Dark Places

I want to do a post on Chicago, and on my new kitten family, but I just finished Gillian Flynn's Dark Places (and am currently in the middle of Sharp Objects) and she is so dark and her prose is so beautiful and I am in love with this author. Her thesis on women having ugly souls and that they are capable of evil things was one we talked about in my publishing class, and totally worth the read. Basically, as a feminist she also wants to show that women can also be villains and that femininity does not absolve you of becoming the bad guy in the story. More than that, as a woman you can be the bad guy without an excuse related to how a man treated you in your past. Totally without man's influence, a woman is just as capable of evil as a man is.

The question she poses is- why is it so much more unsettling for a woman to do evil things without motivation, when it's nearly always expected that the bad guy in a scary movie will be a man (and often with no motivation other than he's the designated antagonist)? More than that, what is the "feminine" evil? The answer is Amy Dunn, but I'm still searching for her diabolical equal.

Dark Places doesn't tackle this nearly as much as Gone Girl does, but I think Sharp Objects will get back to that idea of feminine villains and I'm excited to see what she does with it.

Anyway, the trailer came out and while the book wasn't as good as Gone Girl, I think Dark Places cinematically will work better as a movie. Definitely a little more unsettling scary than a thriller mystery, and not something I would take my mom to see.

Current Workout Mix

My current workout mix is starting to get stale, so if anyone can offer some suggestions I would greatly appreciate it! (I'm not adding video to each of these, but the videos I do add are from when I decided I loved the song. Almost always from movies).

1) Bangarang -Skrillex (I know, so old, but it's the best warm up song)
2) Irresistible -Fall Out Boy
3) Jungle - X Ambassadors and Jamie N Commons

4) Angry Inch - Neil Patrick Harris (from Hedwig and the Angry Inch)
5) Android Porn - Kraddy
6) Work Bitch - Britney Spears

7) Mug Shot - Max

8) The Few that Remain - Set Your Goals
9) Invaders must Die - The Prodidgy

10) Show Me How your Burlesque -Xtina
(you don't need to see a video for this one. just go watch the movie.)


Basically any Fall out Boy, Skrillex, or The Prodidgy always is in rotation. Say Anything isn't on my phone or they would have their own playlist. I also get really into soundtracks for whatever action movie I just watched -- the score from Xmen: First Class got rotated around for a LONG time, as does The Hunger Games every time a new movie comes out.

So what should I be listening to?

Paper Towns (As long as we don't die, this is gonna be one hell of a story)

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.” 

     -A quote that I love because it so perfectly sums up Looking for Alaska, and the following quote very easily could have been Miles referring to Alaska:

“The fundamental mistake I had always made - and that she had, in fairness, always led me to make - was this: Margo was not a miracle. She was not an adventure. She was not a fine and precious thing. She was a girl.”


"I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”


And, in possible the most romantic exchange between teenagers in the history of YA:

“I didn’t need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back.”

New Fashion Inspiration: Felicity Smoak

Every time I start a new tv show, my outfits are usually only a few weeks away from getting an update, and Arrow has been no different. Felicity Smoak, computer genius and corporate Velma, is the grown up sexy CW version of the awkward computer nerd my high school guy friends would have dreamed of. 

Her wardrobe and personality transition really well with my Jessica Day (from New Girl) outfits, since she's mostly just a more grown-up computer-nerd manic pixy dream girl. If you smoothed out the kindergarten teacher into a corporate secretary/IT babe, that's what you get with Felicity. 

This means I kept the fit-and-flare dresses but traded some of the colored flats for neutral colored heels, and swapped the cardigans for blazers (there are some AWESOME deals out there on blazers right now). The skater skirts stayed, although I also added some pencil skirts to my repertoire. 

Both characters rock their patterns and polka dots, and I'm still on the hunt for that perfect top, but Felicity is also queen of pink lipstick. My roommate in college helped me on that mission, and while it isn't my favorite color for myself (Jessica Day's makeup makes a lot more sense for this brunette with bangs) it is fun to try something new every once and a while.

She also makes some great earring choices. My cousin Barbara usually gets me my best earrings; I have some in the shapes of dangling arrows, and another pair that are sterling silver thunder clouds. Felicity has a lot of dangling feathers/leaves earrings that so far I haven't found close enough copies(that aren't $300) but my earring game has been coming on strong in its own way and I've embraced more gold jewelry in my wardrobe.

So that's where my new look is heading! Manic Pixy Dream Girl in her corporate, grown-up job. Seems only fitting. 

Stephen Vincent Benet

"There is a wilderness we walk alone,
However well-companioned."

Way Behind-- What I've Been Doing

Every so often I think of my blog and how long it had been since I touched it, then something else comes up and it continues to be ignored. So in the interest of writing SOMETHING and getting back on the horse, here are some tiny updates (aka, excuses for why I've neglected my writing)

1) Harvey is officially middle-aged! We hit 50,000 miles a few days ago. He and I were previously in a bit of a spat and I was in the process of getting him switched with a Mazda 3, but we've since resolved our issues. I would like to think we're really bonding again, as he has heard my collection of muppet impressions as well as my mad Busta Rhymes flow.

2) Fuzzy Brain- My new doctor gave me a new prescription that has basically rendered me incapable of being a useful person, which has me pretty down. I can't concentrate, I can't sleep, I have no appetite, and I may as well not have a personality. Replacing this doctor with a new doctor in a few weeks, which makes me feel like I'm taking a step in the right direction. My Aunt Joanna gave me some very good advice-- "the doctor works for you." David Greene taught me not to take shit from the Mazda dealership, but Joanna Jones taught me not to take shit from this new doctor.

3) Along with that "not taking shit" life plan I've been working on, my manager's boss (I still don't know the right way to phrase that) sent me an email saying that my boss is the pit bull and I am the bull dog. "And, I don't mean this in a bad HR issue way. What I mean is that you are tough and don't give in!"

I think of all my personality traits and all the character building I have done, being tough is the highest form of praise, and it made my day.

4) As for being tough- I went to my first MMA class, and I loved it. Obviously I was nervous at first, but that's as good a reason to do something as any. Unfortunately, it looks like I won't be able to afford a full gym membership to the martial arts academy, but I got to have a semi-private lesson with a professional boxer that learned from a Russian olympic trainer, and he told me I did really well.

Well enough that I was then invited to stay for the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class. I didn't love that one as much-- it's more outside of my comfort zone (so a very good reason to do it, I suppose) because it's grappling on the floor, so you're way up in each other's personal space. But I did learn how to do a triangle and an arm bar and some of the basics, so now I guess I'm a baby bad ass.

5) And my reading? I'm still audio-booking "What I was Doing While you were Breeding," the memoirs of a tv writer who went on crazy travel adventures rather than settle down and get married. I would definitely suggest it to my wanderlusting friends, as well as anyone else that needs validated in adventures being just as important to their 20s as getting wifed.

6) Speaking of Travel- I was supposed to go to NYC last weekend, but my flights got delayed to the point of cancelling the trip, which was a bummer. But I'm going to Chicago for work in two weeks where I'll be seeing a show at Second City, I'm going to Nashville in April and will get to see John Mulaney, and in May I have a trip to Seattle. Getting a southwest credit card may have been the best adult investment I've made.

7) Where I am in being an Adult- I came home from my MMA class last night and there was a huge bug on my ceiling. HUGE. Nothing says living alone like having a big bug out of reach, but when you live alone, the alternative (leaving the bug to attack you in your sleep) is no better. So that bug destruction felt pretttty grown up.

Looking for Alaska: My Favorite Quotes.

I am not interested in talking about the movie news regarding my most favorite book of all time, but in honor of always wanting an excuse to talk about it, here are some of the quotes that always stick with me. Know that there are so much more that I love that I couldn't include because I would not spoil this book for anyone,  but that most of the quotes (although my favorites) are also ones that make me cry and feel and without the whole story will not mean nearly as much to you as they do to me.

“When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”


“Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home.”

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” 

“Don't you know who you love, Pudge? You love the girl who makes you laugh and shows you porn and drinks wine with you. You don't love the crazy, sullen bitch.”

“Scared isn't a good excuse. Scared is the excuse everyone has always used.”

New Fitness Goal

I've been watching a lot of Arrow lately, where the actor does his own stunts which are apparently humanly possible.
So when I can't even figure out how to use all my new gym's equipment, I feel a lot like this: