tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:42:46 +0000letters from the insidehttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (TS)Blogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-4780165965715656179Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:03:00 +00002008-04-11T06:33:38.049-04:00I put this blog behind a password wall when I ceased having time or energy for it and didn't want people asking me why and if I ever would write more again. It's been suggested to me, however, that with the publication of the book I wrote with Luca Turin, Perfumes: The Guide, it might be nice to have the old stuff up. However, looking back, I found a lot of it boring, navel-gazing, hastily dashedhttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2008/04/for-reference-old-blog-back.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-2146521961841515618Fri, 29 Dec 2006 03:32:00 +00002008-04-03T03:36:00.364-04:00bathreviewsperfumebest ofmakeupskincareblogdorf goodmanbodyWe bring this blog out of hibernation at the insistence of Annie at Blogdorf Goodman, to present to you our favorite beauty finds of 2006.If each year were a leaf in the bound narrative of one's life, future readers trying to follow the plot would do well to stick a post-it on 2006 in mine. That's good for life but bad for this blog post, since 2006 did not find me rushing to every beauty counterhttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/12/best-of-2006.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115851917305096569Sun, 17 Sep 2006 17:54:00 +00002006-09-17T14:56:07.946-04:00The measure of any American restaurant is not its esoteric dishes, its grilled calamari dressed in thyme-infused vinaigrette over arugula with parmesan shavings and torn tangerines, its fusion fried wontons stuffed with ricotta and walnuts with rosemary, its rare duck breast in bitter marmalade laid over a bed of shredded fennel. No, the measure of any American restaurant is the thing you have http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/09/burger-kung-fu.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115686316320316317Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:40:00 +00002006-08-29T11:34:38.896-04:00You know, I've been wondering this for a long time too: how can Riedel keep selling insanely overpriced (albeit pretty) cups of crystal targeted to the outdated tongue map?The Tongue: Tasteless Myth DebunkedI suppose one reason that the slow moving mass of minds on the subject of the smell problem doesn't surprise me is that this absurd tongue map is still being taught in grammar schools, even http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/08/tongues-without-borders.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115578406955708981Thu, 17 Aug 2006 03:00:00 +00002006-08-16T23:09:37.346-04:00Darling readers, I know that when I promise you food, you expect food. And then you get silence. Why? I'll tell you why. I've been trying to drop some chub. I'll tell you further that I haven't been to Coney Island to parade my flab around this year because I could not even bear the sight of myself in last year's bikini. I haven't been to kung fu class in a year, now. (Life changes, moving aroundhttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/08/very-dull-weight-loss-post.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115492486710886613Mon, 07 Aug 2006 04:14:00 +00002006-08-07T00:28:41.580-04:00Forty-five minutes from Puerto Vallarta, a city stashed precariously on the steep sides of a high mountain, facing westward across a vast blue bay that opens onto the Pacific, is a small fishing village called La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, or La Cruz for short. In the way of picturesque, well situated Mexican coastal towns, it has become both a home for a wide array of expats from all over and a http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/08/miracle-of-fishes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115440366181038325Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:08:00 +00002006-08-01T10:14:33.936-04:00One of the difficulties that I have had to face in deciding to write a food blog is a compulsion of mine not usually associated with foodies. The foodie eats a compulsively diverse diet, celebrating her omnivorousness by having Swedish pancakes for breakfast, Thai noodles for lunch, a snack of Japanese seaweed-covered rice crackers with fancy French tea, and a dinner of tapas under the moonlight.http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/07/monophagia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115431936815403769Mon, 31 Jul 2006 04:10:00 +00002006-07-31T00:16:08.166-04:00There is one in every group of friends: the one who fears mayonnaise. You know her. I know her. She shuns it on a sandwich, even the thinnest suspicion of it between a tomato and a slice of bread. A jar of it makes her lurch in fear. When she encounters a vast bowl of some mayonnaise-dressed salad — potato, macaroni, pasta, coleslaw — her lips press together as if to prevent the salad from http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/07/mayophobia.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115287964594019780Fri, 14 Jul 2006 11:30:00 +00002008-04-02T11:55:48.868-04:00Because today is Bastille Day, I got to thinking about the French, pondering the transformation of a revolutionary republic into an imperial power, and then via my constant fixation on the strangenesses of my Chinese-Vietnamese mother, I got to thinking of French Indochina. A word now about the gastronomic consequences of empire.It is known to every good college student that imperialism should behttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/07/crust-of-bread.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115278177919615735Thu, 13 Jul 2006 08:51:00 +00002006-07-13T07:47:43.470-04:00Americans, famously, prefer their meat delivered so transformed that its origins are masked, although not so transformed that they're forced to ask, "What is this? Is it beef?" What they like is muscle tissue, separated from bone and gristle, the fat trimmed, delivered in geometric slices or blocks, or ground and shaped into the familiar. Americans do not like to look their meals in the eye. Is http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/07/fish.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115098688770193079Thu, 22 Jun 2006 14:17:00 +00002006-06-22T10:37:14.510-04:00I am happy to inform you that we here at BTiGB are off on a marvelous sunny summer adventure in far-off lands and will be reporting the delicious things we will eat there, to be blogged either while we're traveling (depending on the vicissitudes of internet connections and electrical sockets) or when we return following Independence Day. Stay cool, and eat a delicious burger for me, would you? http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/06/off-like-prom-dress.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-115012617650505127Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:27:00 +00002006-06-12T14:13:47.576-04:00Part of the trouble with having a blog is that you really do have to figure out what your subject is, and it has to be something you're willing to write about almost every blessed day of the week. We here at BTiGB are not so good at consistency, but we are trying to get better.I have decided that this summer will be the summer of food, and a lot of other things (what, you think I could help it?),http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/06/upcoming-posts-and-fish-fry.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114887425921713160Mon, 29 May 2006 03:36:00 +00002006-05-31T14:44:37.256-04:00Once again, we here at BTiGB talk to you about eyelash blackener. Annie asked me, as part of the Great Mascara Hunt, which takes place all this month, to embark upon a quest. It seems that Shiseido's Serge Lutens, a man who moved from cosmetics to fragrance, has decided to go back to cosmetics, but with all the vengeance of his improved place in the world. Ladies, the man is hoping you will buy ahttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/05/serge-lutens-hopes-you-will-lose-your.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114835298434334553Tue, 23 May 2006 02:53:00 +00002006-05-23T01:06:02.476-04:00Two days into the Mexican honeymoonI guess I must have drunk the water. The heat that once caressed now pressed relentless on my chest. My heart shriveled,my gut roared. You paced the deck in silhouette against the dead sun's fire.The mountains loomed at our backs, and wetalked less, touched less, lay aparton the cold quilt in our room,shivering and moaning for all the wrong reasons.My love, the http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/05/mexican-honeymoon.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114740280454840369Fri, 12 May 2006 02:25:00 +00002006-05-12T17:34:33.620-04:00The Great Mascara Hunt is the brainchild of my pal Annie, who runs the great Blogdorf Goodman blog. If you just cannot get enough of this mascara business, see her blog for more.There comes a time in every woman's life—well, not every woman, but the kind of woman who likes to paint her eyes like a harlot, and we are legion—when it occurs to her that mascaras are differentiated in quality, and http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/05/my-life-my-eyelashes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114671081835436282Thu, 04 May 2006 02:12:00 +00002006-05-04T07:10:54.673-04:00Heart like a slug of lead in my chest, for personal reasons (and they are very good reasons), I did what any sane woman would do: I got a haircut. As always, my hairdresser, a sensible Japanese woman with the surest scissors in all of New York, marveled at the rate at which my hair grows in the space of one month: how is two inches possible? My fingernails, too, have an accelerated production http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/05/vignette-viola-on-l.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114658405638806607Tue, 02 May 2006 15:32:00 +00002006-05-02T11:35:08.743-04:00While leaving my own blog to languish, clogged with stale content, I have gone and written something for someone else's blog:Slap of the DayI swear, I'm going to get cracking on this blog here. Give me a sec. Collecting my thoughts. Tune in tomorrow. Love,BTiGBhttp://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/05/act-of-perversity.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114503995960166475Fri, 14 Apr 2006 18:28:00 +00002006-04-28T15:33:17.030-04:00I'm back in a fiction workshop, trying to rev my engines again after a long time of letting this jalopy sit idle. Don't want the batteries to die, and other extensions of the metaphor, etc. Once again, I'm at the Writer's Studio doing Level 1 with Joel Hinman. The format: Each week, we get short readings, alternating fiction and poetry, and must write roughly two pages (and for godsakes no more, http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/04/back-to-fiction-workshopping.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114381908029922922Fri, 31 Mar 2006 15:26:00 +00002006-03-31T10:47:23.723-05:00Some guides recommend pulling one card out of the deck each day, both for the practical purpose of getting to know the deck better by meditating on the meaning of one card at a time and for the divinatory purpose of seeing what today's theme will be. While cleaning up the spread from last night, I shuffled the whole deck through idly, then after it felt thoroughly riffled, I flipped the top http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/03/this-mornings-card.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114377907581402631Fri, 31 Mar 2006 04:10:00 +00002006-03-31T11:32:03.596-05:00Today's question: what's happening?(Rider-Waite-Smith deck)Significator (me): Queen of PentaclesCard 1 (the situation): 3 of WandsCard 2 (obstacles): 5 of SwordsCard 3 (the ideal resolution): 2 of SwordsCard 4 (the questioner's foundation): Justice (inverted)Card 5 (the immediate past, that which the questioner leaves behind): 2 of PentaclesCard 6 (the immediate future, that which is now coming http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/03/todays-reading.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-114021576992543227Fri, 17 Feb 2006 22:24:00 +00002006-02-19T10:17:03.713-05:00My dear readers, you may be wondering, what on earth happened to that nice brain that was trapped in that nice girl's body? Didn't she have a blog or something?She did. Funny, though, life doesn't care if you're trying to maintain a blog. Hurricanes don't ask you in advance whether one week or the other is convenient. Neither does your love life.The facts are these. In January 2005, after living http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/02/girl-trapped-and-brains-dotty.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-113821184217558574Wed, 25 Jan 2006 17:56:00 +00002006-04-14T15:18:30.120-04:00As promised, here are the links in order to my National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project posts from November 2005. Eventually, I will make a PDF of the novel available for download, but I can't promise you when. This will have to do for now.For more information on NaNoWriMo, visit their website: National Novel Writing Month.Day 1: Night Falls on the CurseDay 2: Yo Ho Ho and a BottleDay 3: http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-was-teenage-ninja-pirate.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-113694303078371085Wed, 11 Jan 2006 01:24:00 +00002006-01-10T20:33:33.483-05:00It's only fair, now that I've told you my mother's dreams, that I tell you mine. Out of all my roommates, I still think my best dream auditor was Kevin, the actor and art history major, who sat there drinking my coffee and eating my eggs, ready to dissect every impulse, every sign. But there are, for me just like my mother, only two dreams that I remember vividly. Dream 1Mr. Heinitz, one of my http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/01/my-two-dreams.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-113665198615257662Sat, 07 Jan 2006 16:27:00 +00002006-01-07T13:53:19.203-05:00Our front desk doorman, Nick, an ancient grandfatherly fellow who once offered me his arm and walked me three blocks to the train in the rain holding his umbrella over my head, is ordered by his doctor to lose weight, thirty pounds by the end of spring. I told him to try Weight Watchers, since it's the one that works. A nosy woman in a red coat coming out of the elevator overheard and butted in http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/01/for-those-who-have-made-new-years.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8086217.post-113656683783765291Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:46:00 +00002006-01-06T15:46:00.596-05:00This winter may seem mild, but to my bones that were bred in the tropics it's cold, cold, cold.Have you noticed, when you're melancholy, the world is rich enough that your heart will cut a slice of only melancholy out of it yet feel as full on it as if you'd taken in the whole world?Today, with a scrim of other shifting, coughing, newspaper-rustling riders on the train floating me in what felt http://braintrappedingirlsbody.blogspot.com/2006/01/ode-to-west-wind.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (TS)4