A bout of hair confidence at the gym

I went to the gym for the first time yesterday. Since I'm used to working out on my own by basically just running outdoors, I wasn't feeling very confident about my "outfit" for my new scene, especially my hair. I've been growing it out for over a year now and it's reached a state I can only call "mushroom-shaped frazzled frizz." As I walked over to the gym, I told myself that it didn't matter, that it was about working out, not looking good, etc. etc. Still, I felt as awkward as the first day of high school.

In the locker room I stood at the mirror, fretting about the pathetic little pony tail I could manage, pinning up stray hairs with bobby pins, trying not to look at the other women with their great restrained luscious head of hair. Then I noticed the woman next to me, pushing her headband into place. She was sporting not one, not two, but three pony tails. Two were down low near the nape of her neck. And her shorter hair that wouldn't reach? That same hair I was affixing with pins? She simply made a third pony tail on the top of her head, a fountain of hair gushing up from her skull, and held the strays back with a jaunty terry headband. I watched as she headed out of the locker room, tri-ponies bobbing in the gym breeze. I smiled to myself, realized I had nothing to worry about, and headed out after her.

If you live someplace snowy

I've been a Martha Stewart Living subscriber for years now, and there's always something neat in each magazine that I want to do. This month's magazine (December 2005) has a great snow pillar idea. You pack snow into a Bundt pan and make "cakes" then stack them and put a candle inside! The pictures in the magazine are better than the single one shown online, but you can get the idea. In the mag, they have several pillars lining the walkway up to a house. If I had a nice walkway to a house, I'd totally do this!

Overheard in the neighborhood

Eating at a typical New York City diner the other night, I hear one of the women at a three top behind me call the waiter over to her table.

"We've decided we'd like some wine," she says to him. "Could we please see the wine list?"

He says nothing for a few moments, then replies, "We have two wines: red and white."

Vietnamese coffee attempt #1

I tried to use my Vietnamese coffee maker (photo here) this morning to brew a tasty cup of ca phe and revisit my Saigon days (thought it's about 32° F here, not C!) but it was not to be. Two attempts yielded a watery brew filled with coffee grounds, and I ended up falling back on my Senseo and adding condensed milk. It tasted more like strong coffee with milk and sugar — which I'm not so much a fan of — rather than the delicious melted coffee ice cream flavor of Vietnamese coffee (if melted coffee ice cream were warm, since I didn't use ice, since as I said above, it's cold here.)

Anyway, I realize I was stupid. First of all, I should have looked online (doh!) because there are plenty of instructions for making Vietnamese iced coffee out there. Second of all, I didn't use my coffee maker properly. Apparently I was supposed to sandwich the grounds between the bottom of the cup and the press apparatus, kind of like a French press. In my non-caffeinated state, I just put the grounds on top of the press, so the liquid pretty much just zoomed through the whole thing and into the cup. Now that I know, I'll try again. But that will have to be tomorrow. I'm too shaky from the two shots of espresso and four tablespoons of condensed milk I've already had to drink any more coffee today!

The last abortion clinic

Yesterday I watched Frontline's The Last Abortion Clinic. Unlike some other abortion-related news reports or documentaries that pick a side or person to profile, this program examined the abortion debate from the context of the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Casey changed the standard of review for laws regulating abortion from the Roe v. Wade trimester framework (abortions legal in the first trimester and the ability of states to regulate in subsequent trimesters) to an "undue burden" standard. The majority wrote, "An undue burden exists, and therefore a law is invalid, if its purpose or effect is to place substantial obstacles in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability."

Since Casey, states have enacted more than 200 regulations limiting access to abortion (parental notification, twenty-four hour waiting periods, etc.), testing the limits of "undue burden." This documentary looks at abortion in Mississippi and its neighboring communities, and the effects of the regulations. It was astounding how much has changed since Roe and Casey. There is now only one abortion clinic left in the entire state of Mississippi.

You can watch the entire report online at the website, and I highly recommend it, regardless of what side of the debate you're on. The site also has lots of ancillary information that is excellent, including an examination of the six major Supreme Court decisions on abortion and a map of abortion regulations by state.