I really need to catch up on some postings, but, honestly, I’ve been killing myself getting my house organized after weeks of chaos. I’m happy to announce that, by nightfall, my home will finally be a home again. About time.
At Christmastime I normally try to do really unique or different gifts. I’ll do my photography, or home cooking, or anything I can that’s a little different. This year, it’s The Easy Way Out with online purchases after what’s been one of the most gruelling falls of my life, but I think I’ve chosen well and I hope my friends enjoy what I’ve chosen. (Did I mention I’m already done my Christmas shopping? For the first time in 10 years, I’m done early. All hail the mighty Steff!)
The single best year I’ve had for gift-giving, though, was the last year I owned my car. I went way the hell out into the valley to where all the antique and collectible malls are, and scoured until I found gifts that screamed my two best friends’ names.
For one, I bought a classic red 1955 rotary dial phone. He’s still using it today, six or so years later. For the other, I found a complete mint-condition set of four Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back Burger King glasses. Like, flawless, baby.
It’s so easy to find new shit that’s mass produced for people. Want to really be different? Think retro, or artisan, or personal. Hell, you may even save money. My SW:ESB glasses I got my friend? Less than $25. But awesome to the nth. 🙂
Now, even though I’m done my Christmas shopping, there’s still ME. I’m off to the malls to fetch my new TiVo (insert giddy giggle here) and try on a few clothes. My makeover continues. Later, peeps.
Monthly Archives: November 2008
The Things I Said: Raiding My Favrd Tweets
If you still don’t know what Twitter is, it’s like a live chat version of the Facebook status update. People will often just write random shit, but the trick is, doing it in 140 characters. Quel tricky. It’s a strange community. You can ‘star’ or ‘favourite’ the ‘tweets’ you like best.
If you star stuff, then you should also sign up at Favrd. That way, your favourite sayings will get logged, and the person who said it gets a little notice as a result. It’s a nice thing to do, Favrding your faves. Nudge, nudge, hint. Poke. Y’know?
I had no idea I was getting stuff “Favrd” on Twitter. How cool is that shit? People put little gold stars next to the things I say. I feel so speshul! Watch me blush.
I have to admit, some of this stuff cracks me up when I think it, so when I find out someone, anyone, got a laugh out of it or dug it? Makes me feel awesome. So here’s some of what people liked that I’ve said. Brace yourself!
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The fella next to me on the bus either wears Rotting Apple cologne or he needs to clean out his bag. Rimbaud would approve. Me? Not so much.
- Bet no one wants to talk to the shouting bearded As-See-On-TV guy at parties. “BUT WAIT, there’s MORE! A martini bar! It’ll get you drunk!”
Homelessness is always sad, but it’s sadder in hard November rains. Continue reading
How to REALLY Do Kegels: Things I've Learned In Rehab
PLEASE READ THE COMMENT DISCUSSION ON THIS POSTING, SINCE THERE ARE VALID CONCERNS BEFORE FOLLOWING ANYTHING IN THIS POSTING. Let me be perfectly clear: This is NOT a posting about how to heal back pain. This remedy is for MY back pain, conjured after a few hours of one-on-one time with a physiotherapist who took $65 an hour for his diagnosis. If you have back problems, go to a professional because there’s no way you should be self-diagnosis, ‘cos that could seriously fuck you up.
THIS is about the proper way to do Kegel exercises, why getting the technique is right, and a bit of a warning about doing them wrong, as I’ve learned from personal experience.
Again, got back problems? There are professionals you need to see, not laypeople’s blogs because you think they know their shit, right? Okay. Good. Disclaimer done. Here you go:
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Well, I’m seeing a physiotherapist for rehabbing regarding my sorry-ass back after blowing it out in September. I’m apparently on track to be “healed” sometime in February. No, seriously.
Despite losing 50 pounds via cycling a couple thousand clicks and climbing some 45,000+ steps and yoga and shit, my back just up and died something fierce. Apparently all that activity is precisely why
Physiotherapy’s interesting when you have a good practitioner. I landed myself a geek who recognises the smarty-pants geek in me, and he’s breaking down very clearly all the ways my body works so I understand the mechanics behind what’s failed inside me, and how to circumvent such failures in the future.
Part of this means I’m learning about my body in a very new way.
Ironically, the number one thing I’m supposed to be doing in order to prevent this injury from ever, ever returning? Kegel-based exercises. As I wrote on Twitter, at the end of the next three months, I’ll have the strongest, most powerful twat in the world. Why? Because I’m to do 360 Kegel-based repetitions a day. Yes, 360 vagina-clenching excercises. Not like I was Little Miss Stretched-Out in the first place, either, so I’m a little daunted by the extent of these, urm, repetitions. I shall be She of the Vice Grip, I tell ya. Continue reading
My New Hairdo!
I owe you guys a posting, I know! Tomorrow. No, really!
In the meantime, I took a chance on a hairdressing school that didn’t disappoint a couple years back, and told ’em the spirit of what I wanted, that I was a “fauxhawk” kinda gal, and that I’d kicked ass and took names enough to lose 50 pounds, and this was my “reinventing” hairdo. I also told ’em I was open to something fun.
So, cap highlights done, the professor goes, “Ohmigod, I totally want to put something brighter around here–” and points to my bangs “…because it’d make your eyes look amazing. Can I do some foils? You got another half-hour?”
I laughed and told him to have at ‘er. Then he proceeded to NOT tell me what colour the highlights would be. The suspense was worth it. Total cost for cap highlights, about eight foils, and a cut? $56 after taxes.
Yeah. That’s right. Ha! And here I be, without showing you too much of me…
PS: Everyone has raved so far at work and in life. Feels great.
My Clitoris & I Wrote My Toilet Paper Manufacturer
Dear Toilet Paper Manufacturer:
You lied.
You said your paper was soft and pure. It is, you claim, a “premium” paper.
Sadly, my clitoris disagrees.
I don’t know if you realize, but girl parts are sensitive. Nice soft fleshy bits, hypersensitive to touch and even sensation? Very?
My clitoris feels your product isn’t premium. That it, in fact, is cheap-ass. And scratchy. And turning Clitty into a very cranky, and raw, little thing. Poor Clitty.
At this point I would deem your product falls under FAIL. And I, too, fail for buying 36 rolls. And my clit fails for being an innocent bystander.
All I can now say is, Toughen up, Clitty. It’s gonna be a long, rough ride.
Thanks for nuthin’, not-so-premium paper company.
Regards,
A Girl and Her Clit
eHarmony: The Battle for Gay Rights in a Nutshell
I’ll get to the changing-your-life follow-up on the weekend. News comes first.
Back in 2005, eHarmony got slapped with a lawsuit for discrimination because gays couldn’t use the service. Now, personally, considering their overpriced, weird cult-like dating service, I kinda thought eHarmony was doing gays a favour. But I agree with the spirit of the lawsuit, because it’s bullshit.
Well, now it’s three-plus years later, and eHarmony finally has a gay service available. Yay for progress!
Oh. Wait a second. Not so much?
See, gays still can’t use eHarmony. No, they get Compatible Partners. (Which is yet to be launched. Look to March 31st, 2009, for that.)
Did they even put a marketing team on this? Do they even give a fuck? “Compatible Partners”? What, “Ass-Pirates and Their Friends” was unavailable? Holy segregated fuck, Batman! Continue reading
Steff's Easy-Start Guide to Changing Your Life: Part One
So, a Twitterer made the comment that, with the holidays almost here, the annual malaise of reflection and regret would soon be upon him. And I thought, “Wow, this is gonna be the first time ever I sit down at the end of a year and go, “Holy fuck. I accomplished THAT?””
16 months ago, I acknowledged a few things to myself. I hated my job, hated who I had become, hated the way I treated my friends, hated the negativity I was constantly caught in, and hated my body. I was initially overcome with despondency. With so much to work on, where in the fuck would I start?
The trouble with being an unhappy person, or at the very least unhappy with your life, is precisely that: Where in the fuck do you start? Continue reading
My New Swank Sofa!
This, friends, is my sexy new sofa. This thing screams “Make out on me!” Doesn’t it? At the very least, I should think. The leather’s shade is called “Sinatra Cream”. GayBoy and I already have a joke about how if it’s good enough for Sinatra to cream… Well.
This is that expensive soft and matte leather finish that keeps your skin from sticking to it. I do promise to test that theory at, um, length at my earliest convenience.
Mm. Leather. It smells so nice, too. Don’t think I haven’t considered how annoying all the dimples will be to keep cleaned out over time, but… They look so purty. So retro and upscale yet not.
Beats the fuck out of the piece-of-shit $185 futon I’ve had destroying my back for five years.
Can’t wait to see how the makeout test goes. Now, to make some opportunity knock. But that’s phase B. See, this weekend comes the clothes shopping. 🙂
At Any Given Moment
I want to write. I do. I want to sit here and cut deep into literary myself and have it all spill out in glorious crimson verbosity. I want that. More than anything.
I haven’t felt able to connect with writing lately. When life becomes hard and I have to grit my teeth to get through it, there’s a certain point at which I mentally flick off so that I won’t delve too deeply into what I presume is a morass of adversity. Why go there when life itself is enough of a struggle on a daily basis?
A friend and I, embroiled in latenight wine and pondering years ago, surmised that my failings in writing fiction — as I had been trying my hand at long form and assessed that my shortcomings came from my inability to create the conflict needed to propel my story — came from the fact that my life was entirely filled with conflict, so the creation of any more, even fictional, was just too much for my inner editor.
This is how I protect myself. It’s how I’ve always protected myself. Walls. Non-load-bearing walls, merely aesthetic ones I can install, move, and remove at will. Continue reading
The Weekend Sexipe: Steff's Chorizo & Chevre Frittata
I love making great breakfasts for lovers, but really relish making them for myself. Life’s too short to only use your A-game for others, so this has become something I’ve really come to love making for lil’ ol’ deserving me.
Because I’ve sometimes lived a sheltered life, breakfast-wise, I somehow never had my first frittata until this year. Now I’m in love. I had gone out of my way to try a brekkie at the much-vaunted (but far overpriced) Avenue Grille, and figured $9 for eggs and bacon was a fucking joke, so I might as well go big-ticket and order the special they had. Which was a $12 version of this frittata, but I pack mine with far more ingredients, and love the rich and intense flavours from upping the caramelized onions and chorizo.
Anyone I’ve served my version of the Avenue’s Chorizo & Chevre Frittata to always has seconds.
This’ll keep overnight and warms up very nicely, if you want to make it for your single self, or
shares nicely for two healthy appetites. I’ll usually do it in a larger 13″ saute pan for two people and increase all the veggies by half and the eggs to five, so I can have leftovers for me the next day, ‘cos this thing is a bit of a labour of love to have as a one-off meal. 🙂
Also, I make extra onions and peppers and store them for use either in other meals, or save them for the next weekend and cut the prep time in half. I’ll be including all my little tricks below. Continue reading