Well, I hate my hair again. For the past few weeks, I have been yanking and tugging and begging it to look presentable, but all I'm getting is a weirdly shaped helmet-head with fins on the sides. Not pretty. So I think I'm gonna cut it. Which is interesting, since I thought what I wanted was for it to hurry up and grow out of this weird in-between stage it's in, but that takes time, and one thing I am not is patient, so instead of waiting for it to grow out and look normal again, why not just cut into submission? I say, good idea!
At my friend's graduation ceremony, this woman sitting in front of us had an awesome Rihanna-esque hair cut, so Rihanna has become my inspiration for this next drastic hair change. What do you think?
I think the pixie cut (2nd and next to last picture) is the "safest", and probably the easiest to make look okay every day, but I'm REALLY loving the "long only on top" look, just not sure if I can actually pull that off. I mean, Rihanna has a skinny head. I do not. :o) So what do you guys think? What should I try? Also, how pretty is Rihanna!? OMG.
Comments appreciated!
Any of you who don't watch The Real Housewives of NYC on Bravo, and more specifically, have not seen the most recent episode (from May 20, 2010) will probably not be at all interested in this post, so feel free to ignore it. You won't hurt my feelings :o)
However, for those of you who did see last night's train wreck--let's dish.
This episode bothered me sooooooo much. It pretty immediately made me uncomfortable, as it picked up right where Kelly's craziness had left off the week before, with several of the housewives vacationing in USVI and gradually becoming more and more aware that something's seriously wrong with Kelly. And throughout yesterday's entire episode, she continued to be completely incoherent, had drastic mood swings, was paranoid, aggressive, deluded, engaging in what I can only describe as word salad, and overall behaving like she has some sort of severe mental disorder. Very disturbing, am I right?
I really think Kelly's reaction in this picture says it all:
Kelly has always been a completely wacky and ridiculous character on the show, I think most notably when she took her afternoon jog on the streets of Manhattan in the midst of rush hour traffic, and when , when told she looked pretty at an event, she replied "I'm always pretty." Okay, wacky, but still kind of funny, because you're not laughing at a crazy person. But I think after yesterday's episode, it is crystal clear, at least to this advanced doctoral student in clinical psychology (and I mention that not to toot my own horn, but just to emphasize that I do know from crazy), that it is no longer funny, because people who have going on whatever Kelly has going on are some kinda sick. There's no two-ways about it, in my opinion.
Over at Nymag.com, Chris Rovzar (a fellow Yalie) and Jessica Pressler recap the Housewives episodes every week, and if you haven't watched the episode but made it this far in this post, I recommend reading their recap--it gives a good flavor of what's going on, but you really have to see it to believe it!! (Interestingly, in the comments over there, several people are wondering if Kelly's in withdrawal from prescription meds, or is a meth or cocaine addict, and though I haven't seen first hand what meth and coke do to a person, I would not be surprised. However, I really don't think drugs are involved. I don't think she's on drugs, I think she's mentally ill).
As I write this, I'm realizing I might be coming across kind of harsh, and that's really not my intention, at least not toward Kelly. I am feeling a bit judgmental toward Bravo, though, for possibly using this woman's craziness for good TV. I mean, watching grossly rich women bicker and gossip and behave like fools is one thing, but watching someone having some kind of psychotic break just should not be considered good TV. And it wasn't. It was scary TV. And speaking of scary, Bethenny wrote about the episode on her Bravo blog, and says that the craziness that went down was even more disturbing than what the cameras showed! Ack!!
Also, NYMag.com interviewed Kelly to get her side of the story and, not at all surprisingly, she didn't make any sense, really. Read Kelly's pretty nonsensical "rationale" here.
Finally, this clip demonstrates perfectly how bizarre and unattached from reality Kelly is. In it, Kelly has just discovered the personalized gift bag that Bethenny has left for her and each other woman on the trip, and Kelly's response is to get freaked out and start crying. It is one of the strangest reactions I've ever seen. Seriously, somebody needs to do a Rorschach on her, stat.
My part in the whole ridiculously hellish internship process is pretty much over. I've done all my interviews, I've submitted my rankings. And I guess you could say I've been "recovering" from the 4-month+ process this past week, but I think it would be more accurate to say that I have been not so much recovering as I've been letting all of the repressed stress, anxiety, frustration, exhaustion and anger that comes with being forced by the psychology "man" to beg and plead and jump through flaming hoops in an attempt to be "awarded" the opportunity to be paid a pittance for doing a year of very hard, emotionally grueling work finally come out of me. And by "letting" I don't mean allowing so much as I mean that, by no choice of my own, I turned into a completely irrational, irritable, bat-shit crazy lunatic this week, and have barely been able to hide that fact from those unfortunate souls who've had to interact with me.
Yeah...
It hasn't been pretty.
How to describe...well, we could start with how I've been wanting to sleep for 10 hours every day, and then am still tired and cranky by the time I get home after a day of various meetings/errands/clients. And how I've had a maximum of about 5 seconds of patience for anything that doesn't just go the way I think it should go, right now. This lack of patience extends to all things: the gas station attendant, all traffic lights, the weather, pretty much any person, place, or thing that I've been in contact with. I've been clutzy, too. On the same day, I both banged my head getting out of my car, and managed to lean over the stair railing while vacuuming the stairs and hit my head on the corner of the ceiling. Now, that takes skill, people. I also managed to poke myself in the eye while fumbling around at a meeting that I was supposed to be in charge of, though I could barely wrap my mind around what the hell I was supposed to telling those poor, unsuspecting undergrads to be doing. And I've been late for absolutely everything, everything, all freakin' week. *sigh*
And then there is the pain that my poor husband and dog have had to endure, as I have been moved to yell and complain about something every day this week. The puppy has taken to burying his face in some dark crevice as I begin my freak-out, and the hubby has for the most part just been waiting for my insanity to pass. As am I. It's really no fun to be constantly annoyed with everything. Not enjoyable at all.
I'm strongly considering a solo vacation, something I have never, ever understood the appeal of before, but I'm starting to get it now. I think for the sake of us all I should remove myself for a few days and do some unwinding as soon as possible. Some friends have recommended an awesome spa getaway that I will start researching as soon as I hit publish.
Just a quick update for everyone: I'm not frenching it up this week, as hubby is away on business and it's just me and puppy, so I don't have a good excuse to cook ridiculously rich foods. Good for my cholesterol, I'm sure. Instead I've been hard at work on my internship application materials, and today triumphantly finished my first draft of the 4th of 4 standard essays that get sent to every place I apply to. Hooray! And I actually got it written today in between things. As in, I didn't come home and waste away 3 hours watching TV or playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook (my nemesis), as I have been wont to do. Instead I actually wrote the most boring of all the essays, one about my research experience. And it's done! So now the mountain I'm climbing toward internship is a bit smaller, with only my CV, a case summary, and an assessment write-up to go! (I also have to write a supplemental essay for one site, but that's gonna feel like a picnic compared to the others.)
So, as much as I hate hubby being gone, I really am getting alot done, so I guess I have to say I'm a bit ambivalent about quiet houses, as opposed to blatantly disliking them.
Now I'm going to head upstairs, queue up "Modern Family" on my laptop (it's getting rave reviews, so I must check it out), and put away a mountain of clean laundry that's been sitting in the basket at the foot of my bed for weeks. Maybe I'll eat a Klondike bar first...Exciting times, I know.
I'll be returning to French cooking soon, I'm itching to make Julia's famed Boeuf Bourgignonne (or however you spell that), so I know it'll be next up as soon as I have a good excuse!
When I created this blog, I thought there might come a day when I'd feel compelled to post about something that I did not like at all, and I thought I'd title those posts "Opposite Day". Well, folks, that day has come.
It all began with Pate Brisee....Or, should I say, it began with me deciding I would not be attempting Pate Brisee today. Pate Brisee is homemade pastry dough/pie crust. No thank you, Julia!
I'd ended up with a free Wednesday night again, and thought I shouldn't waste the chance to cook another yummy french dish, so I flipped through the quiches and decided on Quiche Aux Fruits de Mer (Shrimp, Crab, or Lobster Quiche). The recipe looked short and simple, I could use store-bought crab, and I already had the eggs. Perfect!
I made my requisite trip to the Stop and Shop for the crab meat (6.99 for 8 oz, not too bad!), the pie crust, and some shallots, which have been an optional ingredient in every recipe I've tried so far (you can either use shallots or green onions, and I opted for green onions up to now, b/c I didn't really know what a shallot was). Turns out, these are shallots, "fresh" from France...
When you cut into them, they're basically little, milky red onions. I'm not really sure what makes them "shallots," but apparently, they're very French, so fine.
I was being very ambitious today, aiming to eat at 6:30. The quiche would only take 30 minutes in the oven, and the prep was really quick, so I did some other work until about 5:15, at which point I minced two shallots and cooked them in butter for a few minutes, than stirred in the crab meat and simmered it all for a few minutes, then added a few shakes of Madeira (red wine), heated it to a boil, then set the mixture aside. Doesn't it already look good?
Then I beat eggs, a lot of cream, some tomato paste (?), and salt and peper in a bowl, and added the crab meat to it.
And that's when the trouble started....
Now, I've seen my mother make countless quiches in store-bought frozen pie crusts and I had never seen her take the crust out of the tin before filling it. And yet, being the goody-goody I am, when the back of the pie crust packaging said to take the frozen pie crust out of the tin and let it thaw for 15 minutes before filling it, I did it, even though I didn't really see how that would work. Well, guess what? It didn't. The first one thawed so much before I even tried to fill it that it fell apart and was just a flat sheet of dough. Oops. You'd think I would have taken this as a sign of the fortitude (or lack thereof) of these pie crusts, but nooooooooooo. I try again, thaw the crust for only a few minutes, then pour the heavy, thick quiche filling into the pan. I quickly realized that this was going to be a problem, as the pie crust immediately started to become oval shaped, buckling under the weight of all that cream. I started hopping around screaming "no, no no!" as I raced to throw some Swiss cheese on top and jam the thing in the oven to start firming it up before it completely fell apart, but as I started shredding the cheese on top, creamy crab started oozing out of the bottom of the pie crust, and I started wailing and shrieking and I'm sure the dog thought I was in grave danger. Crisis was averted by me tilting the whole leaking thing back into the bowl, but, um...this is what I had left of my only remaining pie crust. A moment of silence, please.
*sigh* So I had to go back to the freakin' grocery store and get more freakin' pie crusts. I was pissed. Stupid pie crusts and their stupid lying instructions, what the hell!! Clearly they know good and well at Acme Pie Crust company that their little dinky crusts cannot actually support anything if not in the aluminum pan they're created in! Why must they lie to me and risk the demise of my crab quiche?? Why!??
Needless to say, we didn't eat until 7:30. But the quiche came out beautifully in the end.
I also made my favorite veggies, peas simmered in chicken broth, butter, and green onions. It was super yummy, and made up for the absurdity of the pie crust debacle of '09.
