The gym is not my natural habitat. Here is what tends to run through my brain when I attempt to go.

-Alright, I’m PUMPED, let’s DO THIS THING. Level 6 cardio on the elliptical? BRING IT.

-…Level 3 on the elliptical, bring it…

-Uhh let’s just bring the incline down a bit too… there… BRING. IT.

-Okay, Lady on the Stairmaster, I’m pretty sure those towels are for wiping down the machines after use and not for wiping your face but… I guess if you don’t mind sweaty germ residue on your face that’s great too.

-Why do I feel like an Italian sausage in my work out clothes? What is the point of skin-tight torture gear for working out? Is it to encourage you to lose weight so that you’re not subjected to inspecting every bulge poking out of your sides when they start jiggling as you run…?

-I’m not Italian, I should choose a different sausage. Polish? No, not really Polish either. Scandinavian sausage? Eh, they don’t have sausage, they mostly just have fish. French? Nope. Can I feel like a French fry instead of a sausage?

-Choose a different sausage. Heh.

-Damnit now I want French fries.

-Has anyone noticed that I wear the same gym outfit every time? Why are gym clothes $20 per piece anyway? WHY IS GETTING IN SHAPE SO EXPENSIVE? Don’t even get me started on the sneaker expense. I don’t CARE if these are not running shoes, running shoes are $100 and I got these for $20 at MARSHALL’S.

-…nobody knows I wear the same gym clothes because I am not here often enough. Shhh.

-Dear Girl in Front of Me on the Highest Elliptical Setting Acting Like It Ain’t No Thang–I hate you. I want your butt, but I hate you. You are also here every time I am here and I think it might be a sign sent to enrage me into fitness. It only kind of works.

-What am I going to have for dinner? Steak? Yeah. Steak. Steak sounds good.

-Fries. Friiiiiies. Frites. Frites with mayo? God damnit I wish.

-Workout time goes by a lot faster when you can watch Parks and Rec on your iphone…

-Friggin gym Wi-Fi… LET ME WATCH MY PARKS AND REC…

-Sure. I’ll settle for Lady Gaga spotify instead. Wi-fi can handle that but not NBC, urghgh.

-I’M ON THE RIGHT TRACK BABY I WAS BOOORN THIS WAAAAY…. Hah. Born this way, plus the 15 pounds I’ve gained since October? This song is too depressing for gym time. Skip.

-Someday I’ll be as confident as the old ladies that walk the length of the locker room naked to go to the showers. Someday.

-Rap about bitches or something. Not the girl-power upbeat gym soundtrack I was going for. Skip.

-Question: If my boyfriend insists I am beauuuuutiful, do I really need the gym?

-Answer: Yes, you do. Stop making excuses.

-Why are these magazines wrinkly? Is it from sweat? That’s gross. Really gross. I guess I’m not as interested in learning what Kim Kardashian was doing in December badly enough to continue to leaf through this sweat-saturated periodical.

-Taylor Swift on my Lady Gaga station? Lame. Skip.

-…I didn’t really skip it. I’m sorry. WEEE ARE NEVAR NEVAR NEVAR, GETTING BACK 2GETHARRRR…

-Am I done yet? Can I have fries?

-I wish there was a television in here.

-No, I wish I could afford the gym with the televisions.

-Can the girl next to me smell me? Am I even smelling me? Or am I smelling that guy? How much deodorant did I put on this morning?

-Who run the world? GIRLS. WHO RUN THE WORLD? GIRLS! Oh Beyonce, I love you, but the grammar of this song hurts my face. Skip.

-Wow I am hungry. Working out makes you hungry. But working out + diet = skinny. Skinnier. Something. This is a cruel process.

-Question: Do I trust my workout app to tell me how many calories I just burned, or the machine itself?

-Answer: Whichever is higher.

-I am out of skips on Spotify. I am at the mercy of the shuffle. Help me.

-I wish Zumba was at more convenient times to my schedule. Hopping around like a fool to Latin music tricks my mind into thinking I’m just spazzing out and therefore NOT exercising… and it seems to go by a lot quicker.

-Nope, elliptical it is.

-Ten minutes. The longest minutes. Count down, you little timer, count down.

-YESS I AM FINALLY DO–Friggin Cool Down? What? The timer just added five minutes for a “cool down” I THOUGHT I WAS DONE. THIS IS NOT COOL, COOL DOWN.

-Cool down in my mind means an icy shower because I am a sweat monster right now. THAT is a cool down, not FIVE MORE MINUTES OF MOVING.

-FINALLY. FRIES. STEAK FRITES. LET ME AT ‘EM!!!

-….nope, time for rehearsal. Damnit.

I feel like I should probably update this a bit more…

Odds are, if you’re here, it’s probably because you heard about me in connection to my “So You Want to Write A Cookbook?” contest win.

In that case, you’ll find more of what you’re looking for at Quarter Life (Crisis) Cuisine.

And maybe I’ll start updating this thingie again… who knows! Blomblog is just too good of a name to waste…

I don’t think anyone reads my personal blog more than my cooking blog but on the offchance they do they’re probably concerned for my well-being since I haven’t posted anything on here all summer.

It’s okay! I’m alive! See, I’m typing things! Woo!

The usual excuse: I’ve just been super busy and when it comes down to it, I’d rather make some cookies and blog about it over on my cooking blog than come up with some personal essay to slap up on here. Meh.

Some updates:

-I went to the Bahamas. It was awesome. I kissed a dolphin and you know you’re jealous.

-I also went to a Red Sox Game. I am generally apathetic about sports but I can get into the Sox for sure. Especially at a game with all the Fenway Food and Beer. Yup.

-Currently working two jobs because I figured instead of complaining about how I don’t have enough money to achieve my dreams I should actually do something about it. So I’m back to working retail part-time in addition to my full-time job and my weekends already look like they’ll be full of work rather than my usual weekend escapes. This is sad, because I love my weekend mini-trips, but good, because I won’t be spending money on gas and food and drinks all the time. Day trips will have to suffice!

-I proceeded to spend my first paycheck from Job #2 on new purses and a dress. OOPS.

-Trying the whole “moving out of the parents’ house” thing again. Hopefully this time it will work! A friend is letting me move into her extra room for a good price and I’ll be closer to work. Looking forward to a drive that isn’t 45 minutes!

-Bought new gym clothes, but lost my gym card. I think this is a higher power telling me my butt looks just fine, but according to an internet weirdo today my body is only a 5 whereas my face is a 10 (but only in SOME of my pictures) so maybe that means I need to go back to the gym… or get off Okcupid…

-Doing freelance food photography and potentially some freelance editing work for a local nonprofit newspaper. So that whole keep-my-foot-in-the-publishing-door can finally happen. Also I get to see my name on a piece of paper and that always makes me happy.

-…and since I am nowhere near good enough to be a freelance photographer of any sort, I’ve taken it upon myself to put my nose to the grindstone with learning the basic skills. Hopefully it’ll pay off!

And here’s a picture of me with Aaron Lewis of Staind. He did a solo show for an event I did for work. I look terrible and totally doing the whole double-chin thing.

 

In other news, I wanted to share my awesome dress I got for my brother’s graduation, but I didn’t have any full-body views of it that didn’t have other people in it. So, here is me with some of the lovely women in my family. Aren’t they all so stylish?? (I’m on the far right)

So. Update: I’m doing okay!

I still have to wait a bit until I can go to the gym, and I’ll probably have troubles with fatty foods for a while or forever but I suppose there are worst things that could have happened. The scars on my stomach are minimal, and I actually kind of like them. I’m toying with the idea of getting my bellybutton pierced as a distraction point from the scars, or just as an excuse to get that done before I’m too old. I’m probably already too old…

Due to some post-surgery-retail-therapy, I now have a bunch more clothes (I know, I know… Need to stop that!), and a tripod for my camera. It’s been suggested that I have an okay fashion sense, and if there’s something I like just as much as cooking it’s fashion. I’ve never had much money to get anything super design-y, but I can occasionally pull together an outfit. I follow a number of fashion blogs and have been toying with the idea of turning this into something of a fashion blog.

Ideally, I’d love to just use this space to write essays and such, but that would mean my life has to be interesting. And, currently, it kind of isn’t. Interesting things will surely pop up soon, but for now my clothing combos will have to do.

Below are some outfits I put together with some of those retail-therapy finds. The red outfit was taken as an experiment with my tripod, and the owl shirt was taken at a recent cookout.

Also, if for whatever reason you aren’t following my cooking blog, you probably should. I update it far more often and it is way more interesting. Also, Like it on Facebook and I’ll consider baking you some cookies 😉

 

 

This tattoo is half a re-design of my mom’s tattoo and half a re-design of a random butterfly temporary tattoo I got in a machine when I was 12 that I loved too much to use. My artist friend combined the two into a design for me and after four years of carrying it around in my purse and looking at it every day it was finally time.

This gorgeous butterfly will live on my shoulder forevermore.

It was supposed to be my first tattoo, at age 21, but I didn’t get around to it and ended up getting my puzzle piece on my wrist first.

I have plans for at least three more but having gotten two tattoos in one year, I think I’ll wait a bit for the next 🙂

Every so often I give my skin and hair a little bit of a break and put my usual daily beauty regimen on hold. I’m nearing the end of one of those such weeks and instead of some enlightening epiphany about society’s assumptions of beauty and a burst of self confidence and I DON’T NEED MAKEUP TO MAKE ME FEEL PRETTY… I’m actually looking forward to pulling out my makeup bag and flat iron again. I have visions of never letting them go, ever.

This week was determined by the fact that I was stress-acne-ing so badly that putting makeup on top of it just made the bumps more noticeable and gross, so my taking the week off so to speak was more forced than voluntary.

I think at least twice this week someone asked me if I was sick. True, it’s cold season, but still.

Un-tamed, my hair is a frizzy mess. I know I should accept my wild curls and find comfort in the fact that my limp-locked peers envy the body my hair has–but I just can’t. I don’t look GOOD when my hair is not done. I look unkempt, messy, and unprofessional. When straight-haired girls think of the curls they crave, it is not the ones on my head. Yes, some days I’m able to slather on enough hair product to find the perfect medium between dry frizz and slick grease and my curls are calmed into happy waves, but these days are few and far between. These are the days my friends remember when they tell me “you’re sooo lucky! I WISH I had your hair!” …nope, you wish you had my hair during the 3% of the time it’s tolerable. You don’t want it the way it is.

Without at least some foundation, my skin is splotchy and pale. Pale works for some people–I’ve even found myself envying a Snow White-esque friend of mine for how flawlessly ivory her skin looks. However, to my freckle-spotted face that turns red at the smallest sign of ANYTHING, pale just accentuates the issues I have. I much prefer my skin in the summer, when it has a bit of color to even out the harsh brown of the freckles, and I do find myself wearing less makeup during the warm months, but for winter, I need my makeup.

Not going to get into my various issues with my body itself, except that, as a friend so nicely pointed out to me last night I could “stand to lose a few pounds.” heh. Aside from her, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who sees myself as anything but “slender yet curvy” except I remember when I was even more slender (despite longing for more curve) and I wish to return somewhat to those days. Moving on.

Basically, I know my “break from the makeup” weeks are good for my skin and my hair–they deserve it for the torment I put them through–but I accepted long ago that I’ll just never be one of those people who accepts their appearance at, ahem, face value. I’ll always need my makeup bag and my flat iron and you know what? I’m pretty sure that’s okay.

Confidence is the most attractive thing you can have. And if a few magic potions in the form of eyeliner and foundation and hair products can help me obtain that, then that’s what I’m going to do.

 

Entirely unsure where I was going with this. But yeah…

I promise I’ll make a real, cohesive post sometime in the near future. Until then, you’ll have to deal with the lists.

-A word to the wise: check and double-check your bank account number when filing your tax return online. Thanks to my butterfingers adding an extra number to my account, I now have to wait an additional three weeks to get my return. I hate when I plan on having money and then I don’t end up actually having it… arg.

-I am inspired by my blog idols Andie (Can You Stay for Dinner) and Alida (The Frenemy) who now have book deals from their blogs, to try and write more. By “inspired” I mean “endlessly jealous.” I’ve found that a good stepping stone to getting your name out there is to write a column for a local newspaper. What the hell would I write a column about, you ask? Being 20-something and in a Quarter Life Crisis (clearly my new favorite term) in the lovely Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts of course! We have the five colleges in the Amherst area and a handful of others in the general vicinity, and a good number of students tend to stick around the area. That means lots of little young professionals like me feeling lost and confused. No idea how to even go about marketing myself as a columnist, but I figure writing some sample columns and query letters to the local papers is a start. Will let you know how that goes.

-I get my second tattoo this coming Saturday. I am endlessly excited. It’s a design I’ve been carrying around in my purse for about four years now, and soon it will be on my back forevermore. It’s a redesign of the butterfly my mom has on her leg, and I’ll be getting it on my shoulder blade. My lovely artist friend designed it for me, and I love it. I suck at pain though, so I’m mostly excited with a dash of crippling fear…

-My search for a new gym is coming up empty. My motivation to exercise on my own is none. Oy.

-I’m more and more convinced the teenager-esque breakout on my face is a bad reaction to the communal makeup I used during my play two weekends ago. I’ve decided for the next few days I will give both my face and my hair a break and do absolutely nothing to either. So if you see a crazy-haired freckle-faced troll wandering the streets of Western Massachusetts it’s likely you’re seeing me in my natural state sans makeup and flatiron. 

-Next week is already tech week for the next play I’m in, Treasure Island. Very excited to be a swashbuckling pirate in this play. I am really loving this theater group and I hope I can do more shows with them in the future.

That’s all for now, folks. Tune in next time when maybe I can organize my thoughts enough for a decent blog post.