a list

This entry is a list. A list of things that are currently making my life a little better. Or maybe a lot better. I think it's going to be a running theme, because...well, because why not? I like acknowledging the good things in my life, so here are a few that I'm digging on right now:


Right now I'm reading this book as part of a book club on twitter called prosehos, started by Rebecca from Girl's Gone Child. It's kind of funny that she would pick this book to start things out with, because it's been on my to-read list for a very long time, and I had just saved a copy of it at the library. Timing's everything, right? So anyway, I've been immediately sucked in by this beautiful and creepy story, and am making myself take it all in slowly, rather than devouring it in one night because it's so incredible.


Sarah Silverman. I love this girl. She's hilarious and brilliant, and if I ever run into her, I might lick her on the face. For realz. I know a lot of people find her offensive or immature, but I think that they're just not into her kind of tongue-in-cheek comedy. Or maybe they don't like laughing. Because that's all I can do when I watch her show. Do you know how many times I've sung "The Poop Song" (from Season 1, episode Not Without My Daughter) this week? Too many. Even Julian has told me to stop. Yowza.


U2 - No Line On The Horizon. I love this band more than I can even say. And I want to have 10,000 of Bono's babies. This new album is amazing and I seriously have no words. Just listen to it and wonder how you possibly lived your entire life so far without these sound waves bouncing off your eardrums.


Best mineral makeup ever. Not the cheapest though. But for $26 (and free shipping!) this foundation lasts forever, so it kind of balances out. As I've mentioned before, I'm allergic to everything. Not this stuff. My skin is better than it's ever been after using this. I know that totally sounded like an ad, but I swear it's the truth. And it's gluten-free. Along with being everything-else-that's-bad-for-you-free.


Daffodils. They're blooming everywhere right now, and popping up like weeds. Except they're not weeds, they're yellow blooms of gorgeous. They're all over my back yard, and I've been picking some every few days to bring inside the house. I can't think of anything better. Okay, maybe that's not true. It would be pretty awesome if a faerie riding a unicorn stopped by my house for cookies. And then said, "We have a surprise for you!" and pulled Bono out of a backpack. He would fit in a backpack of course, because he's a tiny little Irish man. That would be the best thing. But daffodils are still great.


I couldn't make a list of wonderful things without mentioning Julian! Although, technically, he's not a thing but rather, a person. Or maybe just a heaping pile of gorgeous brilliance with an I.Q. much, much higher than my own, and a heart of gold. Best kid ever.

a little better all the time

I was reading over one of my other journals a few weeks ago and found a post that I had forgotten had even been written. It was written while we were still living in L.A., and before we had made any solid plans to move anywhere. I was complaining about how living there was such a struggle, and how unhappy I was. And I had listed all the things that I wanted out of life, and how they wouldn't happen while I was living in L.A. These were things like living in an actual house with a yard and not an expensive yet run down apartment, and having dinner parties with nice people, making music and being crafty, a good space to work on my gluten-free baking. Simple things. Not expensive cars and a mansion in Malibu. Just small things that make a person's life better.

And I realized the other day, that all of those things have happened now that we live here in Winston-Salem. We live in the cutest neighborhood, surrounded by wonderful people. People who will look you in the eye and say hello to you as you walk by. People who stop by your house just to see how you're doing. In L.A., that was a rarity. I lived there 7 years and struggled so hard to find friends, real friends, who weren't just working some angle. In 8 months of living here, I already have more friends than I ever had in years of living in L.A. I think that says a lot.

My plans for starting a gluten-free bakery are coming along more every day, and I feel really optimistic about things. I'm more productive here in this environment than I ever was in the old one. We make music and laugh. We watch silly movies. We go to dinner parties with good people. Julian plays in our yard every day. When we first moved here, he seriously thought our back yard was the park (My little city boy had never had a back yard of his own, and really thought that when we stepped out the door that we were in the park). The air is clean. Wade has had really awful asthma his entire life, and used to go through an inhaler a month. Here, he hasn't had to use one at all. When we lived in L.A., I felt fat, surrounded by girls who were a size 0. What the hell is a 0? How is that even physically possible? Here, I feel normal and don't hate my body anymore. I don't feel like I constantly have to battle to be something I'm not.

I really love living here. I'm always catching myself saying "We get to live here!" as I drive through town. And we do. We are. We're actually living, and not just trying to get by.

That's not to say that we don't still have struggles. Of course we do. Money is tight. Not just for us, but for everyone. Our house, though adorable, is very small and we're crowded in here. But it's at least a house, with a yard. There are a lot of things I could complain about, but I have to always be so grateful for this life I have, and how good I have it when there's so much suffering in the world.

And you know what? The Beatles summed it up perfectly: "I've got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time."

the bird is the word

Don't you know about the bird? Everybody knows that the bird is the word! The word being my new tattoo. My very first tattoo, to be precise. On the inside of my right wrist.


Such feats of craziness could not be accomplished without the support of my very favorite people: Wade (not pictured, since he's the one taking the picture), Julian, and my awesome sister Tracy.


I had to keep it rock and roll, because tattoos are very rock and roll, baby.


An action shot of the artist, Chuck, at work. And me on the gurney. Heh. And as one of my dear friends pointed out, a picture of boobies on the wall. Tattoos and boobies, man. That's what I'm all about. Badass.

coconut oil

By now, you must know that coconut oil has some kind of hippie application in my life. Of course it does. Why else would I post a picture of a jar of coconut oil?

This is what I use as lotion. The label has one ingredient. Now read the label of any other kind of lotion you can think of. Most likely, you can't pronounce any of the ingredients. Is that what you want to be coating your body with? This is only part of my motivation for switching over to a completely natural skin moisturizer. As I've said before, I'm totally allergic to everything. I used to dig the lotions from Bath and Body Works, but they always gave me a rash. Along with pretty much everything else I tried. So this was my last hope. And I'm not kidding you, it's so great. My skin isn't greasy, either. It absorbs really quickly and smells....like coconuts, duh. I even use it on my face because that's especially where I can't mess around with regular lotions. I keep telling myself that it's preventing wrinkles. It counteracts the 7 packs of cigarettes I smoke , plus the 3 bottles of gin, and 8 hours of sunbathing I do on a daily basis.


Below you'll find Wade and Julian being super cute on our snow day. I had The World's Grossest Cold and didn't play with them, but did take a few pictures:



It cracks me up that my little L.A. kid is sledding down our neighbor's front yard on a boogie board, when all the other kids in the neighborhood were using sleds. When a snow day this awesome happens, you've just gotta use what's around. And the boogie board wins.

the tree hugging continues

I'm sick. And that should be said as "siiiiiiiiiiiiick" with multiple i's. When this happens, I'm reluctant to take cold medicine because I'm so sensitive to everything that I feel like I'm on crack if I take even a child's dose. So of course I turn to my old pal, the neti pot.

What is a neti pot? It's a very old method of rinsing the sinuses with salt water. Yes, I know that sounds so gross. And if you use a neti pot when you're sick, you'll see exactly how gross it is. But man, it really works.

I first heard of the neti pot from my favorite show in the entire world, Six Feet Under. In one episode, George gives Nate a neti pot for his birthday, and Ruth has a fit that he's been rinsing his nose out in her kitchen sink. So I went online after watching that and read up on this practice, and ordered myself a neti pot and salt from a company called By The Planet. Sometimes you really do learn things from television.

This weird little genie lamp changed life. (I almost said that it changed my effing life, but would people get offended by that? If I said effing? It's not like I even used the eff word, which I'm so fond of. It was supposed to be for emphasis, to show just how much I've been impacted. It did...it changed my effing life. There. I said it.)

Even when I'm not sick, I use the neti. I'm allergic to everything, and have tried just about every kind of allergy medicine available. Most of them didn't work that well, and the ones that did made me feel awful. The neti pot is by far the most effective thing I've found for relieving allergies, and there aren't any side effects like with allergy medications. If you do decide to try this, make sure you get salt made for neti pot use. It's non-iodized and has no anti-caking agents in it. Just very fine salt.

Now go and enjoy a booger-free existence.