THIS IS MY BLOG

[penandpalate]

Give the gift of Sichuan peppercorn-infused vodka this Christmas. And don’t forget to squirrel some away for yourself. Hey man, the holidays are hard! 

Via Pen & Palate. 

[lucymadison]

Christmas vodka > Christmas cookies

[lucymadison]

I wrote about my favorite pair of pants—and what happened when my boyfriend tried to get me to retire them—in the November issue of Lucky.  

[lucymadison]

When I’ve been thinking about why clothing is weirdly so revealing, I think about being in my 20s, when I used to go to a lot of nude hot springs in Northern California. You would hang out with all these people in these hot springs all day long. You’d meet people naked, and you’d talk to them all day. It was strangely very comfortable; there was nothing awkward about it. What was awkward was to see people in their clothes after you’d been with them naked. Somehow, these people were revealing so much more about themselves by having clothes on. Suddenly you start to categorize them. You’re learning more about their identities, or at least how they want to present themselves to the world, and that tells you so much more about people than just their naked bodies.

- I spoke with Heidi Julavits about her new project, "Women in Clothes," with Leanne Shapton and Sheila Heti.

[penandpalate]

CURRIED EGG SCRAMBLE

[lucymadison]

Pen & Palate has a Tumblr now.

[lucymadison]

“I’m here to help people who want to learn how to skate, and to make a living. I sometimes compare teaching figure skating to being a taxi driver. When you’re in a taxi, the meter is always running, and when you’re on the ice teaching skating, the meter is always running. You get paid by the hour. So it’s a little different than most people think. They’re always saying, ‘Oh, you do this for the great love of it,’ and ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful that you devote your life giving all your time to these children.’ Well, it’s not exactly like that. It’s a business. If I have the time to sell, I sell. In other words, get into my taxi and I’ll drive you.”

- One of the many amazing Frank Carroll quotes for which I didn't have space in my story. 

Image by Jim Cooke.

[lucymadison]

"I loved skating because it meant I could literally fly. Was it really necessary that I be wearing a glittery spandex leotard while I did it? Couldn't I just barrel down the ice in my tapered mom jeans, frizzy hair flying in the wind?"

- I wrote about my lifelong obsession with Tonya Harding.  

[lucymadison]

Lost in Argentina, 2004. 

(Obviously I have just rediscovered an amazing old Shutterfly account I'd totally forgotten about.) 

[lucymadison]

Busy day at the office

[lucymadison]

Thanksgiving Tamales; Art by Tram Nguyen 

[lucymadison]

Who's profiting off the school to prison pipeline?

Because kids certainly aren't

My thing for The Week. 

[lucymadison]

The thing Philly teachers were worried would happen appears to have happened

When I was researching this piece about the Philly public school crisis, I asked Fernando Gallard, a spokesman for the school district, what would happen if a child experienced a medical emergency on a day when there was no nurse present at his or her school. He said that in that situation, "the first thing to do is call 911 with a nurse or without a nurse -- nurses are not there to handle that kind of emergency."

But what if teachers -- who by the way are not required to have advanced medical training! -- do not recognize a medical emergency when they see it? That's what appears to have happened recently when a child complained to her teacher that she was feeling ill. There was no nurse on the premises. The child died. 

[lucymadison]

Did you know Dana Brody lives in Bed-Stuy now? 

[lucymadison]

It's... important that wealthy people understand that they would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly growing economy than a large share of one that is growing painfully slowly. This is not a matter of taking money out of their pockets and giving to the middle-class and poor. It's not a matter of redistribution. Everybody can do better.

- I talked to former labor secretary Robert Reich for Interview.

[lucymadison]

Finally, an excuse to send Tram cat pictures.

[lucymadison]

"We have no full-time nurse, so instead we were given a ‘first aid kit.' [It was] a gallon-sized Ziploc bag and it had a box of tissues, a thing of hand sanitizer, like five Band-Aids, and a printout of what to do in the event of a bloody nose."

I wrote a thing about the Philly public school crisis for The Awl. 

[lucymadison]

Illustration by Tram Nguyen

Tram and I have recently been working on a blog, and I couldn't resist reposting her beautiful illustration here. Because isn't it so great?  

[lucymadison]

I went to my bishop to talk about masturbation when I was 16. At our first couple of meetings, I didn’t even drop the word masturbation. I think during the third or fourth meeting the bishop was like, "Just to clarify, we’re talking about masturbation, right?" [laughs] Because I was so ashamed. I felt really bad for being 16 and for having these thoughts. I was just reading Jane Austen fan fiction and stuff! And—I die of shame—I was into these steamy romance novels. I felt like I finally understood sex. I had learned about sex before, but until I read my first romance novel, at my [non-Mormon] great aunt’s house, I didn’t really understand why people bothered. [laughs] After reading that novel I was like, "Oh! I get it!"

- I interviewed a very smart and cool 23-year old about being a young woman who is also a Mormon and a feminist.