| My body does not look like this |
[August 29, 2008 @ 6:35pm] |
I've decided that this is the body that I want. This chick is about an inch shorter than me and I think our body types are similar (if you don't count the fact that my belly jiggles when I move.)
Watching the Olympics and all those beautiful lady track stars has finally inspired me to get off my couch and start exercising. for the first time in a VERY long time. I'm one of those skinny but squishy people.
I've decided that to make it a habit, I've got to do something for a half-hour every day. Right now I'm following one of those "couch to 5K" programs and spending time on that coat rack/Concept 2 rowing machine that I bought my husband for Xmas.
We just bought a set of weights too but yesterday after I finished rowing I realized that I had no clue as to what to do with them. I seriously just sat there looking at them for like five minutes before giving up and walking out the garage.
My thinking is that I want to be really toned but not bulky but then, it might be nice to to be able to crack Brazil nuts with my thighs.
I feel like I'm all over the place with my workout. I might have to call in a professional to help me come up with something more balanced. I think I need a mean personal trainer. I just wouldn't respect a nice one.
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| Citrucel Fiber Soft Chews |
[August 29, 2008 @ 6:31pm] |
Let me tell you something that I learned the hard way.
These little carmel flavored chews may taste just like candy but they are NOT candy. You heard?
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| Ebony Salutes the Fashion Industry |
[August 09, 2007 @ 10:56am] |
Ebony Magazine takes a cue from September fashion themed journals and publishes their first ever Fall fashion tribute featuring Black designers, models and other people making a living in the industry.
Shame they couldn't get Naomi and Liya Kibede for the cover too. I can't remember the last time I went to a newsstand looking for Ebony Magazine.
From The Austin Statesman:
As the four divas tell their own stories of how they’ve evolved from mere models to moguls, they can’t help but recount the reality of being a woman of color in this fashion industry. “A lot of the times the fashion world doesn’t give a lot of attention to American Black girls from urban areas,” says Banks. “I don’t mean to pat my own back, but America’s Next Top Model pulled down the curtain to this world that people thought they couldn’t be a part of. Now every girl is like, ‘I want to be a model.’ I feel like the world is more accessible, but by no means is it less prestigious.”
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| Teenie Weenie Afro Photo Post |
[June 13, 2007 @ 7:27pm] |
I cut my locs off (again.) This time I didn't bother with the detangling shit that took over a month to do last time. I just aimed and chopped until my hair was free of knots. My hair has not been this short for over 10 years and part of me thought I would hate it. When I first went natural I was quick to slap some braids on my head as soon as it was longer than snap. Now, I just can't believe how much I love it short. I seriously don't think I will ever grow it out more and a few inches ever again. After a lifetime of wanting hair to throw over my shoulder and vamp, I found that when I had it (in and out of locks,) I just wasn't that into it.
Camera problems are keeping me from posting pics today so in the meantime, I'll post some pics of TWA wearing beauties...
( Read more... )
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| Au revoir Anne! |
[May 29, 2007 @ 10:42am] |
I had to fire my French teacher this morning. I'd been thinking about doing it for awhile now but I'm a coward and I felt really bad for her.
We got her through my husband's company a few months back and I've never really clicked with her. For one, she corrects my pronunciation before I'm even through saying any particular word. She does this all the time, even though I've asked to to wait until I'm done speaking. Also, she doesn't like my reading material and refuses to help me decipher some of the language because it is not "good" French.
I know four other people that have fired already. This is part of the reason it has taken me so long. After the last guy fired her, she complained about it (in English) to me for most of MY lesson. In fact, she complains about damn near everything during my lesson, even though I stopped offering her tea and cookies weeks ago.
The real gist of my complaint is that she's chronically late, and even though my husband (whom she also teaches at his office) warned her about it, she showed up late again this morning by 45 minutes. The only reason I have my lesson with her early in the morning is so that the husband can stay home from work to watch Peanut while I have it. Her excuse this morning was, "I was just too tired!" I couldn't believe she actually told me that instead of lying. I have a baby who thinks sleep is optional most nights, so I'M TIRED TOO!
Anyway, was time for us to break up. I'm really sorry that she's lonely, wants a baby, has no money, and hates her job. I really hope that she doesn't kill herself and for my husband's sake, I hope she's not crying in his office as I type this (like she did last time he 'talked' to her.)
Just knowing that I don't have to see her anymore has made my day.
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| Shopping Post |
[May 18, 2007 @ 8:49am] |
I'm mad that jeans cost so much and that European jeans are so damned ugly that I have to buy a pair online and deal with the shipping costs. I'm trying to decide between these two:
Yeah, I know. The legs are awfully wide but I still like them.
Similar but unfortunately not cheaper.
This week's other purchases:
I'm a sucker for obi belts.
...and animal prints
...and overblown trends. In my defense, I'd given up on getting one of these bags but The Husband surprised me and was able to pre-order it online.
We are moving in five weeks and I should probably stop buying this crap but the weather has sucked for a week and I'm bored.
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| The Socialite Collection |
[May 08, 2007 @ 2:01pm] |
If you're in the market for a $589 mascara covered in 1,000 hand set Swarovski crystals topped in 18k gold, now you know where to go. As a bonus she offers free refills and a 24-hr concierge service for those middle of the night makeup emergencies.
http://www.hcouturebeauty.com/
Clearly, I chose the wrong career path. Look for my exclusive collection of disposable chinchilla panty-liners to hit Barney's next year.
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| Halle Berry in Esquire |
[April 11, 2007 @ 1:31pm] |
I know a lot of people dislike her but I'm not one of them. I think she looks hot in these pictures.
Two more...
( Read more... )
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| Zack de la Rocha - Rage Against the Sportscoat |
[March 15, 2007 @ 11:39am] |
Can that wool knit blazer and those Napoleon Dynamite curls possibly contain the revolutionary rage that still smolders behind those slightly glassy eyes? Also, did he order the chicken or the fish?
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| Today's French lesson |
[January 28, 2007 @ 2:24pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 sick |
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We spent part of this weekend in Etoges (Reims), France where my husband learned the hard way that "ris de veau" and "riz de veau/riz avec veau" are not the same dish.
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| Not just for moms anymore. |
[January 10, 2007 @ 10:24pm] |
I will wholeheartedly agree that super low-waist jeans are passé and that "skinny" jeans hold little appeal for the woman who doesn't do as much coke as Kate Moss but I steadfastly refuse to accept that high-waist jeans will be the dominate denim trend this spring.
Japanese Vogue, Jan. 2007
This is just wrong people.( Read more... )
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| Boobs |
[January 07, 2007 @ 11:10pm] |
The Florida-based exotic dancer known as Maxi Mounds captures the Guinness World Record for world's largest augmented breasts. How big are they? They're soooooo big (size 156MMM), says Ms. Mounds, "that if each one were a Thanksgiving turkey, it could feed twelve adults."
This just begs the following questions:
1. Why would you feed twelve adults saline solution on Thanksgiving?
2. Why is this even tracked by the fine folks at the Guinness Book?
3. Just how dirty are this woman's toes?
4. Can she bring that much liquid on an airplane?
Source: Radar Online
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| Is Obama the new 'black'? |
[December 18, 2006 @ 7:33pm] |
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-rodriguez17dec17,0,6797537.column?coll=la-opinion-columnists
GREGORY RODRIGUEZ
Is Obama the new 'black'?
The possible presidential candidacy of the biracial senator has sparked an illuminating debate on race.
Gregory Rodriguez
December 17, 2006
WE KNOW this: Barack Obama is a rising star. He's a powerful speaker and a gifted writer. He is the only African American serving in the U.S. Senate. But is he black?
That's what New York Daily News columnist Stanley Crouch asked last month, and his answer was decidedly "no." No, Crouch wasn't just employing the old "blacker than thou" canard. Nor was he concerned with the fact that Obama was raised by his white mother. Rather, he was treating blackness not just as a racial (shared biology) identity but as an ethnic (shared historical experience) one. And isn't that what the switch of terms from "black" to "African American" was all about?
Think back to the late 1980s, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson became the most prominent black to call for the adoption of the term African American. "Just as we were called colored, but were not that," he said, "and then Negro, but not that, to be called black is just as baseless…. Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base, some historical cultural base. African Americans have hit that level of maturity." The problem, of course, is that most black Americans are descendants of slaves who had their African cultural heritage brutally stripped from them.
What Crouch is arguing is that what the majority of black Americans share is their ancestors' experience as human chattel, brought to these shores in the grips of chains. Slavery and segregation not only forged a rigid racial line between black and white but created a shared ethnic experience. For Crouch, the fact that Obama's father — whom Obama met only once — was a black Kenyan who came to the U.S. to study at Harvard and the University of Hawaii removes him from the traditional black American narrative.
Author and essayist Debra Dickerson agrees. She believes that much of Obama's popularity among whites stems from the fact that his family wasn't part of the slave experience and therefore elicits no feelings of historical guilt. "The swooning from white people is a paroxysm of self-congratulation," she said. But Dickerson also thinks that Obama's thoughtful embrace of his African lineage has the potential to broaden the definition of what it means to be black in the United States. Indeed, the possibility of an Obama campaign for the presidency has already sparked an unusual — and potentially illuminating — debate about race.
It's true that in our country, blackness is not a choice but rather something thrust on people who have any hint of African lineage. Traditionally, anyone with "one drop of African blood" has been considered black. But in recent decades, more children of black-white unions are choosing to buck the "one-drop rule" and call themselves biracial.
But in this respect, Obama is a traditionalist. He clearly chooses a black identity, but he does so even as he embraces his Midwestern Anglo roots. In other words, rather than straddling two identities or creating a new mixed one, he prefers to place himself within a single category and then expand it. In his lyrical yet interminable 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Obama tells of his journey toward accepting his absent father's legacy and coming to terms with his feelings of alienation from both sides of his family tree. Ultimately rejecting old-fashioned racial nationalism and narrow notions of authenticity, Obama encourages Americans to accept their messy racial inheritance. And though he admits that his personal story bears little resemblance to that of most African American families, he chose to graft his own personal story onto theirs.
The one-drop rule was developed to protect slavery and to maintain segregation. By defining all mixed children as black and compelling them to live in black communities, the rule enabled whites to believe in the fantasy of their own racial purity. By extension, blacks also came to embrace rigid notions of their relative purity from whiteness.
BUT LOOK closely at the historical record and you'll find that plenty of prominent black political figures were at least half white, including Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. In addition to his African ancestry, W.E.B. Du Bois could trace his roots back to France and the Netherlands. During Reconstruction, all but three of the 23 blacks in the House and Senate were some mixture of black and white. The list goes on.
The difference between now and then, of course, is the element of choice. Barack Obama does not remind Americans of the racial divide or of the chains that first created it. Instead, he points to an alternative history that Americans have never been able to achieve. "Symbolically, Obama's parentage is the founding couple that America never accepted," said Werner Sollors, who teaches African American literature at Harvard.
Crouch is right: Obama does not remind us of this nation's original sin. But he does remind us of an opportunity that we as a nation are continually missing.
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