One Time I Made Snickers And They Tasted Like Golden Wind and Feather Boas.

In the best way possible, I promise.

Seriously, they were delicious. I couldn't even control myself, I ate like twenty of them. And the more I thought about it the more I realized all the awesome variations that I could make. And I just got progressively more excited about it until I had to excuse myself.

Also, Snickers is probably copyrighted, isn't it? Let's call them Chuckles.

One Time I Made Chuckles And They Tasted Like Golden Wind and Feather Boas.
(Nom nom nom.)

Also the caramel recipe was Stupid Easy. You should probably just make a batch of them to eat plain in addition to the ones you're going to put in your Fancy Chuckle Bars. It's below for your enjoyment, though of course you can just buy caramels which is also Very Easy. Less satisfying, though, I would imagine.

I made these for my boyfriend, because of how the quickest way to a man's heart is supposed to be through food. Well, the quickest way to my heart seems to be the same general route because I ended up eating most of them myself and was quite impressed with my own candy-making skill.

Fancy Chuckle Bar Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• Caramels
• A Holy Shit Ton of chocolate chips/chunks
• Nuts or other nice crunchy things (seeds, crasins, whatever)
• Graham crackers or other good solid bases (cookies, pretzels, etc.)
• Peanut butter or some other pasty goop (marshmallow fluff or extra melted chocolate are good here)
• Sprinkles! If you like pretty things.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Stack the graham crackers and the caramels, one on top of the other. Glue them together with peanut butter. 
• Add another layer of peanut butter on top and sprinkle nuts over it. Or press them in neatly, like puzzle pieces, whatever floats your boat. When finished, lay the bars well spaced on a sheet of parchment paper.
• Melt the chocolate over medium heat in a double boiler (which is relatively easy to improvise with two different sized pans) and mix constantly until smooth.
• Using tongs, gently pick up the candy bars and dip them in the melted chocolate. Make sure not to leave them in long or the caramel will start to melt. If this step makes you nervous, you can always use a spatula to dribble the chocolate over the bars.
• Sprinkle the sprinkles over the chocolate before it hardens. Once the chocolate is hard enough that it will not get on everything, cover lightly with another sheet of parchment paper and put the bars in the refrigerator or another cool place until they are fully hardened. 
• Nom on that shit. Go go go go.

Duty Is The Funniest Word In The English Language.

This is because it can be pronounced two ways:

1) The British pronunciation sounds wicked pompous and wonderful. I always think of Jim Dale shouting "Do your duty to the school!" in his McGonagall voice.* 

2) The American pronunciation sounds like doody. And since we are all five years old, we recognize that doody is a synonym for poop and we all find that highly amusing.

Seriously, if you don't think poop is funny, I would tend to suggest that you may not be enjoying life to its Full Potential.

Reasons why my sister and I get along so well.

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*Harry Potter Reference #394**
**Harry Potter Reference #17

Realistically, There's Never A Time That I Don't Want To Break Out Into Song.

It Is Very Hot.

The tops of my feet are sweating. Genuinely. I don't mean like they're a little stanky or whatever, but there are genuinely little droplets of Me-Juice gathering in and around my toe-hair follicles. Mmmmmmm.

That's the only part about being Indian that I don't like, really--we sweat a lot, and grow hair in all kinds of places where we're not meant to. And it's real hairs, none of this Wispy Blonde Shit. This morning I think I gave my roommate a scare when she walked in on me with Lady-Stache Removal Cream* all over my face.

Also, we have this oscillating fan in our room, and when it turns toward me I have this awful emotional conflict where I'm happy to have the breeze but my flyaways keep tickling my face and it is very uncomfortable. On the other hand, without the breeze I have no tickles but It Is Very Hot.

Oh God, the angst.

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*Not the actual name of it.

There Is A Lot Of Really Upsetting Stuff On The Internet These Days.

Especially as a woman. No, you know what? Especially as a person who gives a living shit about other people. Honestly. I have a mother. I have a sister. I have female cousins and friends and neighbors and coworkers and classmates and I Give A Shit about their well-being and safety in this world until we have some kind of set-up where allowances aren't made for boys because they are Meant To Be Dominant.

Which is why things like this simultaneously upset me deeply and give me a tiny bit more faith that one person--a parent, specifically--can make a difference.

You can read the whole post on the Huffington Post here, but I just really felt the need to emphasize a few highlights.

"For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.

"I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing....

"Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning."

Yeah, that's the not-so good part. Here's where it gets better though.

"There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize."  

 PARENTING. PARENTING. PARENTING.

"There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy."

But, ready? Here's where it hits home:

"The 'overarching attitudinal characteristic' of abusive men is entitlement"

Again, please.

"The 'overarching attitudinal characteristic' of abusive men is entitlement" 

Think about that for a second. The Steubenville rape trials that were all over the news a few months ago--in fact, most cases of rape (which, by the way, are overwhelmingly committed by men with women as victims) are really simply one individual taking control of another's body. The recently discovered abduction victims in Cleveland were all women, held captive by a man well outside his rights; incidentally, about 72% of the perpetrators of child abduction are male.

Good lord, it's been a rough year for Ohio.

I'm not trying to say that men are bad, or Ohio. That is not the case. Men and Ohio can be wonderful, as can women and other Midwestern States. However, there is something fundamentally wrong with a culture in which men as a group feel that they have a right to control and enforce their will. For some men, that means wonderful things like founding soup kitchens or community centers. For some unfortunate, sometimes sociopathic individuals, that means kidnapping, raping, or murdering another human whom they see as having less will than themselves. These victims are, often, women and children.

The article above really shows, I think, how much we as average citizens can really have a hand in changing the world. Even for one person. If I teach a boy not to rape, he will in turn spare a potential victim the humiliation and pain (both emotional and physical) of such a violation. If each of us teaches a boy not to rape, we create a world where no one ever has to suffer in this way.

It's that simple. Really. That simple.

What If Instead of Temperatures We Had Decade-Reenactment Days?

For example, if it was going to be in the 90s, the meteorologist would dress up like the gender- and age-appropriate Clinton family member and the radio stations would play exclusively Ace of Base. If it was in the 70s we'd all walk around in leisure suits and tweed and be passively racist.

Winter would basically just be Downton Abbey. Like, constantly. Until March. Then we'd do some Great Gatsby and transition right through to a reenactment of Kennedy's assassination in April.

Food for thought. 

Here Is The Thing About Introverts That Everyone Should Know.

I think that we--I do consider myself an introvert--get a bad rap as far as personality is concerned. There's this outlandish misconception out there that introverts are quiet, that we are followers. I am, frankly, not entirely sure where this rumor is coming from. I suspect it is the Extravert Mafia. Shhh.

But I am here to set the record straight. I am an introvert, loud and proud. And that's just it, right? Yes, I am loud. I am extraordinarily obnoxious in situations where I feel comfortable, and I believe that to be the case for most of my fellows. Fellowz. Bellowz.

However, being loud and fun wipes me out after a couple of hours, and if I don't get some alone time every day I do tend to turn borderline cannibalistic. 

This is something that, for me, was a hard lesson. I have to feel comfortable somewhere to be able to express myself, an as an introvert that is rarely the case in big groups or unfamiliar places.

But. I can adjust. We all can. People are people, personality types are far more flexible than they seem, and for me at least, after a few weeks even the bowels of Hell can feel like home. 

Today I had a moment like that. Starting a new job, living in a new place, working with 35 strangers: two weeks ago, I was a wreck. Two days ago, I was bent out of shape. Today, I led the group in song. I guess I just wanted to share how proud I am of myself today. For being me, when I haven't gotten to be for a while. It feels nice. Like sunshine.

I'm Watching The Muppets Treasure Island.

(That's a thing, right?)

Alone in the common room.

In French.

I had no idea this had Tim Curry in it. Do you know he had a stroke the other day? It was no fun.

Heeeeey, wakka wakka!

My Tummy Is Trying To Punch Me In The Face.

I've now been on a gluten-free diet for about three weeks, after dealing with gastro-intestinal and hormonal symptoms for years. Four weeks ago, my mother spoke to a coworker who mentioned, after hearing my symptoms, that I might be gluten intolerant (since a lactose-free diet didn't help). So I went on the diet. After taking this online test. And getting this result:

I totally get that an online test isn't reliable, and I'm not self-diagnosing, I promise.

I proooomise.

But I went on the diet just to see, and it's been working, for the most part. Until now. And I'm not sure why that is. I've scheduled a blood test for July, which is the next time my insurance would cover an appointment. Fingers crossed I get a decisive answer.

This is Just Genuinely The Most Beautiful Thing I've Seen in a Billion Years.

So the whole Boston bombing thing. That happened. And it was horrible and scary, and watching helicopters from my window and seeing smoke plumes rise on such a beautiful day and the utter silence in which fifty of us gathered around a small television monitor for hours, unable to tear ourselves away--it was awful. Nothing damages a community as much as that kind of public violation.

And of course, I count myself as One of the Lucky. And I recognize that we can grieve and cry and hold one another but we must still understand that we as a city, as a nation, we are One of the Lucky. One bombing, in one city, with fewer fatalities than I have fingers--it's awful, but the fact that this event makes national news is remarkable and makes us very, very fortunate.

And of course, as a Bleeding-Heart Liberal with more values than a calculator, I cannot revel in the deaths of more people, regardless of their wrongdoing. And I have a lot to say about the way the ensuing manhunt was handled, which will no doubt be laid out in a post to come.

I can, however, take great pride in a city whose healing and compassion stretches above and beyond what anyone could have expected. Walking past a church on Boylston Street today, I was struck by the beauty of these ribbons. Each one has a prayer written on it--the fence was covered with them for half a block at least. 

But here's the best part, are you ready?

Though it had, supposedly, been started as a response to the bombing, many of the prayers here extended beyond that--to loved ones far away, to victims of other tragedies in the US and around the world, and to total strangers, wishing simply Health and Happiness. Could anything, really, be more wonderfully representative of Human Kindness? 

The answer is no, by the way. Just so we're clear. 

My Pathetic iPhone Camera Does Not Do Justice to the Gorgeous Sunshine in the City Today.

Honestly, it doesn't. I don't know if any camera ever could. I don't know if the technology exists for a camera to understand the kind of golden happiness spring brings to a grimy street corner. Or I'm just not a very talented photographer.

But I try. 

There's an older, tattooed man scribbling in a blue binder at a table just outside the window where I sit. He keeps pouring himself what looks like coffee out of a Nalgene and into a plastic cup. 

Occasionally, he stops to pull a handful of muffin out of a Dunkin Donuts bag and toss it across the sidewalk for the birds. He keeps hitting the Indian family next to him with crumbs. They were quite tolerant until he lit a cigarette. Shooting him dirty glares all the while, the family rose and moved inside to a table right behind me. I don't mind. Their daughter is absolutely adorable.

I LEARNED HOW TO USE SEASHORE.

Which is, to the best of my knowledge, a relatively crappy photo editor that I downloaded for zero dollars. But I can do fun things with it, which is how I ended up with circular pictures on the side over there somewhere ---->

Boo-yah.

Womanifestos. Or, When I Grow Up.

I had the scary realization the other day that When I Grow Up, for all intents and purposes, was a year and a half ago. Maybe a year and a half from now, if we want to get technical, but I'm somewhere in this three-year-span of being a Newly Minted Adult.

And I realized, of course, that a lot of the things I wanted to be When I Grow Up are now Things That I Am Not. And I wondered if Little Me would be disappointed in Big Me. And how boring a person Big Me seems to have become.

And then, of course, as she always does, The Militant Baker came to my rescue.*

So, I went to the bathroom mirror and stood up on a stool so that I would be Tall and Intimidating, and I very sternly told my reflection to Go Fuck Yourself. Because, as TMB so eloquently put it:

i am the best thing thats ever happened to me.

i am the best things thats ever happened to you.

if you can't recognize that, go waste someone elses time.

I cannot continue to take myself for granted. Confidence is key. If I want to take on the world, I have to be able to open my own doors, locked or otherwise.

Maybe one day, I'll write my own Womanifesto. Maybe one day I will be Someone. But from here on out, I will not let myself--or anyone else, actually--act as an excuse not to be Everything I Ever Wanted To Be.

Because I am a dancer, a poet, Queen Regnant of Anything I Choose, a mother-fucking tone deaf rock star.

Hear me roar.

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*As a side note, if you are reading my blog but not hers, you should immediately kick yourself and go read hers instead. She is amazing in every single way.

This Is My Little Sister.

I miss her very much, which would be why I'm putting her on the Internet. She is very beautiful and hilarious.

I'm Allergic to Cats So if I Were to be A Cat Lady I Would Have to Buy Fourteen Bald Ones.

This is, in my estimation, the fourth blog I've begun in my lifetime; serial blogger is an understatement. But here I am. And so, with no destination in mind, I forge ahead. Or something along those lines.

Here is a picture of a hairless cat.