Girl Detective

Girl Detective

( 9:28 PM ) Girl Detective

How Democrats can win the next elections

As I've said before, I don't write a political blog. If you're coming here for political insight, then you'll be spending a looong time in the archives. But I do not devote myself entirely to female ephemera like lip gloss, bras and such.

For politics, I consider myself a social liberal. I was quite unhappy with the results of the past few elections, both national and state. I know many other like-minded folks who were also unhappy with the results, and I see a simple solution.

If democrats or liberals are ever to hold office again, the voters must vote as if we have a two-party system. The third-party thing worked flukishly for Jesse Ventura here in Minnesota, but that's hardly a success story. When third parties run, they draw votes away from the major candidate on their side of the spectrum, and ensure that the person on the other side of the spectrum wins. Talk all you want about how third-party candidates are a symbol of our country's freedom, free speech, blah, blah, blah. The upshot is that our election system cannot support them. So until the election system changes (and I'm not holding my breath) in order to avoid electing the person you don't want, it is necessary to vote, not with your conscience but with your common sense--for the person on your end of the spectrum with the most chance of winning.

I know we're far away both from election day and a major election year, but I thought I'd get this opinion out there early and beat the crowds.

( 6:54 PM ) Girl Detective

Sudden, catastrophic loss of memory

No, I'm not talking about pregnancy brain. I'm talking about my PDAs. Yes, that's plural, due to the aforementioned problem.

I got an inexpensive PDA over a year ago, switching from my Franklin Planner. It worked very well for me. Until it didn't. I would go to turn it on and got nothing. Blanko. Shit, I thought, my batteries have gone dead and I haven't backed up the sucker in days. But why didn't it give me a warning?

This happened a few more times--just enough to get it past the one-year warranty period, grr--before my husband G. Grod and I had to agree--something was wrong. I wasn't letting the batteries go dead, it was the PDA that was randomly going dead, and in the process losing all my data. I got marginally better about making regular backups, but it was still a pain. I still had to re-enter information and reconfigure things to how I liked them.

I considered getting a new machine, but instead used Grod's old PDA and bought him the fancy-schmancy Braun razor he'd wanted for his birthday. I felt quite virtuous, since the older machine was bigger and far less cute than my unreliable model. Over the past month, however, it has adopted the nefarious behavior of its predecessor. It randomly goes dead.

Grod insists that the problem must be with me--he never had issues with the machine before, and now I'm having it on two machines in a row. I don't disagree, but I'm at a loss to figure out what could be causing the problem. My best guess is that at some point in my less-than-tender care, I have jostled or dropped the machines and de-stabilized the interior memory card. So on the older model, we removed the back, jiggled the card, and so far, things are good.

If that's the problem, though, I wanted to do the same to the newer, cuter model. But I can't open it up. It requires some tiny-ass, hexagonal tool that jewelry repair, tech support at work and Radio Shack don't have. If I'm going to open it up to jiggle it, which may not even fix the problem, I'll have to go through Palm, and pay them.

Pay them because I am experiencing sudden, catastrophic memory loss with their equipment. It does not seem fair.

I have developed a theory, though. I suspect that the machines got jostled more with me, even in their cases, because I carry them in a purse with scads of other things, rather than in the second pocket of my Dockers Mobile pants, as did my husband, as do thousands of other geeks.

I wonder if women experience more hardware problems than men with PDAs because they carry the machines in their purses?

I have no evidence to the contrary, so while I'm fuming about how to get the back off my old PDA, this theory is what I'm going to believe in.

( 6:21 PM ) Girl Detective

Lip Gloss

I give up. I've tried and tried, and I just don't think I can wear lip gloss. First, my hair always gets stuck in it and I spend the day picking it out. Maybe there are some women for whom this isn't a problem. Either they have short hair that can't connect with their lips, or controlled hair that dare not venture there. Mine, however, is an issue. The breeze of the thought of air-conditioning sends strands clinging their way into the sticky mire, then I look like an idiot picking them out.

Second, I could swear that the stuff dries out my lips. It seems like it should be a friend--all gooey and glossy. Yet I have to apply it several times, and my lips aren't getting softer each time.

My favorite lip gloss ever was called Icky by Hard Candy. It was a frosty peach gloss that smelled like cake batter. Yum. But it had the usual problems. I've tried other kinds--Clinique, Nars and Bobbi Brown. I like the look, but just can't stand the mess and the dryness/reapplication. I feel somehow like a failure to womankind because I don't like lip gloss. I'm afraid someone will call the girl police on me.

( 7:03 PM ) Girl Detective

More CDs

or, Stop me, before I shop again

I mentioned recently that I was on a CD buying bender that I was hoping was coming to a close. This did not happen. Instead, I did what I haven't done for a very long time, which is buy a CD based on an urgent sudden need for just one song. And I did this twice. Both because of commercials, dammit. I don't think this bodes well for managing my CD purchases.

Last week, I saw two commercials whose songs drew me in immediately. One was for Garnier Fructis hair stuff--conditioner, perhaps? The other was for the movie Confidence. After a brief, productive internet search, I found the songs:

Garnier Fructis music: Diamonds and Guns by the Transplants
Confidence trailer music: Noone Knows by Queens of the Stone Age

During a weekend trip to Target, I found both CDs, and followed my shopping rationalization of "I'm here, they're here" with purchase.

I'd actually heard Noone Knows before. My sister Sydney played it for me last weekend when she and I came across the CD at my parents' house when we visited for Easter. Dad said he'd bought it by mistake, then Syd quickly played the song for us, saying, isn't this catchy?

When I heard the trailer for Confidence a few days later, I didn't recognize it, but now must agree, it is damn catchy.

I've listened to both songs, but not yet both entire CDs. I feel lurkingly guilty for purchasing a CD based on only one song, but sometimes the song justifies it, and if any of the rest of the songs on the CD are good, then they're just gravy.

Here are a few songs that compelled me to purchase the CD for them alone: Garrison Starr, Superhero; The Church, Under the Milky Way; Milla, Gentlemen Who Fell; Dandy Warhols, Bohemian Like You; Alanis Morrissette, You Oughta Know; Des'ree, You Gotta Be; Fleetwood Mac, Tusk.

It's been awhile since I got so attached to a song that it inspired immediate compulsion to buy. Apparently the urge did not go away--it just lurked dormant, waiting for my recent CD purchases to bring it out.

( 5:25 PM ) Girl Detective

I just finished my 12-week writing class, Working on your Novel. Not only did I achieve my goal of completing the first edit of the rough draft of my novel, but I had a good time. When the class began, I was worried. One member of the class said that she'd only ever completed reading three books. Another person mentioned a genre novel that sounded nothing like anything I wanted to read about. Then again, that's what genre fiction is for--a niche for those who like the niche.

The instructor structured our 16-person class by doing brief interviews about our writing and reading habits, then split us up into four groups of four. For each class, we'd begin in the big group, then split into our small group to give feedback each week for one person's novel. Each of us got to present twice.

By the end of the class, I'd come to have affection for the woman who never finished books. I'd read some of her writing and it was good. I'd read some short excerpts from various genre novels (fantasy, cop, Catholic drama) but I didn't have to read huge chunks of them, and I also got to read some pretty good writing by the people in my small group. My favorite part, though, was how each person in my small group moved from our original position of "But I wanted to do such and such" after receiving group feedback to the contrary, and making good changes to our manuscripts.

I'm both pleased by the fact that I've done my first (fast, quick and dirty) edit. I'm also daunted because there's a lot that I need to do on this manuscript before I'd feel ready to send it out, and I've got a baby arriving sometime in August. Our class had an informal get-together last night for dinner at a Cambodian restaurant, then dessert at the instructor's place. The night went late, which is why there was no entry yesterday.

As usual, my group, which someone nicknamed "the campers", was the last to leave. As we did, thanking her for letting us stay later, she noted that without exception, the best writers in her class that she's felt had the best shot at getting published never followed through after the class with finishing then sending out the manuscript. I know I am prone to this, which is why I took the class in the first place. I also know I've got just about four months till my life becomes completely different. I plan to edit and send out this book, and I fervently hope I won't be one of those people who just doesn't follow through.

( 6:49 PM ) Girl Detective

The Ugliest Photo of Me, EVER

I visited my parents this past weekend in central Ohio. My younger sister, Sydney, was home as well. She was flipping through an old yearbook of hers when out fell an ancient relic.

The ugliest photo of me, ever.

"I thought that had been destroyed!" I cried, as Sydney and our friend Buffy examined it in detail. We all concurred that it is, in fact, quite hideous. Let me provide the context.

It was taken by Sydney while our family was on vacation in Arizona in January of 1986. I was a confirmed beer-drinkin' party girl, and I was carrying the weight to show it. I had yet to max out (I would do that at the end of my freshman year at college) but I was definitely at the heaviest I'd ever been to that point. I was wearing a bikini that did not show off either my pudge or my small boobs to good advantage. I was covered with tanning oil, which I'd obviously gotten in my hair. It stuck out in weird, oily chunks. My style at the time was a more-or-less mullet, short on top, longer in back, though not long enough to be hockey hair. The picture took me by suprise, so I had a slack-jawed look on my face. The final, damning detail,though, is that I was standing in front of a full-length mirror, so the photo contains both the unattractive front view, as well as confirmation that my ass was not quite contained by my bikini bottoms.

I had been certain that the photo had been destroyed. Sydney must have saved a copy as future blackmail. But as the three of us looked at it and laughed, I considered destroying it now, but didn't feel the need. That picture doesn't shame me anymore. I guess I've reached the statute of limitations on it.

( 7:29 PM ) Girl Detective

Home

I just returned from visiting my family in central Ohio, where I mostly grew up. The last time I'd visited was last July. We visited my husband G. Grod's family in the Philly area in January; we visited them once last year.

It has become clear in the years that we've lived in Minnesota that we live just far enough away that we don't get to visit family very often, and others don't visit us that often. Most of our Minnesota friends have family close by, either in state or in nearby states like Iowa or Wisconsin. Right now, fatigued from travel, the distance is weighing on me. Someone, I don't remember whom, once told me that the ideal time cushion between a person and their family was two hours--either by car or plane. And having dated someone once whose family was a less than two hours drive away, I can affirm that there's some sense in this.

I was talking with my cousin's husband yesterday, who was saying that they never thought they'd end up in Ohio, but being close to family had benefits that outweighed some of the downsides of the particular location.

Recent visits to visit friends and family call our location choice into question. While there are great things where we live and we've made some good friends here, I wonder if we'll be here for the long term, or decide to move back, closer to at least one of our families. We certainly won't be doing it before the baby is due, which is August, and probably not soon after as we wrestle with the challenges of new parenthood, but I am wondering about it tonight.

I should probably stop fretting about unanswerable questions when I'm this tired, though.

( 8:41 PM ) Girl Detective

CD bender

As may have become apparent over the course of this blog, I like to shop. I go in phases, though. Sometimes the urge will lie dormant, often for many months. Often this will be accompanied by purgative urges, in which I just can't stand all the junk in the house. After I've cleared some space, though, is when the acquisitive urge sets in.

Recently, it reared its head over CDs. I hadn't bought any in quite a long time, then BAM. Suddenly, I felt like I had to have new music, and have it now.

Phase 1:

Coldplay-Parachutes and A Rush of Blood to the Head
Vines-Highly Evolved
Strokes-Is This It?
Libertines-Up the Bracket

Phase 2:
Ani DiFranco-Evolve
Lucinda Williams (forget what it's called--it's in the car)
Kathleen Edwards-Failer
White Stripes-Elephant
Supergrass-Life on Other Planets
Robbie Williams-Escapology

One would think that five CDs would have calmed the urge. Failing that, that six more would have taken care of it. Frighteningly enough, it hasn't. There are still at least three CDs that I want, two by the Doves and one by the Flaming Lips. Why? Because. No good reason.

I'm going to see if I can wait it out.

( 9:17 PM ) Girl Detective

Novel update

I finished the edited draft of my novel and brought it to class tonight. None of the rest of my small group showed up to give me feedback, which I might take personally except that one person is out of town, one couldn't travel in the suddenly bad weather and the third has been sick for the past two weeks. I did get feedback from the teacher, though, who said that my novel was like nothing she'd ever seen and she was perplexed as to how to direct me to market it.In spite of this, I was heartened because she noted that in spite of the fact that it was different, that it had no conflict and that it was about sex but not guilt, it still worked and kept her interest. So I've got still more editing to do, but I've got a working draft of a distinctively weird novel, at just over 200 pages. Woo-hoo!

| ( 9:10 PM ) Girl Detective

Yesterday, M. Giant on Velcrometer wrote about a close call he had with fire. Ironically, I'd been meaning to share my own fire story, after being reminded when cleaning out the crumb tray of my toaster oven last weekend.

A few years ago, right after I'd been given a new toaster oven by my sister Sydney, I was making cheese toast in it. I puttered about the kitchen, getting other things ready, then turned around to find that the cheese had dripped and the oven was on fire. Not just a litte flame inside, but ready to come bursting out the front. First, I grabbed an oven mitt and unplugged the sucker. Then I took my box of baking soda, opened up the oven and tossed it in. The end. Fire out.

Except that I had to call everyone I knew and explain what had happened and more importantly, what I'd done. Why? Because the calm, correct response to the fire was hardly typical of the type of person who once tried to get something out of her sink drain with a vacuum attachment. Or who, just the other night, panicked and yelled for her husband to come in and kill a bug. (In my defense, I didn't have my glasses on, so all I could see was a small brown thing zipping across my counter.) I'm not known for my common sense, or my grace under pressure. How I pulled the fire response out of my ass, I don't know, but to this day I think it's one of my proudest moments.

( 7:27 PM ) Girl Detective

Somebody's Watching Me

A little while back, my friend Marci wrote to let me know about the blogger banner tendency to place ads for things related to recent blog entries on one's blog. She noted that after one of my recent entries at my pregnancy diary, in which I'd bemoaned my sudden and total lack of pants that fit me anymore, the ad was for sansabelt pants. On her blog, the ads are for hip music. I had wondered why my banner listed ads for things like German lessons, skincare and wedding music. Now it all seemed clear--those ads were linked to topics I'd recently referenced in my blog. The one that had me baffled, though, was for black magic implements. Huh? I write about many things, but I don't think magic is one of them. I just realized, however, that it might be making that connection based on the entries I've done about labyrinths. Even though labyrinths are an ancient, meditative spiritual tradition I guess they get lumped into new age crazy hoo-hah, at least by the key-word ad-match feature.

I found this ad matching a little amusing, if perhaps a little big-brotherish, but something happened tonight that has me fairly freaked out.

I got a form email from someone at Amazon.com saying that I'd been added to his list of family and friends. On the one hand, I do know the guy. He has a distinctive name, and we used to work for the same company.

TEN YEARS AGO.

We were hi, how are ya acquaintances ten years ago. I left the company, never spoke to him again. Then today, I get a form letter from Amazon saying that he's added me to his friends and family list.

All this reinforces why I keep this blog anonymous. My list on amazon is under my real name, which obviously this person spotted and added to his list. Which is also why I can write this tirade about it and feel safe from repercussions, because this blog doesn't have my real name with it.

So while I initially felt the key-word ads were kinda funny, this "I gotcha" on the internet thing is just plain creepy.

( 7:05 PM ) Girl Detective

Editing is hard

Last November, I took the NaNoWriMo challenge, and cranked out a 50+K novel in under 30 days. Then what did I do? Not a damn thing. I didn't touch it. I'd spent a crazy amount of time on it during one short month, and we needed some time apart.

I signed up for a class this spring, though, called Working on Your Novel. My goal was to edit the novel. Over the twelve weeks of the course, I was to bring in excerpts twice, for feedback from the teacher and my small group. I fully planned to edit a little at a time, building up to the time I had to bring my stuff in. It didn't quite work out that way. I did do a little bit, then got busy with other stuff, and both times had to spend the weekend before my excerpt was due madly editing. I discovered, to my surprise, that just like writing is hard, editing is hard.

Why is this surprising? First of all, because editing is my day job. Second, because I thought that I liked editing, until I spent entire weekends plowing through the very, very rough draft of my novel--written for word count and under deadline, remember.

In spite of my best intentions, I have not yet managed to edit the entire manuscript. I know that if I don't do it now, I'll find a gazillion good reasons to not do it in the future. I'm very close, though, and I only have about a week of the class.

What's discouraging is that even if I do complete this first editing and produce a second draft, it's still just a second draft. But I'm trying not to worry about that till I actually have a complete second draft. Not there yet. But soon, I hope.

( 12:52 PM ) Girl Detective

Damn good smoothies

For a long time, I tried to make good smoothies at home. In addition to the basics--frozen fruit and milk, I tried lots of different ingredients, like silken tofu (which produced a very unpleasant chalky texture), ice cubes, ice cream and vanilla extract. I didn't have much success, though, till I read Cook's Illustrated's article on smoothies. It recommended a few critical things I hadn't thought of: lemon juice, salt and added sugar. All of these combined to bring out the taste of the fruit.

Here, then, is my berry smoothie recipe, which is based on that from Cook's Illustrated.

1 1/2 c. frozen berries
1 banana
1/2 c. milk (can use whole, soy or lower fat, but of course whole tastes best)
1/2 c. fruit juice (apple, pear, cranberry. Cook's recommends Ocean Spray White Cranberry)
1 T. sugar
1 1/2 t. lemon juice
pinch of salt

Blend till smooth, adding more liquid in equal parts milk/juice until you reach desired consistency. Taste, and add more lemon juice if it doesn't taste bright, or sugar if it tastes too tart. Makes enough for two people.

( 8:57 PM ) Girl Detective

I am suspicious of box springs.

When I began to look into buying a new bed, I realized/remembered that it is a pretty expensive and involved process. My husband and I are thinking of downsizing from our king bed to a queen size, so that we'll have more room in the room once the baby arrives. What this would involve, I found was the following:

mattress and box spring
new bed frame
fitted sheet
flat sheet
blanket
comforter
mattress pad
possibly duvet cover

When I added up the potential cost of this bedding bonanza, I immediately started to wonder which of these I could skip.

After some preliminary research, it looks like box springs may be vestigial holdovers that people have become used to but that are no longer needed. Box springs are to support the mattress. But the mattresses they make now are sturdier, plus it's possible to get a supportive frame. So possibly I can skip the box spring, though most places sell mattress/box spring in one-price sets, so I'm not sure it's much of a savings.

Then there's the mattress pad. One purpose would be for it to soak up, um, various things that get spilled on a bed so that the mattress doesn't absorb them, and be washable to boot. Another is to provide a little extra padding/softness on a bed. But have you noticed that all the fancy/schmancy mattresses, i.e. the expensive ones, have a poofy pillowtop? Which does the latter duty of the mattress pad, but not the former. So it seems to me that you buy a non-pillowtop mattress and go for the washable mattress pad. Much more practical.

If I skip a box spring, then I'm going to have to get a supportive frame for the bed. And a fitted sheet is pretty straightforward. But do I need the extra flat sheet, or The blanket, as we're finally seeming to leave winter here in MN? I'm thinking that a duvet with a duvet cover might be all that's needed.

It's still not going to be a simple or inexpensive process. As I've mentioned before, the onset of spring has inspired me to think in minimalist terms. This is a fine place to start, I think.

( 6:05 PM ) Girl Detective

Dry cleaning, schmy cleaning

Most of the things I've read about dry cleaning, from sources such as Natural Health magazine, give a long list of what you should do if you MUST dry clean in order to reduce exposure to the chemicals. The list includes: don't keep the clothes in the plastic bags; don't put the clothes in the car with you, put them in the trunk instead; try to keep the area around the clothes ventilated in the car; and once home, try to hang the clothes outside to air out the chemicals.

This seems like far too much work for me. Instead, I've stopped dry cleaning almost altogether. (Are you protesting Dryel, out there? I think I can hear you. The perfume gives me a headache, so it's no go, either.) What I've found is that most of my things that say dry-clean only can be either hand washed or machine washed in a lingerie bag in cold water on the gentle cycle. Hand washing is good for sweaters. I bought a few pair of pants last year that were DCO; they were fine when I put them in the washer and then hung them to dry. Other items, like suit jackets, I try to air out and spot clean. I always hang the items to dry--no use pushing my luck in the dryer--and for most items, I've done pretty well.

There have been a few mistakes though, like the pair of DKNY tuxedo pants that I washed and hung to dry, only to find that they'd somehow shortened by about three inches. They were about ten years old, though, and had had a good run. I thought their sacrifice was worth the successes I've had with other clothes.

I'm not saying I'll never dry clean again. But what I found was that the dry cleaner never got out the spots that I needed to, plus I had to worry about all the chemicals. Now I spot clean, and can tell immediately if I'm successful (I removed three stains from a DCO dress last weekend) and I don't have to have gone to the dry cleaners, paid them to fail, inhaled random chemicals, then had to clean it on my own anyway. I may eventually be forced to resort to dry cleaning (or it may become at some point the smartest thing to do for a particular clothing item), but it's been quite a while now, so I think I'm on a roll.

( 7:03 PM ) Girl Detective

This week's theme seems to be how annoyed I get when the norm for a product is not what I want. This happened recently when I was looking for a shower head. All shower heads in recent years have water savers built in, to "regulate" (i.e. lessen) the flow of water. I have thick, long hair. A meager shower spray does nothing but piss me off.

In search of water pressure, my husband and I re-installed the water-saver free shower head that was here when we bought our place. The water pressure was great, but unfortunately our pipe out of the wall is so low that it now was a shower for midgets. We tried buying an extending arm, but the old shower head was too heavy--it wouldn't stay up. All other shower heads on the market either don't extend up, have a water saver, or have a gajillion shower massage options. What does massage matter if the water pressure sucks? Why is the market flooded with items with these extra, stupid features?

After numerous trips to Home Depot and Target, we finally decided on a compact, light shower head with no massage features, light enough to stay on the extender arm and with a not so pronounced water saver. It's not great, but it'll do.

( 7:25 PM ) Girl Detective

I don't want that in my mouth

Yesterday I wrote about the insidious omnipresence of the control top "feature" in pantyhose. My annoyance at that reminded me of another prevailing feature of a popular product that I must go out of my way to avoid: SPF in lip balm.

In recent years, the powers that be in the lip-balm world have decided that everyone wants an SPF. Nearly every lip balm made now, especially by conventional cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies, contains an SPF, usually of 15. What does this mean? Every time you schmear your lips with the stuff, you're slathering on chemicals.

Do we need a lip SPF? I'm no doctor, so I can't say, but I do know that I spend eight hours indoors, and perhaps 40 minutes out of doors each day, and my lips look none the worse for wear. Plus when I am outside, I usually do have on lip color, which has some inherent blockage just because it's opaque.

What's the harm, then, in the just-in-case factor for the SPF in lip goop? It's chemicals. And if you apply the stuff frequently, as do most people (OK, women) I know, then it wears off. How does it wear off? You ingest it. Yep. Onto your lips, then into your mouth and down the hatch. Yum. I'm eating sun-blocking chemicals while I spend most of my life indoors.

So I seek out those few products without an SPF. I usually have to shop at my natural-foods store for them; Target et al. have the usual range of Blistex, and it ALL has an SPF. While I'm normally a big fan of the Dr. Hauschka and Weleda lines, their non-SPF lip balms don't do it for me--in fact, it feels like they cause my lips to dry out faster. Three lines that I do like, though, are Burt's Bee's (smells like peppermint, so it does double duty), Zum Kiss (comes in both tubes and tins--I like the tea tree/lavender) and Beeswork (good varieties--I like the Mandarin Peel.) All have just a handful of ingedients, all natural, and none that I am afraid to swallow. I apply them liberally and often, to good effect.

( 9:44 PM ) Girl Detective

Control-top pantyhose are evil

Even before I became pregnant and it was no longer an issue, I hated control-top panty hose. The purpose of hose in general is to give you a finished look to the leg and a smoother line under skirts and dresses. (Not pants, unless you aspire to those Underalls commercials from the '70s. I didn't think so.) Control-top styles take it one further by squashing in your tummy. What they also do is compress your bladder and intestines, so that they no longer function properly. One night I wore control tops and marvelled at how I hadn't gone to the bathroom all night. When I finally did go, it was as if the dam had broken. Plus, my intestines were finally free to start digesting my meal, several hours later. They did not appreciate a time delay. That was the last time I wore control top.

Do you have any idea, though, how hard it is to find non control top? Usually, there are about four variations of control, and the "old-fashioned" styles are lumped together in some dusty corner of the hosiery department. The colors are never good and the selection is pretty slim. It's like someone, somewhere, decided that control tops would be the standard, and voila, now our tummies are doomed.

( 8:36 PM ) Girl Detective

Sorry I haven't posted this week. I tried, really I did. My template was completely fubared. Now we've twiddled a bit and are somewhat back to normal.

As soon as things are back to full normal, I'll let you know. Thanks for you patience.

( 9:26 PM ) Girl Detective

A few weeks back, I wrote about some grammar tips and tricks that I'd picked up over the years. I forgot to mention one thing: how to always correctly spell a certain shade of hot pink.

"What's that?" you say. "Do you mean fuschia? I know how to spell fuschia. What the hell are you talking about, crazy Girl Detective?"

I'm talking about how everyone in the world spells that word incorrectly, because there's a secret. And because I'm nice, I'm going to share it with you.

The aforementioned color is actually named after a plant that was named after a guy (eponymous, if you will)--Mr. Fuchs.

Therefore, the color, like the flower, is just "ia" added to his name, and thus it is correctly spelled "fuchsia". Which is completely counterintuitive, until you know the story, and then you never forget.

( 7:00 PM ) Girl Detective

Today's blogger entry has been cancelled. Each time I've tried to post, Blogger give me some shit about how a tag isn't found. But there were no tags in the post. Guess the April Fool's on me.

Girl Detective the person is a titian-haired sleuth, intent on fathoming the mysteries of the world at large, with particular (and some might say obsessive) attention paid to the mundane details of female life.

Girl Detective the weblog is not about girl detectives; sorry if you came here looking for that. It is, however, an homage to the inquisitive nature, untiring spirit and passion for justice that marked these great literary heroines.

Girl Detective the weblog is a forum to practice my writing. It is about whatever strikes me on any given day. I am a woman writing for other women. If guys find it interesting, bravo. If not, that makes sense, but don't complain.

All material here is copyright 2002-2004 Girl Detective.

I was pregnant. Now I've got a baby.
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