Small Boob Awards: Sandra Bullock

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It's Small Boob Awards time again! It's not every day, but once in a blue moon I come across someone who's on my boob team, and in the spirit of keeping up with Small Boob Solidarity, I like to mention that person on my blog. It's not much in the way of accolades, I know, but I'm sure they appreciate it.

Today's entry - SANDRA BULLOCK!

I'm a Bullock fan. Way back from the days of Speed and While You Were Sleeping, I've been very loyal. I applauded her dark turn in Murder by Numbers. I cringed when I saw her go through The Proposal and All About Steve. I forced my friends to watch The Net with me.

One thing I've never thought about her was that she was on my team. And by "my team" I mean "had boobs of equivalently tiny size as me". Even though this has been a theme of hers in her movies.

"He was a lot like me. Dark hair, flat chest."

Then I was going on an obsessive Craig Ferguson binge the other week and caught some of her hilarious appearances on his show. And almost every time she kept hitting the small boob comments!

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaKR0wY7rik]

 

So I'm not sure if that's been beaten into her over the years of Hollywood living, but regardless, I'm happy to have her on our team. Congrats, Sandra! Way to class up the joint.

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Derby Portraits

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Last weekend I was commissioned by some friends/fellow Charm City Roller Girls alums/Night Terrors to create a derby portrait for the magnificent PAIGE FAULT, who is sadly moving out of our fair city of Baltimore .... *sniff sniff*. I love doing derby portraits, and this one was especially fun - not just because I know/love Paige, but I also know her penchant for all things ridiculously cute.

If any of you out there are interested in a derby portrait, give me a holler!

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Derby Portraits

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Last weekend I was commissioned by some friends/fellow Charm City Roller Girls alums/Night Terrors to create a derby portrait for the magnificent PAIGE FAULT, who is sadly moving out of our fair city of Baltimore .... *sniff sniff*. I love doing derby portraits, and this one was especially fun - not just because I know/love Paige, but I also know her penchant for all things ridiculously cute.

If any of you out there are interested in a derby portrait, give me a holler!

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Book Review: The Outliers

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... Aaaaand I'm back! My website's up and running again. Whew! So, a couple of weeks ago, while my boyfriend and I were wending our way through the exciting mountains of West Virginia on our way to TriCon, we decided to listen to the audiobook version of The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

In the book, Gladwell analyzes the path to success for different people in different professions. What makes certain hockey players better than others? How did Steve Jobs and Bill Gates manage to skyrocket to personal computer stardom within the same timeframe? What kinds of work ethics are passed along through different immigrant ethnic groups?

At first I thought this would be a boring assembly of "what makes successful people super awesome that I could never aspire to". Birthright, opportunity, ingrained talent. Ho hum.

When I was in roller derby, I grappled with the issue of natural born vs. hardworking athlete. I figured that there were just some people who were born knowing how to skate and the best way to hit people. No matter how hard I tried, that would always be out of my reach. I didn't have it, and others clearly did.

Luckily, Gladwell wasn't satisfied with the explanation of what some had and others didn't. And upon deeper analysis, he discovered something that I find fascinating - all of the successful people he researched had to WORK at what they accomplished. Even those who were considered to have been born with something the rest of us weren't - an eye, an ear, a brain function - those same people could never rest back on their elbows and rely on their "natural" talents to get them through. In every single case, they had to work harder than everyone else in order to achieve their level of higher greatness. The talented cello player practiced more than the next highest talented cello players. The gifted athlete trained harder and longer than the other athletes. The phenomenally successful band practiced together every night in dive bars in Germany.

In each case, even though opportunity, place, year, and hell, even the MONTH you were born in could play an important part in how skilled you became at a given thing - it still had to be cultivated through hard work and years of practice.

And since I myself am a lifelong Hufflepuff, currently putting in the hours to try to achieve my dream of making comics for a living ... I find this encouraging.

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Connie Britton, Will You Marry Me?

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Because I like being behind the times, I'm currently obsessing over 2 shows that everyone else is so over - Friday Night Lights (season 1) and True Blood (season 2). I like to enjoy things at my own pace, awright?

I'd heard FNL was an amazing show despite the football, and my one friend highly recommended the show mainly because of the hotness factor of Tim Riggins. Honestly, I'm more of a Coach Taylor fan myself - I like myself a guy with big eyebrows and a perpetually furrowed brow. ANYWAY. One thing I love about the show so far is the relationship between Coach Taylor and his wife Tami. She puts up with all the football crap and manages to find a place for herself within the insane Texas town football culture without becoming a stereotypical Republican wife. She retains all her spark, sense, and her husband actually values and listens to her opinion on his job. I know I'm only on Season 1, so hopefully this doesn't change ...

Connie/Tami is one of those women I have a crush on/want to absorb their powers. I think she'll be a good influence. (Except for the fact that she makes me think that I can wear dresses and boots and my hair down and look fabulous in the summer heat.)

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Connie Britton, Will You Marry Me?

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Because I like being behind the times, I'm currently obsessing over 2 shows that everyone else is so over - Friday Night Lights (season 1) and True Blood (season 2). I like to enjoy things at my own pace, awright?

I'd heard FNL was an amazing show despite the football, and my one friend highly recommended the show mainly because of the hotness factor of Tim Riggins. Honestly, I'm more of a Coach Taylor fan myself - I like myself a guy with big eyebrows and a perpetually furrowed brow. ANYWAY. One thing I love about the show so far is the relationship between Coach Taylor and his wife Tami. She puts up with all the football crap and manages to find a place for herself within the insane Texas town football culture without becoming a stereotypical Republican wife. She retains all her spark, sense, and her husband actually values and listens to her opinion on his job. I know I'm only on Season 1, so hopefully this doesn't change ...

Connie/Tami is one of those women I have a crush on/want to absorb their powers. I think she'll be a good influence. (Except for the fact that she makes me think that I can wear dresses and boots and my hair down and look fabulous in the summer heat.)

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Part-Awesome, Part-Amazing ... it's Part-Time!

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It's officially the 2nd week of my new part-time schedule! Woot!

Well, part time in the sense of how the lovely company I work for defines it. I've been working 32 hours/week, but starting now I'll be working 24 hours/week.

Back in the piece I did for UMBC Magazine, I mentioned what a huge boon it was to my productivity five years ago when I moved from 40 hours to 32. Just having one extra day without a 2-hour commute + 8-hour workday = LOADS more art was created. That year was when I finished a 152 page graphic novel, self-published it, and started selling all of my books to comic book stores for the first time.

I've wanted to drop another day off my week for over a year, but hemmed and hawed over whether or not it was all that feasible. Losing all your benefits is a pretty scary thing. I'm lucky to have a boyfriend willing to take me on under his company's benefits (and we can without getting married, to boot!) , but depending on someone else still ooks me out.

To prepare for this big change in income, last year I divvied up how much money I'd lose on my paycheck in going to 24 hours. Then I set up a savings account to slowwwwly, over the course of several months, take out more and more of my paycheck deposit each week to account for the loss. I figured that was the least painful way I could get used to my new thriftier situation.

Right now I'm getting a lot of "Are you CRAZY??" 's and "When you come back to full-time ..." 's but so far, just thinking of all the good this extra time will do when dumped into the career I want to be my full-time gig (comics, illustration, design, y'know) . . . there isn't a regret in sight.

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Let's Do This Sh*t, FODMAPs!

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In the spirit of getting myself all amped up for my new FODMAPs diet (starting tomorrow .. *groan*), I've found a couple good resources I wanted to share with you guys.

Get a load of this super cute FODMAPs cheatsheet from Kate Scarlata's blog:

AND, in the spirit of being prepared, I created some meal planning forms I wanted to share with you guys. Along with tracking what I'm eating, I need to make sure I'm getting enough protein/vegetables throughout the day (which will undoubtedly be the hardest part!).

 

 

Here's the printable, double-sided PDF if you want your own copy.

And if anyone else has any kick-ass FODMAP resources, please share! I'm going to go start preparing ... wish me luck! And/or wine.

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Not Again

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How you guys doing? This is gonna SUCK!

(that's a Denis Leary quote for all you fans out there)

Remember last year when I was complaining about going to a nutritionist and getting all my cheese taken away? And then later, how it was progressing? Well let me catch you up on my food troubles since then. Don't worry, it's a pretty short list..

  • After 3 or so months eating gluten-, dairy-, and soy-free, I couldn't pinpoint what exactly helped/didn't help with the diet and what I should avoid.  So my nutritionist eventually (after much wheedling) let me start introducing dairy again, via a cube of cheese every meal, to see how I'd react to it. PARADISE. Surprise, I didn't have a problem (I'm practically 1/8th cheese in my genetic make-up at this point), and soon after i went back to eating pretty much everything. Well, except soy. I never trusted that pesky soy anyway.
  • Cut to the last couple of months, when I've been casually seeing a Gastroentrologist. So far I've just had blood taken (LOTS of blood), and breath tests administered (which, for those of you who don't know, consists of fasting for 12 hours and then sitting in a waiting room watching Air Force One with a bunch of dudes for 3 hours). You know, dabbling in getting healthy.
  • Sooo one of the breath tests let me know I have SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) - what? You didn't want to know that much information about me?
  • I researched SIBO and came up with the antidote - the SCDiet. It's pretty similar to the Paleo Diet the kids are talking about these days. No starches, no sugars, all fruits, veggies, meat.

So I rallied the troops and, relieved at last to finally have an answer, set about to figure out what it was NOW that I could eat. Since all bread/grains of any kind were out, that meant none of my trusty quinoa/rice/gluten-free pasta was an option. This week I tentatively started eating within those rules. Eggs and fruit for breakfast. Salads for lunch. Chicken and more salad for dinner. And cheese, glorious cheese, to get me through it all. I bought a SCD cookbook. Maybe this could work?

Then I visited my nutritionist, who told me everything I was trying to do was WRONG! And gave me a new list to follow, the FODMAP plan.

All of this switching is making me dizzy. Suddenly honey, which I've completed switched to as my go-to sweetener, is gone. Onions and garlic, my trusty lentil companions? Gone.

Now, I am relieved to get some gluten-free products back but SHE CHOSE TO MODIFY THE DIET BY TAKING OUT ALL OF ITS CHEESE. "Wait," I said, "it says right here I can have lactose-free cheeses!! Right here!!!!" And yet, she still crossed them out. With an angry pencil mark.

Just like that, all of my cheese gone again.

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The Gilmore Void

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I LOVED Gilmore Girls.

Ever since my friend Amanda turned me on to it a few years ago, about 4 seasons into it already being on, I was hooked. Sure, at first I was put off by all the fast-talkin' (only because it reminded me of Dawson's Creek era teen dramas). And I was still holding a grudge from when a woman I worked with at my college's art office told me I looked like Lorelei Senior ("I look like a MOM??" I had no idea she was a really hot mom). But I was soon overcome with admiration for the cleverness of the script, the individuality of the characters, and above all an engrossing tv show that didn't have to center around nonstop drama. I mean, there was drama. But there was also lots of storylines involving junk food and movie marathons.

After Gilmore Girls slogged through it's last season (I say slogged because the network kicked off its chief writer and creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino for the last one and BOY could you tell the difference), I wondered what, if anything, could fill the GG void. Then I heard rumors of The Return of Jezebel James and got excited -- Parker Posey AND Claire from Six Feet Under AND the creator of Gilmore Girls?? Match made in amazeville! . . . So of course, Fox cancelled it.

In the meantime, it's been a bit depressing watching Lauren Graham on Parenthood, trying to pretend her character Sarah could ever be as powerful and independent as Lorelei. Of course she can't. She has to be weak and indecisive. Ho hum. Not to mention Rory being all shades of crazy on Mad Men. Ugh.

But now this week - exciting news that a NEW Amy S-P show had landed - Bunheads!

It premiered Monday night on ABC Family, but even though I don't have cable anymore ($200/month bills are not my bag), there's a free preview up at the ABC Fam site. I had one friend tell me they loved it, and one hated it, so I felt I had the right attitude going into it. Sutton Foster plays the lead character Michelle - a Vegas showgirl who, tired after having her latest dream crushed, decides on a whim to run off with the sweet man who's had a crush on her and brought her flowers on a consistent basis. She winds up in a quiet small town and discovers the town's only attraction, and a place where she might make a new life - a tiny dance studio.

I was warned going in that it could be considered Gilmore Girls Lite, featuring a lot of holdovers - small cute town, strong witty female lead, Kelly Bishop, Gypsy from the repair shop ... but honestly none of those similarities to GG bothered me. For one, this isn't a mother-daughter thing. Michelle is very much on her own and not looking to be a mother to any of the dance studio girls. Also, Kelly Bishop's role in this is far from Emily Gilmore, the wealthy WASPish Grandmother - in this she's probably truer to her real self - a boozy, sassy older woman who used to be a killer dancer. The only thing that I found repellant in the GG comparisons was ... the MUSIC. The "la la la" theme worked fine with GG, I got used to it. But for it to be in this too? Uh-uh, that's where I draw the line.

So anyway, I loved the pilot. I super loved Sutton Foster (and the fact that I recognized her from Flight of the Conchords) and I'm so thrilled Amy S-P is back on the scene, we need more media creators like her out there.

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