Game Plan

I’m sitting here in my bathrobe and a bright orange Apivita carrot mask. I found rocket and spinach leaves and organic tomatoes in the fridge. I have Yiruma scores by the piano. I have a threat from William to finish my section of the report by this afternoon.

Today is a day off from absolutely everything (by which I mean of course work and uni). So I’ve made a plan.

Task one. Complete my sections of the report. Finish part A first, then results and discussion of the experiment.

Task two. Make salad for lunch.

Task three. Make notes on findings and recommendations for tomorrow’s tute.

Task four. Use whatever time left to write up PG notes.

Task five. Learn Love Me.

Active Moist

As I opened a sample pack of moisturiser, I was reminded of an ex.

This ex swore by Dermalogica Active Moist. He also swears by taking exasperatingly long showers and moisturising his entire body afterwards. I don’t know exactly how long this routine takes but the fact that I began pondering whether he had to wash his hair strand by strand, and managed to finish a 500-gram packet of M&Ms while writing up 20 pages of notes should be some indication. Oh and before he stepped in the bathroom, the sun was still up.

Most disappointing of all was his lack of any appetising fragrances upon re-emergence. I’m guessing hypoallergenic products.

Another ex routinely treats his snail-trail to Nads, and asks me to pluck his stray eyebrow hairs. And uses his mother’s concealer. I probably should have mentioned that one first. They don’t even share the same skin tone.

Surprisingly, the boyfriend most frequently accused of being gay is actually the one that pampers himself the least. But then again he is known to study his own nudity in front of the mirror and incessantly moan about an invisible paunch. I have also inadvertently discovered photos of himself wearing a white button-up shirt, tie and black jeans, taken in front of his mirror and stored in his computer.

I just remembered that this boy uses Clinique eye contour gel. Well if he’s gay the joke’s on me.

I think it was Yves Saint Laurent that has a cosmetic line for men, consisting of eyeliner, blush, lipstick and more. The promo shoot featured perfectly sexy men turned transvestites. Attractive.

My question is, where do you draw the line? Everyday brands like L’Oreal, Natio and Clinique have a men’s skincare range, which I think is great because without them we assume that men either don’t wash, or still stash bottles of Clearasil from high school. Neither do I have anything against the vast range of hair-products saturating spikes and mohawks worldwide.

Cosmetics, on the other hand, definitely treads the line. The moderate use of concealers (provided the right shade) and anti-shadow sticks is understandable because bad skin is attractive on no-one, but using make-up to accetuate features I find a little odd.

As for all the boys moisurising their thighs as I speak – I don’t even moisturise every night. Unless you have a dermatological condition you don’t need 24-hourly hydration. We do it because we want to keep ourselves silky smooth. There is no point for you to be silky smooth because you’re hairy. And if you’re not hairy because you wax or shave, you’re trapped inside a woman’s body, and not in the way you’d want.

Midnight Highway

So go past the lights and all the excuses.

You could have left, sincerely yours.

Don’t you think it’s obvious that I want to say more?

But anything too daring to say to you,

Will be said in this letter, then burned away,

So you never realize, I’m here.

Influence of high levels of vitamin E on semen parameters of cocks.

Danikowski S, Sallmann HP, Halle I, Flachowsky G. Influence of high levels of vitamin E on semen parameters of cocks. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition (Berlin). 2002 Dec;86(11-12):376-82

This study was an attempt to find whether the reproductive performance of cocks would be influenced by oral administration of different amounts of dietary vitamin E over a long period of time. For that purpose 60 cocks were divided into five dietary groups of 12 animals each, and supplemented with 0 (control group), 100, 1,000, 10,000 or 20,000 IU alpha-tocopherol/kg diet, respectively, over a period of 12 months. The effect on semen parameters and biochemical parameters measured in pooled semen samples and the weight of the testes were determined. The weight of testes decreased with increasing amounts of supplemented vitamin E. Volume, pH, colour, consistency and motility were not influenced by the diets, but density of ejaculate (sperm/microl), total amount of spermatozoa and morphology of sperm were significantly lowered by increasing amounts of supplemented vitamin E. The alpha-tocopherol concentration in ejaculates increased significantly in relation to the diet whereas phospholipid content and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) of the semen samples decreased significantly with increasing vitamin E supplementation. The reproductive performance of cocks was negatively influenced by high doses of vitamin E although decreased TBARS indicated rising oxidative defence.

Conclusion: Vitamin E is bad for your cock!

20th May

Today is me and Jezebel’s first anniversary.

Honestly, I didn’t expect it to last this long. Especially when he tried to break up with me. Twice. Must be embarrassing to keep crawling back. I may have begged for it, but that’s completely beside the point.

We joked that this year should be break-up free. Joking in the sense that this is such a ridiculously low standard for a relationship … I hope.

Anyway, in hindsight most of the problems we’ve had were caused by me. I’m hesitant to mention any of them in case it sparks up any past resentment and I’ll find myself sleeping on his doorstep tonight. I’m also hesitant to mention all his little wrongdoings, in case it sparks up any past resentment and he’ll find himself locked out of his own room. Again.

I wonder if I’ll take after my grandmother in the sense that I’ll be bringing all of this up to support every one of my arguments in the years to come. “You promised your granddaughter you’ll take her to school! It’s like that time in ‘08 when you went on commerce camp and didn’t call me”.

On a totally mushy note, happy anniversary babe. <3

Craptastic

I’m painting my toenails for tomorrow, except I don’t know why because I’ll be wearing stockings and closed shoes. I’m also missing the nails completely because the lights are off and I don’t see the point of painting them in the first place anyway. There’s nothing remotely attractive about red toes. Or feet. Or knees. We’ll see how badly the aiming is in a second.

I go through alternate phases with my nails. Not so much the ones on my toes because I’m not very particular about my feet and often neglect them at my own expense (i.e. when they find themselves in stilettos or on someone’s shoulders). Fingernails, however, share with me a passionate love-hate relationship. I’ve been known to splash out up to $80 on a single visit to the nail salon. I’ve also been known to leave them growing jaggedly, yellowing at the tip and half-covered in chipped purple polish.

Nails are high maintenance beings. I can’t believe I just called my nails “beings” but whatever.

I’d gladly sacrifice half a day’s pay per month on rounded french powder gels if not for two major interfering factors:

• The speed at which nails grow when you least want them to
• The state of them after several acrylic or gel sessions

By the end of the second or third set my nails would be so weak that I once sliced the tip off with a business card. At this stage the only thing I can do is to wait about a month for them to strengthen before painting, filing, or running back to the salon for another acrylics set. During this waiting period I look like I have bits of thin grey bark growing from the tips of my fingers, and this doesn’t sit well with me.

Dr. LeWinn has this supposedly award-winning nail treatment called Revitanail for this kind of thing. But that sets me back another $30 and I’ll have to wait it out anyway.

This post serves purely the purpose of giving me something to do while waiting for the top coat to dry. I understand if you possess a penis you either have stroked out of boredom or are a flaming homosexual.

Emily Jo Cureton’s NY Times Crosswords

Go here.