ZITS

This will be fun. For some reason, I've been thinking about zits (couldn't possibly be because I actually have some, of course).

Did you know...?

• If you have zits along your hairline, you might want to change your shampoo. Try to find something that is sodium free (look for ammonium sulfate instead of sodium sulfate). It's kind of hard, but I can recommend Aussie's cleansing shampoo at least. Shampoo and conditioner can also be the cause of zits on your back; wash your hair first in the shower, and wash your body after you've rinsed all the conditioner out.
• If you have zits around your mouth, it's hormones. Even if you're not on your period! Check the milk and meat you buy and make sure they don't have added hormones. Most milk doesn't (I think the Maid O' Clover is supposed to be best???), but keep an eye out for the meats.
• If you have zits on the sides of your face, it could be your pillowcase. It's not too hard to get in the habit of changing a pillowcase every day. Be sure to use a fresh washcloth every time you wash your face, and clean your makeup applicators at least once a week (when I'm super good, I clean them every day). Remember to wash thoroughly around your face, too, as in down your neck and to your ears.
• If you have zits on your chest, consider your laundry--do you wear a fresh bra every day? Do you spray perfume on your neck and decolletage? Last, is your jewelry clean? I know, that might seem gross...but you'd be unpleasantly surprised...
• Before you try to pop that irresistable zit, try a hot or cold compress. You can place an icecube or very hot, wet cloth on the tip. Keep it there at least 2 1/2 minutes. The swelling should be noticeably down, and the zit will likely dry up by the next day. The intense temperature kills the bacteria.
• If you MUST pop that zit, use as little pressure as possible. This will sound really extreme or disgusting, but it works: sterilize something like a needle (even a safety pin tip will work), and gently prod the thinnest point of the skin over the zit. After each prodding, gently coax the pus to see if you've punctured the skin layer. Clean it out as gently and carefully as you can, and clean the area (and the pin) when you are finished. The reason this is better than squeezing: squeezing not only pushes the pus upward but inward as well. This means you are forcing the bacteria deeper into your skin, elevating the seriousness of your acne (and prolonging the life of the zit). It could take a really, really long time to get it all cleared out. The pin is also better than scratching, because scratching spreads the bacteria and damages your skin. You might think poking a pin in your skin is worse than popping a zit, but the popping creates a jagged rupture that will take longer to heal. :( Sorry.

Well, sorry if I grossed you out! But at least you'll have some better control over your acne! Yay! Show it who's boss!

I have more tips of zit coverage, too, for a later time. When you know how to accurately cover a zit, it's less threatening--and you'll find it's easier to avoid popping it.

Love you all! Forgive me for my grossness!

Books I've Loved or Read Recently

Cara Jean (MeanJeansArt and D.I. Denizen) asked me what books I read...well, um, I read those children books. BUT! I do read some more mature books sometimes. This is what I said (and then some) in one of those tiny little comment boxes before I realized it should be a post:

I was thinking of doing a post of books I read, but I don't know...I still read a lot of YA books!
I loved the Hunger Games.

It's surprisingly easy to relate to heroine Katniss as she's thrust into a carnal game of murder celebrated by the cruel Capitol every year. Every move she makes is with the intent to play the game--which plays with her mind until she can barely distinguish between what she does for herself and for the Capitol.

It is not overly graphic.

I have recently been reading the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld--I suppose they're sci-fi, but not invasively so. Tally lives in a society obsessed with beauty, so much that they perform surgery on every sixteen-year-old with the claim that the resulting beauty is the only way to be accepted. Having grown up with this idea ingrained in her mind, Tally will do nearly anything to be pretty. What she doesn't know yet is that the surgery does more than change your appearance...

Throughout the series, it becomes more and more clear how the city manipulates Tally into making their plans work. Tally somehow finds a way to defy them every time.

I really loved a book called Kiln People by David Brin, and that is classified as sci-fi, but it's also a mystery that is really well spun. Albert is a fairly predictable man with a fascinating career as a detective, but he's far from traditional. In an age where people can make clay copies of themselves (in varying ranks and colors) for various chores and leisure--or anything they don't want to do in person--Albert has replicas of himself all over the place solving his mystery for him. There's a constant danger for the dittos, though; their only hopes of sharing their data with realAlbert is by "inloading" their memories at the end of their 24-hour shift, and it looks like their's been some ditnapping... ;)

Really, this is such a cool book. I love the very idea.

The only complaint I have for it is that once in a while the dialogue goes on for too long without tagging who's speaking, and one sentence suddenly turns out to be spoken by Albert when you thought it was his friend. Oh well. Still good reading.

And...I love the Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, but again that's meant for a younger audience...this book is so innocent and sweet. It's charming and clever, too. I loved it from the beginning!

[younger audience]The Larklight series by Philip Reeve is funny! It's told by a younger brother who thinks his sister is ridiculous, and he's hilarious the way he talks about her and everything. There's even a part or two where his sister (Myrtle) gives her own account of what happened, and the comparison is so funny; it reminds me hugely of my sister Rae! HAHAHAH!!!! Sorry, Rae. Myrtle is cute.

It all takes places in a world where England is still the biggest world power, and space is breathable (hence liveable). I actually laughed aloud pretty often!

You see, I really do like children's books! :D

But! More adultlike: The Poisonwood Bible (you MUST) by Barbara Kingsolver. I felt like I had been to Africa, and more importantly, I felt like I understood Africa. The family is absolutely believable. They're also loveable...and hateable.

Dragonwyck by Anya Seton (generally out of print but some libraries might have it). The first time I read this book, I did not sleep. Except by accident for ten minutes, after which I jerked awake, completely alarmed that I had lost my place. I found it and resumed reading immediately.

Quite a load of romance and mystery...a dangerous sort of secret that maybe Miranda doesn't want to discover...

I love Miranda. She starts off so naive (but so spirited) and learns the darkness of men only after she's been blinded by what she thought was love. That sounds melodramatic, doesn't it. But I can vouch for its coolness, don't worry.

Oh man, and the fat fat fat woman Johanna...I pity her disgustingness. Poor huge thing.

I'll try to think of more, especially more that are for us "Older" people. :)
Oh yeah, and I read a pretty interesting one called A Shortcut in Time by Charles Dickinson (yeah, what a name--but it was cool).

At first, he only cut 15 seconds back in time, but after he examined his route again, he found that the shortcut could take him a hundred years back. I forgot what his name is. Hee hee...

A young girl appears from seemingly nowhere, and everyone thinks she belongs in the foster home. Only the Man believes her story of whence she came ("where she came from" would be poor grammar, oh dear). And...I'm having a hard time making this sound as interesting as it is. :\ TIME TRAVEL = INTERESTING, right? I hope so.

And one more, but I wonder how well I can recommend it. It's called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, by Mark Haddon.

Sadly, it had so much profanity, but it's so sensitively written. It's about an autistic boy and the way his world is. REALLY really interesting (to me). Christopher's mind pretty much divides the world in black and white, and somehow, his views are more tender than those of people who should be able to understand more than he does.

Christopher hates anything yellow because he figures if he likes one color, he should dislike another.

He likes to be crouched in tight, tiny spaces.

He can play Minesweeper in so few seconds it's crazy.

He hates people who lie, and he believes most people lie.

Christopher will not use a toilet besides the one at home, and he's glad he's not like another boy at their special school who will poop on purpose when he's mad.

And...someone killed the neighbor's dog, which disturbs Christopher more than it disturbs anyone else. He goes about solving this little "mystery," intent on writing a book. The answer to it all is so terribly heartbreaking.

GASP! And I LOVE the book the Count of Monte Cristo, if you're looking for a classic, but maybe that's just me. I adored it. Don't watch the movie--it's stupid because it does not at all capture the old fashioned exoticness of the Count, who returns from years in a dark prison with its darkness reflected in his deep, enigmatic eyes. No one understands how he came to be so incredibly skilled at all he does and so impossible to figure out.

One more. Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden. It's poetic, so beautiful. As influential as Poisonwood Bible in the way that it made me feel like I knew Japan (I do to some degree by now from having been there, but this was beforehand). The world of a geisha is harsh and beautiful with infinite precision. Sayuri's heart is deep from the beginning as she recounts her life's story.

*I personally love the way she understands the cruel Hatsumomo who is evilly intent on ruining Sayuri's career as a geisha...

My "style" for books has a wide range. :)
I'll try to think of more if you want!

Sheesh, this should be a post!

(Hmmm, yes, yes it should...)

Children's Books

I adore this book. Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen is so sweet! Michael and I laughed aloud while reading this to Ender, and Ender even laughed while enjoying the darling pictures! It's kind of an ugly-duckling story but with far more charm (and the crocodile isn't changing into anything fancy). I HIGHLY recommend it. I want to own it.

If you're looking for some literature that is incredibly uplifting, masterfully written, stimulating for any brain, and brilliantly plotted, this book is at the top of the list (The Stupids... by Hary Allard and James Marshall). Hahahaha. Just kidding. It's at the bottom. But I have such fond memories of my mother cracking up while reading these books to us (because they ARE stupid), and even fonder memories of us being stupid and remembering the book. Have you ever gotten in an elevator and forgotten to push the buttons? "The Stupids ride the elevator." Maybe that's why I love these books--it makes it easier to laugh when I do something stupid knowing The Stupids always do something stupid.

Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis is a cute and imaginative book. The author's also written "Not a Box," which might suggest she lacks imagination for titles, but the books encourage children to be creative with ordinary objects (the stick can be all sorts of things). That's important to me. Somedays I feel weary of toys because they're practically manufactured to do all the thinking for kids (well, kind of). Some of my better childhood memories come from being insanely creative with everything around me (A fence as a cannon? It worked)!

There are lots of Mr. Sillypants books by M. K. Brown and I haven't actually read them all, but I remember reading this book with my sister. We even have a picture of us together with it! Hm, now I need to see if I can find it anywhere. Anyway, simply put, Mr. Sillypants really is silly.

I'm not sure if the title or the art intrigued me the most, but neither disappointed me. I did kind of wish it went into scientific-like details of the supernatural talent of eating books (that just sounds fun to me), but the story takes it a good direction anyway. The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers is one that I think any kid might enjoy because the very idea of eating books is cool!

I love just about anything written by William Steig. His art is almost childish, comparable to Quentin Blake's illustrations. And the storylines are clever, funny and sweet. In this book, Pete's a Pizza, a boy is very bored and doesn't know what to do. His father pretends Pete is a pizza and plays with him, putting "food" on the boy and "baking him." It makes me think of something either my parents would do with us or Michael would do with Ender.

Thank heaven for brilliant librarians! I've wanted to find this book for ages, and I finally just asked the librarian if she knew what book I might be thinking of. I described it like this "A grandpa is telling his grandkids about how his house got flooded when he was a child, and it was funny to me because the child version of the grandpa still had a mustache. But I can't remember anything else!" The librarian smiled sweetly. "Sounds like James Stevenson! Yes, 'We Hate Rain,' does that look like the right book?" HALLELUIAH!!!!

In the same conversation (she'd sparked my faith), I said "Maybe you'd know another book I've been wanting to find. I read it when I was about 11, so all I can remember is that it took place in England--they called trucks "lorries"--and there was a kind of battle between the peddlers and truckers..." A librarian around the corner poked her head around a bookcase and said "The Pushcart War. Darn funny book!" I couldn't stop smiling. I've put a picture of something that's apparently based on the original novel, but the link goes to the original. Whatever!

Again, bothering the same librarian--I couldn't help myself!--I asked if she knew about a book where a boy drank the stories through a straw. She had to think maybe a minute before she recalled the title for me! AMAZING woman! I read The Ink Drinker by Eric Sanvoisin when I was about 10. I loved it so much! I loved the book even more by the fact that the author wrote in his bio-note that if someone were to write to him, he would send them a straw--guaranteed.

I have yet to read the sequel! Oh my! I just realized in my search that there are two more books! Happy day! :) that's two separate links there.
I love librarians. And libraries. Books make me so happy!