FASHION (?) STYLE (?) and HIGH VIOLET too!

There’s this really old cartoon called Rocky and Bullwinkle. Each episode would start with Bullwinkle (a moose) announcing to Rocky (a squirrel?) that he was going to pull a rabbit out of his hat and then he’d proceed to pull out a growling lion and frantically shout that he must have grabbed the wrong hat. Well…watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

Here…I’m just going to reach inside, grab this guy by its little ears, pull…and, um…well, here’s my pick for favorite album of the year! I guess you could say that, like fashion or style, picking a favorite album is a highly subjective endeavor. I have to admit that my selection isn’t as meaningful to me as it was when I was younger. I used to agonize over my favorite album. Now I just pick. Perhaps this is the way it is with fashion too: one day you’re wrestling over what to wear, pulling out this and that, and then one day you’re old, living in some senior citizen community and you’re pulling out a pair of old brown polyester pants without really caring what anyone thinks. Anyhow. This year my pick for favorite album is: The Nationals, High Violet. They had me with the line – “I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees.”

I assume by now you’re all asking yourselves what the Christmas does my favorite album have to do with fashion and style? Well, that’s a good question and worthy of an answer other than “I must have grabbed the wrong hat.” Hopefully I’ll manage to connect the dots for you and if I don’t there’s worse things in life.

Now, I’ve been told I look good in a suit but I’m not so sure, I think it’s just a line people feed me. I’m really more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy. You see, when I wear a suit I always feel like an impostor, the same as if I slipped on a white lab coat and pretended to be a highly intelligent scientist. I might be able to walk around the lab for a while and blend in but sooner or latter I’d have to actually do something. I’ve heard that there are elements that will explode if you don’t mix them properly. I’ve never felt comfortable in a suit. I think that’s the most important aspect of fashion: you have to wear something with a degree of confidence. If you don’t, well, it’s just not going to work. The Nationals’ High Violet is a very confident album played with a straightforward honest attitude. Maybe that’s another reason why it’s so enjoyable.

Here’s another connection The Nationals have with fashion. Unlike many popular bands these guys perform in concert tastefully dressed in suits, ties, and nice shirts. Although I do feel there’s a slightly Monty-Pythonish quality to their fashion tastes. Like me, they don’t seem able to pull off the whole wearing a suit with confidence routine but for a rock band that might be a good thing. Rock stars can sometimes find themselves being perceived as egocentric elitists. A little awkwardness goes a long way in establishing a common bond with their fans. Although I have to admit that lead singer Matt Berninger rivals only myself in his apparent suit-wearing discomfort. He also has a tendency to appear slightly inebriated and I’m not sure if that can be contributed to his attire or the consumption of alcohol but I suspect the ladder.

Music and fashion have always had a long-standing common-law marriage. Music sets a tone; it establishes style. Try to picture a fashion show without music. And need I point out the countless marriages between rock stars and fashion models? I didn’t think so. So in closing, let’s review: fashion requires confidence, style is subjective, The Nationals’ High Violet is the best damn album of the year and always remember if you’re going to pull a rabbit out of a hat make sure you’ve got the right hat.

Anyhow, I guess this has all been a long way for me to say…check out this video, and tell me it doesn’t get stuck in your head! And since everything’s subjective – what’s your favorite album of the year? Bend my ear and tickle my brain.

Love this song.

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A Very Bag Day

So this week at Teen Fiction Cafe it's all about fashion and style and since I've got nothing but a looming deadline, I thought I would give you all a little visual of some of my favorite retro handbags - okay, so I say retro but my husband calls them something else that I couldn't possibly repeat on a nice blog like this!


Handbag one - The Doormat. I love this bag so much and I'm pretty sure that it really is made out a doormat. But since it pretty much goes with everything and is incredibly robust, it's a keeper!





















Handbag two - The Dynasty Collection. How adorable is this? I mean it's fake patent leather and it has a very large fan in the middle of it. Of course it's also totally impractical and considering the size of it you can only fit in a lipstick and some cash, but sometimes you've got to suffer for retro handbag fashion



















Handbag three - Fancy Dynasty. Yes, very similar to the fake patent leather but instead it's fake snakeskin in a gorgeous navy. It can also be worn as a clutch at night time and it has a zip so it doesn't matter if you turn it upside down, nothing nasty can fall out (and by nasty I mean all the shopping dockets that I forget to throw out).






















Handbag four - The Seventies Never Left People I can't tell you how long it took me to find this little baby but it was so worth the wait. I love it, and of course in the true spirit of retro handbags, it only cost six dollars!



















Handbag five - Apple Green Heaven. This gorgeous little creation was actually the one that started my love of old handbags in the first place. Isn't it gorgeous and it even comes with with a little mirror in case of any spinach-in-teeth emergencies!



















So that's me and my life of retro handbags. Does anyone else have any little treasures that can't stop buying regardless of what certain misunderstood people in their life might think???????

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Food and Family and Holidays

Ah, Christmas.

In my childhood, Christmas Eve meant eating the smelliest mushroom soup made with sauerkraut juice. And it was black. As in the color of crude oil. And it stank. Bad. Real bad.

Then we had the tradition of, from oldest to youngest, getting blessed with the sign of the cross on our forehead. In HONEY. If my grandmother got you real good? Your bangs were plastered to the bridge of your nose for the rest of the night.

Then there was Polish kielbasi. Pirogi. Horseradish and beets.

Your mouth is watering, right?

But that's what the holidays are to me. So here I am . . . years later . . . still serving that every Christmas Eve (with the exception of the soup . . . I mean, COME ON. SAUERKRAUT juice???).

And something about it connects me to my larger family, to my childhood, and makes new memories with my kids, who are half-Mexican, and half-Russian and Slavic. They may love Mexican food and have Mexican last names. But once a year? They eat a bunch of weird stuff they can't spell.

So . . . how are food and holidays tied together for you? Anything weird?

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Yay, Food! A Lot on Her Plate

I just discovered a great new blog called A Lot on Her Plate.

It was started by Dayna, who says, "In an e-mail discussion with a fellow feminist and a proponent of fat acceptance she described blogs that were sometimes nothing but images of bigger women. Seeing these images over and over, she explained, helped normalize that body type--her body type--reducing some of the pressure society and mainstream media placed on her to be thin. Within minutes I knew what image I wanted normalized, for myself and for women everywhere: Women eating food. Plenty of food. Healthy food, unhealthy food, big vegetarian meals, burgers dripping grease down women's knuckles while they take the first giant bite. Cake. Steak. Bowls full of ice cream. Shiny red apples, funnel cakes, and homemade cinnamon rolls. I want to flood the internet with images of girls and women eating and loving food unabashedly, so that we don't have to hesitate before asking for seconds."

How cool is that? Check out the blog and all its celebrations of fabulous food and awesome Women Who Eat. (Yes, I did make a guest appearance recently, hence that photo of me with my friend Anne.) And don't forget to submit your own eating pic to Dayna!

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The Soup/Salad/Sushi Diet

I find it highly appropriate that this week’s blog topic is “Food.” Especially since I still haven’t recovered from all of the aforementioned topic I consumed during Thanksgiving week.

Notice, the use of the word “week” and not just “Thanksgiving Day.” Because Thanksgiving isn’t a day anymore. It lasts ALL week. Especially when you arrive at your in-laws the Monday before Thanksgiving and don’t leave until the Monday after. Let it suffice to say that all we did the ENTIRE week was eat.

So after stuffing our faces for a full seven days, my husband and I became resolved to go on a diet when we got home. Except we never diet like normal people. We don’t buy diet books or subscribe to fancy websites that count your calories. We prefer to make up our own diets.

Like this week. We decided that as soon as soon we got home, we would go on a “Soup Diet.” That’s right. Nothing but soup for five days straight. YUM! (We do love soup!) So off we went to the supermarket to stock up on all our favorite organic soups. And the diet was going quite well until about…well, six hours later, when we’d both consumed an unbelievable amount of soup and were craving...well, just about anything else but soup.

So I said, “You know...come to think about it. Soup might not be enough. I think we should be allowed to eat salad too. After all, salad is perfectly healthy and no diet should ever exclude salad.” My husband readily agreed and our diet quickly transformed from the “Soup Diet” to the “Soup and Salad Diet.” YUM! (We do love soup and salad!)

Well, that went pretty well until we were driving around the next day, feeling pretty hungry and not at ALL in the mood for soup or salad, when we happened upon a sushi place. Our mouths immediately started to water. (We do both love sushi!)

So I said, “You know...come to think about it. Sushi is really healthy too. And as long as you don't have any tempura rolls or anything with cream cheese in it, the ingredients of sushi are pretty much the same as the ingredients of soup. Except...you know...without the broth.”

My husband readily agreed and our diet soon after became known as the “Soup, Salad and Sushi Diet.”

Well, it went on like this for a good couple days. And eventually the title of our "Diet" contained so many foods, we stopped calling it by all the things we could eat and started calling it by all the things we couldn't. And by Thursday afternoon, it had turned into the “No Fried Foods or Dairy Diet.”

And that lasted until around Thursday night when my parents treated us for dinner and my mom just had to order those sinfully delicious Fried Cheese Wontons. And...well...you can probably guess what happened next.

Oh well, better luck next Thanksgiving.

So come on…who else has invented crazy diets (successful or otherwise)?

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Good News Friday!

Hoorah! It's Friday. Which means "Good News!"

And I'm so excited to share mine this week because I've had to keep it "mum" for months! But now the mumness is over and I can sing out and do my happy dance in public!

As reported in Publisher's Weekly this week, I recently sold four new books to my publisher, Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Macmillan Children's)!!!

The first three are part of a new sci-fi/love story trilogy, starting with the first book titled, UNREMEMBERED. (A sixteen year old girl awakes amongst the wreckage of a devastating plane crash with no memories--the only clue to her identity is a mysterious boy who claims she was part of a science experiment 100 years in the future) And I've also sold another one of my contemporary stand-alone titles (along the vein of The Karma Club and my forthcoming, My Life Undecided). This fourth book is not yet titled.

Also, the Unremembered trilogy was optioned to producer Doug Davison (The Departed, The Lake House, The Ring, How to Train Your Dragon) with screenwriter Whit Anderson attached to adapt it as a film. Doug and Whit are both also attached to the recently-announced reboot of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.

SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

If you want the full details (including more info about the Unremembered trilogy), you can read Publisher's Weekly's write up here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/deals/article/45329-deals-week-of-11-29-10.html

And now, I better go. I have a LOT of books to write! :)

Happy weekend everyone! I'm off to do more happy dancing. :)

XXOO,
Jessica

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Winter Writing Retreat!

This fall has been an epic battle for me in terms of my writing, so I've decided to reward myself by going on a writing retreat in January. Normally I try to find a cheap place a short distance from home when I've gone on retreats lately. But this time some writer friends who live in other parts of the country and I don't get to see much invited me to share a house with them for a week in....

San Diego!!!!!

I couldn't pass this up for a few different reasons. I have the same thought process about vacations as Wendy, I love to either go to places I've never been or places I adore visiting and whenever possible I want to visit with friends that I don't get to see very often. Well, the last part is definitely true and while I've been to California a few times and I do love it, I have only been to L.A. and San Francisco, not San Diego. I've heard nothing, but wonderful thing about San Diego, including that it should be decently warm even in January. And believe me, coming from frigid Chicago, even mid-fifties will feel like a heat wave at that time of year!

So I get my warm weather in winter fix, my friends I rarely see fix, my new city in a state I love fix, and I get to write.

People laugh at that last part saying, "Are you really going to write when you have a house near the beach with a pool?"

Well, I am disciplined so it will happen. Not to mention, I have terrible luck going to warm places during winter. My honeymoon to Florida at the beginning of this year? It was 40 in Miami when we arrived, the coldest it had been in decades. My first trip to L.A. in January 2002? Also in the 40s. Shhh, you probably shouldn't tell my housemates about this bad luck of mine or they will boot me off this trip and I need it!

Though personally whether it is warm or cold, I'll enjoy having a scenic place to write. I went to New Brunswick, Canada right after Thanksgiving to write a few years and I froze my butt off, but it was still inspiring to wake up every morning, walk down the block and see this:

And I wrote 10 to 14 hours each day on that trip. I can only hope San Diego is just as productive. Though preferably warmer!

What about you? Any winter getaways planned? Do you have bad luck like me when going to "warm" places in the winter?

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Vacation in My Home State of Utah (& a CD Giveaway!)

When I am deciding where to go on a vacation, there are certain things I weigh. If it's some place I've never been, that is a bonus. Hot on my list are New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, and New England. (I've been to NY, but only once.) I also like to go to places I've been but want to go back because there are things I didn't get to do the last time I was there. This includes New York, Costa Rica, and Europe (I know, that last one is a doozie.) I also like to go on vacations that are very different from where I live. Beaches and tropical islands, for example. And last but not least, I like to go somewhere to visit a friend or family member. Any time I can combine several of these things, the better.

But many of the things people travel near and far to do and see are right in my backyard. For example, I've skied and snowboarded in many states and two countries, but I still think this area has some of the very best winter resorts. In 3 minutes I can be at a quaint family ski resort, Wolf Mountain. In 10 minutes, I can be at Powder Mountain, which until Blackcomb and Whistler (in British Columbia) combined, offered the most acreage of North American ski resorts. And in about 20 minutes, I'm knee-high in powder at the glamorous and extreme Snowbasin, home of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games downhill. And that's not counting all the Salt Lake City- and Park City-based resorts like Snowbird, Alta, and Deer Valley, which are about an hour away from where I live.

Of course, cross country skiing, snow-mobiling, snow shoeing, and sledding abound in snowy, mountainous country like this. And that's just the winter stuff! One day I'll tell you all about the amazing adventures you can have in the warmer months here in Utah. But for now, tell me what fun, exciting, and/or relaxing things people like to do this time of year where you live. I'm feeling particularly fond of my home state, and to celebrate, I'm giving away a signed copy of "I Believe You," a folk/jazz/inspirational CD by Utah native and fabulous skiier (and my dear friend and yoga teacher), Danielle Vaughn. Leave a comment to be entered. My middle son (pictured above) will choose a winner on Friday, December 3. Good luck!

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Take Me Away: Vacations/Travel Week

It's Vacations/Travel Week here at TFC. There's just one problem: I don't have any travel plans for the near future, much as I wish I did, given that's it 25 degrees in Danbury this morning. I suppose, to alter my mental reality - i.e., raise the temperature - I could tell stories of past trips to warmer climes, but the space heater in my basement cave of an office is taking its sweet time powering up so let's make this quick.

Name one YA novel that you loved that managed to transport you somewhere exotic, preferably warm, or at the very least different than the town/state you currently reside in. I'll go first.

I absolutely love HOW TO RUIN A SUMMER VACATION by Simone Elkeles, about a 16-year-old girl who travels with her estranged Israeli father to...Israel. Israel! How exotic is that? Warm too. The novel itself is also smart, funny, romantic and entertaining as all get-out. And if you read the book, you get the added benefit of traveling somewhere without having to submit to a full-body scan or a pat-down. I've also read the sequel, HOW TO RUIN MY TEENAGE LIFE, also excellent, and am looking forward to reading the sequel to the sequel, HOW TO RUIN YOUR BOYFRIEND'S REPUTATION.

So how about you? What are some of your take-me-away-from-here - wherever "here" might be for you - favorite YA reads?

Be well. Don't forget to write.

Brr.

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school days...and parents

I had no idea what I was going to write about for this week's topic, which is school, and then I remembered one thing that always seems to fascinate people:

In high school, I had both my parents as teachers.

Sounds like ready-made trauma, right?

But, you see, when you grow up knowing that a. your parents are teachers and that b. if you take certain classes you'll have them as teachers (because they are the only people who teach that subject) then it really isn't much of a surprise. I mean, by the time I finally got to their classrooms, I'd known it was coming for over a decade.

So, you know, I did have a little time to prepare.

I didn't call them Mom or Dad in class (because, ewww!) and they treated me just like they would any other student (they'd had time to get ready for it too, after all) And that was that.

Now, if you want to talk about my mother telling me I didn't need to take typing because "it wouldn't be that useful," well--that's another post altogether :-)

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EMBARRASSING TALES.

Now here’s a topic I’m well qualified to talk about. If embarrassing tales were quills I’d look like a porcupine. As a teenager I just assumed that as I grew older I’d find myself in less and less embarrassing situations. Unfortunately I still manage to embarrass myself on a fairly regular basis. But since this is Teen Fiction Café I thought I’d focus on a couple of my more distressing teenage memories.

The first one is a private embarrassment. Nobody really knew the crushing disappointment and embarrassment I felt at that moment except me. Isn’t that how it goes sometimes? In my freshman year of high school I had a huge crush on this girl. She was the one that would turn my legs to rubber and my mind to mush every time she walked by. One day she sat next to me in a study hall and started talking about an upcoming dance. She kept asking me questions about what I was doing Friday night and I really thought she was hinting that I should ask her to the dance. I was just about to, building up my nerve, thinking about the best way to phrase my query, trying to remain cool. I was excited and tense, debating my options, almost dizzy with anticipation.

I decided to go for it.

But right before I was about to open my mouth, she said, “So, what I wanted to ask you is, you know Dean – do you think he’d want to go to the dance with me?”

The surprise and disappointment was explosive, so much so that I must have momentarily let down my guard because she gave me this long look of dawning understanding before finally saying, “Oh.”

Just “Oh,” not “Oh, I’m sorry you got the wrong idea blah, blah, blah.” It was just “Oh.” The word hung in the air like this huge mirror reflecting all of my insecurities and ineptitudes and the longer I let it hang there the greater my embarrassment grew. Finally I managed to laugh and say something, backpedaling with everything I had and saving some face. I managed to smooth over the situation but inside the embarrassment I felt was like this heavy stone that I was forced to swim with and it took every ounce of strength I possessed not to sink.

And then, of course there was my very embarrassing public experience. I was sitting in my Spanish class, doing what I normally did back then: feebly trying to pay attention and not really doing a good job. It was late autumn and the leaves outside were lush and vibrant; I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. I just sat there, chewing on the end of my pen, staring off at the rolling hills peppered with orange, yellow and red leaves. It was the height of the season and the colors were spectacular.

The teacher interrupted my daydreams with a request to repeat some phrase in Spanish. I tried my best and thought I nailed it but she just smiled and asked me to repeat it. I did so and this time I did an even better job but she actually laughed at me. Then she asked me to stand up and try it again and when I did, not only did she laugh but the whole class also started to laugh. I couldn’t understand what was so funny and why everyone was being so cruel. I kept repeating that stupid phrase over and over again and each time I did the class would laugh even louder.

Finally the teacher told me to go down to the boys’ room and look in the mirror. When I got down there I could understand why everyone was laughing but it didn’t make me feel any better. The pen I had been chewing on had leaked and my teeth and lips were blue.

So, which of these things would you rather have happen to you? Bonus points if you explain your answer.

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Just say no to...embarrassing moments

So here at Teen Fiction Cafe we're talking about embarrassing moments and a funny thing happened as I searched my mind - I couldn't remember any of them! Now, normally this could be explained away by the fact that I'm a BIG fan of denial (also my approach to housework but that's a blog post for another day).

However, this time, the reason I couldn't remember any of them was because about six months ago I made the conscious decision to stop beating myself up about my past mistakes.

There was a time when I could be quite happily walking down the street and I would suddenly be overwhelmed with negative feelings because of something that I had done twenty years ago. It was actually getting to the point of ridiculousness and I would find that a perfectly good mood would suddenly be gone and I'd be anxious and upset all over again.

Then, after it happening one too many times I finally decided that I'd had enough of reliving the past so I decided to forgive myself for the stupid/dumb/embarrassing things that I had done (and while I was at, I even included the stupid/dumb/embarrassing things that I will no doubt do in the future) and I can't begin to tell you how much better I feel for it. Of course some of them still sneak through but I know what they are now and I know what to do them with!

So my challenge to everyone is pause next time you have a flashback to an embarrassing moment and instead of letting it overwhelm and own you, just have a laugh, forgive yourself and let it go the way of all unwanted thoughts (you know, the place in our mind we leave the Brussel Sprout Souffle recipes that our mothers mistakenly think we might be interested in knowing).

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