Jgimesky

In six seasons of Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Gordon Ramsay has never quit on a client. Until last week, that is, when he found Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, owners of Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona, simply beyond help.

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In an effort to make more women aware of the genes they are carrying in their body, and how those genes can make you more likely to have certain types of cancer, Angelina Jolie wrote an editorial for The New York Times where she explains how she came to the decision to have a preventative double mastectomy performed.

"My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman. Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex. On April 27, I finished the three months of medical procedures that the mastectomies involved. During that time I have been able to keep this private and to carry on with my work."

Angelina goes on to say that Brad Pitt was there for every minute of the surgeries and also that there will be extensive information about her surgeries and procedures on the website of the hospital so that everyone can see what she went through.

VH1 News hit the red–or, uh, dark–carpet for the premiere of Star Trek Into The Darkness and we got to chat with the film’s cast. As we previously reported, Benedict Cumberbatch—who plays the film’s villain, John Harrison—spoke to us about his hit British series, Sherlock, and why we might be seeing it in America sooner rather than later. Cumberbatch also had a few other things to say…specifically about his fans.

Stay tuned for more of our chat with Benedict Cumberbatch and with Zachary Quinto–including which Star Trek characters the actors would F/M/K–later this week.

Star Trek Into Darkness premieres nationwide in the United States this Friday, May 17.

Jaden Smith is turning fifteen in July, and he may be getting the one present I’ve been lobbying for for years: legal emancipation.

“He says, ‘Dad, I want to be emancipated.’ I know if we do this, he can be an emancipated minor, because he really wants to have his own place, like ooh.”

Look, I’d want Jaden Smith out of my house, too, but let’s be honest. Samuel Affleck, age 1, would be a more responsible emancipated minor than Jaden Smith. The Smith kids loose in society is honestly my worst nightmare, and I thought I had three more years before that became a reality.

It’s pretty clear, though, that Will Smith operates outside of reality. In that same interview, he calls himself “the biggest movie star in the world.” Okay, then. If you say so.

We’ve heard rumors for some time that Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s youngest child, Willow, 12, wants out of the show business career her parents are creating for her and her brother, Jaden. Willow has laid relatively low lately while Jaden, 14, has a new blockbuster scifi movie coming out with his dad called After Earth. That movie premieres at the end of this month and Jaden is poised to become a young superstar. He has a rap career and a fashion line as well. So in comparison Willow’s pop stardom was short lived and she’s being a kid and doing her thing. But that’s ok, because her mom promises Willow is going to “make a comeback.” Willow is 12 freaking years old. How do you make a comeback at 12 years old? Yes she had a hit single, but please.

Jada said this in an interview with the AP, in which she’s promoting her new documentary about 70s activist Angela Davis. Will has told this story about Willow rejecting the lead in Annie before, but it’s interesting to me how Jada words it.

AP: Wasn’t Willow supposed to star in “Annie”?

Pinkett Smith: She was supposed to star in “Annie” and Willow has decided not to. … She decided that she wants to be 12 and says right now she’s really concentrating on music skills. She’s taking piano lessons, taking her singing lessons every day and writing. She’s really just developing herself. … She’s taking her time to develop her skills, so when she feels like people are ready to know the real Willow, then she will make a comeback.

AP: As an actress, businesswoman, and the matriarch of a high-profile family, how do you deal with the constant rumors about you and Will?

Pinket Smith: They’re quite easy obstacles. When I really think about what people are going through in the world today, and dealing with people’s speculations is one thing. And knowing simply that that’s all that it is. (laughs) When you’re living your truth and you understand your truth, things get very easy. They get less complicated at least, so I’m very blessed. I am very blessed, so speculations I can deal with.

[From Huffington Post]

Notice that Jada doesn’t deny any of the rumors about her troubled maybe-open marriage with Will. She just talks about living her “truth,” which she’s talked around for a while now.

Getting back to the topic, the last we heard from Will on parenting he was saying that they let their kids do whatever they want, basically. Will said “as young as possible, give them as much control as possible.” This is the Scientology hands-off, old souls in little bodies approach to parenting, although the Pinkett-Smiths have denied that they’re members of that famous cult.

I think the Smiths have this philosophy as long as their kids are doing what they expect of them in general. It seems clear to me that stardom and fame is expected, hence Jada promising that Willow will make a “comeback.” Does that mean a comeback to her music career or a comeback that involves multi-hyphenates like Jaden? It doesn’t seem fair to these kids. They’re not just growing up in the spotlight, they’re being expected to perform just like their parents. But I do give the Smiths credit for letting Willow say she wasn’t going to do Annie. If Willow told her parents she wanted to go to school and get a degree towards a professional non-Hollywood career would they support that too? I hope so.

Oh and Willow got new hair! She dyed it lilac/purple. I like that her parents let her do her own thing with her hair and fashion.

Willow is shown on 5-9-13 with purple hair and on 2-13-13 at the Michael Kors show at Fashion Week. She looks so bored there! Credit: WENN.com

Dave Weigel is one of my favorite reporters, but I think this piece on Jason Richwine, intelligence research, and "race" deserves a closer look:

Academics aren't so concerned with the politics. But they know all too well the risks that come with research connecting IQ and race. At the start of his dissertation, Richwine thanked his three advisers -- George Borjas, Christopher Jenks, and Richard Zeckhauser -- for being so helpful and so bold. Borjas "helped me navigate the minefield of early graduate school," he wrote. "Richard Zeckhauser, never someone to shy away from controversial ideas, immediately embraced my work. ..."

Anyone who works in Washington and wants to explore the dark arts of race and IQ research is in the right place. The city's a bit like a college campus, where investigating "taboo" topics is rewarded, especially on the right. A liberal squeals "racism," and they hear the political-correctness cops (most often, the Southern Poverty Law Center) reporting a thought crime.

It is almost as though the "dark arts of race and IQ" were an untapped field of potential knowledge, not one of the most discredited fields of study in modern history. We should first be clear that there is nothing mysterious or forbidden about purporting to study race and intelligence. Indeed, despite an inability to define "race" or "intelligence," such studies are one of the dominant intellectual strains in Western history. We forget this because its convient to believe that history begins with the Watts riots. But it's important to remember the particular tradition that Charles Murray and Jason Richwine are working in. A brief reminder seems in order. 

Here is antebellum "race realist" Josiah Clark Nott writing in 1854 to justify slavery:

That Negroes imported into, or born in, the United States become more intelligent and better developed in their physique generally than their native compatriots of Africa, every one admits; but such intelligence is easily explained by their ceaseless contact with the whites, from whom they derive much instruction; and such physical improvement may also be readily accounted for by the increased comforts with which they are supplied. In Africa, owing to their natural improvidence, the Negroes are, more frequently than not, a half-starved, and therefore half-developed race; but when they are regularly and adequately fed, they become healthier, better developed, and more humanized. Wild horses, cattle, asses, and other brutes, are greatly improved in like manner by domestication : but neither climate nor food can transmute an ass into a horse, or a buffalo into an ox. 

Here is an excerpt from Madison Grant's 1916 study The Passing of a Great Race:

These new immigrants were no longer exclusively members of the Nordic race as were the earlier ones who came of their own impulse to improve their social conditions. The transportation lines advertised America as a land flowing with milk and honey and the European governments took the opportunity to unload upon careless, wealthy and hospitable America the sweepings of their jails and asylums. The result was that the new immigration, while it still included many strong elements from the north of Europe, contained a large and increasing number of the weak, the broken and the mentally crippled of all races drawn from the lowest stratum of the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans, together with hordes of the wretched, submerged populations of the Polish Ghettos. 

Our jails, insane asylums and almshouses are filled with this human flotsam and the whole tone of American life, social, moral and political has been lowered and vulgarized by them. With a pathetic and fatuous belief in the efficacy of American institutions and environment to reverse or obliterate immemorial hereditary tendencies, these newcomers were welcomed and given a share in our land and prosperity.... 

The result of unlimited immigration is showing plainly in the rapid decline in the birth rate of native Americans because the poorer classes of Colonial stock, where they still exist, will not bring children into the world to compete in the labor market with the Slovak, the Italian, the Syrian and the Jew. The native American is too proud to mix socially with them and is gradually withdrawing from the scene, abandoning to these aliens the land which he conquered and developed. 

The man of the old stock is being crowded out of many country districts by these foreigners just as he is to-day being literally driven off the streets of New York City by the swarms of Polish Jews. These immigrants adopt the language of the native American, they wear his clothes, they steal his name and they are beginning to take his women, but they seldom adopt his religion or understand his ideals and while he is being elbowed out of his own home the American looks calmly abroad and urges on others the suicidal ethics which are exterminating his own race.

Another from Lothrop Stoddard's 1922 work The Revolt Against Civilization and the Menace of the Underman:

In Massachusetts the birth-rate of foreign-born women is two and one-half times as high as the birth-rate among the native-bom; in New Hampshire two times; in Rhode Island one and one-half times, the most prolific of the alien stocks being Poles, Polish and Russian Jews, South Italians, and French-Canadians. What this may mean after a few generations is indicated by a calculation made by the biologist Davenport, who stated that, at present rates of reproduction, 1,000 Harvard graduates of to-day would have only fifty descendants two centuries hence, whereas 1,000 Rumanians today in Boston, at their present rate of breeding, would have 100,000 descendants in the same space of time. 

To return to the more general aspect of the problem, it is clear that both in Europe and America the quality of the population is deteriorating, the more intelligent and talented strains being relatively or absolutely on the decline. Now this can mean nothing lees than a deadly menace both to civilization and the race.

More from Lothrop Stoddard's 1921 book The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy:

In the United States it has been the same story. Our country, originally settled almost exclusively by Nordics, was toward the close of the nineteenth century invaded by hordes of immigrant Alpines and Mediterraneans, not to mention Asiatic elements like Levantines and Jews. As a result, the Nordic native American has been crowded out with amazing rapidity by these swarming, prolific aliens, and after two short generations he has in many of our urban areas become almost extinct.

The racial displacements induced by a changed economic or social environment are, indeed, almost incalculable. Contrary to the popular belief, nothing is more unstable than the ethnic make-up of a people. Above all, there is no more absurd fallacy than the shibboleth of the "melting-pot." As a matter of fact, the melting-pot may mix but does not melt. Each race-type, formed ages ago, and "set" by millenniums of isolation and inbreeding, is a stubbornly persistent entity. Each type possesses a special set of characters: not merely the physical characters visible to the naked eye, but moral, intellectual, and spiritual characters as well. All these characters are transmitted substantially unchanged from generation to generation. 

To be sure, where members of the same race-stock intermarry (as English and Swedish Nordics, or French and British Mediterraneans), there seems to be genuine amalgamation. In most other cases, however, the result is not a blend but a mechanical mixture. Where the parent stocks are very diverse, as in matings between whites, negroes, and Amerindians, the offspring is a mongrel -- a walking chaos, so consumed by his jarring heredities that he is quite worthless. We have already viewed the mongrel and his works in Latin America.

Here is Karl Pearson in 1925 looking at Jewish immigration into Britain:

What is definitely clear, however, is that our alien Jewish boys do not form from the standpoint of intelligence a group markedly superior to the natives. But that is the sole condition under which we are prepared to admit that immigration should be allowed. Taken on the average, and regarding both sexes, this alien Jewish population is somewhat inferior physically and mentally to the native population. It is not so markedly inferior as some of those who wish to stop all immigration are inclined to assert. But we have to face the facts; we know and admit that some of the children of these alien Jews from the academic standpoint have done brilliantly, whether they have the staying powers of the native race is another question*. No breeder of cattle, however, would purchase an entire herd because he anticipated finding one or two fine specimens included in it; still less would he do it, if his byres and pastures were already full.

Far from being relegated to some musty corner of intellectual life, the Stoddard tradition, the tradition in which Jason Richwine stands, proved to be an influential force in world history. The Stoddard tradition gave us forced sterilization, "euthanasia" programs, miscegenation bans, and, ultimately, the Holocaust.

One might oppose the Stoddard tradition strictly on its tendency to birth suffering, misery, and catastrophe. But one can oppose it for simpler reasons -- its practitioners have a nasty habit of being wrong. Harvard still stands. The Jews of Poland seem to understand American ideas quite well. And it was not the darker races who threatened civilization, but the cannibal Nordics rampaging under the Nazi flag. History has been deeply unkind to Jason Richwine's spiritual ancestors. It's comforting to think that the academics who show no interest in the "dark arts" do so out of fear of the leftist cabal. More likely, they do so to avoid being associated with a specious field of study whose primary contributions to the world include justifying slavery and inspiring genocide. 

Which is not to say these authors should not be read. Pearson is especially instructive. In 1925, he claimed the Jews immigrating to Britain threatened to become a "parasitic race." Under similar thinking, Jews were subsequently subjected to college quotas throughout America. Today, the descendants of Pearson tell us that Jews are the intellectual cream of the genetic crop.

This is what Barbara and Karen Fields mean when they talk about "racecraft." Power must justify itself. When it is proven wrong, it simply recalibrates. Conditions and actions are explained away as the inalterable work of genetics. Yesterday's yellow peril becomes today's model minority. In the 1930s Jews dominated basketball because of their "Oriental background" and "flashy trickiness." Today blacks dominate it through their animal strength and agility.

You see this shifting in Weigel's own article, where we are told that Richwine is looking into "race." But Hispanics are considered an ethnic group, not a race. That is because we have trouble explaining why Matt Yglesias, Sophia Vegara, Carmelo Anthony, Rosario Dawson, and Charlie Rangel can be said to comprise a separate "race." One should also have trouble explaining why Walter White, Whoopi Goldberg, Djimon Hounsou, Jay Smooth, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, and I are all the same "race." 

These people do share something in common -- their geographic ancestry makes them potential targets of white racism. If there is any fact we are warned away from, this is it. Richwine's theories originate from a long tradition of white racism, the tradition of Grant, Stoddard, and Pearson.  But to say this is to indict an insupportable portion of our own history and traditions. It is to remind us that the differences between us were constructed by men who sought power, and are maintained just the same.

ANYBODY CAN GRILL A FUCKING BURGER OR HOTDOG. Elevate your grilling game with something that simpleminded motherfuckers wouldn’t even consider. Grilling veggies is some classy shit and it only takes a few minutes. I am not talking about some played out portabella burger that tastes like a dirty sponge. Eggplant, artichokes, okra, lettuce: all that shit can be thrown on the grill and are in peak form during the spring and summer. People are guaranteed to come correct next time you invite them over. Raise the fucking bar and grill to impress.

GRILLED ROMAINE HEARTS WITH AVOCADO LIME DRESSING

2 romaine hearts, washed, trimmed, and sliced in half

1 clove of garlic, chopped up all small

2 tablespoons olive oil

a pinch of salt and pepper

Avocado Lime Dressing

1 ripe avocado

1/3 cup fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 clove garlic, chopped all small

½ teaspoon agave or honey

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 cup water

salt to taste

For the dressing, put all the ingredients in a small food processor or blender and combine until creamy. Add the pinch of sea salt and mix it in. If that shit looks way too thick, add more water until it looks like salad dressing. Pour it all into a small container and refrigerate until the lettuce is ready.

To grill the romaine hearts, heat the grill to a medium-low heat. As long as the grill isn’t crazy hot, you are good. While the grill heats up, mix the garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper in a little cup.  Brush or spoon the oil mixture to the cut side of the lettuce. This isn’t the fucking dressing so go easy.  Place the lettuce face down on the grill for 60 seconds or until there are clear grill marks and the leaves are beginning to wilt. Flip the hearts over and grill the other side for another 60 seconds. You want the leaves to look charred but not all fucking limp so pay attention. When they look good, put them on a plate and put some dressing over the hearts. Top with sliced green onions, chopped cilantro, and plenty of black pepper.

Enough for 4 people with some extra dressing

We shared this recipe with our homies over at GQ Online, go check them out.

A worth-your-while New York Times profile of Shonda Rhimes — creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal — is chock-full of awesome.

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TLC never fails to deliver. Just when TV starts to get boring and you're settling into watching that episode of Real House Wives of New Jersey for the 3rd time, TLC gives you a show that you will no doubt tweet about multiple times. This time, My Crazy Obsession has given us just that: A woman so obsessed with troll dolls that she sometimes dresses up as one herself.

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Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. She'll be here every other week helping to answer your filthiest questions. Are you dirty? Email her.

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Parks and Rec fans, rejoice! Multiple sources have confirmed that the sitcom is getting renewed for a 6th season — and of course Nick Offerman tweeted the best announcement of all.

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Last weekend was the long-awaited event: Shopping Friend got married!

Of course, because it was the two of us involved, the things I took the most photos of were our outfits; shoes, jackets, hair, makeup, and of course the dresses, got the bulk of the attention in my photos. (Actually, since I was in the wedding I mostly took photos of random things before and after the ceremony. They had a professional photographer doing the real stuff. :))

She had a couple of stylists come and do our hair and makeup, and that was absolutely amazing. It took me a bit to warm up to it, I will admit; I had my makeup done first, and I was a little skeptical while I waited for my turn for hair. I thought when I looked at myself in the camera that I looked a bit like (my idol) Hillary Clinton, and not in a good way.



Once I got in the chair and she started working on my hair, though, I realized it was because my hair was flat and unstyled that the makeup looked out of place. The styled hair pulled the whole look together nicely.


(Mid-do, I try to snap a photo to send to my husband.)

When we were all done, we got a couple of shots of all of us (that's Shopping Friend's Mom on the left), still in our street clothes.





You wouldn't know from our unhurried dawdling that there was only 20 minutes to go before she was walking down the aisle, would you? We kind of lost track of time for a bit...

There are no pictures after that, because it was a flurry of bras flying the air and Spanx getting tugged on and just complete chaos. Here, enjoy a photo of her lovely dress. The wedding planner put rose petals around it so it was the first thing we saw when we walked into the suite. Sweet, right?





And then she was married! It was a lovely, short ceremony, exactly what she wanted.

We went outside for photos. I goofed around with my husband and my other brides attendant (her best man, LOL) in a few shots.





Kicked off my shoes for a bit too. They were pretty and mostly comfortable, but it was a long day.



Some shots from the reception...





My husband, as is his thing, had to wear the veil, at least long enough for me to take some photos. He is always game to wear a silly hat, mostly for the amusement for the little kids around. I'm going to make a book of photos like this some day.





We convinced the bride to stick my husband's pipe in her mouth to lighten up a couple of poses, and I think we got some of her best photos ever.





My lovely, silly Shopping Friend. I'm so happy for you!!!

Now...you guys....

can we talk about my hair now? No lie, it was SPECTACULAR.









Unbelievable. I felt like a princess.

And it only took 27 bobby pins! I counted when I tugged them all out that night. ;-D

Once I got used to it, I have to say that my makeup was pretty awesome too. Never wore false eyelashes before. I loved 'em!







At the end of the wedding, we both switched into our sneakers (heh, it didn't dawn on either of us to bring cute comfortable shoes).





When everyone was gone, the little wedding party went to the bar across the street and had a beer. In our wedding attire and sneakers.




When I got home, we tried to get one full-body shot in the setting sun...



Then I got changed into a t-shirt and yoga pants and took a few more shots of my pretty 'do and makeup.









I don't think I will ever look or feel that pretty again. After all that anxiety about the dress, that is just about the last thing I thought I would feel. But I do.

Best of all, my friend married the love of her life.

All in all, it was a damned good day.

Unless you have your heart set on raising a street performer, reading to your toddler is important. Even if your child can draw a sizable crowd via the power of pop & lock, you have to be able to read to find a Coinstar. Paying utility bills in small change is frowned upon. Below are reviews for toddler-appropriate books.

Green Eggs and Ham

In these hard economic times many adults have to make difficult choices such as buying fewer 100-calorie packs. Dr. Seuss prepares toddlers for this financial reality by introducing the idea of eating visibly expired meals. In this book a stranger harasses a passerby with spoiled groceries for about three days until he breaks. We don’t get to see if he died shortly after from bacteria but it is implied that he did.

 

 

Where the Wild Things Are

This book is primarily about the dangers of discipline. When a young boy is berated by his mother and sent to his room he begins to hallucinate almost immediately. While his mother is downstairs on Pinterest looking at gel nails, he is upstairs quietly losing his mind. I’m very surprised that this boy snapped out of his episode. For dinner, he was treated to a bowl of Cream of Wheat-style hot cereal in case you don’t already want to cry.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

If you love horror stories, this one is for you. Two-year old Peter learns the hard way that he lives in a very bad part of town when he leaves for a walk and almost never comes back. I found it odd that instead of being relieved that he returned at all, his mom was upset about the ripped coat. Because what is a young bunny without his smoking jacket.

 

 

 

Babar

Check out that lean. That suit. That bling. Babar don’t care. Before today I didn’t know animals could have swagger. This book was basically an episode of Cribs for Babar and his rich elephant family. I didn’t pay attention to the moral of the story but I think it was “too much rim make the ride too hard.”

 

 

 

Reading to your toddler will give you a sense of satisfaction that you can’t get from Wife Swap or Doughnut Wars. Do your best to stay awake.

---

The Honest Toddler: A Child’s Guide to Parenting on Amazon

This was on the front page of Reddit yesterday, in which they linked to the photo, above, (from our friends at Starcasm) of Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch. Jeffries is a royal a**hole, basically, I’m not going to sugarcoat it and I can’t come to any other conclusion after reading his remarks. (Which are old, but they’re getting new play.) He only wants pretty, thin people to shop at his stores and work at his stores and he says as much in interviews. Jeffries has said this for years, and his refusal to sell clothes for women above a size 10 or a Large (while selling XXL for men) has hurt sales. I’m going to quote Starcasm here because they sum it up the best, but they’re basing this on an article in Business Insider which claims that Abercrombie’s retail downfall may be tied to their refusal to accommodate larger customers:

“We go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends,” said CEO Mike Jeffries in a 2006 interview with Salon. “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

To ensure that only “attractive” kids buy, wear and promote Abercrombie, Jeffries enthusiastically supports the company’s size restrictions. For men’s clothes, that doesn’t mean much: They offer XXL sizes for the cool, muscular jocks.

But, for women, that means no pants above size 10 and no shirts or dresses above a large. The company does tread into “extra-size” territory for women, but only to offer extra-small.

Not only is this kind of policy upsetting, it’s also bad business — which finally seems to be taking a toll on Abercrombie.

“While a specialty retailer like Abercrombie can’t be expected to appeal to everyone, the brand’s standard of beauty is quickly becoming stale,” wrote Ashley Lutz for Business Insider this week. “Plus-sized is no longer a niche market: 67 percent of the apparel purchasing population fit that label, and the number is growing all the time.”

Indeed, Abercrombie stories are rapidly disappearing from malls. Since 2010, closed (or announced plans to close) more than 10 percent of its shops. The company’s stock has also taken a beating.

Considering these past few years have also been marred by the recession and rising cotton prices, it’s impossible to tell whether negative attitudes toward the branding are responsible for Abercrombie’s troubles. However, some of Abercrombie’s top competitors have done better in face of the same economic issues. They also offer larger sizes and promote healthier body images with the use of plus-sized models.

[From Starcasm]

The article in Business Insider goes on to say that H&M, which is thriving, has a plus sized line and is trying to accommodate customers who need larger sizes. There are plenty of stories on Reddit (which are impossible to verify since it’s Reddit) from people who claim they were employees at Abercrombie or its sister store, Hollister. They say that only the most attractive employees were allowed to work the floor, and that this was regularly enforced by upper management. We’ve heard these stories about A&F for some time, their advertising supports it too. (And all the models they use are white.) It just seems fitting that their sales are taking a hit, but as Emily at Starcasm points out, so are a lot of other mall-based stores and businesses in general.

Here’s another picture of Jeffries, from Wikipedia. I already know what some of you are going to say.

I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys. Some days they died repeated, violent deaths, other days they traveled to space or discussed my swim lessons and how I absolutely should be allowed in the deep end of the pool, especially since I was such a talented doggy-paddler.


I didn't understand why it was fun for me, it just was.


But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren't the same.


I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared. Horse's Big Space Adventure transformed into holding a plastic horse in the air, hoping it would somehow be enjoyable for me. Prehistoric Crazy-Bus Death Ride was just smashing a toy bus full of dinosaurs into the wall while feeling sort of bored and unfulfilled.  I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.


Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.

At first, though, the invulnerability that accompanied the detachment was exhilarating. At least as exhilarating as something can be without involving real emotions.


The beginning of my depression had been nothing but feelings, so the emotional deadening that followed was a welcome relief.  I had always wanted to not give a fuck about anything. I viewed feelings as a weakness — annoying obstacles on my quest for total power over myself. And I finally didn't have to feel them anymore.

But my experiences slowly flattened and blended together until it became obvious that there's a huge difference between not giving a fuck and not being able to give a fuck. Cognitively, you might know that different things are happening to you, but they don't feel very different.


Which leads to horrible, soul-decaying boredom.

I tried to get out more, but most fun activities just left me existentially confused or frustrated with my inability to enjoy them.


Months oozed by, and I gradually came to accept that maybe enjoyment was not a thing I got to feel anymore. I didn't want anyone to know, though. I was still sort of uncomfortable about how bored and detached I felt around other people, and I was still holding out hope that the whole thing would spontaneously work itself out. As long as I could manage to not alienate anyone, everything might be okay!

However, I could no longer rely on genuine emotion to generate facial expressions, and when you have to spend every social interaction consciously manipulating your face into shapes that are only approximately the right ones, alienating people is inevitable.


Everyone noticed.


It's weird for people who still have feelings to be around depressed people. They try to help you have feelings again so things can go back to normal, and it's frustrating for them when that doesn't happen. From their perspective, it seems like there has got to be some untapped source of happiness within you that you've simply lost track of, and if you could just see how beautiful things are...


At first, I'd try to explain that it's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it's more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can't feel anything about anything — even the things you love, even fun things — and you're horribly bored and lonely, but since you've lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you're stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void without anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is.


But people want to help. So they try harder to make you feel hopeful and positive about the situation. You explain it again, hoping they'll try a less hope-centric approach, but re-explaining your total inability to experience joy inevitably sounds kind of negative; like maybe you WANT to be depressed. The positivity starts coming out in a spray — a giant, desperate happiness sprinkler pointed directly at your face. And it keeps going like that until you're having this weird argument where you're trying to convince the person that you are far too hopeless for hope just so they'll give up on their optimism crusade and let you go back to feeling bored and lonely by yourself.


And that's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.

It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.


The problem might not even have a solution. But you aren't necessarily looking for solutions. You're maybe just looking for someone to say "sorry about how dead your fish are" or "wow, those are super dead. I still like you, though."


I started spending more time alone.


Perhaps it was because I lacked the emotional depth necessary to panic, or maybe my predicament didn't feel dramatic enough to make me suspicious, but I somehow managed to convince myself that everything was still under my control right up until I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn't feel obligated to keep existing.


It's a strange moment when you realize that you don't want to be alive anymore. If I had feelings, I'm sure I would have felt surprised. I have spent the vast majority of my life actively attempting to survive. Ever since my most distant single-celled ancestor squiggled into existence, there has been an unbroken chain of things that wanted to stick around.


Yet there I was, casually wishing that I could stop existing in the same way you'd want to leave an empty room or mute an unbearably repetitive noise.


That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was deciding to keep going.


When I say that deciding to not kill myself was the worst part, I should clarify that I don't mean it in a retrospective sense. From where I am now, it seems like a solid enough decision. But at the time, it felt like I had been dragging myself through the most miserable, endless wasteland, and — far in the distance — I had seen the promising glimmer of a slightly less miserable wasteland. And for just a moment, I thought maybe I'd be able to stop and rest. But as soon as I arrived at the border of the less miserable wasteland, I found out that I'd have to turn around and walk back the other way.


Soon afterward, I discovered that there's no tactful or comfortable way to inform other people that you might be suicidal. And there's definitely no way to ask for help casually.


I didn't want it to be a big deal. However, it's an alarming subject. Trying to be nonchalant about it just makes it weird for everyone.


I was also extremely ill-prepared for the position of comforting people. The things that seemed reassuring at the time weren't necessarily comforting for others.

I had so very few feelings, and everyone else had so many, and it felt like they were having all of them in front of me at once. I didn't really know what to do, so I agreed to see a doctor so that everyone would stop having all of their feelings at me.


The next few weeks were a haze of talking to relentlessly hopeful people about my feelings that didn't exist so I could be prescribed medication that might help me have them again.


And every direction was bullshit for a really long time, especially up. The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don't like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit.


My feelings did start to return eventually. But not all of them came back, and they didn't arrive symmetrically.

I had not been able to care for a very long time, and when I finally started being able to care about things again, I HATED them. But hatred is technically a feeling, and my brain latched onto it like a child learning a new word.


Hating everything made all the positivity and hope feel even more unpalatable. The syrupy, over-simplified optimism started to feel almost offensive.


Thankfully, I rediscovered crying just before I got sick of hating things.  I call this emotion "crying" and not "sadness" because that's all it really was. Just crying for the sake of crying. My brain had partially learned how to be sad again, but it took the feeling out for a joy ride before it had learned how to use the brakes or steer.


At some point during this phase, I was crying on the kitchen floor for no reason. As was common practice during bouts of floor-crying, I was staring straight ahead at nothing in particular and feeling sort of weird about myself. Then, through the film of tears and nothingness, I spotted a tiny, shriveled piece of corn under the refrigerator.


I don't claim to know why this happened, but when I saw the piece of corn, something snapped. And then that thing twisted through a few permutations of logic that I don't understand, and produced the most confusing bout of uncontrollable, debilitating laughter that I have ever experienced.


I had absolutely no idea what was going on.


My brain had apparently been storing every unfelt scrap of happiness from the last nineteen months, and it had impulsively decided to unleash all of it at once in what would appear to be an act of vengeance.


That piece of corn is the funniest thing I have ever seen, and I cannot explain to anyone why it's funny. I don't even know why. If someone ever asks me "what was the exact moment where things started to feel slightly less shitty?" instead of telling a nice, heartwarming story about the support of the people who loved and believed in me, I'm going to have to tell them about the piece of corn. And then I'm going to have to try to explain that no, really, it was funny. Because, see, the way the corn was sitting on the floor... it was so alone... and it was just sitting there! And no matter how I explain it, I'll get the same, confused look. So maybe I'll try to show them the piece of corn - to see if they get it. They won't. Things will get even weirder.


Anyway, I wanted to end this on a hopeful, positive note, but, seeing as how my sense of hope and positivity is still shrouded in a thick layer of feeling like hope and positivity are bullshit, I'll just say this: Nobody can guarantee that it's going to be okay, but — and I don't know if this will be comforting to anyone else — the possibility exists that there's a piece of corn on a floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed. And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it's just pointless bullshit or weird bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.

To me, Cinderella is the Superman of fairy tale heroines—I'm not mad, but the chick is BLAAAAAAAAND. That said, though, I'll probably go see Disney's live-action Cinderella adaptation (scheduled for release next year) because I'm a ridiculous woman-baby and magic is my food. Anyway, Richard Madden (a.k.a. the King in the North) has been cast as Prince Charming. Mmmmmmm, charmy!!!

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Before I take up the baton and add my perspective, I want to direct you to this essay at Sea Change Ripples, written by a good friend whose thinking on disability issues has both paralleled and influenced my own. This most recent essay is an important one, addressing the tendency of professionals who work with the disabled to receive hyperbolic accolades, and more importantly, to eventually believe their own hype. It's an important point, and I'd suggest that it also applies to parent advocates. And fancy pants authors.

Hero. It's a word that gets thrown around rather freely, particularly in the disability community. You read about hero teachers who change the world for a kid. You read endless stories and remarks about hero parents who do things that other parents say they could never do. (This is bullshit, by the way. No one is ready to do what special needs parents must do. You learn how, usually through screwing up dramatically, you figure it out, and you do so in a hurry because who else is going to do it? You figure it out and become a "hero", or you put a hose in the tailpipe of your car in the garage and you give up. Most of us heroes choose the first option, for some reason. Well, that's what makes us so heroic, right?) You read about heroes in the community who do heroic things like daring to treat someone with a disability like a human being who has intrinsic value.

We seem to have set a pretty low bar for heroes.

I think perhaps the most troubling use of that term is also the one that is the easiest to embrace. The heroes aren't those of us who care for kids with disabilities. At best we are sidekicks, or the eccentric scientist who creates crazy cool tools for Bruce Wayne. But he's still the guy who has to take those tools and go be Batman. If anyone is a hero, it's the child with a disability who steps up and perseveres and overcomes obstacles, right?

Except it's not that simple. It's not that heartwarming, and while it might make for a sweet story on the Today Show, you can decide for yourself if one more piece of inspiration candy ultimately represents a positive step forward.

Kids like Schuyler aren't heroic. They aren't "differently abled" (unless they can fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes). They aren't here to teach us how to be better people or to show us the way to God, although they most certainly do both those things. Schuyler wasn't born to turn me from an asshole to, well, perhaps somewhat less of an asshole. Her existence isn't predicated on her ability to inspire others. She does these things, but she does so largely without trying, and without any responsibility or expectation.

Schuyler doesn't want to be a hero. She wants to be a Schuyler.

Kids like Schuyler ultimately forge their life's path for themselves, either with the help of good people or despite the machinations of bad ones. That effort can look heroic. It can require years of patience, and feats of herculean personal strength. Able bodied people can look at that effort, and we can see heroes. But it's important to remember that when we do this, we are unintentionally making a statement, to ourselves and to the world and to our kids.

We are setting them apart. We are identifying them as different, and even if in our eyes that difference is a good thing ("heroes!") rather than a thing of pity ("people who are less"), it's still an isolating difference. Kids like Schuyler face the fact that they are different every day of their lives. Some of them simply feel different; others feel broken. And the hard truth is that both of those things are probably true.

Kids with disabilities aren't engaging in heroics. They are engaging in life, striving for the things that make us all human, even if they are different, even if they are impaired, and even if they are broken. When we fetishize that work, when we elevate their daily struggles into heroics, we miss the opportunity to give them places at the table. We give adulation when the most valuable thing we can offer instead is authentic relationships.

Superman is a hero, but does he have any friends? He's a superhero, even, but can he have those authentic friendships if he's not perceived as human? (He has his "Super Friends", true. But it's important to note that they, too, are superheroes. Outsiders. Heroes set apart.)

Does that loaded word, "hero", accomplish anything positive, or are we better off without it altogether?

Now, having said all that, I must confess something, a weakness stemming from fatherhood and perhaps from overbelief. I recognize the folly of the hero concept, but I don't always push it as far away as I should. I know better, but the honest truth is that sometimes Schuyler can feel a little like a hero to me. That's not just because she was given a brain that is literally about three quarters broken and yet she's ambulatory and smart and funny as hell and a swell percussionist and a natural poet. She didn't decide to make that busted brain work despite itself. That was just one of those inexplicable miracles of science.

Sometimes, though.

Sometimes I watch how she navigates the crap hand she was dealt, and it doesn't look all that bad to me, not the way she does it. Not all the time, or honestly even most of the time, but in those Chumbawamba moments when she gets knocked down and she gets up again. I don't always see how she does it, and I wish I had those deep wells from which she draws, the ones that power her through the hard spots, which are many. I feel that way even when I realize, very occasionally, that perhaps I do possess those deep wells after all.

Schuyler isn't a hero, and she shouldn't be lauded as one, lauded and separated and ever so slightly dehumanized. She's not differently abled, she isn't a special little angel of God, and she's not doing things that any other kid wouldn't try to do if placed in a similar situation.

She's not a hero, but she is a remarkable human being. If I absolutely required the services of a hero, I suppose she would do in a pinch.

From the Telegraph's Photos of the Day: A baby monkey, a lion cub, and tigers cubs play at the Guaipo Manchurian Tiger Park in Shenyang, China. [Reuters]

Squee!

When I was a kid I was perfectly happy to play by myself. I wasn’t a kid who needed friends, but it’s quickly becoming clear that Annie is. Annie longs for friends, but as the only child at home (for now), she spends most of her time with adults. This means that when Annie is around other kids she’s desperate to make them her friends, and it hurts her Daddy’s heart to watch her put herself on the line like that.

Last weekend we were in Laguna Niguel and Annie and I had a great time at the beach making sand castles and running away from the approaching tide. Soon, however, Annie found the sand and waves a lot less interesting than the kids around us. She focused on a little girl who was a couple of years older than her.

“Dada,” she said. “Can I go over to that girl and say, ‘Hi, I’m Annabel. What’s your name?’”

Since I had no idea if this older girl would be nice, I wanted to tell Annie to stay with me, but I knew that wouldn’t be right. So I swallowed hard and said, “If you want to, Sweetie.”

Annie walked over to the girl and I felt my heart leap into my throat. I was reminded of what it felt like back in my school days when I dared to cross the cafeteria (sweaty palms and all) to talk to a girl I liked.

“Hi, I’m Annabel,” Annie said upon reaching the girl. “What’s your name?”

The girl looked over, surprised, and said her name.

Annie lit up, then launched into a long monologue that couldn’t be heard over the crashing off the waves.

“You have to speak up, Sweetie,” I said, but after a few seconds the girl tired of trying to hear and sprinted off toward the water.

“She ran away,” Annie said, more confused than sad.

“I think her feet hurt and she needed to get them wet,” I said.

Later, the girl sat on the sand making castles, and Annie plopped down next to her.

“Do your feet feel better?” Annie asked.

(Face palm.)

The girl furrowed her brow, then played with Annie for a couple of minutes before running off again.

Annie and her “friend”

The next day we went to the pool where Annie, in her water wings, spotted a little girl who was also wearing water wings.

“Dada, can I go over to that girl and say, ‘Hi, I’m Annabel. What’s your name?’”

Again I resisted the urge to tell Annie “No” and nodded. She floated over to the girl and introduced herself, but the girl didn’t respond. Annie wasn’t going to give up so easily, though.

“I like your water wings,” she said. “They’re blue; mine are red.”

More silence from the kid who struck me as the shy type.

“Do you like knock-knock jokes?” Annie persisted.

Still no response. Annie frowned at me.

“She doesn’t talk.”

Luckily for Annie (and her Dad’s delicate heart), she later met the daughters of a friend of ours, and the three hit it off like gangbusters.

“Do you like knock-knock jokes?” Annie asked.

“Yes!” the sisters responded. The trio then proceeded to trade jokes, giggle, and dance around.

Playing with her friends

I’d be perfectly happy if Annie only wanted to hang out with her family members (who’d never reject her), but I know that kids need to branch out. Still, it’s hard to watch, especially since when I was little I never would have dared to go up to unfamiliar kids the way she does. Annie definitely is brave and outgoing like her mom, though, and that will serve her well in life. And she won’t have to pine for friends much longer – preschool starts just around the corner.

---

© copyright Heather Spohr 2013 | All rights reserved.

This content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

I don’t recall where I found this recipe, but I know it’s been many years since I did. In fact, I think Fred sent it to me because he spotted it in some forum and thought it sounded good. I used to make it all the time, and then the recipe disappeared from my recipe box and I hadn’t made it for years. Then recently, I stumbled across it again, and made it.

I had forgotten how good it is! In fact, when Nance and I made meatloaf earlier this year or last year, or whenever the hell we made it, I declared that that was my go-to meatloaf recipe forevermore. But the good thing about the CORE Salsa Meatloaf is that it’s got shredded veggies in it, which means it’s good for you!

If you’re on Weight Watchers, it is also Weight Watchers CORE program compliant. I’d love to tell you exactly what that means, but I haven’t got a clue. I assume it’s a good thing?

Anyway. Your ingredients:

Ground beef, egg whites, shredded zucchini, carrots, and onion, Worchestershire sauce, garlic, salt and pepper, oatmeal, and thyme. Also, salsa – but warning: I didn’t use the salsa because I had a better idea for the topping.

Really, aren’t all meatloaf recipes pretty much the same? Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix them up.

When the ingredients are well-mixed, shape them it all into a loaf and put it in a loaf pan; bake. As an aside (and to use our brand-spanking-new Amazon affiliate link, woohoo!), I have this meat loaf pan. I like it because it allows the grease from your meatloaf to drain through into the bottom pan, and thus you’re consuming less of the grease and fat. I CALL THAT AWESOME.

I veered away from the recipe. The original recipe says after the meatloaf has baked for 40 minutes, spread 1/2 cup of salsa on top of the meatloaf and cook another 20 minutes.

I didn’t do that, because salsa on meatloaf is just gross to me. I know, I’m a picky bitch.

What I did was steal the idea for the topping from the meatloaf Nance and I made, the 1/4 c. ketchup, 1/4 c. BBQ sauce and 2 T. brown sugar, spread that on top of the meatloaf and then cooked it another 20 minutes.

It was DIVINE.

Look – NO ONE takes a decent picture of meatloaf. IT CANNOT BE DONE.

You know how sometimes meatloaf is just a big, solid mass of meat? This meatloaf is much less dense, and it’s tasty and it’s chock-full of veggies, and really just SO good. Give it a try – shredding the veggies is a pain in the ass, but it’s very much worth it, I promise!

 

 

I was on the hunt for a maxi wrap dress, and decided to check out Etsy. I didn't find one I liked, but I found this skirt and I just couldn't resist. At first, I thought my life didn't NEED a big skirt like this, but I indulged and this is the third time I have worn it. I like it on weekends with an Old Navy vintage tee (white and charcoal) knotted at the waist, and think this summer will be cute with a tank, and maybe a different print scarf tied at the waist like a cummerbund. It has one pocket, the only think I don't adore about this skirt is that there aren't two. But reasonable price, looks just as it did online, didn't have to wait too long for shipping. I definitely favorited this seller and may look to have her make that elusive wrap maxi dress for me this summer!

There is an historic Art Deco theater in my community that holds a lot of good memories for people in our community. I remember seeing movies there when I was younger, and we love being able to walk down to see an indie hit or an Oscar contender.  The Greenbelt Theatre is up to receive a $100,000 grant from Partners in Preservation and we're in our last week of voting. We keep teetering between 4th and 5th place; I doubt we'll be win (we're up against the National Cathedral), but there's funding for runner ups. I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a moment to vote for the Greenbelt Theatre. The login process is pretty simple, anyone across the globe can vote, and you can vote every day. I thank you in advance!

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It's been a bad year for Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As one of the best-funded cancer organizations in the U.S., and the most recognizable face of the fight against breast cancer, the non-profit came under fire after it unceremoniously pulled its support from Planned Parenthood last year, sloppily handled the expected fallout, and then nervously apologized, re-pledging support for Planned Parenthood. After it was revealed that the Planned Parenthood pull was orchestrated by Komen's anti-choice Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Karen Handel, Handel defensively resigned, and proceeded to launch an ant-Planned Parenthood book called Planned Bullyhood. Shit hit the fan over at Komen headquarters, and people definitely took notice.

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Over at Jacobin.com, Kurt Newman has written a really fascinating piece about the wage slaves of the E! reality television show, Fashion Police. The program, which stars Joan Rivers, is one the E! network's most popular shows. And yet its writers, who work virtually full-time (30 to 40 hours per week), are paid a measly $500 a week -- with no benefits.

Fed up with this degree of rank exploitation, the show's writers got together and took an action that is rare and dramatic in any industry, let alone the entertainment biz: they engaged in a walk-out. Their strike, which began on April 13, is ongoing. The writers are demanding back wages and a union shop:

Twelve Fashion Police writers are seeking over $1 million in back wages from the show’s producers and Joan Rivers’s Rugby Productions. The Writers Guild of America-West’s statement alleges that the show “ignores the California laws that require an employer to pay hourly employees their regular wage rate for all time worked in an eight-hour period” and flouts the law requiring payment of overtime “for employment beyond eight hours in any workday or more than 40 hours in any workweek.”

Fundamentally, the Fashion Police writers are seeking to gain a union shop. The WGA-West has framed the strike as revolving around the question of E!’s open shop skullduggery: “There are two possible endings to this conflict. Either E! will agree to cover the writers under a Guild contract, or it will no longer benefit from the writing talents of the current staff of Guild members.”

The striking writers are very brave indeed, and their actions are downright inspiring:

For labor intellectuals who often reside in the intemperate zone that Jodi Dean calls “left melancholia,” it is a wonder to behold the resurgence of labor politics in a location that we usually presume to be a hotbed of toxic individualism. “Unions,” as [striking writer Eliza] Skinner stresses, “are our only hope for setting and maintaining standards, so that we can live off of our work.”

As the plight of these writers vividly demonstrates, blue collar types are not the only workers in our economy who stand to gain from unions. The white collar equivalent of the sweatshop is a reality, and white collar workers could also greatly benefit from the far stronger bargaining position that unions establish.

The Fashion Police writers' situation also dramatically illustrates another urgent problem in our economy: workers are not getting anywhere near their fair share of the economy's gains from productivity. In the U.S., between 1973 and 2011, productivity increased 80.4 percent, but the hourly compensation of the median worker grew by just 10.7 percent. This is one of chief causes of soaring economic inequality in our society.

The growing wedge between productivity and compensation is profoundly dangerous to our democracy. As John Maynard Keynes once said, "Nothing corrupts society more than to disconnect effort and reward." And yet in our economy, that disconnect continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Short of revolution, the only way to put a stop to this is to empower workers. And the most effective institution we have to empower workers are labor unions.

I applaud the E! writers and wish them every success -- as should every person who believes that workers are entitled to just compensation for the fruits of their labor. A campy reality TV show may seem like an unlikely staging ground for a workers' revolution. But hey, you've got to start somewhere. And unless you're one of 1%, their fight is your fight, too. Someone is making bank off that TV show, and it clearly is not the workers to whom it owes much of its success.

Before the days of Parks and Recreation, most of us had little-to-no idea who Retta was (how deprived we all were!) Even when she signed on to do the show, there was little promise of her breaking out and becoming recognizable. She was only a background actor until one day Amy Poehler decided to engage her in a little improv and Retta ended up hitting the scene out of the fucking park.

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These really should start ranking up there with Kiefer Sutherland and the Christmas tree or Bret Michaels smacking his head and falling down. Yes, that is Jim Toth throwing his wife under the bus. I wonder if she knows he did. She does now.

Everyone likes to talk shit abut Millennials. Old fogeys are always like, "You don't know the value of a dollar and a hard day's work!" Hey, all you oldies. As a millennial, I know what hard work looks like. One time, my parents didn't get me an iPhone when they just came out even though I worked really hard as a hostess at a restaurant. They told me I should pay for it myself, but like, I had to put my paycheck towards cute outfits for hostessing! I deserve an iPhone, Dad! Why can't you understand that?!

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When you think of "Fly Girls," do you think of skinny white Urban Outfitters models in overpriced babydoll dresses?

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The First Lady spoke at the White House Forum on Military Credentialing and Licensing in Washington, DC on Monday. For the speaking engagement, Mrs. O wore a grey pinstripe suit paired with a purple blouse. The accessory star: Miriam Haskell oxidized silver plated brass earrings with agate crystals and glass.