Why I don't respect Eminem completely

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Liz

I learned a few things from watching thirty minutes of the VMAs the other night: Lady Gaga has more talent than anyone else who got one (that video clip of her singing a few bars during her acceptance speech was amazing), our society still idolizes talentless people who lip sync when “performing” live, and Eminem looks like a dork with black hair.

WHY is everyone dying their hair black?! When I dyed mine back in 2003 or 2004, people sneered at me. (Yes, I wore black clothing and black lipstick, too, but still.) A couple of years ago, the same people who talked shit about me for dying my hair a shiny bluish black were dying theirs the same color. I haven’t dyed my hair black since.

I’ll be honest. When Eminem first hit the radio, I loved the guy. His music reached me. I would hang out with my cousin DJ and listen to his albums all summer. When his songs came on the radio, I sang along. I think Eminem was the first musician I listened to that my parents forbid (aside from all other mature-rated albums*). I thought he was a great writer, but that his voice could sound awfully nasally at times. I also thought that the track where a bunch of other rappers and Eminem-haters were sucking his dick was the most genius thing ever in the history of rapper versus rapper.

And then there are the several extremely violent and detailed songs about killing his wife.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for self-expression. I get that everyone gets those urges. We all have days where we feel like killing someone, or a specific person is just really asking for it. So I say yes, write about it, paint about it, whatever. Creation is the best form of therapy.

BUT.

It bothers me that one day his daughter is going to hear one of those songs. It would be like me writing a graphic poem or story about killing Mike, and letting our kids read it. There is an unspoken, cardinal rule about parenting, and that is to never badmouth your child’s other parent in front of that child. It’s horrible for that child’s emotional wellbeing. I am twenty-two years old, and my parents still don’t badmouth each other to me or my sister, even when they are fighting and we are well aware of what they are fighting about.

Eminem, have you ever heard of abstract art?

Obviously I don’t have a say regarding how Mr. Mathers raises his daughter, but I cannot respect him for those lyrics. I also cannot respect him for his horrible new single that gets stuck in my head and makes me want to brain myself. It’s nice to see someone famous stand up for recovery, but he totally could have written a better song. He once wrote better songs. He also once had better hair.

Sigh.

I do have to applaud him for not lip syncing, though. From what I saw and what I heard of the rest of the VMAs, Eminem was the only person who didn’t lip sync. He also left early, apparently, so I give him props for basically telling the VMAs to fuck themselves. I haven’t heard the rest of his new album, but if it’s better than “I’m Not Afraid,” I might give him more points.

What do you think?

*Which is why I missed out on some good ones. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Except not.

Getting down to cake business

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Liz

I went to a technical high school, spending four years going back and forth between Culinary shop and academic classes. Even though I love to cook, I hated doing it in a rushed restaurant setting. But I did take a few things from those four years — a good cake recipe being one of them.

I don’t like cake. I’ll only eat it if it’s Costco or BJ’s, and I have only attempted to make it from scratch once. That homemade cake I made years ago in school was the best cake I’ve ever had. I would eat it every day if I could, it was that good. And since you guys asked so nicely, I’ll share.

Make sure that you sift the flour before adding it to the mix. It makes a huge difference — trust me.

Basic White Cake

Sugar 2lb 8oz
Cake flour 2lb 8oz
Salt 1oz
Baking powder 2oz
Vanilla/lemon flavor to taste*
Emulsified shortening 1lb 4oz
Skim milk (1 1/2 pint) 1lb 8oz
Egg whites** 1lb 8oz

Hold 8oz of milk and the egg whites for second stage.

375° F

Two-Stage Method***

Weigh all ingredients carefully and keep all of them at room temp.
Place all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add shortening and part of the milk and mix at a slow speed for required amount of time****.
Add eggs to balance of milk. Beat slightly and add to above mixture in about 3 parts, scraping sides of bowl at intervals.

And this is all I wrote. I’d originally copied it out of the book in a rush, and then rewrote it afterward so that it was legible, so hopefully you know that at this point you put it in the pan you’re going to bake it in and pop it in the oven. And, uh, there’s no time on the piece of paper I have, so… wing it*****.

*I recommend vanilla. Lemon has no business in cake; it should be loyal to my water and vodka only.

**I am dead serious about the egg whites. It really makes a difference. Don’t know why, but it does.

***I vaguely remember what this means. I think it’s because you’re mixing the dry ingredients together and then the wet ingredients, then mixing the two.

****I may be missing this part of the recipe, or it just wasn’t in the book to begin with. Just mix it until it comes together a little.

*****Yeah, I know, I suck. But I never promised a complete recipe! (;

There is love in homemade bread and cards

Posted on December 21, 2009 by Liz

I am not doing too well.

I’ve spent the last two weeks in a fog, kind of just moving through the days. I’ve been a little better today but I can’t shake the feeling that this is only the eye of the storm.

In high school, the best parts of my days in shop (I went to a technical high school and spent my four years in Culinary Arts) were the mornings and afternoons. First thing in the morning, I would come in and fill a little bowl with chocolate chip cookie dough as it was being made by Chef I. He got so used to me snitching cookie dough that at one point he started having a bowl ready for me. (And then Chef Z and later Chef M tried to shut me down, but that’s another post for another day.)

After a day of cooking, we would eat together. If you worked on Faculty Range, in Bake Shop, or in the Dining Room, you got to eat the good stuff (as opposed to being on Cafeteria side, where you made lunch for the whole student body). My favorite thing to eat for lunch was a few slices of bread with butter and a big bowl of sauce. (And to think I stayed a size 3-5 throughout my high school career!)

I haven’t had homemade bread since.

This afternoon, while wandering around on Lifehacker at work, I found a post on making fresh-baked bread quickly and easily. I scribbled down the recipe — 6 cups of water, 3 tablespoons of salt, 3 tablespoons of yeast, and 13 cups of flour — on a Post-It and stuck it in my purse.

As soon as I got home, I set to it.

I split the recipe in half, since the Lifehacker post is for a one- to two-week supply of bread that you ideally bake a loaf every day. I dissolved 1 1/2 tbsp of yeast and 1 1/2 tbsp of salt in 3 cups of hot water (I remembered from Culinary that the hot water makes the difference).

Then I stirred in 6 1/2 cups of flour.

After the dough started to come together, I stripped off my rings and kneaded the dough with my hands. The scent of it was intoxicating.

When it reached the right consistency, I patted it into a neat little ball, scraped dough off of my fingers, and went to the sink to wash my hands. I didn’t get far before the urge to try some of the dough came over me. I pulled a little glob off of my left hand and popped it into my mouth. I knew instantly that I hadn’t fucked up the recipe; it had the perfect bread dough taste, with just the right amount of salt. I scraped as much dough off of my hands as I could and ate it before washing them, it was that good.

Then I put a towel over the bowl the way Noni always did when I watched her make dough and set it to rise.

If all goes well, I’ll have a nice hot slice of homemade bread with butter tomorrow morning before work with Noni, Popi, and Biz Noni. I might even put some grape jelly on it. My mouth just waters thinking about it, and my heart warms just a little bit.

That gaping hole is still there, but with little things like hot fresh bread and cards from my good friends online and off, it is a little less raw.

Behind the scenes of my awesomeness

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Liz

In my high school class, I was the token goth chick, complete with black beeswaxed hair, black lipstick, fishnet, and awesome knee high (platform) boots. Dir en grey (during their super crazy goth days) were my inspiration:

(By the way, “Hotarubi” is my all-time favorite Dir en grey song. I loved them until I met them after a concert and they completely ignored me. Douchebags.)

My favorite outfit involved straight-jacket pants — you know, the ones with tons of belts and buckles preventing you from running if, say, a crazed serial killer or rapist (or your high school science teacher) came after you. And a trenchcoat. Oh yeah, I couldn’t survive without the trenchcoat. (I still have lots of this wardrobe in storage. It’s going to be fun whenever I get to look at it all again.)

Anyway, most people were either afraid of me, talked a lot of shit about me, or were morbidly curious and talked to me on occasion. Mostly, they just couldn’t figure me out. Back then, that bugged me. Now I think it’s pretty cool. However, if they had known my biggest secret, they might not have been so scared.

At 15, I still played with Barbies.

Whoops, there goes my street cred.

My sister and I always played elaborate, daytime Emmy worthy games with our Barbies that would last weeks if we were careful. We both had great imaginations, and since there weren’t any kids in our neighborhood to play with we spent a lot of time inside together. We had a few cars, a plane, a limousine, and two campers, and TONS of dolls. There were the two hot twin Kens, my New Kids On the Block Ken, my hispanic Barbie, my African-American Barbie with the super cool short and veryvery curly hair, the hot blond Barbie who still smelled like the perfume she’d been sprayed with in the factory over ten years before, and a whole bunch more that I don’t really remember.

That was the last year that I really played with them, but I’ll always remember the good times Lauren and I had, spending the days of our childhood actually playing out the lives of the people we’d made up rather than just dressing and undressing our dolls.

Now I’m older and it’s not kosher to play with Barbies anymore, but I totally want to buy a Barbie and make my own Barbie of the Undead. Seriously. Click it. You know you want to.

What was your favorite toy as a kid? What are your best childhood memories of that toy? Share in the comments below!

The buddy I didn't want

Posted on July 23, 2009 by Liz

The bus stopped twenty feet from my house. Relieved, I slid out of my seat and started climbing over kids’ legs and backpacks.

“I’m coming over,” this kid, we’ll call him Steven, said. Steven was a shrimpy kid, with a year round farmer’s tan and dirty blond hair. Steven annoyed the crap out of me.

“Um, no, you’re not,” I said, and continued my trek off the bus. I hopped down the steps and started walking to my house, relieved to be done with another stupid school day.

Steven appeared beside me. “We can play Final Fantasy IX and — ”

“You’re not coming over. Get back on the bus,” I said, as the bus drove away.

“I don’t have a ride home.”

I sighed. “Fine, but only for a little while. And then you are leaving.”

“Awesome! I can beat Final Fantasy IX in like, half an hour,” Steven said as we came to my screen door.

“Yeah right,” I said, tossing my backpack down and setting up the PlayStation. I had to see this smack talk get trashed. Vaguely I wondered what my mom would say when she came home and saw that I had a boy over — without her permission and everything. I hoped that she would tell him he had to leave.

The game started, and half an hour later Steven was nowhere near beating it. I rolled my eyes, glancing at the digital clock on the stereo every three seconds. Finally my mom came home. All she said was, “Hi Steven.”

Steven even invited himself to dinner. I offered to set the table so I could tell my mom I had no idea why Steven was ruining my life. “He just invited himself over!” Mom just giggled and shrugged.

Throughout dinner I wanted to stab the kid. He was eating my spaghetti, in my kitchen, and I didn’t even like him! Even better, he had only got about forty-five minutes into the game before calling it quits.

It started to get late.

“Steven, it’s a school night, so you’re going to have to go home now,” my mom told him. (I should remember this every time she gets on my nerves, because she was the hero of this story.)

An hour or so earlier Steven had told me he would walk home, but suddenly he needed a ride. My poor mom had to drive him home, with me in the front seat wishing I could turn around and stab the kid.

I don’t know what ever became of dear old Steven. Last I knew, he was dating this girl I’d been friendly with in high school. I’ll always know him as “that annoying kid who invited himself over to my house.” I think he would have been an all right kid, had he not been so rude and even invited himself to dinner.

Did anything like this ever happen to you? I want to hear your wannabe stalker stories!

Elizabeth Barone

Sarcasm, Creative Marketing, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Creative Writing

Tag Archives: high school