Tweet and Gawker Post of the Day

I want to take both Hamilton Nolan and @toastedsubz on a date, separately, drink no more than two glasses of Chardonnay, express for each of them my abiding admiration and kiss them on the lips (no Frenching) before dropping them off before midnight. Per @toastedsubz, see above.

And Hamilton Nolan, for this:

Pining for Spanish Cuisine

After polishing off an Amy's frozen dinner (tofu paneer) in the saddest and most single-girl of fashions, and thanks to the "pause" button on streaming Netflix, I came up with a lovely Spain-inspired side dish tonight.

One of my very favorite quick vegetable recipes is from Catalunya and is pretty self-explanatory: spinach with raisins and pine nuts. But wait, what if your grocery store doesn't have pine nuts, or you're too cheap to buy them? Solution: have a roommate. David, my current and temporary roommate, supplied some of the most important elements of this recipe. Without even trying!

Ingredients:

Fresh Spinach (preferably big-leafed, but whatevs)
About a serving or so of raisins (possibly your roommate's!)
Some pine nuts (or anything crunchy--for instance, pita chips, also your roommate's)
Salt
Parmesan cheese
A little olive oil

Splash some olive oil in a hot, hot pan. Don't let it smoke or burn. Toss in a handful of raisins. (Note: if you like, you can soak the raisins in a glass of very hot water for five minutes before sauteeting them. But that requires some planning and is not in the spirit of this dish, so get real.) Let the raisins puff up and as they puff, add your crunchy things. If they are pine nuts, add them all. If they are, ehm, pita chips, add for instance half of them, and add the other half at the end of the whole process. Crumble the chips before you add them! Don't even try to use some kind of flimsy chip like Lays or something.

Sautee the raisins and the crunchy element together for about a minute. Rinse your spinach and without drying the water off, put it on the pan. Add salt to taste. Cover the pan and let the spinach cook for three minutes. Mix it all up and make sure the spinach is cooked almost as much as you want it to be. Then put on a handful of parmesan cheese, stir until melted, and serve.

You're welcome, Marisa.

Stah-RONG Case Against "At the End of the Day"

"This video will make you die of secondhand embarrassment." via Gawker via The DailyWhat viaYouTube (phew!)

Phrases to Phase Out IMMEDIATELY

A list presented without commentary

1. "At the end of the day"
2. "Does that make sense?"

If you like this blog

You can leave a damn comment, MARISA!!!!

Root Canal

So, I just had a root canal. Before I went in, I defo thought there was a chance I would die. But I didn't die, and the endodontist was really nice, and it was fast and painless. If you ever have to have a root canal, don't freak out because it's not that bad. Unless you're in Spain! I almost had one there, and the dentist was freaking terrifying. Let's walk through it.

1. Receptionist had no computer. All appointments and notes were written and filed (?) I repeat, nothing was electronic--it was all written in a big book. Hell. No.

2. There was a sad, dirty little aquarium in the waiting room. Not sanitary, Dr. Roberto!

3. The waiting room was full of old people who looked like refugees from communist Russia.

4. They took like twenty x-rays of my head, which I know for a fact is not healthy, especially if I decide to have kids one day.

5. Spanish dentists don't have two neat words for the root canal procedure. Roberto, it's simple: root. canal. He was so dramatic about it. This is basically what he said:

"Tienes por lo menos siete caries. Aqui por atras voy a matar el nervio. Tienes que volver sobre cinco o seis veces."

Oh HELL NO! I have seven cavities? Doubtful. With the amount of candy I eat, I would be able to tell if I had seven cavities. Not buying what you're selling, señorito. And you're going to kill a nerve in my head? Can we go over this? Now you're saying I have to come back five or six times? And wait with all the babushkas and the dead fish floating on the surface of your aquarium? No, sorry, receptionist you can just erase out my name from your notebook because I am due back in the 21st century.

Anyway, the dentist and hygienist at this place in Frisco were very tolerant as I explained all of this in what amounted to an outburst, and they used all their digital x-ray gadgetry and a mouth microscope and a little rubber shield over my mouth and this that and the other, and before I knew it, we were done.

America wins!!!

Shower Treats

As I showered just now, I was reminded of something a boy once said. After he used my shower, he came out looking particularly refreshed and said, "I treated myself to some of that rosemary mint shit you had in there." He went on to explain how much he loved showering in girls' showers because of the trove of beauty and bath products inside. I totally saw where he was coming from--dude's showers, as we all know, chronically lack conditioner, shampoo worth more than .1 cent per ounce, and loofahs.

So after Bikram yoga today, I was thinking. I'm going to treat myself! I always save travel sizes of shampoo and stuff thinking I'll use it on my next vacation--but then I never do, because who wants to use old travel size stuff when you can use the hotel's new stuff? And if I'm staying somewhere cheap (which is, if I'm solo, always) then I will probably end up using a bar of soap on my hair but whatever. There is a shoebox full of travel sized bath products downstairs and it is depressing as hell.

So, anyway. I pulled out some random little packets of Fekkai shampoo and conditioner and some Molton Brown peach and pink grapefruit shower gel. I used them, and now I feel REFRESHED and like I just had a little spa moment. Spa moment on a regular day!

Which reminded me, Molton Brown and Jo Malone are obviously different brands, but once I briefly dated this British guy and for Christmas he gave me a Jo Malone shower set of gel and lotion. It smelled citrus-y and expensive, two of my favorite things to smell like. I wasn't trying to be rude, but I left these things in his (very, very clean--weirdly clean) bathroom for future use. He had given me his key after like two weeks, so come on. This was a totally reasonable move on my part. And I used them diligently, and smelled fresh. And when he broke up with me--the DAY before Valentine's Day, like a jerk--he brought a bag of my shit from his apartment. In it, the Jo Malone stuff was nowhere to be found! Every other article of my crap from his place was in this bag except for the Jo Malone stuff. Cheeky, as they say. Cheeky. Also, 90% of the UK is inbred.

Re-Patriated & Resurrecting the Blog

(me on a beach in Valencia)

OK, people. I am back from Spain. I know I went dark there for a while but let's be real: no one noticed. This is not pity. This is reality. I am a realist!

It's not that living in Madrid was boring, because it wasn't. I was just too busy living the high life to blog. If the high life consists of riding an inter-urban bus every day.

But now that I have more than five English-speaking friends, I am back to blogging. Because some people are working at jobs (not me) and some jobs are boring, and I know how it goes--you go to your normal websites every day, you accrue a lot of credit card debt due to Shop It To Me and RueLaLa, and you get bored. There isn't enough work to do but you have to be at your computer, and so I'm offering you something else. A new blog. It is about nothing.

Nothing!

You will probably find on this blog: Rants, photos of stuff I like, myself, and clothes I want to buy, poems, witticisms from my dad, Dr. Steve, maybe some bragging.

Currently I am in a state I like to call "pre-employment," so one thing I do to fill my time is go to Bikram yoga class every day. Something you should know about Bikram yoga is that it's practiced in a room heated to 100 degrees, so you sweat a lot during class. So, to enjoy the class more, I like to be really hydrated, which means drinking 3-4 liters of water before class. When I hit the third liter I get kind of lightheaded, which I think maybe is a bad thing. I am on the third liter right now, and I am experiencing a new sensation I haven't had before from drinking water, and it is nausea. Dr. Cindy (my mom) is always warning me of "water poisoning"--drinking too much water--and I'm always like, Mom, that is dumb. But now I'm wondering. By the way, she is a PhD, not a medical doctor, so, you know. Keep that in mind when you make your judgment about water poisoning.

I'm also listening to Robyn's "Dancing On My Own" on repeat, loudly. IT IS SO GOOD, STILL!