Posts by Emily

How to Clean Your Stainless Steel Flask

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. . . That You Really Love Because You Got it in New Zealand

1. Text your friend, Lil’ Jay, with whom you have been discussing flasks: My flask smells revolting. How do you clean a flask?

2. Wait for her reply: [My fiance] says, “What do you mean ‘how do you clean a flask?’ You Google ‘how to clean a flask!”

3. Wait for the addendum: He Googled it for you.  Salt water or a little bleach in water.

4. Leave putrid flask out on the kitchen counter for one week, or until your roommate asks if there is any particular reason that your putrid flask is out on the kitchen counter.

5. Poke around in the cabinets, trying to remember what Lil’ Jay’s fiance’s Google search results suggested, until you find some white vinegar and baking soda and think, “Oh, yeah, that might have been it.”

7. Dribble some vinegar and a little bit of warm water into the flask.

8. Use the heart-shaped teaspoon your grandmother gave you for Valentine’s Day to scoop 1 tsp. baking soda into the flask.

9. Screw the cap closed and shake vigorously.

10. Listen to the fizzing.

11. Shake vigorouslier.

12. Listen to more fizzing.

13. Empty the flask. Rinse thoroughly with warm water.

14. Check old text messages and see that Lil’ Jay’s fiance actually suggested salt water and bleach, not vinegar or baking soda.

15. Google it yourself and find these great instructions for cleaning a stainless steel travel coffee mug (almost the same thing, yes?) with baking soda, boiling water, and white or cider vinegar on Good Housekeeping‘s website.

I bet Lil’ Jay’s fiance hasn’t even heard of Heloise and her hints, hmpfh!

flaskpjpocket

16. Take a picture to show how well your sparkling and squeaky clean flask fits in the pocket of your pajama pants!

17. Feel silly.

18. Post it on the internet anyway.

“We stop existing and start living.”

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So, Michael Jackson died.

Say what?

I know, right?

That was my reaction, too, when I got home from work last night and flipped on NY1 to see crowds of people gathering not in Azadi Square in Tehran, but outside Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. I descended on to the futon and sat there staring at the TV and wearing my doubleyoo-tee-eff face—the one I use to bait instant assistance in hardware stores and auto service stations.  One eyebrow up, one eyebrow down, nose wrinkled a little bit, mouth quirked up on one side and mouth dropped open (the degree of openness depends on the extent of my confusion).

Like Michael himself, my grieving process was unconventional.  In lieu of anger, bargaining, and depression, my emotions hopped from yeah right to uhhh, for serious? to this is super freaking weird and then I had to call my dad and ask him why so many bad things are happening in the world.

My Cool Aunt gave me Dangerous on cassette tape for Christmas when I was eight years old and I lllllloved it. I just listened to iTunes’ 30 second preview of each song and I recognize only five: Heal The World, Black or White, Who Is It, Give In To Me (sort of?), and Will You Be There. Those are tracks 7-11, and from that I deduce that Black or White and Will You Be There were my favorite songs, and I learned to like the ones in between them (and the one right before Black or White because I had to hear some of it every time I rewound my tape to play through again—and again and again, for weeks straight).

It was the first mainstream album that ever captured me (previous fixations included the soundtrack to The Little Mermaid and the greatest hits of Sharon, Lois, and Bram). It’s hard to understand retrospectively exactly what it was, but there was something about the music—and to a lesser extent, the lyrics—that I really felt. It sounded beautiful and interesting and emphatic in a way that I hadn’t yet realized music could sound.

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What my mama gave me (besides the straight eyelashes)

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Earlier this month, my mom and I went to a bridal shower together. We were one of several pairs of Mother & Daughter, but it was the first time I’ve ever attended an event with my mother and not felt like she was only present because I was or the other way around. She wasn’t there to be my chaperone. I wasn’t there because she didn’t have time to drop me off at home first. We received two separate invitations at our two separate homes and brought two separate gifts accompanied by two separate poems (the poems were Mom’s idea).

I’ve heard my mother called by her own name by other adults my whole life, but it totally threw me off to hear us introduced as “Emily” and “Elizabeth” and not “Emily and Elizabeth” or “Elizabeth and Emily.” The other guests kept talking to us like we were two separate entities, two separate people. Was it not clear that we were together? Maybe I should have pointed out that we arrived in the same car.

It was a bridal shower game that outed us as “Emily and Elizabeth,” unmistakably Mother and Daughter. Each guest dumped out her purse and tallied up its contents according to a list that gave a score for each item. Stamps, pens, mints, pain killers, lipstick, sunglasses, the keys to someone else’s house, and the like were all worth 5-25 points to the person hauling them around.

After taking inventory, we started scoring with a show of hands: “Who has 10 points? Who has 20? 30?” Hands started to drop as the total climbed past 70 points. Only four or five women had 100 points-worth of stuff in their bags. The last three standing were the bride’s grandmother, my mom, and me.

“Who has 130?” Grandmother-of-the-Bride lowered her fingers. A knowing groan rolled through the room as my mom and I stared each other down.

“Anybody have more than 140 points?” Mom couldn’t hack it. She dropped her arm as I raised my other one in victory, waving my winning item like a trophy.

My eyelash curler was worth 50 points and it was the only one at the party.

“You carry that with you everywhere?” Not even my own mother could believe it.

When we got in the car to go home—together!—my mom said, “I don’t know why I bothered to dump out my whole purse. I knew exactly what was in there.” I think I could have guessed the contents of my mother’s bag, myself. That’s where I get all my stamps.

You wanted me to write something

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So, I wrote down (and photographed) the contents of my bag!

inmybag

Last week’s New Yorker
Violet sunglasses
A few Equal packets
LG Plum cell phone
Card case for business cards and coupons
Make-up bag (its contents could be a-whole-nother photo)
iPod Classic
Notebook, two pens, Chapstick, and C.G. Bigelow Menthe Lip Shine
Sephora by OPI nail polish in Caffeine Fix
Purple wallet
Inside a royal blue hobo

Happy now?

(I can’t get no)

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My theory is, the same way my body craves proteins and vitamins when they’re lacking, I get cravings when there is an emotional or intellectual deficiency of some kind. I go through phases of fixation on one particular element of my life.

Material cravings have me browsing online and mail order catalogs like it’s my job.  Next, I’ll spend every free moment working out or planning a workout, my refrigerator is stocked with fresh, lean organics, and I get my hair cut and revamp my skincare regime.  Then I’ll read three books in two weeks and entertain the notion of going back to school for an advanced degree.  And when that passes, I sprout social butterfly wings and make a point to catch up with everyone I know before retreating into a domestic phase.  That usually involves a comprehensive scrub-down of the entire apartment and the rearrangement of furniture and decorative accessories.

Sometimes it leads to attempts at creating decorative accessories myself.  That’s a warning sign for a creative spell.  The creativity cravings are the most difficult to satisfy.  It’s like craving something, but not knowing what it is.  Because what I want, what I crave, is somewhere within me, unseen, and if it gets stuck, simply wanting it to emerge isn’t enough to make it happen.  Sometimes I feel just desperate to conceive something of words or colors and when I can’t draw it out, it’s like I’m imploding and exploding at the same time.

What’s unsettling is, lately, I haven’t craved much of anything.  It’s like I’m caught in the trough of a wave, just riding it out.  It’s odd, though, this absence of want.  It’s like a deficiency of deficiencies, but that doesn’t mean I’m thoroughly satisfied.

{P.S. What are you non-gastronomical cravings? Material? Physical? Intellectual?  Social? Domestic? Creative? Or otherwise?}