update

Well, it's finally taken care of and I did not kill anyone. I did, however, threaten to fucking sue a few people, and cried at work, scaring our poor nurse practitioner.

Now I'm going to do some yoga and then watch some more Deadwood, and probably go to sleep at 9 pm, because all this rage takes a lot out of a person. Thank you for your support. And I mean that. The blog comments, the e-mails, the phone calls, and the offers to beat people up for me are all highly appreciated. You all rock.

xoxo

homicidal rage

Well, not quite, but close. Very very close.

You may remember my disgruntlement with the people who work at the mental health clinic where D goes. Not particularly with the clinicians, because he did have a wonderful therapist (the sweet young German/Swiss/Austrian guy) there until this past October and his psychiatrist has been competent if not dazzling in his brilliance, but with the support staff and how the whole place is run. It's next to impossible to get anyone to call you back and when they don't do their job (which is frequently), it's never "I'm sorry" but rather than a whole catalogue of excuses. When you're constantly screwing up, at least admitting it is the least you can do, y'know?

Well, D's psychiatrist has left or changed his affiliation with them, as part, I guess, of the huge change in management that happened this fall (hence his therapist leaving in October). Me n' CVS have been trying to get his refills called in since last Wednesday, without any response. I called his case manager (the wonderful L) last Thursday and she called over there too, leaving messages with everyone she could think of, telling them he needed refills ASAP and an appointment with the new doctor. As of Friday afternoon, still no call back to me, the pharmacy, or to L. I call L again this morning, freaking out (politely) because now we're on his last day of meds. She has her supervisor call over there, and finally someone responds, says they haven't got a doctor in today (!) but they'll call in the refills tomorrow and someone will call me tomorrow with an appointment in four weeks.

Pissah. Now he's got no meds for tomorrow morning, and since I have patients scheduled in the morning and am physically unable to be in two places at the same time, even if they call the refills in bright and early--which I doubt--there's no way he's getting his meds when he's supposed to tomorrow. Unless I take the day off from work, at which case maybe he'll get them sorta kinda on time.

I don't need this fucking stress, thankyouverymuch.

xoxo

oh, yeah, Demi Moore and Mr Brooks

I forgot to blog about this, but I watched Mr Brooks last week, finally, after having it from Netflix for about 3 weeks. I don't know what to say about it. It was fairly ridiculous, especially from a psychological viewpoint, but on the whole it drew me in, and the performances were good. Well, except for Demi.

Oh, Demi. Here's another woman who is exactly my age, give or take a week. (I looked it up.) I guess she gets to be a MILF or a cougar, 'cause she's banging Ashton. And I'll give her points for having once been married to Bruce Willis, because I'm fairly sure I'd do him. Or at least one of his movie characters.

But I spent the entire time she was on screen in Mr Brooks (when I wasn't being distracted by her less-than-adequate acting skills or trying desperately to suspend my disbelief that a police detective would dress or wear her hair like that on duty) thinking, "Damn. Hot dumb young husband or not, I'd rather look like me at 45, than like her." Okay, okay, I'd really rather look like Phoebe Cates or Diane Lane, but we've already covered that, and stringy-looking, skin-stretched-too-tight-over-her-skull Demi just looks bizarre, no matter how many media outlets try to convince me she's sex-ay for a woman her/our age.

Opinions?

body image redux

So, yeah, okay, enough time has passed for me to post about this once more without feeling as if I am being repetitive. If you don't think so, you're free to bail right now.

When I was reading some of the fat acceptance and eating disorder and body dysmorphic sites last weekend, I came across a conversation in which a whole lot of women said that their road to food/body issues came in adolescence with reading in teenage girl/women's magazines the weight guideline of "100 lbs for 5 feet and 5 pounds an inch above that." I was like, holy crap! Me too!

At the end of eighth grade, I went on a 500 calorie a day diet for two months in order to starve myself down to the 110 pounds I was "supposed" to be. Never mind the fact that, even then, I had big boobs, and the fact that I was genetically predisposed to bulging thighs by the ancestors who needed them for digging turnips and spitting out babies on the steppe. There's no way I'm supposed to be 110 or under. Nevertheless, two months of not eating got me there.

Let's pause here to consider the fuckedupedness of my mom not only letting me do this, but approving of it. I remember her telling me while I was on My Very First Real Diet that she had a dream about me lying down and my stomach was concave and my hipbones sticking out and how great that was. She had her own body issues. She also was the world's best cook and baker, and no matter how tight money was at any given point, always bought the best food. No off-brand groceries, bruised vegetables, or going without meat or real butter or real cream for her family, even if it meant trips to four different supermarkets, compulsive coupon clipping, and scrimping on other things. So, there I was, being told on one hand that delicious, pleasurable food was important and on the other that being thinner than I was genetically meant to be was beautiful and desirable. Lalalala, hello binge eating and bulimic behavior.

Anyway, I did get down to 110 by 8th grade graduation and, damn, if I didn't get positive strokes about it from everyone, including my crush Brian H. who finally asked me out, made out with me in the music room the whole afternoon we were supposed to be decorating for our graduation dance, and was my boyfriend for a whole heady couple of weeks. I couldn't stay 110, though, and thus spent my entire high school and college years feeling way too fat when I weighed 115-120. Are you serious? Yup, I am. Now, it's possible that my big breasts and bulgy thighs would have made me insecure (after all, I had to deal with all six feet of Brooke Shields having nothing in between her and her Calvins, and growing another ten inches was even less likely than weighing less than a buck fifteen) even had I never heard that magic number, but it certainly didn't help. It was a concrete measure of something I felt I should be but just couldn't achieve.

Ironically, the first time I ever really appreciated my body, my whole body, not just the parts I found acceptable, was with pregnancy and nursing. For the first time, I could like my body for what it did, rather than what it looked like. I grew a baby in there, how cool. I spit that baby out without any pain meds, how cool (and, in retrospect, stupid.) I nourished that baby with just what my body could make all by itself for months, how fabulous. It was a turning point. As messed up as my body image still can be at times now, I do have appreciation of it for what it can do these days: walk ten miles, hike to the top of something, give a massage, get my ankles behind...oh, never mind. Suffice it to say, when I start hating how certain parts of me look, doing something that points out how strong or flexible or useful my body is, is the first, best step to getting out of that negative place.

I'd still like to bitch slap the douche who came up with the five pounds for every inch rule.

xoxo

language question

According to Marjane Satrapi, as interviewed in the Globe today, the French language has no actual word for "fun." Can that be right?

I mean, it sort of fits. They drink and smoke a lot and they have good food, but do they really look like they're having all that much fun when they're indulging those appetites? Plus, they make all these sex movies in which the people just talk and talk and talk and analyze and never do it. Or, if they do do it, they still never shut up. I dunno. They just seem kinda tense in general.

I bet the Italians have a word for fun.

xoxo

Friday observations

1.) The internet is not a good place for hypochondriacs. I was telling Mr Indemnity that when I woke up in the middle of the night not feeling well, I convinced myself that I was probably septic and wouldn't wake up this morning. He said, "Really? What are the symptoms of that?"

So I sent him links.

2.) Can we all send good vibes out into the universe that naked Viggo will win the Academy Award?

Sure we can.

3.) Cocksucker.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

xoxo

just another quickie

I was going to write another serious blog today, but then I figured I've been talking too much lately about issues, both social and personal. And who wants that? (But don't worry, before you know it, it'll be baseball season again, and it'll be all Red Sox all the time in here again until you all beg for mercy.) So, instead, just a couple minor points:

1.) Deadwood, season 3, has worked its way up to the top of my Netflix queue, and I started watching it last night. Just giving you fair warning in case the word "cocksucker" starts appearing in here with some frequency.

2.) Did you ever notice how easy it is to fall into supporting or even encouraging other people's comfortable, yet somewhat dysfunctional, behavioral or emotional patterns, unwittingly or not? I've noticed myself doing it with someone recently, while at the same time a third person is doing it to me. People are funny. Life is funny. And "wittingly" totally ought to be a word. Oh, wait, according to spellcheck, it is. Okay, it totally ought to be a word that's used more than it is.

xoxo

just a quickie

So, I see Victoria Beckham has a book out called That Extra Half an Inch.

Wouldn't it be awesome if that were the answer to the question, "So, why did you marry David?"

(No, no, it refers to her preference for always wearing heels. Jesus, get your minds out of the gutter.)

xoxo

fat, with a dollop of pointless anecdote

You'll remember a couple entries ago, I told you all that on any given day there's a good chance that I might possibly agree that I'm too fat. Well, clicking on links off links off links from other people's blogs today, I came across someone's "fat acceptance" site. Thoughts occur to me. More blogging ensues.

When I was in massage school, during a class in which we were discussing terminating a client whom you felt you were no longer helping, my (gay male) instructor told us a story about his own practice. A regular female client of his had reached a point where he felt he was no longer doing therapeutic work, but rather just relaxation massage, and since that was not his preference, he had thought about referring her elsewhere. However, he was loathe to do so, because he felt she had bonded with him and because, since she was a large woman, he felt she probably wasn't getting any pleasurable touch anywhere else. Excuse me?

I can't even tell you how much I wanted to whip a pointy-cornered folder at his head. Because the woman was obese that meant she wasn't gettin' any? It meant no one wanted anything to do with her and she had to pay $80 an hour for someone to touch her without shuddering? WTF? At the time I was taking that class, I knew several fat people who were getting--I was going to say "twice as much" but 2x0=0, so let's go with--way way more sex than I was.

So, yeah, I'm down with the fat acceptance stuff. I know from personal experience that there are plenty of fat people who are attractive, are loved by their partners, have lots of sex (sometimes with multiple people), exercise regularly and strenuously, eat a far more healthy diet than I do, and have perfect blood tests. Saying that all fat people are ugly, unloved, not desired, lazy, undisciplined, and unhealthy is obviously stoopid, and that anyone should have low self-esteem, or have to listen to crap, because of their BMI makes me sad.

Now, how do we reconcile that statement with the fact that I myself have only a very narrow range of weight/size at which I feel I am acceptable and attractive? How do we reconcile it with the fact that if I am ten pounds over my self-imposed acceptable range I absolutely loathe my body? We don't.

You people don't come here to read dispatches from the mentally sound. You come here to share in my dysfunction. And this particular dysfunction is the feeling that being over what some BMI chart says is normal is absolutely fine for other people, but horrific for me.

xoxo

evil advertising

Somehow, being in the wrong demographic and all, I've missed this up until now (despite the fact that the NYT had an article about it way back in September), but Nair has a new product called Nair Pretty, which is aimed at 10-15 year old girls. Or as they apparently say in the biz, "first time hair removers." Way to go, making pubertal children all that more convinced that there's something wrong with their bodies as nature made them, and that any new and interesting hair growth must be removed immediately so you can feel "pretty." I won't even go into the fact that they specifically mention that one of the areas that it's safe to use the product on is the euphemistically-named bikini area, because if your twelve-year-old wants to remove her pubic hair, you've probably got more pressing problems than I personally feel equipped to comment on.

But--and I'm sure you've heard this rant before from me--I can't help but think this is just another example of the p0rnization of American beauty, wherein the aim is look as much like a Barbie doll come to life as possible. You know, hugely disproportionate (hard plastic!) breasts, no hair whatsoever (except for the bad blond weave on your head), and (look away if you're squeamish) genitals sans labia. Start 'em early, so with the right plastic surgery, by the time they hit the magic number of 18, they'll be all set to sign their first photo release.

I'm absolutely positive that you've probably heard me say this before too, but when my kid was in his mid-teens and I would find evidence on my computer that he'd been looking at nekkid women, the p0rn search itself wasn't what bothered me. One would really have to have one's head in the sand to not accept that 14-16 year old boys have drives in that direction. What bothered me the most was that he might be imprinting on that ugly Barbie p0rn star stripper look before he ever got a chance to see what a real woman looked like naked. Okay, obviously I'm being facetious here and I would never have done this but--it half made me want to leave something like Suicide Girls up on my computer. "Look at the cute girls with normal-sized breasts, half-sleeves, and black lipstick. Aren't they adorable and sexy?" (That might have been prescient actually. When you're going to group therapy on the ward, the cutter sitting next to you is more likely to look like that than Barbie, and wouldn't it be good for your self-esteem for you to chat her up? Sigh.)

Tangent much, Andrea? Anyway, while this rant was coming together in my head this morning, the TV playing in the background started playing one of your typical Sunday morning commercials. It was for some kind of exercise ball which would give you perfect abs. One of the testimonials was from a woman whose claim was that, now that she had perfect abs from using this equipment, her husband "can't keep his hands off of her." (Wait! It's on again! It's the Bender Ball.) Now, if my (mythical) husband told me I was only sexually desirable after my stomach was perfectly flat and tight, I think I would be forced to tell him that masturbation is a viable alternative. But that's just me.

But anyway, point: advertising sucks. (Who says I can't be concise?)

xoxo

taking bets

I tested this little baby in work this morning. (Actually I tested two little babies in work this morning, but we're gonna talk about just the one.) What was fascinating to me about this experience is that by the time the family left, I would have bet good money that these parents will be divorced within five years. Or, alternately, I suppose, that they will stay married the next forty, making each other absolutely miserable the entire time.

The infant in this family had reflux, and was colicky, and thus apparently didn't sleep much and screamed much of the time he was awake. That sad state of affairs understandably made the parents sleep deprived, exhausted, and anxious. I don't mean to judge them. Anyone would be irritable under those conditions, and perhaps argumentative. What struck me, however, was how mean-spirited the parents were towards each other.

When the mom asked the dad to get something out of the diaper bag for her, and he couldn't find it immediately, she murmured to me under her breath in a tone of scathing scorn about how he knows nothing. When the dad disagreed with the mom about the best way to calm the baby and his way worked, he absolutely gloated about it. Out loud. I almost expected the words "nyah nyah" to come out of his mouth. I, meanwhile, was trying hard to be pleasant and polite to both of them as well as being soothing to their child, because (and I'm sure these people didn't quite grasp this concept and I wasn't going to be the one to enlighten them) small infants are very attuned to other people's vibes and the more anxious and frazzled you are, the more likely they're going to scream.

Anyway, all ultimately went well, but I was left thinking, man, if you have absolutely no respect and no fondness for each other, why the hell did you procreate together? Recently? Apparently twelve or so months ago, you liked each other enough to be screwing. How about, even in the throes of your miserable sleep deprived state, reaching deep down into your...something...and trying to remember that? Or trying to remember that your baby would really much rather grow up in a house where you aren't constantly sniping at each other and undermining each other's authority, even if s/he doesn't know it yet?

Do people really not realize when they are being that disrespectful to each other? Or do they really just not care?

xoxo

you're so smaht

A recent conversation had me pondering my relationship with my own intelligence while on the recumbent bike this evening. I'm sure it's no surprise to any of you that, despite any objective evidence to the contrary, I think I'm pretty damn smaht. In fact, I'm so sure of it that it's impossible to insult me by calling me stupid, because I simply won't believe it at a gut level (unlike, say, if you were to say I'm fat, incompetent at any number of things, or batshit crazy, any of which I might agree with on any given day.)

My confidence in this area was probably instilled by years of getting good grades without having to work at it and was probably reinforced by years of people telling me in a surprised manner, "you're really smart!" when they were led by my big breasts, little girl voice, or bad Boston accent to be expecting otherwise. I never minded that, by the way. I always liked shattering people's expectations with that, much as I liked their surprise when I revealed my nasty sarcastic side after my quiet, shy mannerisms led them to believe I was "nice." Anyway, I've always been secure that I was smarter than most other people and that I could learn anything I wanted to. (This despite the fact that someone spent, oh, probably eight years explaining the stock market to me, and I never quite got it. See "objective evidence to the contrary" above.)

So, I was thinking about this today while working out, and it brought to mind another Pointless Andrea Anecdote. You, dear readers, get to be the recipients of it.

When I was in college, I did a clinical rotation at a well-known Boston hospital where the preferred teaching technique was to have you do something you weren't actually qualified to do without close supervision, then castigate you when you invariably screwed up some portion of it. Ah, summer of '84. Good times. I think I had a migraine every day from May to August. But, anyway, triumph through adversity, or however that saying goes. I made it through and even ended up taking a job at this same hospital later on.

Both while I was a student there and while I worked there, we had a young-ish neurologist in our department who was a complete waste of a human being. To briefly illustrate, we never had a single conversation in which his eyes rose any higher than my chest level. (And, I might say, he was French Canadian. Like my nemesis, Eric Gagne. And my douchey ex-brother-in-law. And Celine Dion. Coincidence? I think not.) One day when I was working there but hadn't quite graduated yet, I did something that even he had to admit was very right. "Miss Insert-my-maiden-name-here, you're getting smarter," he said.

Now, to fully appreciate this next part, you need to picture me in my feathered-banged, blue-mascara'd, Good Will Hunting-accented, Tello-wardrobed 22 year old glory. Got that picture affixed in your mind? Good.

I looked at him very very coolly and said, "No. I have always been smart. What I'm getting is more knowledgeable." And then I turned around and walked away.

It still makes me smile to remember that. Damn. But, nevertheless, the point of this pointless anecdote is that even pompous condescending pieces of crap like him never shook my faith in my own intelligence.

(Also, I'm realizing the theme of most of these pointless anecdotes is that I have a need to record every time in my life that I had the right comeback when it was needed, not six hours later. Don't worry. It's a relatively short list.)

xoxo

and a wee cafeteria update

I noticed when I was just over there that they have removed the nutritional information signs. Whether this is because they know that their calorie amounts were ::ahem:: wrong or whether they just had an outcry from employees like me saying, "Y'know, we'll buy a lot more of your food if you don't actually tell us what's in it" or some third reason altogether, I could not tell you. But I feel it is a positive development.

xoxo

lack of content

I'm sure I'll write something intelligent and substantive some time soon (though I'm not betting money on it), but in the meanwhile, a few more odds and ends.

True or false: Billy Idol, "White Wedding", best video evah. I may or may not be slightly embarrassed to admit both that I like this song and that I insisted forcefully that the radio be cranked up very loudly when it came on the other day, but I will not waver in my belief that, visually, in style and content, the video was sublime. (Now let's have a brief moment of silence for the 80s, when one could spend hours lying on one's couch in one's crappy apartment watching videos on MTV [on stolen cable] when one was supposed to be studying for A&P exams and such.)

Next topic! I was watching South Park reruns with D last night before I went to bed, and then Cops. I'm not sure how old this episode of Cops was (being hard to date such things by normal means such as clothing, what with wife-beaters or the lack of a shirt altogether apparently being a timeless universal clothing choice for all arrestees), but in a john sting with policewomen prostitutes, the officers were harping about how important what they were doing was in preventing these johns from bringing AIDS home to "their wives and families." And I'm thinking, Dude. The only way they're bringing it home "to their families" is if they're raping their kids. I mean, even if they're bringing it home to their wives, they aren't even endangering their unborn children, because to the best of my knowledge, medical science is pretty damn good at preventing HIV transmission to the fetus in infected moms these days. So, how 'bout just encouraging using condoms with crack hos and stop wasting tax dollars on this nonsense. Or come up with another new lame excuse. Either one.

Final topic. So, speaking of South Park, does anyone know what Angelina Jolie did to piss off Matt and Trey so much? Because she totally doesn't seem to be the obvious punchline to that joke at the end of the lice episode.

xoxo

one more stupid question

Then I'm off the computer, swear to god.

So, if a guy holds the door for you going into Dunkin' Donuts because he is a gentleman, should you then step aside and let him go ahead of you in line, because otherwise you are penalizing him for his good manners? This happened to me last week, and I didn't--I didn't even think of it until too late--and then I felt like a rude clod. Does it make a difference if there were two people working the counter and he only had to wait an extra 30 seconds? Does it make a difference that the gentleman in question works at the 7-11 next door to the Dunkin' Donuts and thus recognized me, by face at least, as being one of his customers?

Yeah, I'm stretching.

xoxo

definition clarification

No, it's not about food, so everyone stand down.

Our adorable little secretary/receptionist just made me choke on my Sobe LifeWater by saying that there's no way she is ever going to drive a minivan because, damn it, she's a MILF.

I don't think you can qualify as a MILF at age 21, even if you have procreated. At 21, you're still just a hot chick. Back me up here, people.

xoxo

plaque wars

According to the New York Times, the Zetia D's PCP just put him on to help control his now-ridiculously-high cholesterol is probably going to kill him instead. Alrighty then.

According to schizophrenia.com, there are some new studies out saying people who've gained a great deal of weight on atypical antipsychotics should be on Metformin, even if they don't have diabetes. Alrighty then.

According to the radiologist at North Shore Medical Center, D's got a fatty liver. (Mmmmm, pate.) Alrighty then.

According to everything on the internet that I could google with my mad googling skillz, millions of us are walking around with fatty livers without even knowing about it, and it's a harmless and reversible condition, except when for reasons unknown to current medical science, it in some people inexplicably turns to non-alcoholic cirrhosis. Alrighty then.

It's so hard to know what to do when the drugs that are so good for your brain are so bad for your body in other ways. We (he, I, the psych team) are all in favor of his being on what's going to keep him alive and safe now--the specter of the S-word from 18 months ago still being way way too fresh in my mind, thanks-- and screw twenty or thirty years down the line. New, better drugs all the time, blah blah blah, and if we can clone mice and invent the i-Pod (not to mention the gift bag or Tivo) and make HIV not quite the death sentence it used to be, who says we won't cure schizophrenia? (Other than the fact that it's not a pretty disease, or heart-warming, and nobody gives two shits about it if they don't happen to love someone who's been struck at the...wait for it...cusp of their potential with a brain that doesn't work right any more, except to maybe snicker at or cringe from the homeless guy talking to himself on the park bench or get all up in arms and yell for the death penalty for some unmedicated paranoic who commits a horrific senseless crime that made perfect sense to him. But, hey, I'm not bitter or angry or anything. No.)

So, yeah. What to do, what to do, and how much to worry.

xoxo

5.)

Oh, yeah. When I went to Stop & Shop yesterday, I wanted to buy a couple sweet potatoes. They had a pile of tubers labelled "yams", a pile of tubers labelled "Russet potatoes", and then another pile of tubers labelled "sweet potatoes." And, I swear to god, the vegetables labelled yams and the vegetables labelled sweet potatoes were exactly the same.

I picked them up. I did a side-by-side comparison. I examined them extremely closely. They were identical. I was like, are they fucking with me? Seriously? I'm sorry, but I don't need head games in the produce aisle.

So I bought the ones labelled sweet potatoes, because that's what I intended to buy, goddamnit.

xoxo

missed my chance and other Monday comments

1.) I should have taken a picture of the glacier in my side yard yesterday before it got covered by the new snowfall, because I seriously had the only patch of snow left in the whole of eastern Massachusetts on my property. Now we all have snow again and my yard is no longer special. Be careful, by the way. Here on the coast at least, there's a layer of slush under the snow. Don't hurt yourselves. Unless you want to pay me for a massage to fix yourself. In that case, I recommend poor body mechanics. Totally.

2.) Speaking of which, can I just remind you, even though the Christmas season is over, Jesus would still want you to shovel.

3.) The real moral of Juno is thus: if you like the kind of music I do, you will be proved to be a complete douche. Can't really argue with that.

4.) If you were me, and one of your best friends' therapists said, in therapy, "so, what did Andrea think/say about that?" in regards to a topic that had nothing really to do with me, wouldn't you think that you deserved a cut of the exorbitant fee said therapist charges? Thank you! I think so too.

xoxo

"ask me about the African tampon crisis"

In the interest of honesty I must disclose that I totally just stole that title from someone on TWoP. And the whole idea to actually write down this rant that's been living in my head for two months was sparked by tripleindemnity's tongue-in-cheek Cheez Whiz defense. So, really, I have no inspiration of my own tonight. None.

Be that as it may, when Mr Indemnity was going on about Cheez Whiz being an all-American, properly hygienic foodstuff, I was going to tell him that he sounded like a 50's advertising copywriter on crack. Which I'm sure was his intention. Totally. However, I was distracted from that line of discourse by the phrase "modern hygiene" pinging this latent rant.

Have you seen those commercials? One of the big feminine product manufacturers is donating a portion of your tampon-buying dollars to provide poor teen aged girls in Africa with sanitary supplies so they don't miss school while they are menstruating. It makes me so angry I want to spit.

Dudes. Women have been menstruating for many hundreds of thousands of years before you invented your landfill-clogging wares and yet somehow they managed to figure out how to deal with the eventuality. If these girls are unable to go about their normal business when they have no tampons or money to buy tampons, it can only be because they have been brainwashed by your self-serving money-grubbing Western corporate shilling that the traditional way of dealing with the situation, used by their grandmothers and our grandmothers, is non-modern, unhygienic, and gross.

It reminds me far too much of the Nestle formula controversy in the 70s, with Third World babies dying of malnutrition or dysentery because of greedy multinational corporations convincing their mothers that what they had been doing for millenia (i.e. breastfeeding) was inferior to modern technology. Feh. And double feh.

xoxo

fascination

When I got home from work yesterday, D had Family Feud on the TV. In case you haven't ever watched television in the last thirty-five years, this is a game show in which families compete to guess the most popular answers that a random survey of people gave to a series of questions. The only actual entertainment value inherent in this show, especially since Richard Dawson is no longer drunkenly perving on the female contestants, is when someone under pressure gives a really, really stupid answer. That's usually good for a laugh or two.

Yesterday there were two brothers (I think) in their thirties (I think) going for the big money. One of their questions was "At what age is a woman the most fascinating?" Brother number one says, brightly, 23, for which he earns zero points. Brother number two comes up and answers 18. Despite the show's host choking on his laughter over that one ("Yup, yup, just graduated high school..."), brother number two earns five points. The fact that five people out of a hundred actually thought that is sort of a sad indictment of American culture in 2008. Or something. Nevertheless, the most popular answer turned out to be thirty, which is, from my POV, not as scary and depressing.

D turns to me and says, "I was thinking that!" Which, I dunno. Maybe that means all that joking around with L was prescient, and my son really does like the older women. Or maybe people like to pretend they knew the answer to game show questions when they're playing along at home. You make the call.

xoxo

quickie reviews

1.) The Almond by Nedjma. I bought this book because it was on the endcap at Borders and I'm suggestible like that. If I had thought about it a bit more, I probably wouldn't have, because I really have never enjoyed anything I've read translated all that much, and this was from the French. (The author is North African.) In translations, there are always sentences that you read--okay, that I read--that make you go, "Wow, that's probably a kickass sentence in the original language." You can see it's on the--wait for it--cusp of brilliance and that the translator just barely missed the mark. It's an almost perfect sequence of words and you (I) feel sad at missing the perfection you can sense is there in the original.

Also, book-length erotica never holds up for me.

2.) Ocean's Thirteen. Oh, c'mon now. By the time they get to the third entry in a series, what are you really expecting? Best moment of the whole movie is at the end when Brad Pitt and George Clooney are saying goodbye before they go their separate ways, presumably for a year or two till another caper comes up. Brad says to George, "Next time try to keep the weight off in between," and George says to Brad, "Yeah, and you should settle down. Have a couple kids." Bwah. I mean, I know it's an obnoxious in-joke, but still, bwah.

I'm all about the obnoxious in-jokes anyway. As careful readers may have noted.

xoxo

they're lying, I'm sure

We have, in work, a brand new cafeteria vendor this week. And, in amongst the other changes they have made, they have seen fit to put nutritional labeling above each and every offering they sell. I was doing just fine, thankyouverymuch, not knowing that a cheese steak calzone has 1200 calories in it.

1200 calories? Are you freaking kidding me? They have to be lying. The thing is 80% bread, 5% "steak", and 15% cheese. How can that be 1200 calories? I'd believe 600, or 800. Maybe a thousand with a gun pointed to my head.

But I refuse to believe 1200.

Don't look at me like that. Denial is not a sad, sad thing. And you'll note, no exclamation marks were harmed in the writing of this blog entry, so I figure I'm ahead of the game.

xoxo

yay, Valerie!

Have you seen Valerie Bertinelli's newest Jenny Craig commercial, where she's lost all the weight and she compares herself to a picture taken in 1980? Looking pretty damn hot there, Valerie. While Valerie is a couple years older than me n' Phoebe, I consider her a contemporary, so, y'know, way to go.

I've always liked her. I liked her when I was a kid and she was on One Day at a Time. I liked that she was married to Eddie Van Halen. I liked that she let him name their kid Wolfgang (because you are not telling me that was her idea). I just, for no real logical reason, like her.

I would totally invite her to poker with Drew Barrymore.

xoxo

yay, Hillary!

I swore I would never do politics in this blog, because it'd only get me in trouble, but I just wanted to say that. Now I'll shut up about this election and never mention it again.

Because you really don't want to know what I think about Obama or Romney.

xoxo

MA state licensing!

So, there is great rejoicing amongst my massage friends today. State licensure is finally good to go, and we can henceforth start applying for our licenses to practice from the Commonwealth, rather than each and every municipality in which we might work. This is a major deal.

Now, those of us who are already licensed to practice somewhere, anywhere, in the state, are grandfathered in, but we still must reapply. I went to the website briefly to see what the form looks like (because we all know how much I like filling out official documents, don't we?) and I was kind of surprised. Even if you already hold a license, you need two letters of recommendation. To prove you're not, y'know, a ho. (Shut up.) You also need to pay a ridiculous amount of money, but that I'm not surprised about. Not one little bit.

So I guess this is my next little project I need to start working on, so I don't leave it to the last minute and enter hyperventilation zone. Anyone want to be a character witness and swear I'm not a ho? I said, Shut up.

xoxo

P.S. Spellcheck is insisting licensure is not a word. I think they're wrong.

oh, Roger, oh, Britney

Roger, sweetie, just shut up. Nobody believes you and your righteous indignation. (Just once I would like to see some public figure get caught with their hand in the cookie jar and admit that they did something wrong. I don't care if they apologize or if they say, "hey, everyone else does it," just don't insult my intelligence with your lame denials.)

Britney, Britney. I don't know. Are you bipolar? The whole head-shaving, umbrella-wielding, crotch-baring few weeks last spring may fit with a manic episode, but if so, why didn't they figure that out when you went to "rehab"? You'd think in a fancy-shmancy many-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars country club drug detox they'd have competent psychiatric staff, wouldn't you? So I'm not sure I'm quite buying this. But we'll see.

xoxo

como se llama?

So, this friend of mine who shall remain nameless himself has a date with a woman named Lucretia. And I said, that's an awesome name. I would probably date someone with a name like Lucretia even if they had no other redeeming qualities whatsoever.

The moral of this story is: if you are thinking of procreating, choose your kids' names wisely, and you might just enable them to get all the nooky they want in later years. Or, if that thought is upsetting to you, you could probably make it go the other way. Anyway, choose wisely!

xoxo

sad observations

...on a very cold day. (Is it okay if I use the ellipses in the first paragraph rather than the title? That's less ellipses overuse, right? Right?)

1.) I cannot do anything wearing gloves. You might just as well put me in those restraint mitts they put on the patients with the severe senile dementia to keep them from, like, pulling out their catheters. And when it's as cold as it was today, even after I'm indoors with my gloves off, it takes me a good five minutes before I can make my hands work properly. This makes simple fine motor tasks like attempting to extract a five dollar bill from my wallet to hand to the long-suffering Shaws cashier a far more time-consuming and labor-intensive maneuver than it has any right to be.

2.) Here it is, 2008, and I still cannot not tip anyone, no matter how much of a total cunt they are. I dunno whether it's guilt, embarrassment, or just a total (ridiculous) unwillingness to look like a miserable cunt myself, but whatever, I'd like to get over it. Perhaps I should make that a New Year's Resolution: in 2008, I resolve to stiff someone who deserves it. At least once.

3.) Here it is, 2008, and your average citizen of eastern Massachusetts still cannot grasp the basic etiquette of using public transportation. Move into the freaking train. (Green Line riders, I'm talking to you.) If there is an empty seat and you do not intend to sit in it because you are getting off at the next stop or you are wearing a backpack or whatthefuckever your problem is, then do not stand in front of the empty seat, blocking it, and preventing someone else who would sit in it from doing so and moving into the train. And, for god's sake, if you are getting on a bus and paying cash, please please please have an at least semi-unwrinkled dollar bill ready so you do not hold up the other fifteen people attempting to get aboard as you spend 3 1/2 minutes attempting to pay your fare.

All these sad observations kicked in my crankiness (did you notice? huh?) until I realized that it's 2008 and I am on the cusp of...well, something anyway.

Did you like how I used "cusp" twice in two consecutive blog entries? Perhaps that's going to become my favorite new word, replacing the word pallid, which I swear to you has appeared in every single published piece of fiction I've ever written, whether there was any reason for it to be or not.

2008: the year of cusp.

xoxo

"Adaptation"

I can't believe I almost forgot to blog about this! I went to see it this weekend while staying with a friend, and while afterwards trying to review it for tripleindemnity, I wasn't sure I could say what I wanted to say without spoiling it. But after further reflection...

My main problem with the film, after having first read the book, is with the casting of the actress who plays cousin Lola. Now, Lola is not one of the main characters, but a very important--the most important--plot point hinges on the fact that she is a fifteen year old girl in the way that those of us who have been fifteen year old girls recognize: not a child, but just on the cusp of womanhood, and aware of that and reaching for it with all the pseudo-sophistication she can summon up. And, in Lola's particular case, this is compounded by being the oldest child in a tumultuous family situation, both pretending she is above being affected by her parents' woes and attempting to take on a quasi-parental role over her younger brothers. The actress who plays Lola in the film unfortunately looks like a baby-faced twelve year old and is unable to project any type of faux worldliness that might overcome that, even if some of her lines (taken, I think, directly from the book's dialogue) are meant to suggest it. It makes what happens to her, plotwise, far less explicable.

My other qualm--and if you remember, this is what I was curious about when I read the book--is now they handled translating the particular literary technique that so surprises you at the end of the book into a film. The answer is: rather clunkily.

All that being said, there's at least one smoking hot scene, and Kiera Knightley looks gorgeous. And I want the green satin dress she wears in that smoking hot scene, even if I would have to lose two cup sizes and grow six inches in order to pull it off.

xoxo

best of the best of '07

My most fun, most satisfying, all-in-all best days of 2007, in chronological order:

1.) The last day of class, massage school (January). So much eating, so much hugging, so much crying. And eventually a little drinking with more hugging, crying, and laughing. So much love.

2.) L's extra special pampering girly day (August). Being able to provide a day of fun and relaxation for someone I love very much who was having such a horrible time made me a happy girl. My friends are the best.

3.) Burma at the ICA (October). What more can I say? I've thanked A at least once a month since for agreeing to go with me, because really? so much effin fun. Again, my friends are the best.

Honorable mentions to K's party, another World Series win, mulled wine at Gulu Gulu, various days at Devereaux and Crane's beaches, and yeah!, Dogtown.

Oh, and those of you familiar with the chronology, none of these of these Very Good Days (except for perhaps one or another of the beach days) occurred while I was working at The Place Which Will Remain Nameless. There's a lesson in there about how job stress and poverty will suck the joy right outta you.

xoxo