mizChartreuse || redefiningSuccess

Radical Honesty Movement…an interesting approach to what’s considered deceptively acceptable. “He says everybody would be happier if we just stopped lying. Tell the truth, all the time…It’s the only path to authentic relationships.” -Brad Blanton via A.J. Jacobs [Esquire magazine]

This morning, Angela Evans invited me to join the Facebook group she created called “Radical Honesty, at least for a week. (we can do that, can’t we?)”

Based off A.J. Jacobs’ (who is a hilarious writer–also check out his book The Know-It-All) feature story chronicling his experiment in living a blatantly honest life, Ange is encouraging her friends to try it for simply one week. The concept is simple, yet fascinating, and Jacobs’ story is captivating and funny.

In this Facebook group, we are to share our personal anecdotes in our weeklong experiment in Radical Honesty. Think Fletcher Reed in Liar Liar (one of my favorite movies). You can’t even lie about the color of the pen that you hold in your hand! Rrrrroyal blue!

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About a year ago, I started writing a fiction story based on real-life events (mine). The premise of it was a lot like the Chicago Stadium Club where I work at the United Center: four females work together at a private club in a sports Arena. But the twist is that all four of them, with ages ranging from 24 to 55, become pregnant at the same time, and there’s a mystery surrounding the father of one of the ladies’ babies.

Anyhow, I wasn’t sure about that plotline but recently came up with a new one. I’ve been conducting an experiment at work and think it would make a good story with a little fictional drama added. Ultimately, I’m going to build on the actual events and tell a more exciting story, but this premise is there’s a girl in her early 20s who, after years of serial monogamy, decides to try and make a basketball player fall in love with her since she works at a sports stadium. It doesn’t matter which one to her because she doesn’t care (nor are basketball players her type), but she’s decided that if she’s so good at attracting incompatible men, she may as well use it to her advantage and maybe get a new car or so out of the deal.

When I told Shakeel my experiment, he said, “‘Gold Digger by Kanye West just suddenly popped in my head after reading that.”

So far, Joakim Noah and Drew Gooden have been a part of the trials me and my co-workers have staged after work at the United Center.

The tentative title of this novel is “Slum Ho Millionaire,” as suggested by my witty friend Shakeel.

Tell me this movie doesn’t sound bad ass.
From Deathblow Production’s blog:

Welcome to Deathblow Productions.

Announcing our flagship show: ‘She-Bang!’

“She-Bang!” is a short film that captures sensationalized gangs of females waging war in a gore-packed melee that will determine dominance in a city inhabited by apocalyptic femme fatales.

66 women, 15 allegiances, 1 arena, 0 rules….& a million ways to die.

in fashion- 2009

In the photo sections of Deathblow’s page you’ll find a wealth of photos that introduce you to many of the amazing women we’ve been fortunate enough to work with. More photos will trickle in soon and not before too long…a teaser/trailer.

You’ll also notice that Deathblow’s top friends are all cast/crew, so you’ll be able to stalk your favorite She-Banger!

(Careful–most of them are stone-cold killers and would gladly bring us an igloo cooler filled with your sloshing guts.)

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I spent the snowy night before New Year’s Eve at home, working on some content for blogs and Review Chicago. My car was parked on the boulevard directly in front of my house, which has parking restrictions during rush hour times–7 a.m. to 9 a.m., and from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

When I finally wrapped up with writing around 3 a.m., I debated on whether to try and move my Jetta to a different spot in my neighborhood, or to set my alarm for 6:30 and just get up and move it in the morning. I looked out the window, saw the thin layer of snow blanketing the world, and didn’t really see any openings around the block. Especially since I didn’t feel like bundling up just to make circles and park in the same place, I figured I would just go out in the morning, move my car, and sleep for a couple more hours before going to work at 9:30.

Since I’ve received a number of $50 tickets from oversleeping, I sprang out of bed promptly at 6:45, tired from a mere three hours of rest. Before I ran out the door, I remembered that crazy things happen to me and my car, so I grabbed my wallet just in case I got pulled over for driving half a block without my license. Ridiculous, I know, but crazier things have happened, so I wanted to be safe and remain legal and out of the courts in 2009.

At 6:50 I started my car up, turned on the heat defroster, reached into the backseat for my snow scraper, and got out into the cold to remove the minimal snow that was on my windshield. Normally I would have just used my windshield wipers to remove that small amount of white dusting, but a year ago I did just that and snapped one of the wipers clean off because of the ice. Yeah. Just exercising caution to not make the same mistakes again!

I finished in two minutes; it was about 11 degrees outside and I wasn’t trying to hang out in that kind of weather. When I tried to open the driver’s side door, I noticed it was only halfway shut and it was stuck. I tugged on the handle a couple times to no avail, so I hip-bumped the door completely shut and tried again.

Nothing. Completely stuck.

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Winter break 2008 has been quite a trip thus far. It’s the same every year–I flip the script on constant studying and reporting, and make it a priority to never turn down an opportunity to go out and see people I wouldn’t have the time to during the semester.

On Christmas Eve eve, one of my roommates, Megan, was crazy busy at work making pies and delectable desserts for the holiday; many of which she was taking to her boyfriend’s family Christmas dinner. I was busy helping her lick the stirring utensils clean, as well as eating whipped cream from the container.

Her French silk and pecan pies are ridiculously delicious and they looked fantastic! She also scooped my Hazelnut Terrine with Raspberry Sauce recipe from my blog archive, although she may not have ended up making it. If she had, however, I’m sure it would have turned out looking a lot better than mine…that’s what I get for skipping steps (such as “strain the seeds from the raspberry sauce–I won’t post pictures of what the seedy rasp pulp looked like. Yikes).

French silk and pecan: heaven in a crust.

Only my immediate family lives here in the midwest, as the rest of my relatives are on the east coast and in Zambia; so we’ve always been big on coordinating the holidays with family friends. On Christmas day, my fam collaborated with my mom’s friend Suzanne for dinner.

My sister and I were busy taking photos of ourselves when we heard “My Name is Jonas” coming from the kids’ bedroom. GUITAR HERO. We wasted no time joining in the festivities, only to be told by my brother and his friends that we had to “wait our turn.” Whatever happened to respecting elders!?

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