Hey You. Green Face.

The first month I worked at my current magazine we put out the "green" issue.

Because the topics of recycling, environment-friendly products and sustainability were everywhere I turned for 30 days straight, I couldn't help but get bit by the "green bug."

There are a few things that I was already doing that might fall into these categories, such as buying organic produce and recycling paper and magazines, but I decided there were more changes I could make.

Some others I've added this year: Cutting down my commute to work by 18 miles, carrying my own shopping bag to some stores, buying music online (means one less plastic CD case to eventually throw out); replacing all the bulbs in my apartment with LED and/or compact fluorescent bulbs; using a drying rack more often than the dryer; and replacing as many of my toiletries as possible with chemical-free ones.

My shopping bag is from Envirosax, but if I had to do it over again, I kind of like the snarky sayings on the bags at BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) ...

My soaps and my lip balm now come from Lush. (I am completely addicted, in fact, to the Honey Trap lip balm and the Cocktail, Ice Blue, Honey I Washed the Kids and Icon soaps, among many, many other products ... Yes, I admit that I have a problem ... Do they have a rehab for soap?)

And I'm trying to phase out my chemical-filled cosmetics by purchasing purer, "cleaner" ones as the need arises. By now there are dozens of chemical free makeup lines on the market, but two inexpensive ones I really like are Alima and Physician's Formula.

Alima is particularly awesome because they have like, a gazillion gorgeous colors to choose from, and you can get little sample jars for only $1.50! (I can never seem to choose the right foundation color on the first try, so I thought this was great! Thankfully, they also have a page on their site that walks shoppers through the process of finding the right shade.)

And also, good ol' Target now carries a surprisingly high number of chemical-free cleaning products, cosmetics, soaps and bath and body products, such as the Green by Nature line.

If you, too, feel like you're putting too much "gunk" on your face these days and want to make a change but don't know where to start, I can recommend a few sites.

Ecostiletto.com offers tips, advice and information on products in the areas of green beauty and fashion, among others.

Click here to download a PDF from the Teens for Safe Cosmetics site, which lists companies offering greener alternatives. (Regardless of whether or not you're in your teen years, this site has some good info!)

There's also Ecofabulous.com for sexy, sustainable style.

And Vital Juice Daily is pretty much the motherload.

I know that I'm not going to save the world by buying "green" cosmetics, but the number of cleaner, safer products will never go up  unless we start increasing the demand for them, and we have to start somewhere, right?

Where are you going to start? Do you already know what your carbon footprint is? Do you want to find out? Click here.

I Already Know What One of My New Year's Resolutions Will Be

Ask me how many books I've read this year.

The answer is two.

Two?!?!

Two.

That's like one every six months!

Hard for me to admit, but it's true. I've always been a self-proclaimed bibliophile, and I believe I still am, but now it appears to be more in spirit than in practice.

In 2007, I didn't do any better -- that year I finished two as well. The year 2006 was at least somewhat better for me, because I made it to seven.

I know I can't be too hard on myself, because there are reasonable factors that have contributed to the drop-off in numbers, including the fact that my current and most recent job have required so much reading that it's sometimes hard to make my eyes focus in my free time.

I have a notebook in which I keep track of what I've read and when (usually just the title, author and the date I begin and finish). I'll probably never give up that habit, but I'm considering trying out Goodreads.com. You can sign up there for free and create virtual "bookshelves," where you can "shelf" books you're reading, books you've already read and books you want to read. Even better, you can view the bookshelves of other users, so you can read their reviews and discover which users have your same tastes in literature.

The site could be a handy tool for deciding what you want to read next -- or, if you're like me -- a handy way to keep the hundreds of books you want to read in queue.

I remember reading a few years ago on Nicholas Sparks' website that he finishes one book approximately every three days. That's over one hundred books per year!

I don't think I'll ever want to reach that level of reading intensity, but still -- two? I can do better than two books a year. And I can do better than seven.

There are still three months left in 2008, so let's see what I can do.

Wordle

Via a post on the How About Orange blog, I discovered Wordle, a Web site that will randomize selections of text into something of an artistic display that it calls "word clouds." Then users can change the colors and fonts.

Be sure to view the gallery of word clouds that others have made and saved. Some are funny; some are intriguing.

This is the Wordle I just made. It's the lyrics from Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark."



(Click the image to see a larger version.)

It occurred to me that Wordle could also be a useful tool for writers who sometimes find inspiration through word association exercises.

Maybe there's a Wordle out there that will inspire my next short story, who knows!

Link Me Up!

Disapproving rabbits.

ColorFlip. (You will figure it out.)

Big Red Button.

Popcorn popped via cell phones. (...)

Six years of Noah. And here, too.

The Evolution Ad

I first saw this video a few years ago. It's an ad called "Evolution" that was a part of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It shows time-lapse footage of a woman going from "ordinary" to "billboard-ready" in under a minute, including all the makeup, styling and digital retouching involved.

Although I've seen the ad many times, it continues to fascinate me ... especially now that I have had the opportunity to see what goes on behind the scenes at a "fashion" publication and have witnessed firsthand what kind of manipulation images can undergo.

To my knowledge, the magazine I work for has never altered an image of the face or body of a person to this extent, but I've seen enough of the designers' work to know that it's unbelievable what a really excellent graphic designer or Photoshop wizard can do with the right software.

(Now that I think of it, I do recall one particular manipulation, but I think you'll agree that it was all for the best. One of the designers had to Photoshop another finger onto the hand of a girl at a party who had apparently been giving the camera a rude gesture at the time the photo was snapped. Why, I don't know. And why we had to run that photo, I don't know. But now she will be forever giving a peace sign instead.)

The short piece was filmed in one day and was then in post-production for a few weeks while a team of professionals condensed the two-hour makeup application process into 23 seconds, stabilized the woman's head in the center of the screen, added background noise and music and of course, digitally manipulated the image.

The advertisement has won a number of prestigious awards and is estimated to have generated over $150 million worth of exposure for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and the Dove Self-Esteem Fund.

You can read more about the hows and whys behind the making of the video here.

Here is the ad:

Wrap Me Up

I have this sweater. It's dark green, knitted, 100% cotton. Zippered. Hooded. A size small, with sleeves so long that I've always folded the cuffs back.

I think -- and I can't be certain, but I think -- I've had this sweater since my middle school days. So basically, I've owned and worn it for around a decade. Yikes, right? But even though I wouldn't say it's in absolute, perfect condition, I would argue that it doesn't look all that bad for what it's been through with me. Which, when I think about it, is a veritable ton.

High school. College. Sickness. Books. Movies. Flights. Nasty winters. Road trips. Quarrels with friends and lovers. First dates. Break-ups. Projects and papers. General rule-breaking and mayhem. Parties. Deaths. Photos. Holidays. Concerts. Moves. Vacations. Jobs. Perfect days. Perfectly terrible days. Singing and dancing and laughter.

Maybe it seems silly to go on about a sweater like this, but the thing has been around me for so long now that there's something very comforting about it. When I put it on, it's the next best thing to a hug from any one of my closest friends, all who have experienced so much with me and know me so well, but live so far away. And that is certainly welcome from time to time.

Photo by Sway Sovay

A Visit to the DBG

The boyfriend and I visited Phoenix's Desert Botanical Garden a few weekends ago.

Now, normally, I don't show much interest in, nor would I ever recommend, going to an outdoor attraction at the height of day in Arizona during the summer because of all the melting that inevitably takes place; however, this particular weekend we both agreed that the usual routine of hiding indoors all day desperately needed to be interrupted. At least just this once.

Results: I wish I could say I had some beautiful photos to show you, but the truth is that I spent so much time feeling unreasonably hot and disgusting that there were few moments in which I was willing to pause for photo ops. Therefore, I regret to report that I only have one photo of a cactus flower and one photo of a lizard to share.

After maybe a dozen attempts, I did manage to get a fairly clear shot of the lizard. Predictably, there are a lot of these little guys crawling around Arizona, but I have never seen one this big (maybe 8 or 9 inches long).


What I'm really looking forward to is this: Las Noches de las Luminarias, an event that takes place every December when the garden is lit by hundreds and hundreds of white lights and candles in paper bags.

By that time of year, the temperatures have usually turned just the right degree of chilly (well, chilly by AZ standards, anyway), making the atmosphere so cozy and perfect for chai tea, hot cocoa, pumpkin pie and all those other cool weather indulgences.

Not to mention there's also good wine and good music and good dancing. One of my favorite local musical acts are the Sahnas Brothers, who are regulars each year. They are full-blood Greeks who were raised in Mexico and play beautiful Spanish guitar melodies.

Ah, I can't wait until the high temperatures finally drop below 100 degrees.

Photos by Sway Sovay

Not News

Why oh why oh why oh why do local news stations keep reporting on reality TV shows? Unless someone has died or someone or something on the show has crossed legal lines, I really don't believe it counts as "news."

There is speculation that sometimes news stations receive pressure from those higher up to name drop, or even somehow feature, the entertainment programs that air on their own channels. Which is pretty twisted when you think about it.

My Future Children Will One Day Ask Me if I Remember Computers That Sat on Top of Desks

I find this both incredibly cool and incredibly freaky.

I bet you never envisioned your coffee table giving you the blue/black screen of death.

In Which I Finally Jump on the Fitness DVDs Bandwagon

Despite what you may initially think, this really isn't a commercial for fitness dvds, I swear. It's a story. Kind of.

Although I appreciate working out, it still feels like working out. I have never been one of those women who really looked forward to an hour of alone time where I'd strap on the tennies and crank up the iPod and hit the jogging trail or the gym.

It might have helped to have had a regular "exercise buddy," although I doubt it, because time I spend with my friends is usually time where we catch up on one another's lives, and seriously, who still has the breath to chat in between wind sprints or while you're muttering curses at the freakin' elliptical machine? (Oh how it steals my soul ...)

And it's not as though I'm not athletic or a hater of physical activity. On the contrary, I do enjoy playing sports and dancing -- I played soccer for years, even competitively and then for my high school, and I've taken tap classes for a few years. But I just need a reason to move around that much, that's all.

Anyway, for the last several months my desire to/commitment to/time for exercise had fluctuated somewhere between zero and zero.

Until recently, one day, I had a revelation. That being that 1.) Some women are immune to cellulite, but I am not one of them, and 2.) There exist magical exercise routines that accelerate heartbeats, work an impressive number of muscles, burn big globs of calories AND last only 10 minutes. Only 10 minutes! Sign me up!

So it turns out that these days, because life is so fast-paced and people seem to find it increasingly difficult to make time for physical activity, experts have found ways to exercise smarter instead of harder. And studies are showing that even fitness routines that are only 10 minutes long -- if planned appropriately and done frequently and consistently -- can be just as effective, if not more effective, than hour-long routines that involve fewer movements, work fewer muscles, don't burn nearly as many calories or build as much lean muscle.

But where are these magical routines?!

Well, Amazon.com, of course.

And that is how it happened. That is how I, Sway Sovay, finally jumped on the bandwagon of fitness dvds. Because it's honestly the only thing that has lasted longer than a week since I stopped taking dance classes once a week.

It was so easy to make excuses before ...
I don't want to pay for a gym membership.
My gym clothes are in the laundry.
I don't want to work out alone.
I'm too tired.
I don't have enough time.
It's too hot/cold/rainy outside.

But now all those excuses are invalid. I don't have to pay to go to the gym, because now I can work out in my living room, in 20 minutes, in whatever crappy clothes I can find. And I don't need a friend to work out with me, because frankly, my living room is only big enough for one person to move around that much anyway, and also, the woman on the dvd talks enough as it is. And the "I'm too tired" excuse will hopefully never leave my lips, because it will mean that I am too dang lazy to pop in a dvd and press the Play button.

This is also how that other thing happened, that being how I became so stiff and sore that I now walk around like an automaton most days at work.

I'm Pretty Sure I Won That One

Me: Could you try to wipe off the mirror after you brush your teeth? Sometimes you splash a lot of water around and it leaves spots on the mirror.

Boyfriend: Fine. But you get your makeup all over the sink and the counter.

Me: I clean that stuff off. Probably a lot more often than you clean off the mirror, anyway.

Boyfriend: Hey, I clean! I clean plenty of things around here.

Me: Please. Rinsing toothpaste down the sink?

Boyfriend: I clean all the dishes!

Me: I clean all the laundry!

Boyfriend: I clean out all the trash!

Me: Well I clean the toilet, which probably includes wiping your urine off the toilet seat!

Boyfriend: [Silence + disgusted face.]

Me: What else you got?

Smart People

I recently rented Smart People, starring Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church and Ellen Page. I thought it was absolutely great, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who also enjoyed movies like Juno and Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine. Totally the same vein of humor.

The main character is a widowed college professor (Quaid) who teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, and who has his driver's license suspended for six months after he's hospitalized for an injury sustained during a somewhat humorous incident. Because he can't drive, he relies on his temporary homeless and mainly unemployed screw-up of an adopted brother (Church) to step in and act as a (ultimately completely irresponsible) cheuffeur.

The professor has a son, who is in college and keeps to himself, and a daughter (Page), who is a rather snarky senior in high school and preparing to go to Stanford next fall. It's clear the daughter has also taken on the role of Woman of the House in order to fill her deceased mother's shoes and so she acts like she's 17 going on 47, making for some great one-liners.

As if this dysfunctional family doesn't have enough to grapple with, the professor finds himself romantically involved with his doctor (Parker) who turns out to be a former student with a once-upon-a-time crush on him.

The main theme of this film -- and the one which gives it its title and many of its most humorous points -- is the fact that all of the characters are so intelligent that it makes it somewhat difficult for them to connect to one another, as well as the world around them.

Anyway, go rent it and let me know what you think.

Food to the Rescue

AOL has posted an article containing "Weird Uses for Food Around the House." Below are a few that relate to housekeeping, but the full article covers a range of categories, including personal health.

If you add a teaspoon of pepper to your wash after you add the detergent and before you put in the clothes, it will prevent colors from fading.

If you use dried orange peels to start the next fire in your fireplace, the fire will burn for longer and (bonus) smell sweeter.

If you have a garment with an ink stain on it and soak the area in milk for up to 24 hours, the dyes will loosen and you can then launder the now stain-free article of clothing.

If you notice ants in your kitchen, sprinkle some flour in any places you've seen them and they will vacate the premises.

Image from Wikimedia Commons