I Like Mike. And stuff.

I enjoyed making Friday be all about stuff I like when I was doing NaBloPoMo, so I've decided to keep going with it, at least for now. Here we go:

My friend Michael's spinning class. I look forward to it every week because he is hilarious and fun and says crazy shit to make us laugh. Plus, he's totally cute:

I'm cute!

Topics covered in his most recent class include:

- Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman
- Desserts Eaten Last Week

- The weirdo brilliance of Lady Gaga.
- ADD and the lack of drugs to control it.
- Smokey after-hours dance clubs
- Gee, I Really Hope Someone Blogs About This (hard look at me)
- A dramatic reenactment of the "Catch My Breath" move originally performed by another instructor.

How could you not want to take Mikey's class? It's the best.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman. This is the only book that could follow The Thirteenth Tale, really. It's similar in some ways (weird, slightly Gothic, easy to fall into) but different enough to not confuse me or crowd the bits of TTT that are still in my head. It's like a grown-up, grittier Harry Potter with added angst. I like it a lot so far. Favorite bit:

"Are you kidding? That guy was a mystery wrapped in an enigma and crudely stapled to a ticking fucking time bomb. He was either going to hit somebody or start a blog. To tell you the truth I'm kind of glad he hit you."

Fancy no-stir polenta aka CHEESE GRITS. Whatever you want to call it. I made this recipe a few weeks ago as the base of a chicken sausage/greens dish and we liked it so much I made it again last week with a shrimp. Shrimp 'n Grits! The recipe (second one down) is completely full proof and crazy delicious. I used Bob's Red Mill polenta/grits because you can't do better than that.

Neutrogena Moisture Shine Lip Sheers. I recently ran out of my favorite fancy lip gloss (Lorac Gloss Stick) and was horrified to discover that it's been discontinued. Why do they do that to me? It was perfect. I couldn't find anything I liked nearly as much and I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a sub-par replacement. So, against my better judgment I bought a drugstore lip color. It's not that I'm a snob, I just hate that there are no testers and drugstore brands tend to go completely fuchsia on me (which is so attractive.) Anyway, I picked Blackberry Ice and was pleasantly surprised: it's sheer but not too sheer, slightly minty, and not fuchsia at all. And! The packaging looks and feels way more expensive than it is. YAY.

That's it, kids. Oh, except please leave me a comment and tell me about your latest favorite thing.