The Brevity- and Levity-rich diet

• Need more outdoors time. Winter is pretty much here but I'm not going to be deprived of Vitamin D or get SAD this year, dammit!
• I'm enjoying the Suede bio, Love and Poison. About to get into how heroin ruined Brett Anderson. If I wasn't already anti-drug this book would make a good case for it... it does a great job of illustrating the decidedly un-glamorous side of stardom.
• Parappa The Rapper. That is all.
• Company parties are great because you don't have to go to them, and the next day you can eat leftover hors d'oeuvres for breakfast.
• The best part of the holiday season, for me, is watching The Muppet Christmas Carol with someone you love. Homemade baked treats optional, but recommended.
• Concentrating your efforts and putting your soul into something you're passionate about and then enjoying the result is the best gift you can give yourself...
• But on a smaller scale, I definitely subscribe to the Agent Cooper school of thought: Each day you should give yourself a present. Don't wait for it, or overthink it, just do it when it feels right.
  
• This blog is awesome and inspiring. The illustration below is my favourite so far.

For my nails are as strong as yours, and my outlook as great!

Winter... YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!

So last winter I was, among other undesirable things, a mess of dry-weather-related afflictions. I was basically like one of the characters from Stephen King's Thinner; I was turning into some sort of scaly, alienating, alligator-like creature (that's from the book version - not sure if alligator boy is in the movie).

Things have changed a lot since that time, but one thing that remains the same is my system's sensitivity to dry, cold, pollution-rich Toronto winter air. Being more self-aware, and learning to take care of myself a bit better has led me to take some precautions and learn about alternatives (an alternative to suffering and discomfort for about 6 months of the year? Sign me up please and thank you!) And thus I present one of my newfound saviors:



Flax oil is brilliant and I can't say enough good things about it. It doesn't taste awful, you can put in in pretty much any cold dish, it's actually affordable, and goddamn, it saved my skin. I had never realized how important internal juiciness is to people's overall well-being.

WONDERFUL SIDE BONUS TIME! My fingernails used to be the dry, brittle kind that ads in the back of magazines would claim could be fixed by using their expensive, tiny-bottled potions and tonics. I never cared enough about this problem to pay money for some ridiculous product, so I just kept them short. But since discovering my flaxy, oily new friend, my digits are more along the lines of this guy:


But thankfully I now have much, MUCH better skin.