Valentine’s Day is coming! Valentine’s Day is coming!

Time to pull out every cliche in the book! It’s the most romantic day of the year! Obviously! This is what all the PR firms are telling us and we’ve gotten so many pitches over the past two weeks, we’re making this week’s lengthy edition of Better Living Through Publicists a cherry heart bonbon the size of which you’ve never seen, nested in forty million rose petals, floating atop an Olympic-sized bubble bath of edible chocolate froth. In other words, at once absurd and predictable: Just like Valentine’s Day and the publicists’ pitches that come with it!

If Hotel Walls Could Talk

Hotels.com took a “Romance Survey” that uncovered “Both dissidence and harmony between the sexes surrounding Valentine’s Day.” What did they find? Well, of course all couples get a hotel room on Valentine’s Day (thanks hotel.com survey), but what do men and women think about Valentine’s Day hanky-panky?

They want lingerie, they want sex in the jacuzzi (note to self – avoid the jacuzzi next time you travel), they want Filet Mignon and dark chocolate and also, because they hate their partner so much for forcing them to endure this obviously horrible weekend, have opted for celebrities to do this with instead:

It’s no wonder that many couples divorce or break up on the 14th. Steak, anyone?

Doomsday is Coming!

Here’s a book to cheer you up for the impending day of doom. “As stores are flooded with hearts and sappy sentiments, many single women’s hearts are flooded with reminders of loneliness, failure and doom. But cheer up ladies! There is someone out there who is confident that you will find ‘the one’ and wants to remind you to keep the faith.”

Hey thanks, Lindsley Lowell! I bet you’re going to be the one with your truly graphically pleasing book to tell us who it is!
Do you deserve true love? Are you over 35 and therefore “discounted, last season’s fashions?” Do you have the guts to sit it out and wait for a man in metal to come and sweep you off your feet?

Lindsley advises: “Do not settle. Do not let others put you down. Do not think you are crazy. Do not throw in the towel and start crocheting outfits for your cat. There IS hope. Let me be your beacon of hope, your wing woman, your leader in the fight to find your knight in shining armor. Yes, Virginia, he does exist. He just might be stuck in traffic.”

But why does the PR pitch go on to talk about how the remaining available men look “like the used, discarded Island of the Misfit Toys?”

You’re old goods, but don’t settle, but the men left aren’t so great, but they are! And you don’t simply happen to want to be single, obviously.

I’m so confused. Should I just become lesbian? Oh, just call me on the 14th and we’ll figure it out over oysters.

When All Else Fails, Shop HBO!

Because you have nobody to love (because you watch too much TV), get one of these synthetic, toxic shirts to proclaim you love something on the 14th!

By the way, HBO, we heart organic cotton.

Nothing Says Sexy Like Tyrosine!

See this woman? She’s internationally renowned celebrity nutrition and fitness expert JJ Virgin, co-star of TLC’s hit series Freaky Eaters. That’s right, Virgin. Virgin is one of those people who believes food can fuel a love fire, so she advises you to better your V-Day by following a few items on this list:

Feed him celery – a few stalks of celery it raises a man’s androstenedione, which emits a scent women can’t resist

Get your zinc on – zinc-containing foods support healthy sperm production and are high in D-aspartic acid and N-methyl-D-aspartate, which increased testosterone levels

Tyrosine and zinc supplements – increase dopamine levels in the brain, which has been linked to boosting the sex drive

Supplements, baby, supplements – fish oil supports good blood flow, arginine helps with vasodilation, and Tongkat Ali support shealthy testosterone levels

Go nuts – L-arginine enhances production of nitrous oxide (NO) to increase blood flow to the nether regions, and nuts especially are rich in arginine

Yes, chocolate! – dark chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which releases the same endorphins triggered by sex and increases the feelings of attraction between two people

Hot coffee – coffee drinkers have higher libidos and hit the sheets more often than those who don’t indulge, according to a study conducted by Southwestern University.

Get filet-ed – Lean cuts of red meat are great sources of zinc and curb production of a hormone called prolactin, which at high levels can cause sexual dysfunction. Choose deep red cuts with round or loin in the name.

So, to sum up. Nuts, deep cuts of loin. Got it. Totally sexy.

Feeling Unloved? Retreat To Dawn Christie, Spiritual Champion of the Stars!

Image: La Maison Duce, Irina

ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

Even when I was little, I knew my grandmother was a deeply sad woman.

In fact, my earliest memory of my grandmother is the one of me listening to her weeping quietly in her bedroom when she didn’t know I was hiding in her closet (having just found a bevy of beautiful hats in striped hat boxes).

“Why is memere sad?” I may have asked my mother and father, but only they knew at the time the weight she carried, and they never answered me.

For years, my grandmother and I would play War with miniature playing cards that had images of Paris on them – the Moulin Rouge, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame – she in her comfy rocker in the corner, me on the piano bench she positioned for when I’d come over. With my three brothers and three male cousins playing touch football outside, there was no room for girls, but Memere would sit me down with some strawberry soda in a fancy glass and always make me feel special.

“Who cares about the boys,” she’d say in her French Quebecois accent, smiling, “for we’ve got each other.”

Through the years, I’d share and teach her from my reading texts from school (she with only a fourth grade education), tell her winsome stories about life as a tween, teen and finally, when she came to live with us, how much I just had to get away. Having lived in the same house my entire life and at that time, attending a local community college, I longed for travel and a chance at adventure and freedom, far away from the confines of anything comfortable, familiar.

“How much do you need to get away?” She asked.

“I feel like I’ll die if I don’t,” I said.

My grandmother told me a story of why she was going to give me money to get away, and I have never forgotten it.

Having grown up in Montreal, my grandmother was very stylish and worldly. She had big dreams of doing big things and shirked many a suitor, not feeling that commitment was her primary responsibility in life. She left Canada in her twenties and ended up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she waitressed at a mom-and-pop restaurant until she met my grandfather. She was considered a spinster, not having married yet, and my grandfather cured her of that with a proposal for marriage.

From here, the story changes. My grandfather was, simply, a bastard. He left her alone on their honeymoon to attend an electrician’s conference, left her alone in her home for years while he had an affair with a paraplegic woman (my grandmother explained how she’d watch them from a corner drug store as they had daily lunch), left her alone as she vomited out windows from her descent into alcoholism, left her alone as she raised two children. Left her for the circus when he retired.

Left at home, she subscribed to National Geographic and collected all the center-folded maps, wrote to nuns and priests at the Vatican and Paris’ Sacre Coeur to give her strength, was never taught to drive so watched mass on television – going through the motions of blessing herself, kneeling and never getting the body of Christ placed in her mouth.

At some point, she just gave up. Gave up that she would ever see Paris, gave up drinking, gave up romantic love and settled into her rocker to play solitaire.

“I always wanted to do what you are going to do,” she said, and told me I had $10,000 to do what I wanted with. It otherwise would be mine when she died.

There was one condition: “I want to see this,” she said.

Aren’t we all destined for greatness thanks to our grandmothers?

With her money, I went to school for Italian Literature and Art in Florence, Italy, and lived in a castle with artists. I backpacked Europe by myself, exploring 13 countries. I slept in the Sahara in a goat skin tent during Ramadan. I roamed every European city’s streets, drinking strong coffee, having affairs, and when I went to Paris? I called my grandmother collect.

“What do you see? What does it smell like?” Memere asked through strangled sobs.

Jammed inside a pay phone booth staring at the Notre Dame I didn’t know what to say except: “It’s beautiful.”

When I would arrive home many months later, I would surprise them all at a family party. I would run in and my memere, so stunned, could only grab me and bury her face in my hair to see what Europe smelled like.

A few weeks ago, I was on a flight to San Francisco and passing over a very cold middle America: snow capped Rocky Mountains, frozen rivers and cities dotting the landscape out of nowhere. My grandmother died years ago, and yet I still think of her when I travel. How she would’ve felt to be all alone on a plane, touching down on another coast. How the Kerouac blood runs deep when you need to travel. How the spirit of her roams with me in every city I explore.

Between the Lines is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country, between inner worlds and outer.

Image: friedchuckles

ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

No matter where you live, no matter how many life experiences you have, and no matter how much self-confidence you hold, there is nothing to stop certain men from treating you like a little girl. Blame it on some bizarre, existential threat that men – and at times, other women -  feel equality between the sexes will bring about, but it’s really pretty hard to wrap your brain around how the female gender is still, in 2012, frequently told to step down and be sweet.

In fact, we are told our writing is clearly female, our money decisions should still be dictated by our husbands, and those pat-downs? We should have worn a pants suit because blazers and trousers wouldn’t have provoked the assault. Sexist cliches: the ultimate comeback kid!

“The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles,” Scott Adams of the cartoon Dilbert writes.

I say suit up.

My first job out of college in 1996 was by far one of the more shining examples of sexual inequality.

Working in the city of Portland, Oregon, my ad-writing job was run by three tight-knit Mormon males just as side swept and Old-Spiced as Mitt. The nearly all-male office seemed harmless enough. The patriarch of the family would greet each one of us every morning in his 6’2″ splendor with a vitamin C tablet.

“Because who wants to get sick?” He’d say, laughing through his front teeth.

My colleague, Dan, and I would quickly spit out the tablet as soon as he passed (he waited for us to put it in our mouths) and keep on working, writing ads for truck stops and insurance companies all over the U.S. A few months into my job, I learned I was pregnant, and while everyone was elated (what Mormon family wouldn’t be with a woman bearing fruit?), from then on I was spoken to differently, handled differently.

And then the day.

Co-workers were feeling free to talk shop about pay and raises and time invested and that moment of finding out I was being paid $5.00 less per hour than all the men. The same men who went outside to smoke, who called their wives non-stop to argue, who sat and read magazines when no one was looking while I finished my work and helped whoever needed it – they were being paid more than I was. Furious, I sat there with a baby moving in my stomach, wondering if there was a hidden camera. Was I in a dream?

Dan said I should set a meeting up with the boss. Everyone believed I should be getting paid the same, if not more. And so I did, but the boss had me. Where else could I get a job in the next four months, already being five months along?

I was brought into his mammoth office, which was tricked out in John Wayne paintings, Cherokee warriors and boasting a desk covered in picture frames of kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, husband and wife shots, family shots, him with his two sons.

That toothy smile was bigger than ever and there was a huge bowl of plastic wrapped candy before me.

“Care for a candy, Amy?” Like we were both having a hard time. Like wasn’t being paid $5.00 less per hour kind of a bummer.

Nothing changed from that meeting, and my feelings about candy are now forever skewed.

It’s not a stretch to label yourself as a feminist these days and actually fit nicely in it, because sometimes even the people you think are smart and educated want to put you down. We’ve got the Republican presidential nominees telling us what to do with our bodies and whom we can marry – all the while, enjoying their own sex scandals. It feels a little too like The Handmaid’s Tale, and we are being trained for the Sons of Jacob.

Care for some candy, little girl?

I was talking with an author and fellow editor the other day and she said, “The climate of the country is always reflected by what women are doing.” She mentioned knitting, DIY, this need to be “grounded in something real.” I thought about all the knitting circles popping up all over the country under the guise of simple handwork, when we all know better.

Between the Lines is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country, between inner worlds and outer.

Image: 2timesm

ColumnA behind-the-screen look at the consistently ridiculous inbox of a writer.

At EcoSalon, we receive our fair share of email pitches, and we’ve decided to give you a weekly peek at this valuable information inside our inboxes. These products, people, and services are 100 percent real, although we’re not always sure that they should be.

One very smug Andy Masters has written the definitive book on romance, I mean dating, I mean sales.

His new book, Kiss Your Customer: 77 Reasons Why Sales & Service Are Just Like Dating & Relationships, takes a “creative look at the eerie similarities between business success and relationship success.” What we can learn from business that we can apply to relationships? That it’s good to get a sale? That it’s going, going, gone unless you buy now?

“It’s about the process:  Find ‘em, and then keep ‘em happy!” Masters says. “There is a great irony between the sales process and romantic courtship. There is also a great irony between keeping your customer happy, and keeping your significant other happy.”

Nothing says romance like relentlessly convincing your customer/wife that she needs you.

Says our pitching publicist: “There probably isn’t a groom on the planet who hasn’t felt completely overwhelmed by all of the major decisions (and costs) associated with his wedding day. While most brides revel in the planning process, most men want to run and hide until they find out how much they’re paying. It’s not just the bride’s special day, but the groom’s too, so why not get involved?”

Looks like 1960 just called! Along with every gender stereotype out there! And why are you marrying the jerk who wants to run and hide from his own wedding, anyway?

Be the Man: The Man Registry® Guide for Grooms is supposed to be a humorous guide to navigating “the wedding minefield” giving grooms a “play-by-play of the wedding planning months, answer lingering questions and debunk age-old myths.”

Except all the myths it perpetuates.

Thanks to Napoleon Fireplaces and Grills from Crittenden, Kentucky for sending an over 85%-women-read conscious publication a pitch about how dumb we are at grilling meat.

According to the Bluegrass State based BBQ shop, “males continue to reign in the fiery realm of the grill.”

In fact, according to a 2011 consumer research study, put together for the international Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, the male head of the household “is more often the one who makes the decision to use a grill, prepares the food and actually does the work on the grill.”

“Grilling has traditionally been a guy thing, and this research confirms the anecdotal evidence many of us have seen in our own homes for years,” said David Coulson, national advertising manager for Barrie, Ont.-based Napoleon Fireplaces and Grills.

Among the details provided by survey respondents, researchers found such valuable insights as:

- Males handle the majority of the grilling duty.
- The male head of the household cooks about 73% of the meals on gas grills, 72% on charcoal grills and 66% on electric grills.
- Men prepare the food 58% of the time for gas grilling, 55% for charcoal grills and 50% for electric grills.
- Those stats compare to women who handle food prep 39% of the time for gas grilling, 40% for charcoal grills and 49% for meals made on electric grills.
- Men generally make the final call when it comes to whether or not to grill a meal. The survey indicates men typically make the decision 60% of the time for gas grilling, 63% of the time for charcoal grilling and 56% of the time for electric grills.
- Women make the call 36% of the time for gas grilling, 33% of the time for charcoal grilling and 43% of the time for electric grilling.

Where’s the fire?

No matter who actually exercises their grill skills to cook the meal, the job of firing up the equipment usually falls to the man of the house, the survey found.

“It’s extremely important for us to know how people typically use their grills and barbecues so we can tailor our products and services to our customers habits,” Coulson said. “At Napoleon, we have a full line of gourmet gas and charcoal grills to suit any household, no matter who’s at the helm.”

Thanks, David. The next thing we want to know is, if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? How much sound? What percentage of deer hear it? Does? Rabbits?

Image: Adactio, Quapan

ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

Before there were foodies, there were hunter-gatherers.

If you were hungry around 10,000 years ago, you likely had a good sharp spear, a stone implement, or a bow and arrow to help. You moved stealthily through grassy inlets, dark forests, and rough waves, or the tall grasses of a savannah, looking for deer, rabbits, fish, elk, anything with a heartbeat. You were a scavenger, too, finding eggs and carcasses. You caught fresh seafood, and you knew what nuts and berries to pick that wouldn’t kill you. Your family had to survive off what you captured, so you had to be good at what you did.

Today, modern day eating includes two kinds of people: those who eat simply because they are hungry and those who grandstand. For the latter, it’s trendy to be aware and hopeful. Want arugula with that?

We are so caught up in our organic, pro-biotic, farm raised, grass fed, locally caught, CLA-rich meats and hydroponically-grown produce that we’ve lost sight of an important aspect of our diet – the courage it takes to know where it comes from. We’re not going to see Portland hipsters in oxfords gutting deer or upper middle class types in North Face jackets slitting a grassfed cow’s throat. We’re not going to see trendy, knee-booted girls in leggings pulling feathers out of chickens for their new, cute hair extension, then eating the meat, nor are we going to see the fedora-topped, sullen-faced musician spear-fishing his wild salmon from the Pacific. (Mark Zuckerberg may be more authentic than any hipster could ever hope to be.)

We are a culture of hypocrites. We shun the real hunter, wrapped in camouflage and Hunter’s Orange. We refuse to meet eye-to-eye the seasoned fisherman at the end of the pier – the one who will gut and fine fillet.

I was at a friend’s dinner party in Brooklyn recently, where long-haired grassfed beef burgers were going to be served at the lively hour of 11:30 p.m. The group’s conversation centered around the hairy cow whom we were to eat momentarily, as we grazed on organic, local cheeses and freshly baked artisanal bread and drank urban winery wine. All of it lovely, to be sure.

Later, biting into the bloody burger, I found myself wanting to be anywhere but with my mouth on the flesh of a once-hairy beast that had roamed a beautiful farm in upstate New York. I ate around the edges, avoiding the cool middle. Within moments of putting down the rare part, it had been snatched by not-so-polite fingers and horrified faces. I wasn’t meaning to be wasteful.

Who was the conscious consumer, and who wasn’t? To be graceless consumers of bespoke foods, as if each bite brings us closer to mindfulness. Some of us eat to survive: Cheez-its and Hamburger Helper. Some of us eat to feel whole: farmers’ market kale and quinoa. In the latter case, we should also ask ourselves if we are doing this to be more conscious, or simply to be more cool.

Between the Lines, is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country.

Image: Erik Brett

ColumnA behind-the-screen look at the consistently ridiculous inbox of a writer.

At EcoSalon, we receive our fair share of email pitches, and we’ve decided to give you a weekly peek at this valuable information inside our inboxes. These products, people, and services are 100 percent real, although we’re not always sure that they should be.

Vajazzle Your Vajayjay!

When you get an email titled “The lowdown on your lady flower,” you have a few options:

1. Hope it’s from a horticulturalist talking about the status of your most recent garden center purchase.

2. Pretend your vagina was not just called a lady flower, as though you were a toddler just learning about body parts.

3.  Ask yourself if the PR firm did any research about your publication that would indicate said publication’s readers need to know about lady flowers. Generally.

“From Kegels to cunnilingus, vajazzling to vibrators, and self-exams to semen allergies, V Is for Vagina stands way above the vajayjay books of yesteryear (Ed.: there were books of yesteryear?). Out next month, this candid, easy-to-read – and easy-to-understand – guide that delivers the most up-to-date comprehensive health information for women 18 to 81!”

I can vajazzle my vajayjay out of semen allergies: What a fun read? I think? Send me a copy?

“This go-to guide for all things vagina is filled with activities, quizzes, and FAQs that give you all the information you need when something doesn’t feel quite normal.”

Normal? What is a normal vagina?

Little Men Now Have Clothes!

“Can I put you in touch with the Au’s for a possible short man’s fashion interview?” EcoSalon has been asked. Oh, the synergy.

Super Moms Get Toxic!

ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

I think the first time I became aware of trash and the environment was when the Keep America Beautiful commercial of Iron Eyes Cody came out. (As drums pound and smokestacks puff out fumes, Cody looks at a highway coated in debris. A bag of trash is thrown at him. We won’t get into the utter exploitation of Cody’s Cherokee-Cree heritage.) It was the 1970s. Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush included the line, “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.” These lyrics I belted out with pride because they mentioned “the 1970s,” the decade in which I was born. Obviously, I hear the song differently now. Cody was a Hollywood talent who signed on for the part and forced that tear to pop out from his tear duct. I’m no actor playing a part, and feel them ready to pop often.

In my small neighborhood here on Cape Cod, I come home with trash in my hands.

Yesterday, while walking the dog, it was a McDonald’s bag with an empty sausage McMuffin breakfast container, a plastic bottle and some candy wrappers. I’d like to say that this was maybe because we had a windy day and somebody’s trash barrel wasn’t secure. That a raccoon found treasure and pulled the bag out for a late night snack, but the truth is, I always find trash. This is a middle class neighborhood, filled with many renters who might care little for place, but if I were to read into who lives here based on the trash I find, I would be more inclined to say: This neighborhood is filled with people who just don’t care at all.

The troublesome part is that this is not 1970. We are so much more educated about the environment, we’ve heard the drills about recycling, and we’ve seen pollution disaster after disaster. If I’m reading these trashy tea leaves correctly, we have many a miserable soul who believes  a Smirnoff nip before going home to the wife and kids can help take the edge off of a biting reality. That oversized styrofoam cups of extra sugared espresso concoctions deserve to pave our way home. That Subway sandwiches are made not only for “healthy” fast food consumption, but also for the wildlife here. That the reason why I daily find a bag of McDonald’s in the same place is because someone likes to live like a hobbit with Second Breakfast and Elevensies.

I remember when our local Wampanoag Indians won federal recognition a few years back (my town is considered “The Land of the Wampanoag”), and I picked up a massive pile of plastic bottles across the street from a house housing three Wampanoag families. All the bottles labeled with their federal recognition.

The tear.

I’m not picking up reusable bags with organic carrot tops inside, or vegan granola bar wrappers. It takes a certain person who just doesn’t care to litter. These are the people who feed themselves garbage, live with garbage, and treat the environment as a garbage can. It’s a cycle of abuse that begins with self-abuse that’s become so regular for so many, we consider it almost normal.

I refuse. So, I will continue picking up this trash. And I will believe there are those who care. I’m not certain this is a good approach at all. Maybe I should make signs asking people to pick up the litter. Maybe I should lead a neighborhood cleanup and have the ones who do care take a stand against the ones who don’t.

But who cares?

Between the Lines, is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country.

Image: purplepix

ColumnA behind-the-screen look at the consistently ridiculous inbox of a writer.

At EcoSalon, we receive our fair share of email pitches, and we’ve decided to give you a weekly peek at this valuable information inside our inboxes. These products, people, and services are 100 percent real, although we’re not always sure that they should be.

Wild Anal Play Adventures!

Nothing says conscious living better than a night of wide-awake, very awake, anal play.

In bestselling author and sex educator Dr. Sadie Allison’s newly released fifth book, Tickle My Tush, we all can learn the “true pleasures of the under-explored seat of love.”

Would it be acceptable, Dr. Sadie, if I just used my seat to sit? Anal play may be on trend, but it’s not for everybooty.

Thanks, we think, to PR professional Barbara Dunn (or the “Tickle Kitty” as she signed off in her email to us) for this EcoSalon-specific pitch.

Become a Hot Mess For The World To See!

“I’m a hot mess!”

You’ve said it, your friends have said it, and you’ve all agreed at one time or another that an outfit, makeup application or drunken expose captured on another friend’s iPhone conveyed the spirit of this mess.

You and your friends, and your friends’ friends are not alone! In fact, there’s a whole website about people’s shameless hot messes. And you can now add your own.

Join Hot Mess Executive Producer Amy Kersten in her video, where she is dressed as a “deranged nanny” in The Christmas Carol, and try not to rip skin from your face as she forces an “English” accent from her freshly painted lips. You won’t get anything she says about the contest (and you want to because you have some good footage of your now-ex best friend), because all you’ll hear is that pouty faux accent. It will stay with you all day and you will become a hot mess just trying to get it out of your head.

As for their final words to us: “We’d love for Ecosalon.com to post about the contest this week, as we think your readers might be worthy competitors and who may also like our series!”

We say, you so don’t know our readers. But any press is good press, right?

Lose Weight This New Year Courtesy of Some Slave Labor Chocolate!

A recent national survey finds that only 32% of Americans actually make New Year’s resolutions. Sadly, for those who do, 60% of those people have the foresight to know they’ll break them before they even make them.
Regardless of whether or not Americans make (or keep) their resolutions, health seems to be at the top of everyone’s minds for the New Year.

According to the survey, a whopping 75% of American adults are planning on losing weight in 2012 and they say “Kicking up the Cardio” is the most optimal way to lose weight. “Eating Smaller Portions” and “Choosing ‘Healthy Over ‘Hearty’” came in a close second and third, followed by “Partnering with a Friend” which ranked surprisingly low in a distant fourth place.

There were additional findings from the Nestlé Raisinets’ New Years Health survey. Wait. Nestlé? Raisinets? Healthy?

That’s right.

Suck down all those little brown, soft-filled droppings made by Ivory Coast child slave laborers and feel good about your antioxidants! It’s a new year and you want to lose weight eating chocolate!

“Nestlé Raisinets are an indulgence everyone can try without feeling guilty,” says Tricia Bowles, of Nestlé Confections & Snacks.

Image: Stuart_Burns1

ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

“I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own.” - H.G. Wells

My oldest brother, whom I had not talked to or seen in some 10 years, just left my house. For years, I’ve envisioned all the things I wanted to tell him. All that mess that went down when he left, how we all had to pick up the pieces, how I felt bound to hold everyone together and make them see the lighter side of things, but I didn’t.
I saw him standing in my home, looking the spitting image of my father, and hugged him and cried while he, big brother style, tried to make me laugh.

It takes a lot in this world to be human. To let go of anger and mend bridges we thought were burned or too weak to ever repair. To let time be the true salve for our hurts and realize that ultimately, life keeps propelling us all forward.

But oh, that in-between time of figuring it all out.

I started writing this column on Wednesday and it was to be on how much happens in a week of our lives. The idea came to me on Christmas when my grandfather died, gathered speed when my estranged brother called my mother to say he was sorry for her loss, held steady when my dearest friend called to tell me he was separating from his beautiful wife and crashed hard when my second oldest brother had a nervous breakdown Tuesday night from all the stress.

In just a week, life hung in a precarious place, diverging into two roads where at one juncture the potential for a complete emotional apocalypse was readily available and at the other, a place of learning and growth. By Thursday, I’d strapped on my sneakers and headed out into the cold morning to run until I couldn’t take it. Stop and go, stop and go, catching my breath, losing it all again, pushing, sweating and finally crying while running, realizing that no matter what happens in this world, I am in control of how I react within it. We all are. It just hurts sometimes, these pit stops in rest areas we didn’t expect to pull into.

Tomorrow is a new day and the Bufflehead ducks on the pond at the bottom of my street will be pushing through the water, quietly looking for food. Every morning when I walk the dog I stand there and take them in and watch the long slants of sun breaking across the water. All along the water’s edge they swim in groups, diving underneath for food in the dark silence they always come up out of. Sometimes, I hold my breath without realizing it until they pop back up and are safe in the warm sun. Until I know they are back with their feathered clan pushing further out into the blue, where they live without my help.

Between the Lines is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country.

Image: S-A-M

ColumnA behind-the-screen look at the consistently ridiculous inbox of a writer.

At EcoSalon, we receive our fair share of email pitches, and we’ve decided to give you a weekly peek at this valuable information inside our inboxes. These products, people, and services are 100 percent real, although we’re not always sure that they should be.

You’re never too old to ride the ride!

Jennifer Landa, we want to walk a mile in your hormonal pumps. We honestly do.

We sexually deprived, post-partum, menopausal, Cortisol-fatigued women want your sex drive solution that “helps women set and achieve realistic goals to not only get their sexy back – but to keep it going all night long.” One thing we will not be tempted to do, though, is call out “Dr. Jen!” or Landaaaaaa!!” in bed instead of our partner’s name. This we will not do, per your suggestion.

In The Sex Drive Solution for Women, Dr. Jen’s Power Plan includes so much elementary detail we wonder if the women reading this have ever had a stiff drink or perhaps taken a yoga class and opened up their pelvis. Or simply masturbated. Landa says, “If the man in your life is concerned about how many ‘headaches’ you’ve been having as of late and you’ve come to the conclusion that you’re officially too old to ‘ride the ride,’ it’s time for an intervention.”

Too old to “ride the ride?”

If you were trying to bulk up my self esteem, Dr. Jen, that one statement took it all away. Or maybe it’s just your book cover that seems to think we women are still in the kitchen. Let me just finish making my pot roast so I can ride the ride.

Is Your Massage Therapy Up To Par?

Massage should be part of our personal health care planning. Who doesn’t feel relaxed and centered after a good rubdown? You’ve had massages with human touch – maybe even heated stones – but have you considered golf balls?

Golf Ball Massage is superior to hot stone massage techniques, which can give deep pressure, but are slippery. Enter the KaddyBACK.

“GolfBallMassage.com’s KaddyBACK was designed based on the common practice of putting a golf ball in a sock, placing it against the upper back area, and pushing it against a wall to allow the ball to massage hard to reach back areas. KaddyBACK does the same thing efficiently and effectively, and was designed to be hands-free, enabling this therapy to be used while in a car, chair, etc.”

Common practice? Clearly, we are behind the golf-ball-in-a-sock times as we thought golf balls in socks were gang-related.

The hardest part for us to swallow is this last bit below about the KaddyBACK which accompanies your golf ball:

“Golf Ball Massage with JUST a golf ball? A Golf Ball Massage without the SPAball Kaddy is like:
…a virgin margarita! A DIET virgin margarita!
…a hand-shake instead of a high-five!
…a deep tissue massage from a 5-year-old!”

Um.

The world’s first unisex social media attraction fragrance!

Introducing Erox: “designed by geeks for geeks, the made for social media attraction fragrance is being launched, over the next few months, by GrowdGather (growdgather), a leading network of Internet forum communities.”

That’s right – growdgather. Sometimes we get press releases from companies that can’t even spell their own names right.

The company partnered with “Human Pheromone Sciences to produce a scent that contains a combination of pheromones, and a new revolutionary attraction compound called ER303, into a potent cocktail that has been clinically proven to increase feelings of arousal, excitement, social warmth and friendliness in both men and women.”

We could keep pulling quote after quote from the release so…we will!

“So maybe those flirtatious tweets and Facebook likes will help you reel that special someone in, but it will be Erox that will help you seal the deal!”

“The interesting thing is that people find it works in business or group settings as much as it does for hooking up.”

“Unlike traditional fragrances, the scent will be launched, sold and marketed exclusively through nontraditional channels – social media and forum communities – obviously targeting those who are active in the online social sphere. The campaign featuring a celebrity endorsement will be announced and launched over the next few months.”

Celebrity endorsement? Let’s just hope it’s somebody really good so we can get them next.

Image: jafsegal, lel4nd