The Last Cotto Fight

I have such great memories from watching Cotto's fights. This is really the end of an era for me. Here are some of the more memorable bouts (for me) from Cotto's career.

Cotto vs. Judah (June 9, 2007) I had just moved to New York City - barely been there a week - and my first order of business was to make a trip to Madison Square Garden. It's called boxing's Mecca for a reason. It was the night before the Puerto Rican day parade and as I looked around the stadium, I noticed the place was packed to the rafters with Puerto Rican Cotto fans. When they played the Puerto Rican national anthem (state song? U.S. territory ditty?), the whole pace sang along, including little children (Puerto Rican pride is no joke). I quickly realized that if Cotto didn't win, there would be a riot. I scanned my area for the nearest exit and worried about how fast I'd be able to move in a dress and heels. Luckily, Cotto won by TKO in the 11th round.

Motherhood Surprises

Things that surprised me/I wasn't expecting when I became a mother.

-I was a great babysitter and enjoyed playing with kids, but the thought of having my own seemed was not enticing. When I started to want a family, I figured I'd be the type of mom to go back to work two weeks after giving birth. I would drop off my baby at daycare, slowing down just enough for a caregiver to grab the car seat while I yelled, "Tuck and roll, baby!" and then speeding away. Fifteen months later and I'm still at home. I've never been away from my baby for longer than five hours. The thought of putting her in daycare makes me physically ill. I miss the intellectual stimulation of full-time work and being around adults, but not as much as I need to hear the sound of my baby's voice all day and be able to hug and kiss her whenever I want. She's my whole world and I adore her in ways I couldn't even imagine before I became a mother.

October 2017 Reading/Watching/Listening

READING

My Mother Was Nuts by Penny Marshall - This has been on my list for a long time. It was so good. Seriously, five out of five stars. Her life was fascinating and I loved how she handled everything. I just want to be a cross between Penny Marshall and Dolly Parton. I didn't realize she had directed so many movies I love. I have seen and re-watched all of them except for one. However, there was a section of this book that gave me that yucky feeling in my stomach. I don't expect funny people to have funny life stories - quite the opposite - and her story isn't really sad, but there was something about it. First, her child was sort of taken from her and sort of abandoned by her when she was only a few years old. As a mom of a toddler, that was horrifying. I don't judge her.

September Watching/Reading/Listening

Watching:

Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin (HBO PPV): It's now on HBO Go, but I watched it live and it gave me life. So good. There was great action between two well-matched fighters who have good technique and hit hard. It was a thing of beauty. I didn't agree with the result, though.

One Mississippi Season 2 (Amazon Prime): Just as good as the previous season. Calm, sweet, dark, funny. The seasons are way too short! If you like Master of None, there's a good chance you'll like this one.

Transparent Season 4 (Amazon Prime): Still good. I hated Ali in the previous seasons, but that character is so great in this season. I feel you, girl!

Fuller House Season 3 (Netflix): It's still good. It just feels like there are too many characters and storylines. Was it like this when I was young, but I didn't care? Maybe I should watch old episodes, but I remember the show dealing with some real stuff every once in a while. Candace Cameron Bure is gorgeous. I just like staring her. I get mad when they light her poorly. I know it's an actress' job to stay in shape and look good and they have trainers and chefs and meal delivery services, etc., but still.

Louie Seasons 4 and 5 (Netflix): I don't know why I resisted this show. I saw half an episode a while ago with Parker Posey (I love her. She's so dark and funny), liked it, but didn't continue watching. It's low key insane. Super low key, but also super insane.

July/August Watching/Reading/Listening

WATCHING-

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2 seasons on Netflix): Severely emotionally damaged woman moves across the country to try to get back together with her summer camp boyfriend. LOVE this show so much that I was sad for a couple of days when I finished. I hate musicals. I thought it might be a good show to have on in the background when cleaning, but it's super addicting. (I do sometimes skip over the musical numbers.) It's crazy and stupid and so funny. I do regularly sing some of the songs I like (West Covina, Period Sex, Love Kernels, Rush to Be a Bride). Don't YouTube Rush to Be a Bride. You have to see it in the show. The transition is part of how amazing it is. THIS IS NOT A SHOW TO WATCH WITH KIDS OR YOUR PARENTS. NSFAnything really. New season on the CW starts October 13!

Friends from College (1 season Netflix show): People who would normally be okay turn into severely emotionally damaged people when they are around their college friends. And they can't stop being around each other. None of the characters are likable, but, again, I LOVE this show. It's dark, but funny. If you were super into the Wonder Years, Fred Savage in this show will make you so happy.

Life in Pieces (CBS show watched on Netflix): It's about siblings and their families. It's really funny sometimes, but sometimes it's offensive. Also, fairly unlikable and damaged characters. (Hmmmmm . . . I'm sensing a theme.)

April 2017 Read/Watched/Listened

Read:

Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison - I was riveted by the Girls Next Door. If you were, too, I recommend this book.

The Taliban Shuffle (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot) - Good, but kind of sad.

My Voice: A Memoir by Angie Martinez - If you came of age in the 90s and listened to hip-hop, I recommend it.

So, I think something is broken inside of me. I can't get into any fiction books. I even went back to my old standbys John Connolly and Walter Mosley. Nothing took. I don't even know who I am anymore.

Watched:

Life in Pieces - This show is weird and I can't figure out if in a good way or bad way. Some seriously offensive jokes in the show. A couple of good characters, though.

Chewing Gum Season Two. Michaela Coel is a global treasure. May the muses always be by her side.

Lost Girl - Love this show. So upset it's only five seasons long. I love it so much, I've actually been able to parcel it out to make it last.

Life - I liked it when it came out, but I had a feeling it would get canceled, so I stopped watching. Good show to have on in the background.

GirlBoss - Made it about five minutes into episode 1. No gracias.

Frasier - Series Rewatch #726

Netflix removed Buffy. I had a rough couple of days over it.

Joshua v. Klitschko - Damn good fight.

Listened: It was an Al Green, Emmylou Harris  type of month.

March 2017 Reading/Watching

March was absolutely pathetic reading-wise. It's even sadder, because it was my birthday month and reading is my favorite thing. Probably explains my janky-ass mood lately.

Books I finished:

-Difficult Women by Roxane Gay (Love her writing. Love her Twitter. Lover her. She is my Beyonce.)

-Lumberjanes: Beware the Kitten Holy (This is a graphic novel, but it counts, okay?! I put it on my Amazon wish list to remember to get it for my daughter when she's older. Husband purchased a couple of volumes for me for my birthday and I'm glad he did, because it was pretty good. I've started the second volume.)

-I re-read my favorite poem more than usual. (To You by Walt Whitman: http://www.bartleby.com/142/175.html - Get you some!)

Books I started, but didn't finish:

-Queen Sugar: A Novel by Natalie Baszile (Seemed promising, but it fizzled out. I think it's a TV show now, but I don't have cable, so . . .)

-A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (Look, I really tried. There were some good morsels in there, but wrap it up, sister.)

-The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (Um, I checked it out from the library. This was supposed to be my non-fiction for the month.)

-The Wangs vs The World by Jade Chang (Too much set up. Maybe the whole book was set up? Made it about a quarter of the way through.)

-I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan (I made it a third of the way through. It didn't grab me.)

-Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild (I read the first page of the preface and it's too soon and I'm still too pissed off and I don't see a lot of the right trying to understand us, so eat me.)

-I've started re-reading the Godfather. Still great.

Watched/Watching:

-Schitt's Creek (So good, just for Catherine O'Hara's accent alone.)

-One Mississippi (Dark and light and wonderful.)

-Transparent (Bummed I'm so late to this, but glad, because I was able to binge.)

-The Kettering Incident (Couldn't get into it. Kind of a cross between Top of the Lake, which I loved, and The OA, which was decent.)

-Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Finished the second season.)

-Moonlight (I already posted about this. I still think about this movie on the regular.)

-Logan (Brutal. Dark. Gory. And I cried harder than I've cried at the movies in a long time. I watched the X-Men cartoons as an older kid when I thought I was done with cartoons. I've loved all of the movies, except X-Men: Apocalypse. I'm going to cry just thinking about it.)

-Lost Girl (Just started and it's surprisingly good if you choose to ignore the production value and some plot holes.)

-Rewatching Buffy (I start about halfway through season 3, skip the latter half of season 5, then finish it up. My gajillionth rewatch?)

Looking forward to:

-Getting my reading mojo back. (Pray for me, y'all. Also, any fiction recommendations? Ease me in with some detective novels or beach reads.)

-More Lumberjanes!

-The second season of Chewing Gum.

-Trying to get back into boxing. My multiple Kovalev sightings MUST BE a sign to get back into it.

January/February 2017 Reading/Watching/Listening

Read/Reading:
-And Sometimes I Wonder About You: A Leonid McGill Mystery
-The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (Januarynon-fiction)
-Karma: A Leonid McGill Mystery
-A Little Life (Couldn't finish this one - lost interest)
-Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America (great read) (Februarynon-fiction)
-The Turner House (This book wasn't really about anything, but I couldn't put it down and the ending hit me sideways)
-The Third Life of Grange Copeland (Couldn't finish this one - managed to get about 10% of the way through it before it became too dark)
-Queen Sugar: A Novel (just started it - seems promising)

Watched/Watching:
-Fuller House (good)
-One Day at a Time (reboot - so good)
-The OA (pretty good)
-Chewing Gum (so good)
-Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (good until halfway through season 2 - didn't finish)
-Crazyhead (hell yes this is so good)
-The Last Kingdom (can't believe I'm into this, but it's so good)

Listening To:
-My Nina Simone Pandora station (couldn't get through a night without it)

2016 Books I Read

Short, sometimes one sentence, reviews of books I read in 2016. The reviews go in reverse chronological order of when I read them. So, books I'm still reading are first and books from last January are at the end. 

I read forty-three books in 2016 (probably more as I re-read a lot of books that I have and check out a few physical copies of books that aren’t available for check out online for Kindle). Twenty-eight by women (I thought there would be more. Ever since I did that year of reading books written only by female authors, I’ve lean towards books written by women. I think I read 70+ books in 2015, so the decline is something to ponder.

·          

---

All I Did Was Shoot My Man: A Leonid McGill Mystery (Leonid McGill series Book 4)

Walter Mosley

Almost finished with this one. I just want to sit in a warm corner with hot cocoa and finish it whenever I’m doing something else.

---

·         ...

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Malcolm Gladwell

Everything from STD outbreaks, to decline in crime, to fashion trends and how they happen. Something as small as reducing medical personnel by a few people can have a disproportionate effect. Not finished, but so far, so fascinating. Makes sense since I liked Blink by the same author.

---

·         ...

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

Piper Kerman

I love the series on Netflix and it was fun connecting the people in the book with the characters on the show. It was a lot more poignant than I thought. Well-written.

Summer Want Blues

It's been gray, cold, and quiet in Southern California during the month of May. Maybe one day had a hint of summer. I'm not a huge fan of endless days of 90 degree weather, but when one is used to something and it doesn't come to pass, it can put one out of sorts. That's how I've been feeling, so I wrote some haikus about summer in places I've lived and visited.

         Georgia Summer
Sunshine on my skin
Love and peaches are full ripe
Ice cream tastes better

        California Summer
Swimming delights all
Time stands still and moves quickly
Kissing is more fun

       New Orleans Summer
Holding hands with you
Gin and tonic with a lime
Scent of magnolias

       NYC Summer
Picnics in the park
Come to my rooftop party
We are young and free

       Summer Everywhere
Children laugh loudly
Strangers say hi to others
Most wonderful time

Sluts Aren't Real

I was looking up baby names and came across a site that had people's opinions of the name. I was scrolling along when I saw that one user had referenced one of my favorite book characters, a character that had crossed my mind, but was not the reason or basis for picking the name. This "anonymous" person referred to the character as a huge slut. I was floored! I had never thought of the character that way.

Mad Max: Sad Furiosa

I saw Mad Max: Fury Road in the theaters and thought it was just okay. Maybe because it was hyped up so much, my expectations were high. It was supposed to be this brilliant feminist manifesto and George Miller demanded x, y, and that the bunjee guitar guys guitar work for real so it's super duper amazing!

Manic Gray

I started going gray in junior high. It was just a few strands in which I took pride thinking it showed how stressed out and serious I was. Fast forwarded 15 years and I hate the gray I have all over, but mostly right in the front.

Now, covering grays is no joke. They don't absorb the color and don't hold it for too long, either. I started coloring it with liquid henna that Whole Foods and Mother's Market carry. It was fine, but a pain in the ass. I would have to shampoo my hair and let it air dry for a bit. (Side note: I have giant, Diane Ross/Slash hair. I mean there's a lot of it, it's curly, and it's huge. Wider than my shoulders huge. My nickname in junior high was actually Slash.) I'd do my best to saturate my hair, put a plastic bag on my head, and let it sit for hours while I cleaned the house. I did this every other Sunday. About a year ago, I got so tired of the effort and time suck, so I stopped and decided to let my gray streaks fly.

Books I Read in January 2016

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

This is a post-apocalyptic, dystopian, zombie novel that is detailed in the best way. No word is a waste. There are five main characters and you get to know each one of them very well. The plot moves at a great pace . It's slower in the beginning, but that reflects what the days of the characters are like at that point in time. Once the shit hits the fan, the story moves along quickly. There's military, academia, and science. The ending was a surprise and I'm rarely surprised by revelations in books. I thought it was better than World War Z and California.

Recommendation: Highly recommend if you are into post-apocalyptic, dystopian novels, even if you're not into zombies.

The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike Book 2) by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

I read the first book and loved it. It's fits into the classic noir detective genre - somewhat tortured detective with a colorful backstory. This one, however, is very dense and very detailed, but not in a good way. The story gets bogged down in a lot of spots then it seems like the climax happens in a couple of pages. Luckily, it is an interesting mystery and you want to know how it's solved.

Recommendation: If you're a fan of the Michael Connelly Bosch series or the Walter Mosley Easy Rawlins series, then I do recommend checking out this series.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

This is a coming of age story about two Latino boys living in Texas in the 1980s. I don't know whether it was intentional, but it reads like it was written by an angst-y teen. I don't have a problem reading stories from the point of view of children (Haven Kimmel's memoirs are the best), but the main character came across as so whiny, it was annoying. It's not that I don't remember being an angst-y teen. It was quite frustrating and confusing at the time, but at 35, whiny teenagers are annoying.

Recommendation: Good for teens, especially those that aren't good at talking about their feelings.

Some Luck: A novel by Jane Smiley

At first, this seems like a simple story about a farming family living in Iowa in the early 20th century and I guess it is, However, I ended up getting really attached to the members and their stories spanning across 3-4 generations. It's also a great story if you're into history. There's no political commentary and some things aren't named outright, but if you know American history, there are moments of excitement when you recognize certain events that were HUGE in retrospect. There's no real plot other than people living their everyday lives lost in their own thoughts and worlds. There are no answers, no revelations, It's simple and good like a pastoral scene in book form.

Recommendation: I liked this book a lot, but I don't know to whom I would recommend it.

Fire (Graceling Realm Book 2) by Kristin Cashore

I read the first in the series and it was better than okay, so I thought I would give this a try. The first two books have strong, teenage, female protagonists. However, like most female protagonists in books I've read, they are hard on themselves and internally so fucking whiny (see A History of Witches series, The Mortal Instruments series, and The Hunger Games). They're these badass women and girls that have AMAZING strengths and talents that are all, "Why would anyone like me? What does anyone see in me? I just ruin everything all of the time. I'm so weak and don't know anything!"). I guess it’s a good style because everyone wants someone to discover, through all of their crap, how amazing they are. I guess . . . 

Most of the time, the women learn that their strengths are not something to hide or diminish, but, wow, it's a long, whiny road to get to that point. The Clarice Starlings and Smilla Jaspersens of literature are few and far between. 

Recommendation: If you're into fantasy worlds, I say give the series a shot. There isn't a lot of depth, but it passes the time.

The Economics of Ethnic and Feminine Names

During a second, extended stint of unemployment, I came across an article about a man having trouble finding work.[1] He realized it must be his unisex, but usually assumed to be female, name. He remedied it by adding Mr. to his resume. All of a sudden, he started receiving call backs from employers, whereas there was only silence during the previous months. I then came across a study that determined it took longer for those with ethnic or non-Anglo sounding names to find work. I have an “ethnic” name since I’m Persian and live in the U.S. It’s a unisex name, but it ends in an “a” and has a “sh” sound in it, so it sounds feminine. I felt like less of a failure, but I was pissed.

I’d been sending out resumes on and off for years to no avail. I would get jobs through friends or family. I figured the adage, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” to be true, but it was so limiting. So, I did my own experiment. I changed my name on my resume and set up a corresponding resume. I started receiving calls the same day I sent out those resumes, even from placement agencies. I felt victorious! The world was my oyster! I started thinking I should change my name to a unisex, Anglo name. World domination was only a few letters away.

Unfortunately, I’d underestimated the love I have for my own name and what it means to me.

I’m sitting in the waiting room of a placement agency filling out paperwork, when one of their staff comes out and starts calling for a Nicole. “Nicole? . . . Nicole? . . . Nicole?” I give the blonde girl across the room a death stare thinking, “Hello. Don’t you know your own name?” Then, I would remember and raise my hand. I ended up being placed as a temp.

The feeling of my soul caving in whenever someone called me by my chosen Anglo name was not something I had anticipated. I didn’t think I would care or that it would be a big deal. After all, most people seem to use the nickname versions of their names. I thought it would be the same thing. No, not even close. I felt invisible and resentful. I would think, “Why can’t people just suck it up a teensy, tiny, the tiniest bit and try to say my short, phonetically spelled, not-so-common name? It even has an English word in it! Why am I not worthy of a job with the beautiful name my parents gave me? An old name with meaning? I have the same credentials – all of the same experience and education. Hell, better and more. I worked so hard, but it doesn’t matter because of my name? Does it really make you that uncomfortable/nervous/self-conscious?”

I started to dread receiving a permanent placement or coming across a posting for a dream job and having to apply with one of my fake-name resumes. Luckily, my mom passed along my resume with my name to someone at a placement agency who was the same ethnicity as us. I was placed in a permanent position where I wowed my employer so much, I received a promotion and more than a 10% raise within the first year. Could I have done the same if I’d been that other girl with that other name? Probably, but I know it would’ve been more bitter than sweet.

Whenever I meet other Persians who introduce themselves as Mike, Henry, or Mo and I know their names are actually Mehrdad, Hamid, and Masood, I cringe. To each their own, but whenever we have to change something so fundamental to please a weakness in society, it is wrong. It just feeds the disease. As an immigrant woman, I come up against all kinds of powers that want to change me. I refuse as much as I can. We lose something of ourselves each time we have to change when we don’t want to. If enough of those little bits are lost, it will add up to larger and larger chunks of our culture and our history being lost. I have no quarrel with assimilation, but both sides of our identities should be acknowledged and accepted in public spaces.

I found myself back on the job hunt, in a city where I don’t know anyone, much less anyone of my ethnicity. Remembering the feeling of being called by the other name, I hesitated about which resume I need to use. I hesitated, but I know it’s about survival. Paying rent and buying food shouldn’t trump what I consider an essential part of myself. My name doesn’t do me much good sitting in my old room at my parents’ house. So, I compromised.

My new resume has an Anglo nickname in quotes between my first and last names. I posted it on Monster and started receiving inquiries from recruiters for non-sales, in-my-industry positions almost immediately. I was taken aback until I realized that a funny thing had happened on the way to globalization. Those recruiters? Outsourced employees of American companies all of whom have Indian names. This time around, I didn’t feel victorious or that the world was my oyster. I almost cried from relief at the thought of a level playing field where I was judged by the content of my resume and not the origin or perceived difficulty of my name.

Oddly enough, companies trying to benefit their bottom line may have inadvertently lessened discrimination in hiring. Studies on cost-savings and how outsourcing erodes the middle class were a regular occurrence when it first started happening. There have also been studies on how outsourcing could help developing countries. However, I haven’t come across any studies on how globalization could benefit those of us in the U.S. with unusual names, i.e. immigrants and minorities. Maybe it’s time to mine through the data.

I came across an article from 2014 about a man named Jose who dropped the “s” in his name on his resume.[2] He hadn’t had any luck finding a job and then, all of sudden, he started getting responses. Here’s hoping that the José’s and Newshas in this world will soon no longer have to become Joes and Nicoles. Our accomplishments will be enough and who we are will be enough. Working may not be a right. It may be a privilege, but it’s one we have more than earned.

---

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/07/man-named-kim-adds-mr-to-resume-lands-job/

[2] http://www.buzzfeed.com/beckycatherineharris/jose-vs-joe#.pu6KZ5RYb

Breakfast + A Cleanse

I have horribly abused my body this summer with sugar, fat, and every kind of fried carb known to man. My body is now begging for mercy. Weird skin. Bad sleep. Unstoppable weight gain. Constant headaches. Something inflamed in my gut area. General feeling of grossness.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day in that I have to eat it. I can't skip eating in the morning, but I don't want dairy,  oatmeal, eggs,  meat, or even "fun" foods like waffles, french toast, pancakes, etc. Everything makes my body cringe. So, what to eat?  What to eat?

Girls Who Are Friends

What I miss the most about being a little girl how much pure love, joy, and affection there was between me and my friends. We would hold hands, hug and kiss fiercely and not just when saying hello or goodbye, sleep in the same bed, talk for hours on the phone, play with each other's hair, and LAUGH until our stomachs hurt all without an ounce of being self-conscious about it.

I still want those things. I wonder if other women do, too. Whenever I have the urge to do any of those things with a girl friend, I'm worried they'll think I'm being needy or hitting on them. Maybe I am needy, but just for some good old-fashioned girl friend bonding.

Maybe that's why women want little girls. So we can have someone's hair to play with and hand to hold. Someone we can hug and kiss fiercely anytime our spirit moves us who will hug and kiss us back just as fiercely. Maybe I should roll up to my parents' house and ask my mom to lay her head on my lap so that I can play with her hair. She would probably think I'd just been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Book Review: Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins

I'm not sure how this book became popular (Oprah selection? Soon to be made into a motion picture?), but I'm glad it popped up on my radar. I love mysteries and suspense thrillers and it's not as easy to find ones written by female authors.*

The story is told from the viewpoints of three different, but variously connected, women. And what disasters the three of them are. I love flawed female characters. Either I can relate or they make me feel better about myself or give me insight into a type of life I wouldn't have otherwise given thought. I think it makes me softer and more forgiving. Here, there's the drunk, purposeless, cheated on, barren divorcee (Rachel), the former mistress turned stay-at-home mom (Anna), and the one who Rachel watches from the train and is neighbors with Anna. 

Bar Books

Books I’m Reading While Studying for the Bar 

I’ve always been a voracious reader. It was an escape from my scary household when I was a kid. I loved character driven fiction and read a novel a week starting in late elementary school. I loved disappearing into the worlds fiction created in my mind.

But then law school sort of broke my imagination. The time before law school (BLS), I did my best to read books that wouldn’t be turned into movies or, if they were, before they became movies. I would never even see the movies. I read plenty of books that hid in dark corners of libraries and would never be turned into anything other than dust collectors. Bur during law school I don’t think I even read in bed before lights out during the semester. However, once the first set of finals came around, I was frozen with panic and I turned to my old friends – books. Oddly, I found that I could only read books that had been turned into movies that I had seen. My study schedule for finals: study for 30 minutes, read made-into-a-movie fiction for 30 minutes, nap for 30 minutes and repeat, while nursing a single sugar-free Red Bull for 18 hour periods.

I am now studying for the bar exam 7 years after graduation. I’ve already passed one, but had an urge to take the one in the state where I now live. Every few years I like to throw my life into upheaval and I think taking the bar is a manifestation of that. I have no reason to take this bar and no need to pass. I have a job that pays well. *knock on wood* I have no hopes of practicing at a firm or really elsewhere. I can’t imagine a scenario where it would make me more money than I already make. But at least it’s productive upheaval. It’s requiring me to focus and concentrate and I’m learning really just for the sake of learning.  If I pass, it’ll be the greatest accomplishment of my life so far. If I fail, it will be so devastating that it might just break my upheaval/self-sabotage habit.

Studying now, I find myself back needing to read to calm my stress. I don’t follow my 30-30-30 cycle or having to read books that have been turned into movies anymore, but I do read before bed and when I wake. (Reading in bed in the morning is my favorite time/way to read, but it’s the most time-consuming and tends to send me into anxiety-dom because I “waste” time reading when I should be doing something else.)

Books I’ve read/re-read since I started studying for the bar a month ago:

Beauty Break I

I'd like to take a timeout to post a little something about my new skin care routine that has done wonders. This post is not sponsored by anyone or anything and I purchased all items with my own money. I decided to write it as I'm 35 and was carded at dinner the other night and I think it's because of my new skin are routine. I haven't been carded in about 5 years.

I had beautiful, downright poreless skin until I was 18. Then some terribly upsetting things happened in my life and my body reacted poorly and has never really recovered. I spent the next 10 years trying to get my horrible cystic acne under control. I took pills that turned my skin blue. Had to use 15 products every morning and every night that made the skin on my hand peel off in sheets. Took birth control that made everything worse. Finally, the acne settled down by about 90% once I stopped trying to control it, but by then my skin was a wasteland - scars, huge, clogged pores, sebaceous filaments/milia. My skin was oily up until the last year or so. Then it was all of the wasteland things and dry. It's like my pores are clogged with sand.