Dee's Best Discoveries of 2015

            Hellooooooooo!

            This year has been insane. I discovered a new hobby that I absolutely adore, however insanely expensive it has the potential of becoming, I wrote 35,000 words of a terrible novel in two and a half weeks, I made the decision to move to the outskirts of Cleveland when my lease is up, and the love of my life proposed to me. Life happened fast for me in 2015, and most of it was a welcome change from where I had been in the past few years.

            Because this year was pretty freaking awesome for me, I figured it was a good time to start a tradition for Bite Me: Yearly most awesome discoveries I’ve made in certain categories that I will now come up with at random, because that’s how I roll this close to finals week.

DEE’S BEST DISCOVERIES OF 2015!

1. FILM

            This one is an absolute no-brainer. The best film I saw this year was, by far, Mad Max: Fury Road.

            This film was a complete surprise for me. I always loved the world of the Mad Max franchise, but I was never really into the films themselves. They were enjoyable, but I wasn’t a drooling fangirl. Well, now I’m as squealy and slobbery as a preteen at a boy band concert. Fury Road is nothing short of a masterpiece. With a perfect marriage of CG and practical effects, a minimalist approach to dialogue, and constant adrenaline-spiking action, any action movie lover will be more than satisfied with this film. However, I’m not always the biggest action movie fan. That particular genre relies heavily on various archetypes and stereotypical plot trails that are dull to me no matter how many explosions you stuff into them. Fury Road, however, is ingenious in its plot simplicities: Max, as always in the Mad Max franchise, is jettisoned into the story of others: in this case, Furiosa, as she struggles to free the sex slaves of a vicious cult leader who controls a great deal of the wasteland’s water supply. The film is highly stylized, visually breathtaking (that lightning sandstorm scene…ohhhh be still, my heart), and the acting is absolutely perfect. My favourite thing about this film, though, has to be that it doesn’t treat the audience like idiots, like so many films today do. Believe it or not, there is a subtlety to this film featuring a deformed musician in red pajamas strapped to a speeding semi and playing a flame-spewing guitar (his name is Coma Doof Warrior). Its themes are literally plastered on the walls of the sex slaves’ former prison, yet the film doesn’t come off as preachy or obtuse. The intricacies of the story are not beaten into our brains. We never learn how Furiosa lost her arm, what she did to become so trusted by Immorten Joe, why she left her original tribe, or what she has to atone for. We aren’t told what the hell Max was doing before the War Boys snatched him up. We aren’t told how Immorten Joe came into power, or how his “wives” escaped from their prison. All of that is backstory, and we don’t need to see it to feel its importance. The story we see is told with a brilliance and attention to detail that you just don’t see too often in Hollywood, which seems much more interested in regurgitating “reimaginings” and spewing out safe, boring films that test well with the lowest common denominator. Fury Road could easily have been just a mindless, explosion-laden blockbuster people watched to escape the summer heat for a couple of hours. Instead, we got one of the best films I have ever seen in my life. If you haven’t seen it, see it. It may not live up to my hype for you (although its 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes strongly suggests it will), but you will at least enjoy the action and the heart-stopping visuals.

Oh, and yes, there was a big controversy about this film having a “feminist agenda” due to having a female lead where her gender is not a factor, a dying tribe of women called The Mothers, and a battle cry from the “wives” of Immorten Joe wherein they declare that they are human beings and not property. Apparently, for some…people…these themes that center around females, whether or not it has to do with their gender, is just too much for their little pea brains to handle. Anyone who says that this movie has a feminist agenda, is, to put it gently, a fucking idiot.

Also, I'm in love with Nux.

I could say so much more about this film, believe it or not, but I have to move on. See it now, thank me later. I personally thank my lucky stars that this was one of the few films I decided to see in theatres this year. God. Damn.

2. TV SHOW

            This show didn’t start out in 2015, but this was the year that I fell in love with Bob’s Burgers. As with Adventure Time, I refrained from watching this show initially due to the seemingly lazy animation. To me, the design smacked of Adult Swim, and I’m not big on stoner humour. I am so glad that I finally gave it a go, thanks largely to my wonderful fiancé’s love for it. Bob’s Burgers is one of the cleverest and funniest shows on TV right now. That alone is a reason to watch it, and anyone can enjoy it on that level. However, I can take it one step further. Bob’s Burgers is a show that challenges so many conventions: gender lines, sexuality, socio-cultural stigmas, puberty, the list goes on and on. Every single character is multi-dimensional and openly defies traditional sitcom stereotypes. Tina, for example, is possibly the first young girl on television who is allowed to go through puberty without ridicule, shaming of actively pursuing boys/having sexual desire at all, or having her adolescent struggles be the entirety of her character. That’s just one example. Now, I have to move on, or I’ll just keep ranting, like I did with Fury Road…but keep your eyes peeled for a future rant about the awesomeness of Bob’s Burgers. I have so, so, so much to say about it. Whether you watch it for the multi-dimensional characters or the awesome puns, this show is amazing.

Plus, you know, Archer.

3. BOOK

            Now that I’m back working at Booky Wooks, albeit temporarily, my reading habit has once again become a full blown addiction. The book I fell in love with this semester is by no means obscure: It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, earned the hell out of that Pulitzer. Holy shit, I was blown away by this book. For those who haven’t heard of it, Middlesex is about Cal Stephanides, a self-identified hermaphrodite (the PC word now would be intersex) who tells the story of how he came to be, starting with the marriage of his Grandmother and Grandfather as they flee from Greece in the early 1900s. The book follows the Stephanides family—and the chromosomal anomaly that created Cal’s condition—to Detroit, through Prohibition, 1960s race riots, Viet Nam, and the sexual revolution. Through Cal’s incredibly entertaining and dynamic voice, Middlesex challenges the obstinate conventions of gender, heteronormativity, race, and the American dream. I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending, but the book as a whole work is a really interesting read. Highly recommended!

4. FOOD: RESTAURANT

            I didn’t travel much outside of Bowling Green this year due to financial crap, but luckily, I found a local restaurant that I just absolutely adore. Guys, my favourite restaurant discovery of 2015 has got to be Two Foxes.

            I was heartbroken to find out when I returned from Columbus that the only Italian place in BG, DiBenedettos, had closed down. However, in its place sprung Two Foxes, a magical combination of artisan burger restaurant and whiskey bar. Oh, my God, you guys. Their burgers are so freaking good. And not only the burgers. They have eggplant fries with a spicy dip that’ll kick your ass in the most delicious way possible. They have a nacho salad smothered in pulled pork. They make their own fries and their ketchup. After my first bite of the Peppercorn burger (topped with brie cheese and roasted tomato), it was all over. If you’re ever anywhere near BG, you’ve got to eat here. And, of course, pop upstairs for some wonderful whiskey beverages.

5. FOOD: RECIPE

            This one is a bit tougher. It was Josh’s and my first year together, where we were getting to know each other’s food preferences. I experimented with a lot of new recipes, and I’m proud to say that most of them were hits. That does, however, make it difficult to choose which was the best of the year.

            2015 was the year I started eating fish. A lot of fish. I’d never liked much seafood before, but because it’s a healthy protein, I would continuously try it when the opportunity presented itself. Only this year did I find the holy trinity of meaty delicious fish: Salmon, tuna, and swordfish. I still can’t do seafood like shrimp, mollusks, shellfish, and the “fishier” freshwater fish, but I have my foot in the door!

            Sometime in summer, I experimented with tuna steaks, half using a Pinterest recipe and half winging it, and I came up with a really damned delicious, pseudo-Asian prep for them. For those who are interested, here’s the original website recipe. It’s a really good baseline for experimenting!

6. TECHNOLOGY

            I’ve got to give this to Quinn, my camera. I bought him in 2014, but I didn’t really start learning how to use him properly until this year. I’m still learning, and wow, am I an amateur, but I am absolutely hooked. I love photography. Quinn is an introductory DSLR, a Rebel t5i; not a professional camera by any means, but diving into the world of photography and having so many new things thrown at you; aperture and shutter speed settings, proper composition, the rule of thirds, quality of light; it was totally overwhelming. Quinn is a very user friendly camera, but for anyone starting out with a DSLR who might be interested in photography, I highly recommend taking a class, buying a book, or at the very least reading your manual. There is so much that this camera can do that I’m not even able to comprehend quite yet. On that note…

7. HOBBY

            It has to be photography. I started 2015 loving ceramics, and it is a truly wonderful art, but damned if ceramics isn’t pretty much impossible to keep up with on your own. For me, it’s financially and practically impossible. I can’t afford a kiln! Nor do I have anywhere to put it, or pounds of clay, glazes, tables, tools, and shelves for green/bisque work! Ceramics is like the artistic equivalent of equestrianism: You can’t do much without the essentials, and the essentials are one serious investment.

            Photography can be just as expensive. The base price of a DSLR body, lenses, tripods, diffusers, lights, backdrops…it all adds up! I already find myself pining for $2000 telephoto lenses that would be perfect for portraits, or my dream camera, the Canon 5D mark iii. But while I’d love a sexy new lens for macro shooting or a professional grade camera, anyone with solid technique and an artistic eye can be a great photographer, even without the equipment (my Daddy takes jaw dropping landscape photography with a simple point and shoot.) While I’m nowhere near the skill level of even the greenest of my photographer friends, I’m learning fast, and I love every minute of it. I even started a personal website to dump all of my experiments, and I can see major differences between my work now and a few months ago. I think photography is going to end up being a lasting hobby for me.

            Here are some of my favourite shots I’ve taken so far.

8. APPS

            I’m not normally big on apps. My shitty iPhone 4 can’t handle much of anything, so I have a very minimalist approach to my phone data. However, since Josh and I are now struggling to save up for both a big move to a new city and a wedding, I decided it was time to get serious about budgeting. While I have an Excel spreadsheet that tracks my spending (thanks, Dad!), I often fall out of the habit of recording my expenses. I can’t afford to do that anymore, so I did a little research and ended up downloading an app called Mint.com.

It is absolute genius.

Mint.com tracks my spending for me, categorizing the obvious transactions into proper categories (food, bills, etc) and giving me the option to categorize miscellaneous purchases. It keeps a record of my cash flow and tells me the discrepancy between what I’ve earned and what I’ve spent, and shows me my spending trends. This might be really easy to most people, but for me, I’ve always had trouble with money and budgeting. Mint’s ability to track everything for me and keep me aware of my spending with alerts is something I wish I had the minute I got my first paycheck from my first job. If you, too, struggle with money, or if you’d just like to keep better track of your finances, Mint.com is an absolutely amazing app.

9. EXERCISE/DANCE

            I slipped off of the exercise wheel this year. I would have a few weeks of activity; a bit of time at the gym, dabbling in my DVDs, a month of Datura; but unfortunately my exercise for 2015 was pretty much just walking everywhere. Granted, walking is great for fitness, especially with how much walking Josh and I do with and without the dogs, but I had some goals in mind for this year that just didn’t end up happening.

            However, I did manage to take a pole dance class, and holy shit, did I love it! It was an introductory class, and a fairly poor one at that. It was fun, but we learned pretty much everything the instructor was going to teach us in the first two days and spent the rest of the 6 week session doing those moves over, and over, and over. Hell, we didn’t even climb up the pole! Not a single spin learned! Continuing that class wasn’t worth the money to drive to and from Toledo twice a week, but man, I want to learn more! Pole dance is one hell of a workout, and so much fun. One of the first things I’m doing when I move is looking up nearby classes. I’m dying to learn more. It’s so much more challenging than I initially thought, and it’s ridiculously fun, even without the sexy element that steers some people away.

10. WEIRD AND RANDOM

            I may label this one under ‘societal expectations.’ Having gotten engaged this year (SQUEE!), I noticed an immediate difference in the behaviours of those close to me. The traditional views on marriage are so strong in this society. It seems that when you decide to enter into an institution like marriage, people fully expect you to set aside your lifelong nontraditional preferences and defer to the typical wedding: A Western ceremony, white dress, flowers, and overly expensive reception complete with dry catered chicken, an incredibly awkward garter removal as your family stares, Butterfly Kisses with Daddy, and smooshing cake into your new spouse’s face.

            We don’t know all the details yet, but we’re definitely not having a completely conventional wedding. Our main priorities are: Cheap, laid back, and fun. It is just absolutely remarkable how much resistance we’ve seen when we even suggest deviating from the typical wedding formula: Looks of horror when I bring up the possibility of not wearing a white dress, acquaintances who are mortally wounded because they aren’t invited to our family-only ceremony, and upturned noses when we mention the possibility of a backyard potluck-style reception.

We’re not even deviating that far from the wedding norm, and we’re getting weird reactions from people who know us well enough to not be surprised by our nontraditional preferences. I’ve never realized before this past month just how tightly we grip onto certain traditions, even those of us who deviate from the social norm every other day of our lives. In the USA, no matter what sort of freak you are in life, you are fully expected to spend 10-25 THOUSAND DOLLARS on a rigidly structured party celebrating your love. That was a big surprise discovery this year. Not necessarily a good one, but it is something weird and random, for sure.

            Well, there we go, my best discoveries of 2015! The only miscellaneous thing about this year I would like to add is the addition of our lovely Boston terrier, Zuko Nux, into our family. I love our little psycho pup in all his smooshy-faced glory. ^-^ Other than that…2015 was an absolutely amazing year for me overall, with only a couple of major bumps or tragedies. 2016 will be a year of transitions and big life changes, and I cannot wait. Bring it on, 2016. I’m ready for you!

The two best boys in my life. <3