Maggie musings

Chili Cook-Off (me vs. me)

I’ve been experimenting with making chili and it’s been a lot of fun.  This latest concoction is critically acclaimed (by that I mean my one coworker who cooks a lot thought it was delicious) and was really easy to make.  The ingredients: great northern beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, red bell peppers, salsa, a bit of chili paste, and chili seasoning (kind of cheating, I know).  And of course shredded cheese on top with a sprinkling of tortilla strips for added crunch.  I would have added ground turkey if I wasn’t going through a pescetarian phase right now.

Girls

I admit that I like this show—I find it funny, and the people who gripe about its lack of diversity or why we should invest in the lives of these privileged characters are missing the point.  The show is intentionally a performance of one self-absorbed young woman’s initiation into maturity and adulthood. 

Creator/writer/star Lena Dunham said herself, “The world’s getting more and more full,” she said. “Our generation is not just white girls. It’s guys. Women of color. Gay people. The idea that I could speak for everyone is so absurd. But what is nice is if I could speak for me and it’s resonant for people, then that’s about as much as I could hope for.”

I’m only 2.5 episodes in, and some aspects of the show do resonate for me. That said, I do find the following things that have occurred so far ridiculous and unbelievable for any girl to do:

-Eat a cupcake while taking a bath

-Do the above while your roommate shaves her legs next to you

-Demand to see your roommate naked

-Burst into the bathroom to confront a girl while she is peeing

-Hand that girl toilet paper when she is done peeing

-Joke about date rape during an interview

-Joke to your doctor that you want AIDS in the middle of your pap smear

-Let the guy you are having sex with grope your stomach fat

-Continue hooking up with said guy

Coco Rocha

I usually have little interest in the modeling world but someone recently showed me Coco Rocha’s Irish jig down the runway of a Jean Paul Gaultier show and now I’m enamored with her. I also love that she recently blasted Elle for Photoshopping her clothes off:

“As a high fashion model I have long had a policy of no nudity or partial nudity in my photoshoots. For my recent Elle Brazil cover shoot I wore a body suit under a sheer dress, but recently discovered that the body suit was Photoshopped out to give the impression that I am showing much more skin than I actually was or am comfortable with. This was specifically against my expressed verbal and written direction. I’m extremely disappointed that my wishes and contract were ignored. I strongly believe every model has a right to set rules for how she is portrayed and for me these rules were clearly circumvented”.

What’s interesting to me is that because she’s such a huge name, she can afford to get litigious and sue for breach of contract, whereas lesser known models won’t for fear that they’ll lose future opportunities. Hopefully, this instance will lead to less magazines digitally undressing women without their consent.  You go, Glen Coco.

I usually post about films I like, but Save the Date, which played at this year’s Sundance, was so bad I felt the need to warn any Allison Brie or Lizzy Caplan fans who might be interested in Netflix-ing this one day.  I was expecting a pleasant, acceptable dramedy but was shocked at how mundane and insipid it was.  At one point I seriously thought this might be some kind of parody of hipster life…but I’m 99% sure it was made in earnest.

Red panda post

This red panda inspires me with its determination to open this door, reaching for the doorknob with its tiny retractable claws and steadying itself with its fluffy tail.  So fucking cute.

My friend made me this upon discovering that this adorable ombre firefox is my favorite animal:

Truth.

*Bonus: red pandas in love