Okay, so here’s the deal. I have been clearly absent from my beloved blog for several months.

Fear not, bloggarinoes, for I am neither dead, nor incapacitated, nor trapped at the bottom of a well.

In fact, life here is for the most part wonderful. A few highlights:

1. I work. I recently earned a doctoral degree in occupational therapy. I am using that degree to do clinical work as a therapist and research. I am doing research because I love it, and doing clinical work because I don’t want to be an ivory-tower researcher who goes on telling people how to do OT with no clinical experience to speak of.

2. I own a home: Flimsy and I bought a house! We moved in at the end of June. It is stellar.  Pics will be forthcoming.

3. Flimsy and I are getting married! Planning a wedding is hard!

4. As soon as I had even a moment’s free time, I decided it would be a great idea to adopt a German Shepherd puppy.

5. My house, dubbed the SkeptiPalace, has become a hub for social activity, debates, book club, cuddle parties, and movie nights. I have an exceptional social life filled with amazing, intelligent people.

All of this has resulted in absolutely zero time to blog. It is as if I can either have a life here in cyberspace, or a life “out there” in the real world, but not both.

I am going to continue blogging. the focus of said blogging might change a little bit. Oh, we’ll still have in-depth analysis of skeptical and non-theist topics, but there also might be more research, homeownership, OT, etc. Enjoy!

It just so happens that this week that I purchased another car.

My current car is a 1995 black Pontiac Trans Am.  It gets 16 miles per gallon, and has a whole slew of interesting problems typical for a 15 year old car that was not taken care of prior to my purchase of it. The windows get stick halfway rolled up, the power steering is funky, the u-joint for the steering wheel is loose, it leaks coolant, the trim on the sides near the bottom is cracked, sometimes the battery cables need t be jiggled for it to start, and it badly needs a paint job.

I am doing Per Diem work as an occupational therapist, a job that involves me driving around 60+ miles a day (also why the blog posts have dropped off a little.) Thus, I am now the proud owner of a spectra blue Smugmobile, aka a 2008 Toyota Prius.

My initial impression of this car is that it is not nearly loud enough. My Trans Am has a loudmouth exhaust and no catalytic converters (shhh…) and thus is loud enough to set off car alarms in parking garages and scare small children. The Smugmobile, on the other hand, is a danger to pedestrians who rely on auditory cues to determine if there is any traffic.  I suppose if the Trans Am is my big fat throbbing penis, then the Prius is my cute little vagina.

So I have a conundrum. My Trans Am has a few markers of my heathenism on the back: a “SCIENCE!” emblem and the word “ATHEIST” in large white vinyl letters.

I spend my days meeting new people, driving around to different early childhood and grade schools, and going into people’s homes to work with them or their children. I feel the need to label and emblem my car. Should I go with something a little more subtle, or risk someone seeing “ATHEIST” on the back of my car and saying, “I don’t want that girl hanging out with my kids!” I’m not sure.

The other day, my awesome fiancé Flimsy and I took a stroll through a mall (don’t mock me for shopping at a mall, I was looking for a suit to wear to a job interview) when we ran into my parents. My dad was hanging outside of a Hollister store, waiting for my mom, who was apparently lost in the hipness inside.

As he sipped a gigantic soda, we talked about some of our plans to get married.

Flimsy was raised Southern Fundamentalist Baptist, and I am more or less a third generation freethinker. My parents never made me go to church, and we more or less dismissed religion as being something that other people do. So I was a little surprised when this conversation occurred:

Dad: “So… Are you having your wedding in a church?”

Me: “No. We’re getting married at the Ethical Society.”

Dad: “Oh. So you’re not going to have a preacher marry you?”

Me: “No. we’ve got someone way better – the president of the JREF!”

Dad: “So… you’re not going to have him talk about Jesus and stuff?”

Me: “That would be kind of silly.”

Dad: “It’s just that they talk about Jesus at every wedding I have ever been to. What kind of wedding do you have if you’re an atheist?”

Me: “Well, we’re doing some traditional things, but weddings can be pretty much whatever we want.”

I am guessing of the weddings he had ever been to (even his own!) had included some mention of Jesus, so the idea of a wedding without Jesus was about as odd as a wedding without vows. That makes me wonder how many people believe in god simply because it has never occurred to them to believe otherwise.

Okay, so I’ll admit it: I am freaking SWAMPED with busy right now! I am:

1. Studying for the rather intimidating NBCOT (National Board of Certification in Occupational Therapy) exam, so I can become a registered occupational therapist. This exam costs $500 to take, and if you fail, you have to pay again and wait 45 days before you can have another go at it.
2. Studying for my new job. I have to do a lot of training, and all of it is online, long, and involves taking tests over the material.
3. A fellow skeptic Zi Wang and I wrote this 2-3 hour workshop over divination with dowsing rods and pendulums. We’re giving the workshop in a few hours. A friend of mine who is a budding director is going to videotape much of it to make a little promotional video, and it’s expected that we will be giving workshops like it all over the country in little skeptic hubs.
4. I think I have writer’s block or something! I think this happens to everyone who blogs at some point.
5. I’ve got some somewhat bizarre things going on in my personal life, unrelated to skepticism.
6. Flimsy and I are planning for our wedding!
7. I’ve got an interview for another job position.
8. I submitted the revisions of my manuscript (of my biomechanics research) to the journal.

One of the things surely on my mind is that if I write blog posts, I will be taking away time for something else, especially studying for this big scary exam. So this is why the blog posts have trickled down to almost nothing lately. Sorry guys!

The other day I was at Walgreens with Flimsy when I passed the section of open-air refrigerated drinks and became puzzled as to why an employee would accidentally shelve shampoo or body wash alongside Mountain Dew and Arizona Tea.

Upon closer examination, I realized that the shampoo-like bottle that had caught my eye was not in fact shampoo, but some kind of drink. Obviously, this is exactly the kind of thing that the makers of Borba Skin Balance Water want to happen, and I will shamefully admit that I totally fell for their unusual packaging – square with a square cup on top, clean simplistic labeling, and a certain opaqueness to the plastic bottle as to almost make the inner contents glow. Whoever designed this packaging is clearly brilliant.

Borba Skin Balance Water, at $2.99 a bottle, hurts your wallet like many other bottled drinks. I grabbed the Guanabana Fruit – Firming bottle, which reads on the front “Designed to promote skin’s natural Smoothness * Elasticity * Nourishment”

The side reads, “HEALTHY SKIN FROM WITHIN BORBA SKIN BALANCE WATER FIRMING contains a revolutionary cultivated bio-vitamin complex along with a scientifically designed blend of nutrients intended to promote the skin’s natural support system, helping to nourish and tone the skin. BORBA SKIN BALANCE WATER is formulated to work with your body’s chemistry to promote healthy skin. This on-the-go, skin-care infused beverage combines simplicity and nutrition with the goodness of water. It’s water with benefits.”

“FIRMING – GUANABANA: the guanabana fruit, native to the Caribbean and South America, is known for its rich, aromatic flavor and nourishing benefits. Guanabana contains a healthful blend of nutrients, intended to promote more beautiful skin.”

More text explains that it has “4 essential b-vitamins” that it is “infused with green tea and grape seed extract”, that you can drink it daily to “enhance skin care from within”, and that you can alternate it with the other flavors for “multiple skin care benefits”.

On the other side, it says that it is calorie free, aspartame free, has no preservatives, 0 grams of carbs, is free of sodium, and has natural flavorings. A message from Scott-Vincent Borba reads, “There’s more beauty within you. It lies in wait, on the other side of your skin. Borba Skin Balance Water activates your beauty while hydrating your body, bringing the natural attraction of your skin to the attention of the world. You’re just a sip away from a more gorgeous you.

So, I’m skeptical that this drink could improve my skin and dude, what do you mean, “It’s water with benefits?” It’s as if the writer of this label were claiming water had no benefits unless it has vitamins in it. Unfortunately, the bottle only makes rather vague claims about what the contents are capable of doing. They don’t mention any clinical proof, so I can’t email them and ask for said proof. Darn! There is a great article in the NY Times about Borba – published back when Borba made specific claims about their elixirs. At one time, bottles of FIRMING claimed it was “scientifically proven to improve elasticity by an average of 24 percent.” The NY Times article also cites some specific information on the independent studies, stating that they are available on the Borba website. I can’t find them, though. If there were good research proving that this product made your skin prettier, it would be wise to promote it.


My opinion with skin supplements is the same as with any other supplement – as far as I am aware, your body likes to maintain homeostasis and so if you have an excess of a particular vitamin, you simply pee it out, just like if you have an excess of water. If you have too little of a vitamin, then you have a clinical deficiency. Most people don’t have vitamin deficiencies, so most people won’t really benefit from 500% of your daily value of Vitamin B-12. 


At least it tastes okay and comes in an amusing package, I guess.