On Mix-Tapes, Playlists, and a GBFF

Ten years ago today, my gay BFF told me he was dying. I had wished him a happy 40th birthday, he got indignant because he was only turning 39, and decided that this was the perfect time to let me know that he would never see 40. His name was Jim, and he was the most sardonic person I have ever befriended, so I of course thought he was joking when he told me that I - three years his junior - would turn 40 before he ever did. Realizing that he was serious, I made one last request of him: a mix tape.

In addition to being Goth before Goth was cool, Jim was also an incurable romantic; it is what first attracted me to the slightly built, dark haired boy with the brown eyes that could pierce your soul or melt it, depending on his mood. I was just turned 14 when we met, and fell instantly in love. He was 17-and-a-half and wondered what evil he had performed to be cursed with the presence of this "bubble-headed blonde creature". In every way we were night and day. Dark and light. Void and radiance. In time, we became Yin and Yang. What brought Jim and I together was his sense of humor and my love to laugh; his vast knowledge of hauntingly beautiful love songs and my secret love of easy listening. I was - and always will be - a "headbanger", and this was a secret that Jim delighted in keeping if only to taunt me with the threat of revealing it...via one of his famous mix tapes.

Jim and I "grew up '80's", which is to say that we were surrounded by an eclectic mix of peers, a veritable Breakfast Club, which you may have noticed does not have one single gay character.  Nor did any other '80's teen comedy. As art imitates life, so life can imitate art and Jim played the role of "Duckie Dale" to absolute perfection, romancing women but never committing to more than the chase. A part of his charm - and the reason women were forever chasing him - was that if he liked you enough he would create you a mix tape of songs that reminded him of you. These romantic mix tapes were not what some crudely call "F*** Me tapes", but rather a compilation of songs that told the story of your friendship - how you met, what he first thought of you, a song that was playing at a pivotal moment in your relationship when you realized, "Did we just become best friends?"

Those who were born post-1985 will never know the work that went into creating a mix tape, as digital playlists have replaced them. They will never know the sheer agony of having to express yourself in only 10 songs - 12 max, if they were shorter, 8 if you included anything by Meat Loaf, Led Zeppelin, or Lynyrd Skynyrd. While a Spotify playlist will allow you to pour out your heart for hours and drip gallons of honey-sweet words into the ears of your beloved, '80's kids were stuck with the limitations of Memorex technology and a prayer that it wouldn't wear our before we were tired of listening to it.

How did you express your feelings for someone within the space of one hour's recording time? You needed to do some serious editing, and for that there was one simple rule:

Never use songs by the same artist twice. This rule would never fly when making a Spotify playlist, because as soon as you choose a song you are inundated by the rest of the artist's work and much of it is stuff you either love and cannot live without (so you add it to the list) or hate (and you spend an hour trying to convince Spotify's algorithm of that fact).  In the '80's, rather than put hours of music on your playlist, you spent hours deciding what songs to actually include. The dedication to the project was why these tapes were so cherished by the women who received them (we now realize that to the guys who gave them, it was simply an effort to get laid in this pre-Tinder era).

Jim, as you have probably guessed, was not looking to get laid by the female population presented with his mix tapes. In fact, after he came out to me (three years into our friendship) he would describe in great and unfortunate detail his fear that one day some woman would actually try to have sex with him and how such an episode would unfold. He would end each rant with the words "full body shudder". His goal, as it turns out, was not to hide behind a façade of heterosexuality; it was simply to tell the people he cared about how much they meant to him. I had never received a mix tape because I was one of the few people Jim spoke to openly about his feelings...one of the few to ever hear him utter the words "I love you".

The shock of discovering that Jim was actually dying left me in complete denial. Jim's alter-ego was that of a vampire, and vampires don't die! But something inside of me knew that he was preparing to walk out of my life and into the light. And so I selfishly demanded a mix-tape. And Jim selflessly provided me with one last "I love you". Below is our story arc:

1. I Hate Everything About You (Ugly Kid Joe)

2. Don't Come Around Here No More (Tom Petty)

3. Mickey (Tony Basil) Jim always called me a "cheerleader"; I think I was growing on him!

4. Clouds (the Hayley Westernra version)

5. Sometimes When We Touch (Dan Hill) I still think of this as "our song".

6. Music of the Night (Michael Crawford) Phantom of the Opera was Jim's obsession

7. How Am I Supposed to Live Without You? (Laura Branigan) Jim was devastated when I went away to college so shortly after I had become "an indispensable part" of his life

8. Love Song for a Vampire (Annie Lennox)

9. Who Wants to Live Forever? (Sarah Brightman version) Jim first heard it in the movie Tuck Everlasting, but I thought it great of him just the same to include this Freddie Mercury gem

10. Stay With Me (Shakespear's Sister) He haunts me still.


KJM
01.23.19

January Cooking and New England Frugality

I am a New England native, which means without even knowing me, people automatically assume that I am somewhat Puritanical, that I possess a Protestant work ethic, and that I love the New England Patriots. People who assume these things would be right on two of the three counts.

Here in New England, January brings us three annual truths: completely unpredictable weather (I was running around outside barefooted on New Year's Day); a renewed sense of Yankee frugality when the post-Christmas bills arrive; and that that the New England Patriots will be making yet another run for the Lombardi trophy (note that I show my NFL loyalties by referencing the Lombardi trophy and not the game one must win to earn it).

With the exception of my football loyalties, I am no different than the typical New Englander. Due to the fact that our economy is in a constant state of recession (with the exception of Massachusetts, which is why we all work there), I have developed an All-Star ability to save money on necessary purchases. Whenever something I know I will need goes on sale AND I have a coupon for it, I stock up on the item and plan my cooking and baking around how much product I have to use before the freshness date is reached. This practice took some practice to perfect - I once ended up with 25 pounds of sugar in my pantry (I am diabetic) - but in time, I got it down to a science and it serves me well every January.

Each season has it's food specialties - summer is all about watermelon, corn on the cob, and foods you can cook on a grill or over an open flame; winter is about eating until I no longer feel cold, so calorie dense meals are a must.

Having been out of full-time work (partly by choice, partly by fate) I have had to keep a strict eye on my spending this past year as my side-gig was never designed to provide a full-time income. Come January 1, a look inside my pantry showed shelves and shelves of ingredients, but no actual food. This meant I was going to have to cook.

To me, there is a huge difference between meal preparation and cooking. Meal preparation involves no thought; it involves throwing together a plate with all four food groups properly represented (sorry, Reaganites, but ketchup is not a vegetable). A sandwich (protein, starch, and a few salad veggies) covers three of the four; add cheese and my work is done. You want fries with that? Cooking involves a recipe; that means I must inventory and gather ingredients, which means I must plan ahead. If I cook for you, it means I love you.

Based upon my existing inventory, I menu-plan all of my main dishes via the use of cookbooks. I realize that I could use an online website like AllRecipes.com or any number of Food Network sites that are regularly updated with new ideas, but I would be there for days looking at 5,000,000 ways to prepare chicken.

Upon recent investigation of the inside of my pantry I discovered:

• 10 boxes of Prince pasta (68-cents a box when you buy 10!)
• 10 cans of various Pastene canned tomato products (when that stuff goes on sale 1/2 price, stock up!)
• 10 pouches of Knorr Pasta and/or Rice Sides (also 10/$10)
• A plethora of canned goods - Campbell's and Progresso canned soups (on sale for a song, and great to serve when you don't feel like cooking, but also great for use in recipes), various beans (Cannellini, garbanzo, baked), tuna, chunk chicken,...you name it! I am ready for the Zombie Apocalypse!
• An entire shelf of baking ingredients - flour, sugar, Bisquick (for when you are undeserving of my homemade best), chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruits, Crisco, cocoa, coffee, syrups, and various grains and meals (oat, corn, quinoa, rice, etc.)
• A wide variety of crackers and snack foods left over from Christmas
• Enough potatoes to supply every citizen of Russia a lifetime supply of vodka

Inside my freezer is a wide variety of meats that I secured on sale and froze (I find that meat generally goes on sale the first week of every quarter, but you can always find it discounted just before the weekend hits). Since I refuse to freeze meat for more than 4 months - it loses it's flavor - I label and date my stock so I know what to use first. In addition to all this is your standard frozen veggies, quick-bites/appetizers, and my soapstone whiskey rocks (it's good to be prepared!).

From these simple ingredients, I have been cooking meals for two weeks now. My trips to the grocery store are for perishables that I refuse to freeze - milk, bread, fresh fruits and veggies (I live in small-farm country; once you've had these things same-day fresh it is hard to enjoy them any other way). My meals this month have included:

• Soups and stews (chicken, beef, vegetable, Portuguese Wedding, and homemade chili); I have a cookbook dedicated to soups and stews, which is also why I have a food processor and two blenders - traditional and immersion - as well as a large spice rack with cooking spices (which reminds me, I need a second one for baking spices); Tuesday night is "Soup and Sandwich night".
• Pasta dishes - baked ravioli/ziti, lasagna, spaghetti with homemade meatballs, homemade mac 'n' cheese, and pasta e fagioli (Wednesday is Pasta Night)
• Roast chicken dinner, Yankee pot roast with root vegetables, barbecue pork ribs with all the fix-in's (Monday and Thursday I do a full dinner, and invite others to join me)
• Homemade pot-pies (chicken, beef, or pork depending on what I have leftover!)
• Quesadillas, tacos, Sloppy Joe, calzones, and other sandwich-like eats for quick, weekend cooking (I'm not a big fan of actual sandwiches).

As you can see, all of these meals use inexpensive, simple and healthy, whole-food and minimally processed, readily available ingredients and are easy to prepare on a weeknight or can be prepared in advance and refrigerated until ready to cook. The ingredients all go a long way, too - I still have enough food in my pantry to cook another two weeks worth of meals! Now all I need are a few new recipes to keep from getting bored. Tune into my upcoming post about "Adventures With Cookbooks"!

KJM

01.17.19

Day 4: A Visit With Mom

Today is January 4th, and I almost parted with my #TammyFayeMakeover ideal, but I sucked it up and put on makeup for the second time this week. The reason? I was going to visit my Mom.

Mom would love for me to be the type of woman who puts on her "face" as soon as she wakes up and leaves it on until she gets ready for bed; she was raised that a woman's attire is not complete unless she is wearing makeup. My Mom is the type of woman who walks into a room and instantly commands it with a single glance. I have heard grown adults call her "Mrs. Manchester", even after she has invited them to call her by her first name; there's just something about her that says, "Treat me no differently than you would the Queen". That something is usually my mouth; I have a very low tolerance for disrespect, especially when it is aimed at my Mom. Disrespect her and I will unleash on you such terror that it will make your worst nightmares look like a game of Candy Land. While I can't always live up to my own standard (what mother-daughter relationship is that perfect?) I do my best, and thus I found myself wearing a sweater instead of a Casual Friday sports jersey, a slightly sophisticated cascade of curls instead of a sporty ponytail, and a face full of makeup.

As you can see, I am tickled pink!

I love pink. It's actually one of my best colors to wear, but I stopped doing so around the time Reese Witherspoon made it a blonde's "signature color". Being blonde, people automatically want to deduct 50 IQ points and I have to work hard to be taken seriously; too much pink derails my own cause. Sometimes, I am my own worst enemy.

With my hair pulled back like this, I could have gone strong eye or strong lip but decided to go strong lip because it's a rare day I get to wear hot pink lipstick. I have very fair skin (I was once told that I am "pale enough to be dead") and the intensity of hot pink can make me look like a circus clown. This particular sweater is a close enough match to my lipstick (possibly exact, I'd have to check the Pantone) and it allows the lip color to blend with my outfit.

For me, strong lip is a time-consuming look to create. It takes about 5 minutes to complete. Yes, you read that right - five whole minutes on just my lips! When I do a "barely there" look it takes less time to do my whole face! I realize that I am not winning any sympathy from makeup artists and aficionados, but my stress is real...in the morning, that's five extra minutes I could be sleeping. This is another reason why I have a love-hate relationship with the "strong lip" look. It's my favorite look to wear, but I do love to sleep in on a cold winter morning.

To get the look, I penciled in my lips with a matching liner - I usually go a shade darker with my liner, but hot pink is tricky. If I use a darker pink, it doesn't look natural and if I use red I look Goth, which is not a good look for me. My pencil was not as sharp as I would have liked it, so the corners of my lips are a little wobbly; thankfully, cotton swabs and cover-up were at the ready for any major mishaps. After lining my lips, I filled in with a 100% matte hot pink lipstick and an overlay of semi-gloss lip gloss for a hint of shine. I hate the sticky feel of gloss, so I dry and seal it by using a blow dryer on my lips (low heat only, to avoid chapping). My goal is a Mona Lisa smile but I fear it is more of a Lisa Simpson smile.  Maybe practice will make perfect?

Which Lisa? You decide!

Overall, I am happy with this makeup look, but at the same time I feel like I don't look like myself. I would wear this style if I was drinking red wine by a field-stone fireplace with my girlfriends (I am not romanticizing; I live in New England, where field-stone fireplaces are everywhere, including the local Panera). This look is not "run to the grocery store on a Friday afternoon", so it is going to take some adjusting if this is going to be my new normal.

This weekend, I will be baking carrot-cake cupcakes for the church coffee hour, so I will get to practice one of my other New Year's Goals: pastry decorating. Stay tuned to see how my first #caketastrophe adventure goes!

KJM
01.04.2019

Day One: The Tammy-Faye Makeover

Yesterday was New Year's Day, which meant I needed to keep my commitment to my New Year's Goals (I don't make resolutions anymore). I was having guests over for dinner, and realized at the last minute that this meant, in order to keep with the #TammyFayeMakeover goal I had set, I needed to put on makeup, even though I was not

1. Leaving the house
2. Playing dress-up with my eight-year-old niece
3. Looking like an extra on The Walking Dead and in dire need of a pick-me-up

Since I was having guests over, I had my hair loose and sprayed instead of pulled back into a careless ponytail; this meant I would have to go with minimal makeup. Thank goodness I was going to be able to ease into this commitment!

I'm sure that the very first thing you noticed in my photo is that I am wearing a Boston Bruins jersey instead of my customary Minnesota Wild gear (#GoWild!). There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this: With the exception of everyone's beloved Cubbies, I loathe Chicago teams. While flipping channels, I noticed that the Bruins were playing the Blackhawks and I immediately threw on my "Boston Strong" jersey to telepathically send my support to the the black and yellow. Scoff all you want; Boston beat Chicago 4 - 2.

In this photo, I am also wearing full makeup! I used both mousse and powder foundations to even my skin tone and to accomplish a smooth, finished look (that Walking Dead comment was not a joke!). While I have been blessed with naturally rosy cheeks, so there is no need to use blusher, I have also reached an age where I am starting to get forehead creases (I refuse to call them wrinkles) and "age spots". While that term literally gives me nausea, my beloved grandmother had them as well, and it is what I first remember about her appearance when I think of her - her soft, slightly mottled skin and the love that emanated from her touch. However, the tender memory soon passes and I find myself reaching for the bar of parsley soap to naturally fade them (I know it sounds crazy, but with regular use it does work).

I know that I should use brushes or sponges to apply my mousse/liquid foundation, but I just can't; while I am not a germaphobic, I have enough sense to know that both brushes and sponges can become bacteria factories without regular disinfecting or replacement. My skin is sensitive to chemicals, and I don't want to create non-recyclable waste from sponge use, so I apply foundation with my fingers. I hate the mess on my hands - one reason why I find it hard to commit to wearing makeup - but at least it washes clean rather quickly. I use a moisturizing beauty wipe to avoid drying out my hands, and re-use it to wipe down the vanity when I am done with the entire application process. If you have read this far, I will now reward you by revealing the real reason I don't commit to brushes and sponges: because I don't know how to use them. I get a streaky finish every time. I can deal with the chemical sensitivity and the crimes against the environment, but I can't see the point of wearing makeup if it's going to look like a five-year-old applied it.

Eye makeup is my favorite makeup to wear, which is probably why I go all Tammy Faye with it in the first place. I love glitter and sparkle, but too often the look is less "Nomi from Showgirls" and more five-year-old who got into Mommy's vanity. 

How I think I look...how I actually look

Because I am still working on mastering the art of applying glitter it will be a while before I even attempt to leave my dressing room while wearing it. As a kinesthetic learner, I have to learn by doing; YouTube tutorials are great for inspiration, but they may as well be in German for all I can understand.

For yesterday's look, I used very basic eye makeup - unusual for me, but that is why this goal is called the #TammyFayeMakeover. I am wearing no eye-shadow, and a medium bronze eyeliner on only the cat's-eye corners of my eyes. For mascara, I used a nearly bare brush - not by choice. Every five to ten years my immune system decides it would be fun to switch up my allergies. Fifteen years ago I had a reaction to a famous "hypoallergenic" brand; my eyes were so red and swollen that my roommate quarantined me until I could prove I did not have a nuclear case of pink-eye. Since then, I have developed sensitivities to several other popular mascara brands, am currently only able to tolerate the $25/tube stuff, and I am currently scraping the very bottom of that small tube. Since I am also currently side-gigging while I look for full-time work, I need to prioritize my expenses: given the choice between a mascara for myself and food for my cat, I made the responsible choice. (I think I deserve a gold star for adulting on that one!).

Lipstick has always been tricky for me. A good, quality lip liner is a must for me, because without it I feather - I don't care how high quality the lipstick is, without a liner to constrict it the color bleeds off my lips and makes me look like Harley Quinn after a night of wild mayhem. 

I have a large collection of lipsticks (to which I am always adding, budget be damned) that range in intensity, but all fall in the pink/red/tan family of color collectively known as "berry". Because I was going for a minimalist look, I went with a 100% matte (I love mattes) geranium-petal pink that is nearly identical to my natural lip color. I bought it on a whim, in spite of the fact that I never wear such pale colors (the shade was my grandmother's favorite color and I have been missing her more than usual lately). Perhaps I will now get some use out of it, after all.

Overall, I have to say that the process of prettying up for my guests was far less painful and time consuming than I thought it would be and a lot more fun than it usually is. Perhaps it was because I now have a purpose for doing it? Or maybe because I was doing it out of respect for others, and not my own vanity? My Mom was shocked to see me wearing makeup (at all, not just at home) and I told her about this new goal of mine, and she now has one of her own for me: to get me to wear makeup every time I leave the house. It looks like a trip to Sephora is in my very near future. Stay tuned!

KJM
01.02.2019