New foods I have recently sampled:
fried oysters (pretty good)
halibut (not bad)
fresh fig (delicious, even better than in Newton form)
I think there was something else, but I forgot what it was.

Anyone else tried new foods lately?

Here's the list so far:

30 31 New Things
In Progress
Completed!

1. Don’t cut hair for a year
2. Reduce % body fat
3. Sensory deprivation tank
4. Indoor skydiving (or outdoor…?)
5. Don’t eat fast food all year
6. Simplify
7. Take a float trip
8. Dedicate myself to learning a new skill, or improving one I already know (aka "New Month's Resolutions"):
February = 2 sets of 10 full pushups
March = Improve flexibility
April = Improve dental hygiene (brush, floss, fluoride)
May =
June = Learn to belly dance
July = Pull myself together (posture, jewelry, dress)
August = Weight training
September = Practice bowling
October = CrossFit
November = Guitar Hero 3 goddess
December =
January =

9. Have a spa day – rubs, scrubs, wraps, baths, massages – all of it
10. Bury a grudge
11. Read a classic – The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
12. Teach a class (aka Conquer Fear of Public Speaking)
13. Learn how to cue (lights, sound, curtain) a theater dance performance
14. Take a real job, with a salary and responsibilities
15. GET OUT OF MISSOURI!
16. Try new foods: (fried oysters, halibut, fresh fig)

So, as you can see, I'm way behind. I need ideas!

Clocks are not Zen.

I'm continuing to practice acting like a lady. It was fun at first, but now it is getting kind of tedious, remembering to stand up straight, walk one-foot-in-front-of-the-other and wear a friendly face. I do think the effort is worth it, though. I'm reading I Don't Have a Thing to Wear: The Psychology of Your Closet, to learn how to dress properly for my body type. It seems that I've been doing pretty well for myself thus far, but I'll be a smarter shopper on my next outing. I have been inspired by the book to unearth my jewelery collection. I have some interesting jewelry, picked up on vacation, handed down from my grandmothers or otherwise acquired. I tend to wear the same things daily (like the small silver hoop earrings I've worn for almost ten years, except for special occasions), but I'm now trying to display my jewels daily. The main gist of the book is to wear clothes that make you feel good about yourself and give you confidence. This, I don't do so much. I go for comfort, but I'm realizing that confidence and comfort aren't mutually exclusive.

I just wish I didn't hate shopping so much.

Getting to Know All About You: How's your summer?

No one is mean/gutsy enough to call a stranger "assy", except maybe White Mackerel. Or Michael Malice.

I've enlisted the help of two people to help me spruce up my wardrobe. I already have two looks: the yoga/belly dance wardrobe and the casual/comfortable wardrobe. This month I plan to add this new pulled-together look. This is a sundress town, so I think adding a skirt or two and a 2-3 sundresses will do the trick. Just wearing the clothes, however, doesn't complete the resolution. I have to feel comfortable and look natural, not like a girl playing dress up or a tomboy wrestled into a dress. I practiced wearing a skirt and tank-top today.

The dress is just part of the makeover. The second part is presence. For this, I am working on posture and gait. For some reason, as a preteen I took some sort of "finishing" class where I learned to walk, sit, turn and carry myself like a Lady. It seemed so silly at the time, but fortunately I remember parts of the lesson and for the past several days have been concentrating on walking like a Lady. There's a lot to remember. Who knew walking could be so complicated? I don't do so well with good posture while sitting down, but it's early in the month yet, so I'll master walking before attempting to sit properly. Perhaps by the end of the month, I will have learned to walk without kicking myself in the ankles. I hope the bruises go away.

I don't know how I will know if I have achieved casual elegance. It's the sort of thing that observant people notice, but rarely comment on. How many times have you told someone they look elegant/confident/pulled-together? My hope is that at the end of the month, I'll have dressier clothes in my closet, that I'll be comfortable wearing them and that good posture and a more lady-like gait will feel natural.

Getting to Know All About You: (Off-topic) Grey or Gray?

Makeover Follow-Up: I have been working on the walk/posture thing for six days, and I don't think I've mastered it yet, at least not on the metro. I had the most uncomfortable metro ride ever on Thursday. It was crowded, so I couldn't sashay as much as I had hoped, and I had to stand in the metro by the door. Someone ground my elbow into the plexiglass divider - ouch! After a few stops, the car cleared and I was able to sit down and nurse my elbow. A balding, so-slick-he's-sleazy man stood in the aisle next to me and butt-wrapped me between two stops. (Butt wrap: when someone stands so close to a seated person that his/her butt cheeks envelop the seated person's arm.) What could I do? "Excuse me sir, you seem to have trapped my arm between your butt cheeks?" The person next to me was asleep, slumped over on my side of the chair, so there was no where for me to go. To add insult to injury, after the butt-wrapper moved away enough to release my arm, he elbowed me in the face while trying to get some candy in his pocket. I wonder if this is some subway fetish that I don't know about: butt-wrap a stranger, then elbow her in the face? I don't think a Lady with class and understated elegance would be butt-wrapped, ever. I have a lot of work to do.

There is a lovely Target right across the parking lot from the Wal-Mart, which has been a bright refuge for me. It serves the same geographical area and attracts a similar demographic, but it never seems crowded and I leave feeling better than when I entered. Too bad the distance and the traffic problems remain. I do, however, think there is a Target closer to where I live, but even it isn't very convenient and requires a special trip.

This is a new facet of city life that I'm discovering: a convenient location trumps lower prices. I suspect that I'll be a frequent shopper at the Rite Aid, CVS, Office Depot, Container Store and Ace Hardware that fall along my daily path. It might be money-expensive, but it is time-thrifty, and in a city like this, time is a more valuable commodity.

Getting to Know All About You: What store do you frequent most often?

There has been little progress on setting up the apartment. My kitchen is still mostly in boxes, with the exception of the essentials (plates, silverware, glasses, a skillet and a blender). I spent far too many hours shopping for new household things yesterday evening. I need to keep reminding myself that I want Scandinavian sparseness and a zen home. You can't buy that at Target. I'm feeling the need for another Not Buying It project!

Getting to Know All About You: What have you learned this week?

I was going to say that the salad my friend Purple Jambalaya made the other day simply rocked. But then I thought of Schoolhouse Rocks and thus the subject line was born.

I figured I would let you all know this recipe, which came from her cooking magazine (which was NOT Southern Living but something very similar... Gourmet?). If someone finds it, I will gladly correct and post proper authorship. For now, it is simply:

PJ's Spicy Salad

Dressing:
1/2 cup picante sauce
1/4 cup italian salad dressing
1/4 tsp cumin

Salad:
4 c spinach
15 oz can (rinsed, drained) black beans
1 c sliced mushrooms
1 med sweet red pepper
1/2 c sliced red onion
8 strips crumbled bacon
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced

Mix the dressing well. Keep separate from salad and allow people to serve themselves.

Totally not kosher, by the way, as you'll notice the bacon above. Kasher the meal by leaving out the bacon.

What you're probably wondering is "what's the difference between picante sauce and salsa?" Well, easy. Picante sauce says it's picante sauce on the label. Oh, and it's typically more pureed than salsa, so you don't have as many chunks in it.

I have to say I am NOT a salad person nor am I a vegetable person, but this salad was so incredible I had three helpings and totally picked at the rest of my plate of meat. Seriously. It was sooooooo good.

Obviously it would be best if paired with a strongly-flavoured Mexican-style dish. It's pretty powerful.

And making my mouth water thinking about it.

Getting to Know All About You: In other news, does anyone need a roommate or know someone that needs a roommate or knows of a place in DC that's cheap yet nice and close to the Metro or American University?

The most difficult thing to sell was my hammock. I paid $200 for it several years ago, but it was worth so much more to me, as a symbol of lazy, carefree days spent outside napping, reading, and enjoying the sounds of my neighborhood. I really can't complain, however, because GC sold his car. That is an even greater symbol of the lifestyle we're leaving behind.

I like living in the city. I like our apartment. I like our neighborhood. I like living between a busy street and a park with a playground. I do miss having a front porch, and neighbors who stop by to chat and enjoy quiet evenings. But I also enjoy watching commuters dressed in a range of business attire on my way to work in the mornings. (I especially like men in business suits on bicycles). It's just different, living in the city.

We're in the midst of setting in, buying and arranging furniture, coming up with creative storage solutions and falling into new habits. My work hours are more regular and I hope to make time for more frequent blogging. My new kitchen is only slightly bigger than my tiny Missouri kitchen, and it will take a while for me to settle into it. My new lifestyle doesn't allow for as much experimentation and elaborate food preparation, but instead lends itself to a faster and simpler way of cooking. I feel good about this change.

Getting to Know All About You: What's up with you guys? It's been so long...

Diet: Those shakes that some of you are poo-pooing are the best thing I've got going right now. They're fast, easy, tasty and packed with a good balance of nutrients, unless you overdo the spinach and pumpkin, in which case you'll turn orange. Besides the shakes, I've been eating chocolate and blueberries for breakfast and chicken sausages for dinner (and sometimes if I stay too late at Blue Bacon's place, they'll feed me steak). Tonight I was out for dinner, so I picked up a bbq chicken calzone from Whole Foods. I suppose the foods I'm eating aren't terrible, but my diet relies way too much on chocolate.

Exercise: Before I moved I had an easy-to-follow daily exercise routine, rarely taking more than 30 minutes. I was fit and strong, getting lean and feeling good. After I moved, I slacked off a bit, but got back on track, even altering my work schedule to accommodate a morning workout. That all fell by the wayside as I got busy at work and moved into my new apartment. There's a fancy gym in the building, but I've been too tired to check it out. My lean waist is softly padded again.

Sleep: I'm spoiled. I'm used to 9-10 hours of sleep per night. I know, most people need 7-8 hours, but until I become most people, averaging 7 hours per night makes me a tired little butterfly. Right after I finish writing this, I'm going to fix the A/C unit I ripped out of the window in the middle of the night last night because the rain dripping on it kept me from sleeping, then I'm going to take a shower and go to bed. By 10 pm, fingers crossed.

Man, would you listen to me go on? I think someone needs a wahhhhambulance (or 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep and a healthy breakfast!)

It's OK to slap someone on the chest or neck, but it ain't right to slap someone across the face. If you do, you're askin' to be broken up with. That's all I'm sayin'.

(Paraphrased, with expletives deleted).

It seems that since I moved to DC there has been a dramatic shift toward the eat-to-live lifestyle. Having a job with irregular hours coupled with an inconvenient city makes it impossible to plan out and shop for a week's worth of meals, much less to find time to cook every night. For these reasons, and also because I'm not in my own kitchen (yet!), I have stopped cooking. But not eating.

I eat efficiently. I eat a well-balanced meal, blended together and eaten with a spoon. Fats: coconut milk, avocado. Carbs: canned pumpkin, frozen cauliflower, frozen broccoli, frozen spinach. Protein: protein powder. Add one or more of the following flavors: frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, frozen raspberries, half of a frozen banana, cocoa powder, almond butter. Blend. Nutritious, delicious smoothie.

Sounds weird, right? I was put off by it too when I first heard of these concoctions from Blue Bacon, but in the short time I've been in DC, I've gone from disgust to daydreaming about what kind of shake I'll make next. I just ate a chocolate-blueberry-pumpkin-avocado-coconut milk-cauliflower-spinach shake. Yummy! It might be the best yet.

Today I climbed back into my skants after showering, wore them around the house/office all day, then ventured out to the downtown studio, by way of metro. The performed well, as expected. At the downtown studio, I tied a hipscarf around my waist and danced in my skants. I removed the hipscarf when I left the studio, took the metro back to my car and ventured out to Trader Joe's, where I bought a take-and-bake baguette, Brie, dark chocolate-covered pretzels, frozen broccoli and a chocolate-hazelnut Ritter bar. I took an adventure-drive on the way home, getting lost just so I could see if I could find my way (I did). Once home, I baked the baguette and cooked a turkey kielbasa, which I put on the baguette with the Brie. I cut up a mango as well. That's my day so far. Another skant-success!

What's a skant? Well, remember skorts? There were popular in the 80s, and looked something like this (though this one is much more stylish than the ones I wore back then):

Skants are like that, but longer:

That's my new work uniform. What do you wear to work?

That's all they said. For five stops.

I googled "closing salutations" and have narrowed it down to two: To a more predictable future! or Make today a masterpiece!. On second thought, those might be too optimistic. Also suggested, and rejected, were To your continued success!, which presumes past success, and Have a productive day!, which is too pushy and capitalistic. I'm all for capitalism, but if I were to go along those lines, I'd prefer to sign off with Efficiency.

So, I turn to you, dear reader, to offer suggestions for how I should close emails. The goal is friendly, professional and generic enough to be appropriate in most emails. How do you sign off on your emails?

Bring it,
Blue Artichoke