I Am About To Make Your Life So Much Better, Part I

The only reason to start writing on the internet (“blogging”) is as the first step to creating your giant media empire a la Oprah or Martha Stewart. Obviously my goal is to have a magazine, a giant sprawling mansion, black Cocker Spaniels, legions of rabid fans, and a dignified male companion. Or to write for The Hairpin but, you know, whichever happens first.

So, with my media empire dreams in mind, I bring you Say Brennana’s very first

Life Style Issue

In three parts.

Guys, you are going to thank me.

Part 1: Hair Care

Dudes and ladies, I have not used shampoo since November and you shouldn’t either. Inspired by my curly haired mom, I have given up shampoo and started washing my hair with conditioner. It’s been about three months and my hair rules. YOUR HAIR SHOULD RULE TOO.

Here is the thing though: I’ve been going around telling all my lady friends about this, expecting shock or disgust or at least vague interest, but you know what everyone says? “Oh yeah, I don’t use shampoo either.” Apparently everyone jumped off the shampoo bandwagon long ago and I had no idea. Well, thanks for the heads up, bitches.

So I guess this is for any of you who are still holding out for whatever reason. Come on, you can do it! I think this movement started with the curly headed community–I know my Shirley Temple-looking mom stopped using shampoo after reading about how bad it is for curly hair on some blogs. People with curls tend to have really dry hair so stripping it of oils with shampoo is a bad idea.

But Brenna, you say, I have straight hair. Thin, straight, fine, string bean, Peppermint Patty hair. Well, first of all, shut up, this is my Life Style Issue and I didn’t really ask for your input. But also, I have straight string bean hair that sometimes becomes (oh gosh, sorry to be gross here) oily (ew, bodies, am I right ladies?).

Guess what, WE SHOULD ALL STOP USING SHAMPOO ANYWAY. When you strip all the oils from your hair it just makes your scalp produce more gross stuff. I’ve heard other ladies with fine hair say that they don’t use conditioner at all because their hair is gets so oily. Fools! I know it sounds counter intuitive but trust me! Your hair will be less greasy if you throw out your shampoo (or use it on the dog or whatever). My life is changed for the better. I spend way less money on hair stuff and my hair looks better and is growing faster. Plus I have less dumb whispies and fly aways making me look like a mess.

So: wet down your hair, get a big old handful of your favorite conditioner, and really work it through your hair. Give your scalp a good old scrub. The conditioner is like a vehicle that takes away excess oil and whatever and it also smells nice. Probably, the first couple times you do this your hair will feel a little weird afterwards–not that downy fluffy clean shampoo feeling. But work with it, it’s just texture. You’ll get used to it after a couple days and then eventually everything will balance out. After a month my hair pretty much felt the same as it used to, only it seems healthier now. If you really feel weird about your hair just wait to make this transition when you have a couple months of unemployment to relieve you from the awkwardness of greasy hair at the office.

Moral of the story: if my hair was gross, could I stand to have a hair mustache on my face?

Itsa me!

Or would I use gross icky hair to dress up as Hair Jesus? NO

Please don't get mad at me

Could I wear my hair as a mask to become the hair ninja?

I will kill you before you even know how pretty my hair is

So anyway, yeah. Make your life better and you will be as awesome as I am (someday, hopefully).

Don’t Read This If You Don’t Want to Hear My Opinions About Ludacris

So I’ve found myself driving a lot recently, which means that I’m spending a lot of time with the radio. I love this, it’s one of the things I missed while I was out of the country. (My friend Lindsay points out, though, that it’s important to limit your top 40 radio time since it is, in her words, “like crack.” I have to agree, no one should listen to Katy Perry songs more than 7 times a day, and that will happen if you spend two hours a day in your car commuting.)

Anyway, the other day I heard this (not quite so) new Fabolous song.

My first thought was “Oh, hey, Fabolous.” It was sort of like when you run into someone from high school who you had forgotten about but who you were friendly with, and all those warm friendly feelings come back. Oh yeah, that person. This song brings me that kind of happiness.

(By the way, I went on a internet hunt to try to figure out where Fabolous had gone, I felt like I had heard he had had some legal troubles or something. I didn’t get to the bottom of that but I did end up following him on Twitter and I have NO REGRETS. Dude live tweets To Catch a Predator and it is great.)

My other thought is that this song falls into one of my favorite categories of rap music, which is songs that brag about how awesome the narrator’s lady friend is. Not just a song about a woman that you want to do it with, but a song about what makes her special, different, or better that everyone else. I think the king of this is Ludacris.

Ok, so the quality of the rhymes in this song might now be up there with golden-age Ludacris (What’s Your Fantasy, Stand Up, Virgo, etc.), but it is fun and I love that it is basically about what a badass his lady is. Sometimes it gets boring listening to people posture about how tough and scary they are; one remedy for this is the song where you rap proudly about how tough and scary the woman you’re dating is. (Anybody have any other examples of this kind of song? Comment, please?)

And I do really appreciate how often Ludacris brings female rappers into the spotlight with him. Shawna, Trina, and most recently Nicki Minaj (I know, she doesn’t need the help now but just remember that this came out like a year ago, back when I was trying to make you listen to Beam Me Up Scotty). He starts talking about it around the 2:00 mark here:

Which reminded me of an old Making of the Video I watched forever ago for Money Maker, a pretty okay song he did with Pharrell. The video was directed by a woman and I think it’s also worth pointing out that the woman dancing with the big snake was the choreographer. I’m not trying to say “Hey, this video was made by a women so that means it’s not sexist to have it be pretty much all about looking at women.” What I guess I’m trying to get at is that Ludacris has been called out by Oprah for sexism in his lyrics, but it seems to me that giving women control over important parts of his career or other artistic opportunities might actually be really important. Ludacris seems like someone who trusts women, who could have female friends and treat them like humans. Which is more important, what you say about women in songs or how you relate to them in real life? Well, if you are super famous, both are probably important and it’s ok for us to question things we think are problematic. But anyway, I love Ludacris. He’s good people and I would totally hang out with him.

Anyway, Fabolous, am I right?

State of the Blogion

…and other references that would have been timely if I didn’t have a serious procrastination problem.

Someone once told me that you should write with a pen rather than a laptop because it slows you down and encourages you to be a more thoughtful writer. I am a believer in giving ideas time to roll around in your head for a bit before you commit them to paper or, even worse, the unforgiving archive of the internet. Sometimes I let that go on a little too long and it becomes laziness.

Anyway I thought I would take a minute to reflect upon and assess what’s been going on here. First of all I want to say thank you for reading and writing lots of very nice comments. It’s kind of shocking when people voluntarily spend their time reading the things you say, even if most of you are 1. being nice or 2. really super bored and searching for something, anything, to look at. Well, regardless, thanks.

But now that I know people are out there reading I’m becoming quite calculating. Hopefully soon you can look forward to a portfolio up on here somewhere, if I can figure it out. Help me, WordPress Wizard (that’s who runs this thing, right?).

So the state of the blogion is pretty ok. It appears I’ve unintentionally taken a page from the Adam Belanger school of blogging and ensnared readers by tagging important famous people–I want a piece of that sweet sweet Dempsey Bump. Some people have come to my blog looking for Taylor Swift, Bruce McCulloch, or Joey Comeau. However all of these pale in comparison with the number of people who found me by searching “tampons.” Yup. The tampon bump. Tampons, used tampons, or, more disturbingly, used tampons and a string of German words.

And this has me thinking, are there that few people talking about tampons on the internet? The internet, where we go to type that which we would not speak? Come on ladies are we really still so shy about this? People, it makes me want to write about tampons like a million times more often. And believe me, I could. For every tampon post I write there are like 80 of them that I only compose in my head.

So no Dempsey-esque bump, but I’m still working on shameless self-promotion. My mom told me that she’s had that one Rihanna song stuck in her head again (this happens a lot in my house–you have probably experienced it too if you’ve gotten in a car and listened to the radio anytime in the last two months) but instead of “Oh na na” she’s singing “Brennana.”

(Also, am I allowed to wear shorts with tights? Or do you have to have an otherworldly beauty to pull that off?)

I’m thinking I can use it the same way George Costanza uses “By mennen” at 0:51 here.

Look at me, doing blogging and viral marketing. Watch out world!

Where Have You Been All My Life?

First of all, happy new year!

A great use of my time

I don’t think anyone thinks about this blog enough to really notice when I’m gone, but in case anyone was wondering where I’ve been, here is the answer. Back in October I signed up for the Sketch Book Project, which is this lovely thing put on by the fine folks at Art House Co-op. This is the idea: you sign up and pick a theme, they send you an empty Moleskine (blech, not my notebook of choice because they aren’t wire bound and I am left handed), you fill it with whatever and then send it back. The original deadline was January 15th but they have mercifully extended it to January 18th.

So what originally started as a way to procrastinate has become something that I now put off by blogging about it. Oh, the tricks I have to use to get myself to do anything. I have no idea what’s wrong with my stupid brain.

For the past 20 or so days I’ve been spending my nights drawing at my dad’s old desk with 30 Rock and Psych playing alternately in the background–30 Rock because I’ve seen each episode so many times I don’t really need to listen, Psych because the plots are too dumb to pay attention to, but occasionally a Lionel Richie joke will make it’s way through to my brain. Here’s a little preview to convince you to go see the show (or not to, if it turns out you hate drawings):

After much waffling, I chose the theme Jackets, blankets, and sheets. I really wanted to do Submersibles and Dirigibles because, well, obviously. But I realized that just drawing a million submersibles and dirigibles didn’t really offer anything special. My BFF James Valerio (please don’t tell him I called him that) once told me that my thing was attacking subjects straight on, just looking at them and drawing them, usually right in the center of the canvas. He was saying I should embrace it, and mostly I do. But I do want to try to take this opportunity to push myself a little bit and do something different. I’ve never been a clever person, so it takes a lot of effort to force myself to think of answering a question in an interesting way.

So anyway, it’s about layers. Get it? Ha! You see what I did there?

Directors commentary: Morgan, you might notice your Kill Bill shoes making a cameo here.

And then

Sorry this is so image heavy, I guess it takes a lot of pictures to show how you move through the book. This guy I like because he ended up being a self portrait, at least wardrobe-wise. I totally had those green sweatpants in Japan and they were so nice and warm. Sadly they didn’t make it back to the US. The sweatshirt I am wearing right now, though. The one place I got to get creative was the socks—I am very proud of those, the really feel like boy socks to me. Boys, if you disagree you are welcome to register your complaints in the comments. Oh wait, no boys read this.

While I was drawing the phone I realized that everyone has iPhones now and those rounded silver flip phones are pretty much non-existent, right? So I decided that this sketchbook takes place in October or November of 2008. I even went into the TIME archives to find an appropriate magazine cover. Here, I indulged in my obsession with miniatures.

The books were also really fun. With one exception they were all sitting on my desk when I drew this. Friend of the show Brian Bouldrey’s The Honorable Bandit appears, and it’s kind of a shameless plug since it’s my only for-real, published illustration credit. But it’s also very funny and moving and good! You should probably buy it.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve been reading Against the Day since September. I love it but I’m not sure it loves me back. In my insane fantasy world, Thomas Pynchon hears about his book appearing in my sketchbook and gets all mad and wants to sue me, but then he’s sees it and loves my drawings and hires me to make comic books about the Chums of Chance.

One Bloody Thing After Another is also in there. If you aren’t aware, it’s written by Joey Comeau from a softer world and it fit nicely into my zombie themed autumn travels. I bought it right out of his hands at NEWW. In my insane fantasy world, much the same thing happens with Joey as did with Thomas Pynchon only instead of hiring me to make comics we live out the plot of an x-rated You’ve Got Mail. Or something. I haven’t seen that movie in a while but you get the idea.

Oh, and since I remembered that this is supposed to be a dude I put a Playboy under the Crossword Puzzle book. However dude friends have since informed me that no one looks and Playboy and DEFINITELY no one buys magazines since porn is all free online or something. Fine.

And then this

I wont make you go through all the layers here but I am really proud of this:

They are totally playing Majora's Mask

If you’re interested in more, it follows, but in closing I will just say this: maybe you should go check out this show if it comes to your town because there will probably be lots of cool things there. If I can ever get my time management skills working my sketchbook might be there too!

Scenes from Christmas Shopping

In case you were worried, Old Town Coffee, Tea & Spice has you covered:

Thank God!

This might only be of interest to those of you shopping for my mother. In fact they probably made that sign for her.

In other news, this now apparently deserves it’s own shelf at Barnes & Noble:

A new take on vampires: SEXY vampires!

Sick of all that old, played out, teen paranormal romance? Don’t worry, the new stuff is over here.

I kid, but I would have been all over that about 13 years ago.

And lastly, please don’t forget to load up on vitamin C. It helps prevent scurvy and mall-fatigue.

Eat at least 11 servings of clementines daily

The Goose Is Getting Fat

It started three days ago.

I looked out my window as I made my morning tea and I saw this guy.

Artist's Rendering

The fattest little bird I’ve ever seen. This drawing is not even an exaggeration, he was nearly spherical. The yard was full of those little brown birds (does anyone know what they are called? Are they finches? They are everywhere) but this guy was by far the most…well prepared for winter.

Ok maybe you can't see him

I tried to snap a picture but I couldn’t quite get it before our neighborhood black cat (seen here pretending to be a jaguar) scared them all away. You will have to just believe me and my hastily executed watercolor that HE WAS SERIOUSLY THE ROUNDEST BIRD EVER.

So there it is, winter must be here. This guy is definitely in the final stages of preparing and I am drinking tea all day.

Can woman survive on tea and hot chocolate? She can try!

Need more proof? Clemetines. Safeway is full of Clementines. I bought a box and have been warding off scurvy with them all week. I might not have seen this as an important sign of winter before, but after three winters in Japan spent curled up in my kotatsu eating mikan because I was too cold to cook, they are an essential part of the season for me. (And yes, I can see that wikipedia says that clementines are not mikan but I defy you to eat two back to back and tell me what the difference is.)

Clementine ≠ mikan

Hm, anything else? Oh yes!

Behold, the glory!

Yep, winter is definitely here. Fat birds, tea, citrus fruit, and an em-effing Chistmas tree.

So of course yesterday I woke up to this.

Snow!! Eeeeeeee!

Canadian geese know whats up. (What is down? Their poop. All over the place.)

It’s officially winter! Here are some blurry pictures of the animals enjoying the snow.

Grusha investigates

Elke leaves footprints all over the yard while wearing a stylish lighted collar

In conclusion, it is winter, if you hadn’t noticed. Bundle up and enjoy!

Fox News Makes Me Want to Gretch

So I was watching the Daily Show’s critique of Fox New’s “coverage” (invention) of the war on Christmas and I had this revelation:

Gretchen Carlson looks exactly like Bruce McCulloch from Kids in the Hall when he dresses in drag.

Exhibit A

 

Go google yourself

Exhibit B

 

Why hello, pretty blonde lady

I personally would not notice if Bruce replaced Gretchen on Fox and Friends (mostly because I would never watch Fox and Friends in a million years). Still not satisfied, you say? I submit these:

Exhibit C

 

Looks like someone's gettin feisty

Exhibit D

 

“I ain’t gonna spread for no roses.”

Ok maybe you don’t agree with me. I wish I could make a better case, but the internet is shockingly empty of pictures of Bruce McCulloch in a blonde wig. Here, watch this video. Starting from minute 2, this is maybe not the best Kids in the Hall sketch, but it IS the best example of Bruce looking (and acting? Who knows!) like Gretchen Carlson.

And, just to clear your brain from thinking about Fox News, 11-year-old Brenna’s favorite Kids in the Hall sketch:

and Ashlinn‘s favorite:

Oh my gosh, I can only hope that Bruce gets to play her in a biopic sometime soon. OOOoooh who would be cast as Brown Haired Guy Who Isn’t Steve Doocy?

Go U Northwestern

Break right through that line!

Just wanted to say really quick that I’ve never been more proud to be a Northwestern alum.

Oh hell yes.

Also it is very clear that he deserves his 5 years of Sexellence award.

Nothing Is Fucked*

*Ok, some things are fucked.

The other night while my mom and I were watching The Big Lebowski the lights went out in the bathroom. When new bulbs didn’t fix the problem it became apparent that we have some kind of electrical problem, so, obviously, we put a floor-lamp in the bathroom.

Ta da!

Why hello there

I love my weird little house. It belongs to the grandparents of this very nice boy I went to elementary school with. They rent it out to us for way less than most of my friends pay for their one bedroom apartments because they are very kind and also because they come and visit a few times a year and stay in a little apartment that is attached to where we are living. I love this elderly couple. When they come to visit their kids and grand-kids who live behind us, grandpa does housework. This man must be in his 80s but he’s out in the yard wearing his plaid pants and work shirt, re-paving the driveway or replacing the mailbox. We love our landlords, which is kind of why we don’t want to bring up the problems with our electricity. We don’t want grandpa to have to come and fix it himself. We are pretty sure we can just live with it.

I love my little house, but sometimes it seems like it should exist somewhere in the pages of There I Fixed It. It has a lot of problems and they probably wont ever get solved because the house is old and it seems like people might not be interested in preserving it for the long haul. When we moved to this neighborhood it was filled with these little Levittown looking houses that I guess were built as summer homes in the 1940s.  These houses were inhabited by elderly people. Then the residents started to die off, and their children would sell these little houses on big plots of land for millions of dollars. Within a year there would be a McMansion built to the limit of the property and many less trees. Our house is of a dying breed, and it doesn’t look like it’s future is so bright. On the other hand, having the smallest, oldest house in the neighborhood pretty much means that no one will ever break in.

Tastefully Hidden Bucket

So, ok, our house is a little funny. The floor-lamp in the bathroom is only the latest addition to our museum of less-than-perfect solutions. We have buckets all over to catch the rain that falls inside. The dryer doesn’t work? No problem, we can get a clothes line.

"GAAAAaaaaahHH!!!"

Leaky shower head? We have come up with this solution. If we loop this thing around the fixtures we should be fine AND it makes a face. We are not troubled by plants that are growing inside the sun room—it started out as a porch so it used to be their territory anyway, sort of like Texas and Mexico. Plants are welcome inside. They make a nice little natural spot for the cat to have her litter-box. A little taste of the wild.

Oh no, our visiting plant friend is looking kind of dead

My sister’s boyfriend is appalled at the state of things here, I think. Don’t tell a handy person about your shitty house, they will tell you you need to get to fixing things right away. Crazy house, like loss of hygiene, is a slippery slope and I agree with Adam that it would probably be good for me to try to get on top of some of this chaos. But you know what? I like the bathroom with the floor-lamp. It’s a lovely soft yellow light. I like taking atmospheric showers. I like that my wrinkles and gray hairs, which have been a serious bummer for me recently, are not so noticeable anymore. You know what? I’m keeping it. There, I fixed it.

The End

Autumnsome? I am bad at puns

I’m going to be upfront and let you all know that this is not going to be that interesting, it’s just a bunch of pictures, and I suck at photography. It’s ok to skip this one. I’ve been trying to write a post about this local movie theater that is going to get torn down, but I haven’t been able to work myself up to it yet. So in the mean time, this is what’s going on in my yard/why I am so happy to be home in Virginia.

So I see this out my bedroom window when I wake up in the morning.

Raking is for suckers

I haven’t seen a Virginia fall in something like seven years. First I went off to Chicago which, obviously, had nothing on this. Sorry Midwest, it’s just the truth.  Then for three years I was in Japan, where observing the brilliant red leaves of maple trees was an annual event. And it was fun. Things were pretty. You’re friends would ask you “Oh, have you gone to see the red leaves yet?” and you’d be all “Yeah, I’m heading up to Kyoto on National Labor and Thanksgiving day!” You’d mill about famous places (temples, gardens) with tons of other people and take a lot of boring pictures, especially if you’re me. A few Japanese people asked me if we have fall in America, if we have red leaves. Yes and no, we don’t have maple trees that are located in special places exactly. Autumn in Japan is great, it really is, but it’s not the same thing as driving down the street and being surrounded by all kinds of big, tall, colorful trees. It’s great that it’s this big national event, but there is something to be said for just having it happen around you…casually?

So, I was very happy to watch all this happen.

The yard in October

The Yard in November

We had a couple lovely days where it was warm enough for me to sit outside with the animals and read Thomas Pynchon (Pynchon is hard enough for me to concentrate on, I don’t need cold toes making it worse). Clearly we are having such fun. I had a very magical moment with my fluffy white cat one evening as we listened the leaves fall all around us under the light of a full moon, her sitting so nicely in my arms, smelling the air.

Ugh she blinked

This isn’t interesting, and everything I’ve learned about writing up till now tells me that’s no good, but I think the internet has decided that this is allowed? I really like my house and my animals. I really like the way Virginia looks as it transitions between seasons. I don’t think there is anywhere prettier in the world, and I kind of think that’s how we should all feel about the place we live.