A Type-A Control Freak Walks Into a Blog...

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Glamour Magazine Saved My Life (Well, Sort Of)

It was just a small blemish in the middle of my forehead.

At least, that’s what I thought at first. In fact, I hardly noticed it at all. A week went by, then a month, and it was still there. Just a seemingly innocuous pink mark, mostly hidden by my bangs.

I probably wouldn’t have paid it much attention if it hadn’t been for the issue of Glamour Magazine someone left in the break room at work; I grabbed it on my way out of the office one day, having finished my book that morning on the train. Halfway between Philadelphia and my apartment I came across an article about skin cancer, and one of the graphics looked sort of, kind of, a little bit, pretty much exactly familiar.

I've Got a Bridge in Brooklyn I Can Sell Ya'

I never knew seasons before I moved to the East Coast.

I knew hot and dry, not so hot and dry, and the terror of driving San Diego freeways in the *occasional* rain. Before living in Philadelphia, I thought cold was 55 degrees.

It takes about 6 years of living in a region with four distinct seasons to really appreciate Perfect Weather. I’m not talking 72 and sunny, take-it-for-granted Southern California weather, but that crisp, on-the-verge-of-a-new season, mild sun, bright-blue skies weather that bookends summer.

Adolescent Carrot

It was then that he realized: He wasn't a baby carrot anymore.

Adventure in the Kitchen (Or: I Just Wanted an Excuse to Wear My Frilly Apron)

Scott loathes my rice cooker.

I added it to our wedding registry online and sort of neglected to tell him about it, thinking (foolishly) that he really wouldn't care if we got one. Whoops.

When we opened the big box delivered from Macy's, his reaction: "What is that?"

Me: "It's a rice cooker."

Him: "We have a rice cooker. It's called a pot. We have a few of them, in fact."

These are My Obsessions

What I’m Watching
Is it healthy to love a T.V. show so much that you actually feel a skipped-heartbeat of sadness when the next disc doesn’t arrive on time from Netflix? That’s how I feel about The Wire. Yes, yes, yes, I know it’s a program that ended way back in 2008, but we the HBO-less (and now cable-less) only recently discovered it.

The Wire is Awesome.

Art for Life's Sake: The Barnes Foundation

For most of my life, I had no idea the Barnes Foundation existed. For the most part, or at least, as far as I can tell, if you’re not from the Philadelphia area and/or are not an art historian/uber-enthusiast, you probably have never heard of the Barnes Foundation either.

It's a shame, really, because the Barnes Foundation is home to one of the most significant collections of art in the United States, if not the world. Wait, let me pull from the Barnes Foundation website so I can get it JUST right: 

“An extraordinary number of masterpieces by Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse provide a depth of work by these artists unavailable elsewhere.” -- Barnes Foundation Website (link below)