adobe photoshop cook

i am in love with this. i sort of wish it actually existed.

unlovable

so my brother finally sent my birthday present and i'm super excited about it.

unlovable is part novel, part comic book that follows the turmoil of overweight high school sophomore tammy pierce. the book is based on a diary from 1988 that the author, esther pearl, found in a gas station bathroom. and let me tell you guys, it is hilarious. i always sort of wish i'd kept a diary in high school but after reading this i'm kind of glad i kept all my teenage angst to myself. my brother gave me volume 1 for christmas and i read it in a couple of hours. he sent me volume 2 for my birthday and i can't wait to read it!

mmmmm...delicious

ever heard of the kfc double down?

it's bacon and two kinds of cheese sandwiched together by two pieces of fried chicken. disgusting? understatement. but michael brought to my attention that the dinner i made for us earlier this week was essentially a vegetarian version of this monstrosity. nevertheless, it was delicious.

my new favorite food

okay so not necessarily my favorite, but these little nuggets of delicious rank way up there. what are they, you ask? they are wedges of macaroni and cheese that have been battered and fried. i know, i know. we, too, were apprehensive initially.

but after one bite we were converted. and we'll never look back.

cisma

i'm loving these ads by cisma (aka brazilian film director denis kamoika). aren't they dreamy?

and just to round things out, here's a short film he worked on with boolab:

birthday fun, part one

the birthday festivities began on friday night with some delicious birthday tacos prepared by michael. he even made guacamole! here's my recipe:

...and a picture of michael making said guacamole (and lookin' super manly in the apron my mom made me for my birthday).

part two of birthday fun will be coming soon!

sweet short

this is the sweetest little short film i've seen in a while

birthday!

i'm back from doylestown and unfortunately this means i'm also back at work. but tomorrow is my birthday! even though it's my 21st, i'm keeping things low-key. partially because i'm sort of a grandma and partially because some of the people i most want to celebrate with aren't 21 yet. my birthday weekend will include:

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  birthday tacos




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  dinner at skewers in dupont




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  cake, lots of cake




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  maybe with a side of homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream (with home grown mint!)




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  hopefully some stuffed french toast
  
  yes, i love food.
  
  and if the above list is not enough evidence that i love food, also note that i managed to talk michael into giving me my birthday present early and it was two cookbooks (because i honestly can never have too many). one was a vegetarian cookbook he bought for me in belgium (yes, it is all in french, but the dishes look delicious!) and the other was this little book that i've been drooling over:
  
  like everyone else in the blogosphere, i think macarons are unbearably adorable and i secretly dream of baking them. but they are rumored to be one of the toughest baked goods to make. michael said he hoped this book would help me take that leap. i think he just wants me to make him some macarons.
  
  you can surely expect some photos from my birthday weekend and maybe the recipe for my new favorite drink, if i can get it from michael's mom!
  

brb

going to philly to surprise michael at the airport! then a three day adventure in doylestown! be back wednesday!

"like a party in your pocket. but not in a weird way."

this website is brilliant. while browsing the archives i spotted these great mock magazine ads. they depict artist alex varanese's retro takes on modern-day technology. as a fan of old magazine ads, these really tickled my fancy. check them out:

ps - sorry i've been mia this past week. things have been crazy. i've got some good posts coming up though including:

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  estate sale finds



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  my new vintage typewriter



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  new jewelry projects



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  a vintage dress refashion
  

finally back at work

this pretty much sums it up:

"I am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.”

-jerry seinfeld

summer can officially begin!

julia love arrives in dc today!

booty pop!

a couple months ago my mom texted me a picture of a product so ridiculous it belongs in skymall (maybe next to the siamese slanket?). the product i speak of is booty pop. basically, it's underwear with padding sewn in to "make your booty pop". check out the infomercial.


wow. how did i go so long without knowing about the product that's "revolutionizing women's undergarments"? i love the woman who says "you want your jeans to show off your booty". you mean, the booty you don't have? the booty you're going to take off at the end of the day?

but my favorite quote is "booty pop panties will make you look and feel like you spent a fortune!" so when i wear booty pop, people won't think i was born with my "bootylicious booty", they'll think i spent in excess of $11,000 for plastic surgery on my butt? i'm ordering mine right now! not.

what's unnerving to me is that despite my phobia of the word "panties" i was actually less bothered by the use of that word and more bothered by the number of times the word booty was used (20+ in case you were wondering. that's a booty every 6 seconds!). what disturbed me the most though, was the popping noise used strategically throughout the commercial.

after my mom sent me a picture of the product, i didn't give it much thought. until i read this passage in david sedaris's newest book when you are engulfed in flames.

I don't recall the product's exact name, but it amounted to a fake padded butt, the shapely synthetic cheeks sewn into the lining of a generous brief. I put it on my christmas list and was given a pair by my friend Jodi, who waited a few weeks before admitting she'd actually sent me a woman's ass -- in essence, a fanny.

And so it was. But that didn't stop me from wearing it. Though pear-shaped, my artificial bottom was not without it's charms. It afforded me a confidence I hadn't felt in years and gave me an excuse to buy flattering slacks and waist-length jackets. While walking to the grocery store or post office, I'd invariably find myself passed by a stranger who'd clearly thought he was following somebody else: Little Miss January or Pamela Anderson's stunt double.

My fanny kept me warm in the winter and early spring, but come hot weather it turned on me. The problem was the nylon padding, which, when coupled with a high temperature, acted much like a heating pad, causing me to sweat away what little ass I'd had in the first place. Chafed and bony, by early June my natural bottom resembled a rusted coin slot.

It was fun while it lasted, but unless I tore myself away, I knew I'd be relying on prosthetics for the rest of my life. I retired my fanny to its box in the hall closet. There it called to me, sirenlike, until a houseguest arrived, a tall, forlorn-looking woman who compared her ass, and not too favorably, to a cast-iron skillet. "I've got just the thing for you," I said. It wasn't my intention to give it to her, but after she tried it on, and I saw how happy it made her, how could I not? The woman stayed with us for a week, and while I hated for her to leave, I sort of loved watching her go.

this boy

needs to stop gallivanting around europe and eating delicious/adorable treats without me.

remember alf? he's back! in pog form.

there are a lot of things from my childhood that i remember fondly. television is one of these things. as a kid, i especially loved watching reading rainbow and mr. rogers' neighborhood and reruns of the muppet show. but watching these shows today, i honestly can't understand how they held the attention of 5 year old tracy. i mean, they can't even hold my attention now and isn't a person's attention span at it's peak at my age? maybe the internet has corrupted it. but really, why i liked these shows i may never know (although i must admit i still have a soft spot for jim henson, specifically the movie the labrynth).

another show i (thought) i loved as a kid was alf. for those of you who are unfamiliar, alf was an nbc sitcom about an alien named alf who crash landed in suburbia and took up residence with the tanner family. now, this, i can see keeping my attention. but oh how wrong i was.

my sister purchased the first season of alf on dvd for $2 at an estate sale. she's in dc visiting and a couple nights ago we sat down to watch the first episode. after about 10 minutes i turned to her and said 'i don't think i've ever seen this show before' to which she replied 'me either'. i looked it up online and it turns out alf went off the air when i was one year old. there was a very good chance that i really never had seen alf. but i have always remembered loving alf. so what was the deal?

i called our mom, hoping she could enlighten us. turns out we had an alf book when we were kids. it was called alf hides out and it had a little cardboard alf the reader could hide in different places in the book (i think this was inspired by alf's affinity for hiding in the kitchen on the show). it was all coming back to me. i loved that book. i read it hundreds of times. and i fabricated a love of all things alf based solely on this book (i think my brother may have also had some alf pogs). i don't think i even knew that alf was an alien, i think i always assumed he was the lovechild of a bear and an anteater. makes me wonder how many of my other childhood memories are entirely fabricated.

EDIT: my brother did not in fact have any alf pogs, that was also fabricated. i merely remembered it from an episode of the simpsons:

anything's better than posh isolation

one of my greatest dreams is finally coming true! on october 14th i will be seeing belle & sebastian LIVE at constitution hall! somebody pinch me!

spread the ashes of the colors over this heart of mine

i am completely and utterly in love with super 8 film