tree.
With the spray deodorant, it is important to shake it vigorously before each use to suspend the oils in the witch-hazel base. This is a very effective and convenient form of deodorant. While not as long-lasting as the paste deodorant, it is a little more portable and feels rather refreshing to use during the summer.
Jan 4th, 2010 by Meetzorp
The Onion (dot com) is an interesting institution. It’s spoof news has grown pretty formulaic and tired over the years, but other features, notably the AV Club keep me coming back. And I’ll pretty much tune in for updates from irrepressible, feckless, hapless Jim Anchower and dimwitted, chocolate-and-cat-loving, delusional Jean Teasdale (though I admit this persona is becoming more and more far-fetched and less believable as time goes on).
I’d say circa 2002, The Onion pretty seriously jumped the shark, but it still occasionally has its moments and flashes of brilliance. But the thing I’m here to do today is not praise nor disparage the Onion and its various inconsistencies, but to tell you all about how The Onion got me hooked on J-Pop!
So, back in 2001, The Onion contained an article titled, “Crazy Japanese Punk Girl Delights Entire Dorm Floor.†The article described an eccentric international student from Japan whose mischievous, hyperactive personality and whimsical fashion sense made her one of the most popular girls in the dormitory. The picture accompanying the article featured a cute Asian girl in a camo miniskirt, brilliant red tights, with pink streaks in her bangs, striking a “punk-ish†pose. I was struck by the girl’s outfit; it was really cute and much more colorful than what punk-ish American girls were wearing at the time, so I started Googling “Japanese Punk Fashion,†“Japanese youth fashion,†etc. I learned about Gyaru, Ganguro, EGL, and general Japanese Street Fashion, all of which inspired me to mix it up even more with my own wardrobe. And while I was Googling, I came across some cranky blog entry by a JET-type American expat who deplored Japanese Youth Culture and was grumbling about his next door neighbor who started each day by blasting J-Pop on her stereo and singing along, badly off key.
One of the bands this guy was talking down was Morning Musume, or as he put it “Moaning Musume,†which he described in terms such as an ever-changing herd of chirpy, overdressed airheads. To me, this sounded like the kind of group I needed to investigate further!
Further googling led me to several English-Language Japanese-Pop music fansites, including strawberry-pie.net, which featured (glitchy) streaming music. The now-defunct Strawberry Pie was named for the MiniMoni song of the same name, and featured a pink gingham pattern background and cutesie strawberry themed graphics. While light on information, it did give me a chance to hear snips of Morning Musume and other Japanese girl-pop standards and make up my mind that I liked this giddy, girlish music quite a bit, even if I couldn’t understand a word of the lyrics.
For whatever reason, however, at that point it was kind of a passing fancy. I didn’t really look into getting any of the CDs or even searching out downloads. I think maybe I didn’t realize that I could buy foreign music…it might not have been as accessible back then, and I never have been a big downloader of music. Anyway, it wasn’t until the famous “Japanese Game Show†video clip which was actually a cut from a Morning Musume holiday special of 2001, which featured 13 girls poking their heads into a fan-shaped lizard cage while wearing pork-chop headbands and seeing who was brave enough to let the iguana in the cage come up and bite the meat. As it turns out, nobody was, but Yossi and Tsuji did seem to withstand the longest.
Anyway, it seemed to me that I recognized some of the girls…the tall, skinny, awkward girl(Iida Kaori), and one particularly pretty, sparkly-eyed miss(Abe Natsumi) sure looked like members of the maligned Morning Musume I’d looked into a couple of years earlier. I did a bit of poking about and learned that this clip was part of a subtitled release by HPS, a J-Pop fansite that was fan-subbing some television shows that Morning Musume and other acts produced by a group called Hello!Project had appeared in.
All of this happened after the advent of Google Video and during the fledgling period of YouTube, when video and audio became so much more accessible. The subtitled releases also made this foreign music and its wonderfully surreal and silly videos more accessible to a non-Japanese audience. It wasn’t long after that that I started enjoying subtitled Utaban episodes, the famous Hawaii Conflict Battle, and the superb absurdity that was MiniMoni. Besides their televised antics, I developed an actual appreciation for some of their music. The sprightly MiniMoni Janken-Pyon, the touching Happy Summer Wedding, the catchy Renai Revolution 21 and the wistful Sakura Mankai, as well as Ai No Tane, the cute and hopeful song that launched the H!P juggernaut back in 1997, and the sweet, sexy Morning Coffee that cemented their fame in 1998 are all songs that stand out as particular favorites of mine.
I’m not a HUGE fangirl…but I have my preferences. As for Morning Musume, I prefer mostly their pre-2003 output, though there are some newer groups, mostly derived from the H!P Kids additions that I have particularly enjoyed. Minna No Tamago, Lotta Lotta Love, and Jingusu Khan, as well as Happy Sunday have all tickled my fancy fairly recently. A thing most of these songs have in common is that they are either opening or closing themes for Anime shows. I’m not sure why, but this style of music particularly amuses me and makes me want to smile.
Anyway, I have to blame and thank the Onion for obliquely introducing me to J-pop, via Japanese youth culture via fashion.
Jan 3rd, 2010 by Meetzorp
I will be eating the hell out of some St. John’s Wort until I can get some real medicine because right now, this is basically me:
and this is my new shirt:
Not much else to say other than that life feels like WAY too much work right now, and I’ve got hells of shit to do and can’t hardly slog through half of it, which is stressing me way out, which ain’t making anything else any better.
Jan 2nd, 2010 by Meetzorp
So proclaimed Max, with perhaps a touch of pride.
The past week’s snow made for super-sweet ski-biking, and last night a bunch of us dragged our contraptions out to Museum Hill and did what cabin-fevered mid-westerners do best…dumb things!
The big, goofy red-and-yellow rig is Joel’s latest creation.
Battered and weatherbeaten, “The Goat” is one of the local crew’s oldest still-functioning ski bikes.
This little beast turned out to be one of my favorite rides.
Here’s Christi test-riding Joel’s monstrosity.
Chaz had to hitch the britches before taking the first pass with his ultra-ridiculous folding ski-bike.
Here’s Possum launching into action while Static takes a more contemplative approach.
Richard’s looking for a good line.
Another view of Chasm’s “Independent Fabrications” foldie.
Joel & Melissa mugging for the camera.
Melissa’s “new” whip, parked in its own ruts.
You’d be looking suave too, if you were about to take this mad machine down a sweet hill.
Man, I love my life. I can’t picture life without Friz, ski-biking, polo, dumpster-diving, year-round commuting, alleycats, pub-crawls, and all other manners of bicycle-powered mayhem and anarchy! I feel so fortunate to have found a group of friends who knows how to have really stupid fun on two wheels.
Dec 31st, 2009 by Meetzorp
A few years ago, I acquired this old English 3-speed from Brian Chasm. I think I gave him some homebrew for it. He’d picked it up at a yard sale, but for whatever reason he and Hercules didn’t ultimately get along. He said he’d just as soon as I had Hercules so long as I did something totally awesome with it.
I will. I will ride the everloving crap out of this bike and enjoy every minute of it!
The first adult bike I ever rode was an old Sears lady’s three speed. It was yellow with the little pointy pool-cue decals on the seattube.
Kind of like this, only yellow, 3-speed, a step-thru frame, and in yellow. I dug it plenty. Following hot on the heels of my years with the little stingray-knockoff, the option of a high and a low, as well as a “regular” gear was quite a revelation. The Sears bike bike belonged to a neighbor-lady, but I rode it every opportunity I got. I thought I’d really like to have one, but I never was able to turn one up and eventually settled on the Huffy, proudly purchased with a summer’s worth of babysitting money. (Speaking of the Huffy, the old slagheap is about to re-debut as a ski-bike tomorrow….watch out! It should be top quality Big Stupid Fun.)
TBA (A=added) one generator-powered, LED-retrofitted headlight, courtesy of local electrical genius Pete Barth. (also, one shifter cable…)
It looks old-school…
But it is chock-full of new-school bright-flashy goodness!
Hercules has a rather elegant (and proprietary) chromed package rack. Also a really reflecty reflector on that rear fender.
HEEEE! Glittery grips! The original grips were white, but when I got Herk, one of them was missing. But fortuitously I had an extra set of red glittery grips on hand, and they came in handy. Yes, I know I have a problem…or several.
I really dig the bullet-tip on the front fender. It’s a sweet sight from the cockpit.
So, Hercules is nearly ready to roll out, thanks to Joel, who spoils me dreadfully.
He really is the best, and not just because he keeps my outlandish fleet of awful old bikes running beautifully. Just because he is, that’s all!
Dec 30th, 2009 by Meetzorp
I used to live in the Boston Apartments on 38th & Main, circa 2000-02 back when the place was a total roach motel. I’ve heard tell that it’s been bought by someone responsible who has fixed the place up really nice nowadays, but back when I lived there, it was pretty freakin’ squalid. One would find crackheads smoking up in the “security†foyer with surprising regularity, besides the aforementioned cockroach issue.
Among the many charming features of 7 E. 38th St. #3 was that the furnace didn’t work worth a hoot, and the management company was apparently entirely without contacts to a competent HVAC guy, so it was always igloo-cold in there during the wintertime.
Except for one peculiar place: the toilet.
I don’t know why, and I kind of don’t want to think too deeply on it, but at some point during my residence at 7 E. 38th, the toilet tank started having hot water in it. In retrospect, this is kind of an alarming turn of events, and even at the time it worried me. It could be that the downstairs neighbor, who had a tendency to mania might have undertaken some home-made plumbing and crossed up the hot-and-cold pipes between downstairs and upstairs…except the hot and cold in the shower and sink remained normal. Which leads one to more sinister considerations involving possible electrical malfunctions.
On days when it was particularly cold outside and the furnace was malfunctioning particularly badly, the toilet actually exuded steam!
Ultimately, it was not the steaming toilet, but rather the omnipresence of cockroaches that drove me out of that apartment. That and the heroin addict upstairs with the yippy Chinese Crested Hairless dogs, the woman next door with Tourette’s who let out hoarse, guttural cries sporadically at all hours of the day and night, and the mutually-domestic-abusive gay couple in the back unit who would have knock-down, drag-out, furniture-thrown-off-the-balcony, call-911 fights on a weekly, if not every-other-daily basis.
A steaming toilet is one thing, but a total lack of peace and quiet is quite another!
Dec 29th, 2009 by Meetzorp
Sometimes I experiment and it all goes to hell. But sometimes I experiment and things turn out better than I expected.
I’ve had this pattern lying around for a couple of years. I’d originally bought it because of Options A & B, a totally 1980s-esque bat-wing top with sleeve-length and neckline variations. The chemise top and the Kimono-inspired tops were barely on my radar.
To date, I have made the chemise top:
and now the Kimono-style one, but I have yet to make the bat-wing top. I have some really awful purple-and-black lycra that I think will suit the bat-wing top perfectly, and it’s dreadful (not to mention free) fabric, so if it doesn’t work out, all I’m out is the time it took to cut it out and make it.
But given the success I have so far had with Simplicity 4020, I have high hopes. I have another piece of a really great burnt-orange knit that may end up in the bat-wing style, too, if the gaudy purple one works out.
Dec 26th, 2009 by Meetzorp
since I rode home from work in yet another BEAUTIFUL snowstorm.
I had a monstrously shitty day at work today. It was almost all of the normal frustrations inherent in my job (and they are manifold and plentiful) times about 10 because of the snow storm. My job involves making transportation arrangements for people who can’t drive, and when the weather goes to hell, things like taxicab and bus services go there right along with it. So work today was really stressful, and by noon I was thinking that after work I might have to indulge in an uncharacteristic violent drunken rampage.
Years ago, my sister had this housemate who kept a sort of “rumpus room” in their basement. He’d drag down old chairs, TV sets, vacuum cleaners, whatever old shit he could find alongside the road or at the city dump, and when he had a really bad day, he’d go down into his little bat cave with a baseball bat and smash the hell out of old busted appliances and furniture until he’d worked all of the evil out. There are days that I can see the appeal.
But as all days do, mine finally ended, and I bustled out of the building with my trusty, crusty old Trek into a whirling white landscape most pleasing to my eyes. It was much less windy than Thursday night, so riding into the flakes wasn’t such a face-scouring affair. The streets were well covered…in some places passage was frankly challenging as the snow was drifted up to hub height in places and alternately sodden and clinging or powdery and shifting. I churned, plowed, fishtailed, and crunched my way home, and by the time I was heaving my bike over the snowplow-created barricade blocking off our alley, I was feeling totally human again.
Instead of looking for something to destroy, I brought the dog outside and shoveled the sidewalk, throwing snow high into the air for her to chase around madly. No longer was I in a wretched and vicious mood. I was restored and able to just chill out and watch the dog be a loonburger.
There’s something about a good ride, and especially a good snow ride, that can really improve one’s outlook on life.
Joel took this picture of me on my way to work yesterday (yep, I had to work on Christmas day). He rode in with me and then had a little cruise of his own. He’s riding home tonight, too, in fact. It’s great to be with someone who appreciates the beauty of a good snowy bicycle ride!