Archive for March, 2006

29
Mar

Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen

By matessi 1 Comment
Categories: Uncategorized

The lyrics to Everybody’s Free to Wear Sunscreen, by Mary Schmich:

(Best Read with Baz Luhrman’s Music)

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

25
Mar

“I’d like to have a CHAIR, please.”

By matessi 0 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized

Lately I’ve been finding myself eating in fastfood stores more often. Well, summer’s here and I like the airconditioning in these places, and the variety of food choices that they give me. I am also toying with the idea of doing my own version of "Super Size Me", but only until I get as fat as I’d like to be. And, if you’re single and living independently, you must have discovered by now that sometimes it is more economical (in terms of financial and physical energy expenditures) to eat out than cook in your house.

But lately, too, I’ve been hearing a lot of seemingly well-educated, picky, self-proclaimed food connoiseurs demand that they be given "white meat parts" when they order chicken in fastfood stores. The first time I heard it I was amused, and felt sorry for the staff who was asked to select the white meat of fried chicken. But it seems that more and more people are using the term now that the staff already understands that they are referring to the breast or thigh part, or, generally, the fleshy part. Maybe this is how words/ terminologies evolve: someone would  use a term as if s/he knows very well what s/he’s saying, and then the others would hear her/him and start using that term, too. Maybe I should start referring to myself as Diyosa, with enough conviction to convince a whole nation.

So what is white meat? White meat refers to lean meat, meaning, meat that are less fatty than red meat (pork, beef, mutton, etc.). Foods that fall under this category are fish, seafood, and particularly poultry/ fowl (chicken, and all its parts, included). Does it hurt using the term to refer to the fleshy part of chicken? Maybe not IF you’re not trying to project the image of a food connoissuer, if you just happen to "not really know the difference". I try to imagine this scene in a formal dining restaurant, and I could almost see the maitre d’ and the chefs cringe. But honey, you may call it a chair if you want to. In food and customer service, the customer is ALWAYS right. It doesn’t mean, though, that s/he can’t be funny.