I joined in on the fun and signed up for a Formspring account and will probably check it regularly until the novelty wears off. Until then, ask me anything!

A new season of America's Next Top Model has begun, full of high-pitched screaming girls, cat fights, crazy clothes, crazier hair, and of course some makeover tears. Bring it on! For reasons I can't fully explain I just love ANTM. It's my guilty pleasure show, best when combined with tasty chocolate cake. Apart from just loving to see the finished photos, I'm ashamed to say that I think one of the draws is being witness to the insane all-girl drama that erupts in the Top Model house each season from the safety of my living room. You'd have to pay me a helluva lot of money to lock myself in a penthouse with twelve spastic young women under the eyes of nation-wide television cameras for three months.

Three books checked off my to-read list over the last month: Part of the Pride by Kevin Richardson and Born Free by Joy Adamson, both about human-animal bonds with wild lions in particular. The stories and the people in them and how they're able to form relationships with big game predators like this are fascinating to me~ I also finished The Pact by Jodi Picoult, about two families torn apart by the apparent suicide pact of their two children. It was more or less the classic Picoult child angst/parental grievances/courtroom drama plot that I've come to know (and love) her for, which I still end up enjoying no matter how many time she does it. My only complaint with this one is that the ending and outcome of the trial itself was, in my opinion, completely unrealistic. }:P Her newest novel, House Rules, about a boy with Asperger's syndrome accused of murder sounds like another typical Picoult book, but like always I'm eager to read it anyway.

I went out the other day and made (what is for me) a rare venture to purchase some new cosmetics. I bought some new sheer foundation, some mascara, a couple new swatches of eyeshadow (which according to my Google researching should be ginger-flattering), and two new facial moisturizers (the sales associate that helped me was scandalized that I used Vaseline lotion on my face as it is apparently a big no-no and does more harm than good.) This is why I hate shopping for cosmetics -- I have no earthly idea what I'm doing or what I'm looking for, which leads to me inevitably having to ask a makeup associate for help, which in turn almost always ends up making me feel exceptionally stupid and embarrassed. I walk through the beauty section aisles paranoid that every other woman is staring and judging me on my complete lack of innate female prowess with makeup.

On a related note, holy jeeze I had no idea there were so many shades of black mascara. Classic black, very black, emerald black, black brown, soft black, and what I'm sure is the king of all black -- blackest black. o_O How different can one black mascara look from another? I'm glad I opted for the much harder to find (yet with a much less intimating range of selection) brown mascara. Among all of the leagues of various blacks, there is just... brown. Straight, safe, simple brown. Much less work in my opinion.