Ancient Grains Archive

Feel the Burn: Goals and Bulkiness

If you're just joining our fitness coverage (which is mostly meaningless, since this is only our second installment), you can catch up here. Today, as advertised, we're discussing goals. This is really the most important part of beginning to strength-train, and, you know, life and stuff. Partly because it provides focus, and ...Read More

Tetraptych of My Grandfather

(1) The only photograph I have ever seen of my grandfather was taken at my mother’s wedding. He doesn’t look happy to be there. A thin man with a long face, his twiglike hair invites comparisons to a scarecrow. His eyes sank decades ago and his lips lie flat. He wears a ...Read More

Love Song of the Pantyhose Troll

Two friends and I had a blog called Don’t Do That where we ranted about things we liked and didn’t like. We didn’t like white tights or pantyhose with open-toed shoes. This did not go over well with a certain group, who expressed their displeasure ...Read More

You Can’t Love a Ham

Grief You can’t love a ham. Luckily, you notice the quilted quality of its leathery skin looks a lot like a certain iconic handbag. You can wear a ham as a handbag.   You can’t love a kohlrabi. In December, the only thing to eat is kohlrabi, unless you hop on its spaceship bulb and whiz away to kohlrabi space.   You can’t love button ...Read More

Ally-phobia: On the Trayvon Martin Ruling, White Feminism, and the Worst of Best Intentions

Trigger warning at the author's request: This post discusses racism, racist violence, anti-Black racism, anti-Black racist violence, transphobia, and gendered violence at length. 

I write this article at an important time in history, but also in my own personal life. I am reeling from the not-guilty verdict in the case of ...Read More

Scented Candles For Men

Women and French dudes have long held a monopoly on scented candles, using them to create exotic olfactory worlds from tropical ylang-ylang, invigorating bergamot, or sensual white musk. Until now, straight-guy fragrances have been largely one-note (i.e. Yankee Candle's “MMM, Bacon” Mandle). But men have grown weary of the matriarchy’s domination of the ...Read More

The Meanest Skin Care Advice

Here it is: there is no cream, wash, toner, serum, vibrating brush, or whatever that will help your skin. That's the truth. Deal with it. When I worked at cosmetic counters in department stores, I would always, always get people asking for the creams that really worked. Like we were coconspirators; "don't give ...Read More

The Five Book Covers You’ll See In Airport Bookstores This Summer

It's The Pilot's Wife or The Daughter of Ice and Grief or something like that. You can't remember. The front's just crammed with a random assortment of objects against a dark grey background. Maybe dark blue. There's a girl's shoe, a faded postcard, an old-timey hand mirror, jacks, shit like that. The ...Read More