boo recommends 3.

sexy people
Pictures of people from previous decades are almost as funny to me as videos of people falling down. "sexy people" finds a place on my list because unlike people falling down, the only victim on display is pride.

asking for help
It's taken me a while to learn this one, but sometimes it's better to request assistance than to do foolish things like: scale the shelves at the grocery store to grab something out of reach or apply for jobs on the same job boards that everybody else uses without first talking to people you know who can personally deliver your resume to their bosses. I won't go into a treatise on altruism here; I'll just say that people seem to like to help even if I don't often seem to like to accept it.

chard
The John C. Reilly of cruciferous vegetables, chard falls between its better-known siblings, spinach and beets. Like Reilly, chard often plays a supporting role to starring ingredients such as tofu or exotic miniature chickens. Unlike Reilly, it comes in a variety of colors.

caffeinated punctuation
Now that I'm unemployed, I choose to demarcate my time with coffee -- my morning is em dash trips to the french press, my afternoon is a hazy ellipsis of slow sips on lukewarm cups at one coffeeshop or another.

dear old love
bite-sized catharsis.

boo recommends 2.

Click here for the first installment of "boo recommends."

Developing Your Thesis Before You Write Your Paper
Yeah, I wrote a 5 page paper of gobbledy-gook, mish-mashed nonsense. Then I had the bright idea to turn in this drivel rather than ask for an extension (I'm not an extension-requesting kind of boo). And now I'm paying for my mistake by spending Spring Break rewriting it. Starting with the thesis.

Dinner Parties at Friends' Houses
Food tastes better when you make it with your friends. I would be surprised if this wasn't already scientifically proven.

Vitamins you can drink
So much more fun than swallowing nasty horse pills, and so much more mature than chewing candy in the shape of Fred Flintstone.

boo recommends.

I'm totally aping this idea from McSweeney's, but I think every once in a while I'm going to create a list of recommendations, i.e., things I stumble on and/or have loved long enough to calcify into my daily routine. Perhaps you will find these recommendations helpful, or perhaps you will simply find them fodder for your ongoing campaign to tease me into silence. Either way, I hope you enjoy.


Pre-cubed Tofu
It bears more than a striking resemblance to a foam pit but it saves time. An added bonus: for some reason, tofu in pre-cubed form seems to absorb less of the packaging water which means you don't have to press it before you use it.

Said the Gramophone
Music blogs rarely inspire me. This one does on nearly a daily basis. Things I'm inspired to do: purchase music. listen to music. fall in love. write. walk through a blizzard. try harder.

Red/green felt tip pens
Last semester I was in the CVS pen aisle when I found these old school beauties. What do they grant me? The freedom to mark significant passages and take notes in my school reading without having to use a highlighter (which I hate). Two functions in one! The spork of the writing instrument world.

Scrabulous
Surely many of you are already hep to the beauty of this Facebook application, a.k.a., the only reason I visit Facebook more than once a month. This unassuming game can take many forms: procrastination tool, olive branch, harmless flirting mechanism, acceptably modest forum for above-average vocabulary. As far as I can tell, its only negatives are that it allows ridiculous two-letter words ("ne"? "da"?) and it doesn't automatically kick me out even after I've spent 45 minutes trying to figure out a 6-letter word that ends in "J."

Sisters
If at all possible, try to make yours a twin. But in the event you were conceived at two different times, then aim for yours to be witty and intuitive. Even better if she can call you on your shit when you need it most.

Creative wrapping paper
The wrapping paper industry makes no sense to me. Why would I spend $7 on a roll of pretty paper that will soon lose its cohesive luster? Instead, I try to re-use wrappy things I already own: old magazines, rags, W-2 tax forms, shower curtains (not clear!).