Why you can get over this "Christmas comes early" business:

Many of you know that I’m working retail these days to help pay my bills.  If you didn’t before, you do now!  And another thing that you may not have known… it’s freaking Christmas season already.  It was *actually* Christmas the day before Halloween for me, when I was at work doing a floor-set of products for holiday stockings, entrenched in gaudy gold packing material and fake plastic snow.  THE DAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN.  I was somewhat shocked, having never remembered how the last third of the year was apparently one long string of holiday bleeding into holiday, confusing everyone with which greeting card to send and which cookies to bake at which time.

Last week my store started playing Christmas music.  One of the customers actually said that it’s been proven that people buy more if there is Christmas music playing.  Whether or not it’s because they feel more generous, or if it’s because they’re annoyed enough to rush out of a store quicker, I don’t know.  But there’s psychology to it, I guess.

I think more surprising to me than this oddly early holiday fervor is the marked backlash that it has had.  True, I have often found myself uttering how unprepared I was for Christmas *already*, but upon reflection, I wondered what it was that had people so bent out of shape.  Is it the fact that we should all be out shopping for our loved ones?  Is it the anticipation of stressful family situations and that chest-tightening panic at the last minute when you realize you’ve forgotten something really important, like pie?!  (But seriously, that’s an exaggeration.  No one could forget pie.)  Is it our impatience and frustration at having to wait in longer lines wherever we are going, be fake-nicer to people “for Jesus” and face down the looming financial repercussions of our months of seasonal gluttony?  Is it that we have to (ugh) stop whining about our own problems and think about other people?

I confess, I found myself having those anxious breaths of late.  As one of the wretched poor unpaid interns and underpaid seasonal workers, things will be a bit sparse this year.  Honestly, it’s depressing for me.  My family and friends are the most important things in the entire world to me (even more that Guinness and bacon) and I always struggle with finding the right gifts for them.  This year, I just plain can’t afford everything that I’d love to lavish on my people.  I lamented this fact to my mom the other day, with no small amount of self-pitying grumpusness.  She was kind as she always is, and assured me that homemade gifts were *the* best and often the most memorable and I sighed and nodded and got off the phone, not really believing her—at first.  But then, the more I thought about it, the calmer I became.  While I love useful, wonderful gifts that I’ve received over the years—the KitchenAid stand mixer and iPad come to mind—some of my most cherished items are the quilts that my mom has made for me.  And the scarf that my sister knitted my mom one year (which I have since pilfered and have worn nearly threadbare) and the emergency kit supplies that my Dad has thoughtfully put together (this would probably make more sense if you knew my Dad).  The same goes for gifts that friends have made for me over the years.

So, you know what?  It’s okay.  Sure, given the funds, I would buy everyone I love private islands populated by magical wishing unicorns and velociraptor pets that you could ride around and unlimited supplies of bacon doughnuts and Guinness and technology that even the military was afraid of and sparkly tiaras made of platinum and rainbows… because they all deserve those things.  But they’ll all get handmade gifts from me this year, and they’ll be just as excited as if they were getting unlimited bacon doughnuts, because they love me.  That’s what “the holiday season” is actually about, you guys, and why it’s so silly to rally against it.  If corporations are advertising early to make more money, that’s their prerogative, but it’s really up to you to choose how you’re going to respond.  You can either spend the time hyperventilating about getting your coupons in order, or you can chill out and actually remember that the holidays are really about finding ways to show your people that you care about them.  If I’m reminded of that in October instead of December, so much the better.

Things I think would make great Valentine's Day Gifts

1. Promise to parallel park my car for me whenever you're in the car and I have to parallel park so that I don't get all anxious and hyperventilatey about it.

2. Cookies.  Make them, buy them, give them to me instead of candy because I like cookies so much more and I'll probably share them with you, but just don't eat them all, okay?  Otherwise, present NULLIFIED.

3.  This.  OH MY GOD, WHY DON'T I OWN THIS YET?!  (link me)
 
4. Some kind of BBQd red meat.

5. Maybe you just tell me on the regular that you appreciate me all the way down to the guts and black stuff inside me and not wait until one day a year when it's all obligatory, and then we can just think of this day as February 14 - the day that we don't need to celebrate anything out of the ordinary because we've done a fair job of making all the other 364 days of the year pretty extraordinary.  Just a suggestion.

Obviously I just do not want to shut up about food.

I know that I've posted a few things about food on this blog and you guys are probably sick of me talking about it and want to hear something entertaining or juicy about the fellas, but this is sort of the wrong time of year for me because I'm usually running around like a hummingbird on Aderol trying to get all the holiday stuff done for family and friends and I just don't have the time or inclination to toss out some holiday-themed pick up lines and it's hard to wink at boys in bars all saucy-like if your eye is twitching from stress and too much coffee. I've been told it looks like I'm having a seizure when I try to do that, so point taken, gentlemen. Moving on.

Christmas is a time when my family gets even more excited about being in the kitchen than we normally are, especially my mom and EM and I. EM isn't much of a kitchen-lover, but you should see her tackle a batch of candy cane cookies. She will effing bake your face off. We stick to our family traditions, but a few years ago I thought it would be a great idea to get all fancypants and try to make some peppermint bark, because everyone in the entire world loves peppermint bark and if you don't I probably wouldn't ever really trust you completely, sort of like those people who don't like chocolate and bacon. It makes me think there's something wrong with you a little bit, and considering I just compared myself to a hummingbird on Aderol, that is saying something.

Anyway, I went and got dark chocolate and white chocolate and peppermint extract and candy canes and was determined to make peppermint bark so good that world peace really *would* have been a legit possibility because everyone would have been united by the deliciousness of my holiday candy. What happened when this candy was finished was something like a disaster of epic proportions meeting up with some kind of culinary angel magic. I don't really know how it happened. Maybe Jesus looked down from his Laz-E Boy in the clouds and took pity on my horrific cooking errors and was all, "That looks like crap. Maybe I'll help out and make it taste good at least, so that she doesn't have a Christmas meltdown."

Because oh baby, did it taste good. So in the spirit of the holidays and giving and Jesus and puppies and rainbows and all, I'm going to give you guys my recipe for one of my favorite edible holiday mistakes - Christmas Fark.

(Sounds kind of dirty, huh?!)

Christmas Fark was the frankensteined peppermint bark that sort of ended up with a softer side - not quite bark, but not quite fudge, but a wonderful blending of the two. Sort of like the texture of a Hershey's bar on an August day in SoCal, but less melty. It's not fudge, it's not bark, it's fark. Get it? Good. Here's how you handle it:

Crap You Need:

1 c. crushed candy canes (more or less depending on how pepperminty you like it)
1 lb GOOD dark chocolate (don't skimp out, the better the chocolate, the better the fark)
1 lb GOOD white chocolate (seriously it's gonna be so good omg)
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
2 tbsp. heavy cream
A cookie sheet covered in plastic wrap or wax paper

Crap You Do:

So, the most fun part of this is crushing up the candy canes. Unwrap 'em and really go to town on them. You can take out all of your stress and holiday blues and "don't YOU tell me to ease up on the Christmas cookies, you dingbat!" on a Ziploc bag full of candy cane pieces until they're good and pulverized. It's cool to have a few big bits because it looks more festive or something.

Chop up the dark chocolate and try not to eat a lot of it. I mean, a few nibbles are okay to "test the quality" but make sure most of it goes into the top part of a double boiler. You have to melt this chocolate gently and keep stirring it. Watch it closely, as if it is a beautiful shirtless man or a Christian Louboutin shoe parade. When it's mostly melted, add in one tbsp of the heavy cream and keep stirring until it's all incorporated. By this time, it should be pretty liquidy. Pour it out onto the cookie sheet and give it a wiggle to make sure it spreads out all even-like. Let it set up a bit, maybe an hour or so. It doesn't have to be super hard, just solid enough that it'll stay on the bottom when you pour the white chocolate on top.

Next, chop up the white chocolate and melt it slow like you did with the dark chocolate. Add in the peppermint extract and the other tbsp of cream and stir it up, little darling, stir it up. When it's looking liquidy, pour it on top of the layer of dark chocolate. Give it another wiggle so that it spreads out well, and then sprinkle the crushed candy canes on top. Let it set for another couple hours or so, until it's firm. Cut it up into pieces and keep them all to yourself. (Or wrap them up and give them away, if you're into that kind of thing. You know, whatever.)

It's National French Fry Day!

Ceci N'est Pas Une Fashion Blog

This is not a fashion blog. My relationship with fashion is, at best, a watch-from-the-sidelines kind of thing. For me, fashion is like pool (billiards, not swimming pools, which are also awesome but irrelevant to this post), I absolutely love it but am really not very good at it. Maybe I could be... but as EM once told me very lovingly and honestly, I'm too low-maintenance. The conversation was actually in regards to a new haircut I was considering, but I figure it kind of goes across the board.

Anyway, I'm the type that likes to take it all in and absorb it. I'll peruse fashion glossies whenever I can, click through fashion blogs in bulk, hunt through everything from Etsy to The Cut and stare longingly into store windows, mostly at things I cannot afford.

If I had any kind of personal "style" (seriously, I'm in jeans and tees 90% of the time) I would have to say it could be described as "eclectic", but it could probably also be described as "what-the-hell-is-that-girl-wearing" or more colloquially, "wtf". I chalk it up to my lack of discriminating tastes, random ventures into numerous music subcultures ranging from punk to rockabilly to indie, and ease of distractability (totally made that phrase up juuust now, but it really conveys how quickly my attention can shift from one thing to an-OHMYGOD SOMETHING SHINY!). Anyway, for this lovely Friday I've decided to throw caution to the wind and list a few of my want-it-need-it-gimmegimmes. Will I ever own any of them? Probably not. Will I lust after them anyway? Absofreakinlutely.

Christian Louboutin Very Jaws Platform Pumps. $840.

Yves Saint Laurent Gold and Blue Green Aventurine Stone Bangle. $570.

Laura Dahl Raven V-Neck. $62.

3.1 Phillip Lim Mini Pencil Skirt at Barneys New York. $495.

Alice By Temperly Striped Jersey Dress. $325.

Sigh. So many more things. For now, though, I have some nail painting to do. Bon week-end, mes chers!

So you can't be a Capricorn *and* a criminal?!

I often enjoy telling people "I'm a Capricorn" because, though I don't really believe horoscopes and astrology hold much weight in the natural-scientifical-logic-y world, it is an excellent excuse for me to explain some of my more undesirable neuroses. For some reason, a lot of people in L.A. follow horoscopes pretty closely, so when I get asked about my need for detailed 'to do' lists, my devotion to my less-than-fulfilling job or forgoing things like "a social life" in favor of staying in to write, I can merely shrug my shoulders and say, "Ha ha! Well, I'm a Capricorn!" They'll nod knowingly, and I'm spared the embarrassment of having to say something like, "I have to have 'to do' lists because I can never remember anything unless I write it down. I actually don't remember what your name is, or why I'm talking about my 'to do' lists. Where am I?"

As a Capricorn, I make a lot of well thought out plans that almost never come to fruition. Case in point: The New York Move Financial Plan.

After doing extensive research (typing things into Google and asking friends), I came to the conclusion that in order to move to my dream city without a job waiting for me, I need to have enough money saved to support myself for three months, plus moving expenses.

I need $10,000.

That is not an exaggerated figure. That gives me about $2,500 a month for three months, plus another $2,500 for moving expenses and plane tickets. Unfortunately, I have never seen that kind of money in my life because I am a law-abiding citizen (but not in that cool way like Gerard Butler) and I do not have the patience to net myself a Sugar Daddy (the financial supporting type, not the candy, which is delicious and much easier to come by). I'm not a computer genius like Bill Gates, the only 'old money' I know of is the change in a piggy bank at home from my childhood, I do not have publishers salivating to publish anything of mine, and I do not play the lottery because as long as the Twix bars in the vending machine are 75 cents, my dollar bills will never see the inside of that 7-11 cash register.

This leaves me with two options:
1. Drug dealing, and
2. Stripping

The problem is that what little I knew about drugs from junior high health class has since been replaced by other important facts and skills, like acceptable two-letter Scrabble words and Great White shark trivia and general game rules for beer pong. Additionally, I have never bought drugs or sold before, so I'm pretty sure the interaction would go something like this:

Drug Buyer: "May I have a bag of drugs please?"
TAB: "Of course! Here you go. Your total comes to $500. Would you like a receipt?"
Drug Buyer: "This is a bag of Oreos."
TAB: "Right. Ohh... I see! Did you want the bag of goldfish crackers instead? Or perhaps this bag of rocks?"
Drug Buyer: "Crack rocks?"
TAB: "No. Just some rocks I picked up outside on my street. There's one in there that looks like a potato, if that should sway your opinion..."

That pretty much cancels out any hope of earning my thousands with drug money. The other problem that I have (just one, you say?) is that I have never been in a strip club. I have (of course) seen them on the teevee and in the movies, and I have read about them in books and magazines. I have a very basic, theoretical knowledge of what strippers do, which brings me to another roadblock: I do not like to be naked. Also, I'm told that strippers are often single mothers or drug addicts or putting themselves through school, and unfortunately, I do not have any kind of baby or coke habit or community college leanings.

Basically, this means that due to my lack of experience within the seedy underbelly of society, I'll have to get my money the stupid, legal way. So, if you'll excuse me, I have to go make another extensive list of stupid, legal ways to make $10,000.

A Powerful Case of the GimmeGimmes.

Okay, I didn't blog yesterday. I did, however, work on transcribing some interviews so the day wasn't a total loss, and technically I kept my promise to write something every day. Besides, Thursday night margaritas didn't happen and I spent the evening cleaning and reorganizing my room, which is probably the most uninteresting thing in the world to write about. I decided to spare you those deets.

Yesterday was pretty uninteresting as well, with the exception that I pitched a beauty piece to a website regarding the new item on my ever growing wish list:

Tarina Tarantino's New Makeup Line. Behold~ the Victorian Punk collection available on Sephora.com. I have a powerful case of the gimmegimmes.