Pushing Daisies

I sniffed my nose at Pushing Daisies when it aired. My parents were casual watchers of the show, and this left little desire for me to get into it.  They love The Bachelor and Survivor, so don't think me harsh. It's brief availability and highly suggestive star rating helped me glaze over my miffed indifference. Alas, the woe in discovering a show after its been canceled!

Pushing Daisies features the main character in the equally surreal and beautiful movie The Fall.  This hunk is a pie maker who owns The Pie Hole and has a secret. Ned can make people "alive again" and solves murder mysteries with his childhood love, Chuck.  Chuck dresses in lavish and envious clothes right out of Mad Men but can never consumate her love with the pie maker because another touch would make her dead again.  Ned works with pink sized sweetie Olive who is Broadway star Kristen Chenowith and a sassy black man detective. The imaginative back-story, unrequited love, surreal settings rendered me helpless. I zipped through the first season and resorted to illegal streaming shows for the second.

Tenderheart Pie!

This show sparked in me a Pie making itch! I had the seedling after a particular episode featured and extra special Pear and Gruyere cheese baked into the crust pie. Damn, it was hard to make! The weekends I'm going to be baking more and hopefully experimenting with more Pie Recipies. I gave it to my own love taking a note from another pie movie Waitress and calling it Tenderheart Pie.

XOXO,
Betty

GoLean GoLove GoLive

Sometimes life just works out.

I spent a majority of last Sunday afternoon researching demographics and consumer buying trends on Kashi GoLean Crunchy! Cereal Bars for my copywriting class.  Riveting material, right?  Somehow it slipped my mind there was an additional component to the assignment.  I found this out as I sat down in my usual spot at the rectangle conference table we hold class at.  Three written and professional headlines were supposed to be planned, designed and executed to be presented during class.

While my other more organized classmates displayed their thought out and prepared headlines I frantically scrambled something together from a Word template.  Thankfully I am shuffled somewhere in the middle of the group and hopefully discretely clicked away on my Macbook as the class critiqued these headlines. Somehow my own headline ideas came to me like I already had them deeply buried somewhere in my brain and they poured out of me quickly without thought.  Hopefully I am a natural at this and did not  unconsciously plagiarize these.

Without further ado, take a look at the miracle of last minute creations:

Loved and Lost

Recently Misplaced:

1 Samsung Intensity 2
1 Social Psychology book [International Edition]
3.6 cups of self respect
6 hours waiting for a late train
1 ex-boyfriend
1 brown bamboo towel
1 copper bow earring

Things I've Gained

1 volunteer opportunity
1 a faux leather convertible backpack (I look less like a homeless person with 20 bags)
2 Social Psychology books [1 6th edition, 1 4th edition]
1 iPad on 24 hour check out from the library
.5 extra pounds
1 pair of borrowed black workout shorts

The Gift of Free

To be free is to live. To live is to be free. 

I am referring to free samples, of course!  This past week I have received many free gifts, and gifts of freedom.  Record breaking in inches of snow, and more delightful clutter in my room. 

This past Sunday I received many fascinating books from a book-swap in the Alumni Memorial Union including The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse 5, Leaves of Grass, The Princess Bride, Yoga for Life, and lastly the gem of Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems.  While adventuring in Milwaukee a kind barista at Border's gave me a free and delicious  baby smoothie.  Later in the week a male friend passed on a collection of free samples of beauty supplies,chocolates, and candles.  I might as well be Prime Minister of a foreign country that people feel obligated to give free things to, but have no idea who I am. 

Also due to atrocious Wisconsin winter the gods have sent to the Midwest Marquette University granted all its students a Snow Day!  Apparently a Snow Day in college does not mean playing outside in the snow, but rather staying in and drinking copious amounts of alcohol while playing video games.  Currently as I'm typing this while I was supposed to be attending a Psychology Research Methods and Design class.  Instead I've been shot with the "Ping" of another luck arrow and the class was canceled for the day! 

I am certain I get my love of free things from my Grandmother and my love of freedom from my Father. My Grandma has instilled in me stealing free samples from restaurants, and carrying a large purse to stuff things in.  My Maw-Maw has introduced the world of resale stores to me before all the hipsters started doing it.  

Dilemma

I am a terrifying collection of contradictions. 


I am an agnostic without faith who attends a Catholic University.  I am an extrovert that spends much of my time alone. I possess a stubborn self righteous character although I harbor deep resentment for myself. 


Is the choice to be part of the out group what really defines me? Being unique over being homogenized has always been high on my level of values but I am caught in the middle; never seperating myself into the hipster counter culture.  I look at the Ugg wearers and think do they seriously find the moonboot shape is attractive or desirous? Or do they simply enjoy maintaining a status of class as part of the social group of a popular teenage girl? At the same time I am distraught over irony for ironys sake: black lipstick, golden jeggings and cancer from cigarettes. (disclaimer I do smoke while I'm drunk, so sue me.)


My contradictions keep me in a constant state of questioning choices I make, especially important ones.  I have heart-wrenching How Did I Get Where I Am Today? moments that would even wipe the smile off Phil Dunphy.


Perhaps what is really happening is my choice of contradictions translates into a fierce independence; which is nicer to think about than wondering why I'm working at an EZ Loan Lending firm that takes advantage of people, or agonizing over pursuing a minor in advertising possibly contributing to manipulation and corruption of the already distorted consumer. 


When it was first brought to my attention the actual meaning of dilemma I was shocked.  Usually the word is misused as a word for some kind of large problem. In reality dilemma means "a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives". Thankfully I've been very determined to use it correctly but this difficult choice reflects the larger theme of this post.

Modern Romance

I often walk by the biography section in my frequent trips to the Elmhurst Public Library.  Recently a Truman Capote biography caught my eye which contained a series of his correspondence with the famous, notorious, and mundane.  These letters gave a glimpse of his personal growth over time as well as development and destruction of friendships and relationships.

These letters reminded me of when I was little sitting with my Grandmother at her dining room table covered in a protective plastic table cloth.  She would open her letters and write to her friends and sister Anita living in California, who she still sends multiple letters every week.  Her cursive handwriting is sealed inside by her technique of plastering the envelopes with dollar store stickers.  Her letters provide an escape exchanging common daily family occurrences reflecting a quiet desperation to hold onto the past.

Letters feel entire worlds more confessional and romantic than an email.  I'm probably being too sentimental for a past that probably never existed.  I wonder if future biographers will compile Facebook friendships and emails to detail famous lives' when this generation passes on?

Today Facebook is fluent in the language of sarcasm, with my generation walking around as little speech bubbles of sarcasm.  Yes, its fun and being challenged to be witty with every comment can be daunting.The sarcastic "No" however, I have a problem with.

In 7th grade I would go to my friend's house and she would answer the door, "EW. Why are you here?" and then politely open the door.  I would always be frustrated as to how to respond; if I'm sarcastic back it perpetuates the disgustingness, so I would meekly smile and try to move past this.  Whenever I get a fake sassy "No" to a question I ask among friends or sarcastic forced friendships I feel the same reddish fluster in my face.

Maybe my craving a vintage typewriter comes from an attempt to step away from such sarcasm.  It could also be maybe the direct connection between the writer and the creative experience I imagine type writers give, or maybe its because I want to suck up to old professors wanting them to fawn over a final essay produced on the machine of their youth.

Being away from friends at college makes me want to send them sentimental letters in cursive handwriting on crisp heavy paper.  I even have notions of sealing them with a personal wax crest I design, perhaps with an art nouveau pug.  The light blue Remington typewriter of my dreams will remain there until I locate the perfect one in the many resale stores and Craigslist posts I troll.

Little Secrets

Finding graffiti is the modern version of discovering buried treasure.  

Uncovering and collecting items that have been left behind is like finding a little piece of the person who lost it.  

This is why I write in library books. 

This is why I keep bookmarks and baby pictures that others forgot within the pages.

A classic carving in the Brew Bayou at Marquette