I am perplexed

On the way to work today, I had to stop in CVS. There was only one cashier working and three people ahead of me in line, so I had plenty of time to peruse the magazine headlines on the rack. And there on the latest issue of Glamour, in big white letters, it is urging me to read about "Men's New Sexual Needs."

Seriously? You guys are developing new ones? Not to speak for all womankind or anything, but are you quite sure we're capable of dealing with all your old needs, never mind some added bonus ones? We might just crack under the pressure.

With no objective evidence whatsoever, I'm going to blame porn for this. Or over-imaginative copywriters.

One of the two.

xoxo

and one more thing

Then I'm really over n' out.

On my aol welcome screen, there's a headline "Miley Cyrus caught stuffing her face." Click on it and you will find a picture of Miss Cyrus eating, omg, an order of McDonalds fries. Not twelve orders. Not fries, a BigMac, three shakes, and an EggMcMuffin. An order of fries.

Now, apparently, a fifteen year old girl eating an order of fries is something to be commented on disapprovingly. Way to instill and enforce food issues, eating disorders, and body hatred in all her twelve year old fans who are searching for pictures of her, you fucking immoral media vultures. May you rot in hell where you are forced to eat Mediterranean brownies for all eternity.

xoxo

learn from my experience

Oh, I am full of the advice and helpful tips this weekend.

Today's bit of wisdom? Should you be baking and realize that, goddammit, you are out of regular vegetable oil, do not, repeat, do not, just say fuck it and substitute the olive oil, which you have plenty of. Mediterranean brownies for everybody!

Sigh. In the words of Morgan Earp (and you know I've been waiting to use this): "I ain't shown myself to advantage, I am fully fuckin' aware."

xoxo

important health warning

I know, I know, this being my blog, you read that title and immediately expected some kind of snark, sarcasm, or ranting to follow. But, no. I am totally serious.

You'll remember my best friend L, who has made many guest starring appearances in the marvelous adventures (though she hardly ever reads here and never comments, being strangely not addicted to the internet, go figure)? L's boyfriend S was driving the other night when he suddenly felt dizzy. He managed to pull over and call his sister, who was closest in proximity to where he was. She met him and convinced him to let her take him to the hospital.

Well, it's good that she did, because they found an A/V block--his heart is not beating correctly. The doctors were immediately suspicious, because this is not the kind of problem that suddenly shows up in a middle-aged adult without cause. Either you are born with it, or you develop it as an elderly person. When it happens to a healthy adult, they immediately question Lyme disease. So S is in the hospital receiving IV antibiotics while they decide whether or not he needs a temporary (or permanent!) pacemaker. Scary, scary, scary for someone who felt perfectly fine four days ago--and actually feels fine now, even though his monitor shows he's still skipping beats. Also scary for someone who had a rash he totally blew off, other than showing it to L, who also blew it off.

I was talking about this with my boss this afternoon and he said his wife actually got bitten by a Lyme tick recently and that you never used to have to worry about it in cold weather, but now you do. And he told me that besides the cardiac and arthritic consequences people get from Lyme disease--which I knew about--they're also seeing dementia from Lyme in some people in a syphilis-like presentation--which I didn't know about. It's bad, bad stuff.

So! Please check yourself for ticks if you're working or playing outside, even in this weather. Please don't ignore any weird rashes. Bite the bullet, pay the co-pay, and endure the wait at the doctor's office, but have somebody take a look at it. You really don't want arthritis, a pacemaker, or dementia, do you?

/public service announcement/

xoxo

mary sunshine in th' house

The other day I read (elsewhere on the internet) a comment along the lines of "it's not all rainbows and kitten orgasms" which cracked me the hell up, though I really don't want to stop and think about it all that hard. So, anyway, I thought I'd take a break in here from complaining about people who suck, the exploitation of dead rock stars, and being thwarted in my attempt to buy the perfect platform sandals and, instead, give you a Friday taste of rainbows and kitten orgasms and other happy things.

1.) Dried cranberries. I've been eating dried cranberries in my industrial oatmeal and they are genius. A far superior fruit to the pedestrian raisin.

2.) Yoga progress. Despite the fact that, yes, my back was spasming yesterday, I did my yoga last night, and actually got all the way down into "saddle" and held it for the full five minutes. I think that was my first time. Here's a picture of saddle, taken from yinyoga.com.

3.) My mad uploading skillz. Aren't you all so glad the marvelous adventures are illustrated now?

Kitten orgasms for everybody!

xoxo

can I just say?

More incompetence. More people not doing their jobs. More frustration on my part.

My back and neck are spasming and my jaw hurts from grinding my teeth last night. Plus, I'm eating chicken fingers at 11:30 in the morning because, apparently, food makes everything better.

I don't see how any of this is any good for my physical or mental health.

Can we just enact a national Just Do Your Fucking Job Day or something? Just one day a year when we can count on people not to be incompetent, blase, and full of suckage? That's a holiday I could get behind.

xoxo

Addendum! All is now (supposedly) resolved. Maybe it's Do Your Fucking Job After People Harrass Your Boss Day.

just showing off my mad uploading skillz

Having finally figured out how to put pictures on here, I'm going to subject yous people to looking at every single thing I think about buying.


In looking for a picture of these online for your viewing pleasure, I came across a lot of really disgusted commentary. Apparently one of the pairs Converse is doing (not the above) is a very close approximation to the ones he was wearing when he killed himself. Even I, with my broad and deep and open-minded definition of "okay to do," have to say that's probably, um, Not Right.

So, yeah, I guess I'll say a big fuck you to Courtney and not be buying any.

xoxo

misc

1.) I hear that the Red Sox won today and that I can thank Manny for that. I wouldn't know, seeing as I was hard at work in the salt mines while this was going on. So, yay! And boo. Respectively.

2.) The last time I ordered from Amazon, I bought the Nirvana MTV Unplugged DVD that recently came out after a 13 year delay. And last night, being out of Netflix and having forgotten to get the dvds from M that she was going to give me yesterday, I watched it. Three times. So, obviously, thumbs up. Best part? Paraphrased: "We can't play those two songs (Dumb and Polly) together." "Sure we can! This is a TV show. They'll just edit it differently." (And they did! if you look at the playlist for the original televised version.) And why can't they play those two songs together? "It's basically the same song." (Which, um, yeah, totally. I never noticed before, probably because listening to Polly disturbs me so much in a good/bad way, it distracts me from the melody.)

3.) I feel like I got hit by a truck today, for reasons that are totally unclear. I had a very busy, semi-stressful morning in work, didn't even have time to get anything to drink and was thus feeling dehydrated by the time lunch came around. So I ate and drank, thinking that it'd perk me up, but then I felt inexplicably worse, like all I wanted to do was nap. And since I've come home from work, all I've done is half-sit, half-lie on the loveseat with the laptop on my belly. I haven't done laundry. I didn't cook dinner. I haven't even changed out of the skirt I wore to work, which frankly was annoying me all day, static-clinging to my tights, so you'd think that would have been my first order of business. I think I'm gonna eat some veggies and some pastina or something and then psyche myself up to do a very little bit of yoga. And laundry.

4.) And in more Nirvana news, because you can never have too much, I read the other day the Converse is coming out with a bunch of different limited edition Chucks for their anniversary, and since Kurt was such a famous Chucks wearer (and Courtney probably needs money) they are doing a Cobain edition with his lyrics all over them. How douchey is it of me that I really, really want them? I wouldn't actually wear them and embarrass myself. (Barring just the right concert experience, that is.) But I'd like to own them.

xoxo

Nordstrom

I had my first Nordstrom experience last night. As rumored, the shoe department is the best part of the whole place, though I did not buy or even try any on, being as I'm in a dysfunctional semi-monogamous relationship with those Kork-Ease, wherein I have promised to be faithful even though they are out catting around on other women's feet and refusing to come home to me. I was, however, sadly disappointed with the size and breadth of the Nordstrom handbag selection. Ah, well. One cannot expect to have all one's accessory shopping needs fulfilled by one venue.

In other sad news, though they had a very lovely Anthropologie store there in Natick, it did not have a huge (or any!) sale room like the one on Boylston Street, where one can get extremely cute $88 shirts for forty bucks. So, you know, boo.

(What were you doing in Natick, Andrea? Fuck all if I know. Watching the Stoopid Spoiled Americans in their natural habitat, i.e. the ginormous mall?)

xoxo

good friday

Did you all hear/read the "controversy" about some school systems no longer having Good Friday as a day off? Rather than having to then close on all the main Jewish and Muslim holy days in fairness, some of the school systems have just said, basically, fuck it. We hold school and if your religious beliefs don't allow you to attend on that particular day, we won't penalize you. Which, to me, seems like the best course of action if you don't want the actual school year to extend into July.

However, one Boston area school system which tried that plan out for two or three years has gone back to not holding classes on Good Friday. Why? you ask. Well, it seems that last year 60% of the teachers took the day off.

Excuse me. If 60% of the teachers in that town are devout Catholics who actually spent Good Friday afternoon at Stations of the Cross, I will eat my friggin' keyboard.

So I guess we're back to my favorite rant about how no one has any sense of responsibility any more. You don't feel like going to work and dealing with the little brats? Oooo, all of a sudden, you're religious. You're pissed because that always used to be a day off and now it isn't? Oooo, I feel a conversion coming on.

I'd have made them all bring a note from their priest if I were running things.

xoxo

spring cleaning and state licensure

I'm working on both, and do you think I can find copies of the letters of recommendation I had written for me last spring for my _________ city license? Everything else I needed to get together for this was right in the pile of folders and envelopes that I thought it all should be in. (Because, yeah, I've got an awesome filing system like that. Shut up.) But no letters. I cannot believe I wouldn't have kept copies for myself.

Anyway, I was going to retype them myself with new dates and the necessary changes of wording, then just present them to the people who were nice enough to do them for me last year to be signed, which would be more convenient for them and quicker for me. I guess I'll look a little more tonight.

Maybe instead of expensive sandals I should buy a filing cabinet.

(Actually I, and my friend L, and [if I can tell tales out of school] Mr Indemnity, are all very fond of going to places like The Container Store and IKEA, etc., and buying things which we are sure, like absolutely positive, will enable us to get everything in our houses perfectly organized forevermore. And it's absolutely useless. You are either a person who creates clutter or you are not, and as much as those California Closet and self-help book writers would like you to believe they have a system that will cure you of "filing" by making piles of folders of important documents in at least three or four different rooms in your house, that is crap. Your money is better given to the Kork-Ease people. Srsly.)

xoxo

the Bourne whatever

So, I watched the third Bourne movie last night, the name of which I don't remember and can't be bothered to look up. You know the one I'm talking about. I'd watched the previous two, not that I actually remembered them all that much. Or at all. I just know they were pretty good for what they are, and I like a good action movie now and again. (Plus, I have a soft spot for Matt Damon, because "sexiest man alive" be damned, he could be my Fed Ex guy. I mean, my Fed Ex guy with a more expensive haircut and better dental work, but you know. He looks like a regular person.)

But anyway, I figured I might as well rent the third installment. And I was enjoying it. But you know how in that kind of movie, it goes one of two ways? Either it's like a live-action comic book and they make absolutely no stab at anything resembling realism, and that's fine. You know that within 5 minutes and you just roll with it. Or, they do try to make it at least semi-plausible and they, and you, have to work at the suspension of your disbelief, which is also fine. Except there's almost always one thing that bothers you enough that your suspension cracks. They never, ever seem to completely pull it off.

My moment last night came when Bourne's female accomplice, who has helped him escape from Spain to Morocco, and now must disguise herself as the evil government agency killers will be gunning for her too, is in the bathroom of a random house in Tangier--which they're in simply because the door was unlocked and no one was around--and conveniently, miraculously, there's a supply of black hair dye for her to use. But no, that's not the best part. The best part is that she supposedly cuts her own hair in the bathroom mirror whatever scissors are lying around, into a style much like my last two haircuts. And it looks way better than mine. Without having to tip any cunty hairdressers.

I ain't buying that.

xoxo

more Stoopid Spoiled American syndrome

I really want these shoes. Fortunately Zappos is out of the black in my size.

Or I'd be paying $189 for sandals when the poor children in Bangladesh have only rubber flip-flops.

xoxo

intuitive eating

I've been reading a lot about this concept lately. And, as yet, I'm still divided on whether I think it's totally bullshit, partially bullshit, or brilliant.

Basically, the concept is that your body knows what it needs and if you are only mindful of it, eating exactly when, what, and how much your body really actually wants, you'll be in your optimal state of health and energy and your weight will stabilize at what it's supposed to be (which, sadly, may not be what you might like it to be.)

Now, as anyone who's known me for a long time will remember, I've been through some, um, interesting dietary phases. Ten years or so ago, I spent a summer reading The Coming Plague and a bunch of other, similar books about how the microbes were winning, and one of the things that I became concerned about was that there'd be a serious mad cow outbreak in the US. This led to about three years of almost complete vegetarianism. It also led to me becoming pretty overweight. Part of that was because I'm totally convinced my body just does not handle that many carbs very well. Another huge part was that I was eating way more sugar and dessert-type things than I normally would. In retrospect, and maybe even at the time, I was aware that was because my body was craving stuff it needed and wanted that I refused to give it (steak! cheeseburgers!) and I was trying to pacify it with something else. That would be a point in favor of the intuitive eating concepts.

So when I became totally sick of not eating meat, enough to say, wtf, I'm gonna die of something anyway, bring on the probably unsafe food supply, and I wanted to lose the weight I'd gained, I went totally in the opposite direction. I spent two years eating very low carb: basically meat, fish, salad and other green veggies, cheese, oil, and nuts. And, you know, I did very well. I got down to a weight that was less than I weighed when I was 23. I felt great, with lots of energy, no bloating or any digestive problems, and my hair and skin looked great from all the fat I was eating. It wasn't even hard to do, on one level: I like meat, fish, cheese, and salad, and I didn't much crave stuff I wasn't supposed to eat. But it made socializing hard. It was difficult to eat at other people's houses, it made social drinking much less fun than it should have been, and restaurants, while not really problematical, were a much diminished experience. (Famous quote from this period, delivered deadpan by my ex-whatever: "Just because you can always get a chicken caesar salad, doesn't mean you should.") So, point against intuitive eating. While my body thrived on this regimen, I never would have eaten this way intuitively, and it focused all my attention on what I could and couldn't eat, which is not healthy in the mental health sense of that word.

Finally, there's the fact that my experience with hormonal food cravings (i.e. the time each month when I really need [or want] a certain combination of grease plus salt, best satisfied by Lays potato chips in the yellow bag) is that what my body is craving then doesn't have a true physiological basis. My evidence for this is that when I was on a certain drug I noticed, quite unexpectedly, that those salt + fat cravings that I thought were inevitable completely disappeared. The drug wasn't affecting sodium levels in my body, it was affecting my dopamine pathways. So, obviously, food cravings cannot simply be a function of what your body needs on a nutrient level; brain chemistry is involved. And I don't see how medicating your neurotransmitters with Lays chips leads to optimal physical or mental health. (It does cut the evil drug companies out of the loop, though, so that's something, haha.)

And, yeah, let me take a moment to admit that I honestly do know there's a certain douchery involved in thinking too hard about this, and that I am well aware that this is part and parcel of Stoopid Spoiled American syndrome. That I can not only eat as much and as often as I want, but that I can actually have a choice of exactly what that food is, is a privilege that the majority of humanity does not have. It's impossible for me to think or talk about this stuff without feeling I need to acknowledge that. I don't necessarily feel guilty about having that level of privilege, but I also don't think it ought to be taken for granted.

xoxo

retraction

There's a lot in the news I could be writing about. I could write something at least semi-intelligent about Obama. I could write something snarky about how apparently no one involved in running a Middle Atlantic state can keep their pants on. I could write something bemused about how some billiard champ in England got caught blood doping (really?!)

But mostly all I want to say is that I take it back.

It's not spring. Not after I just got snowed and sleeted on this morning. [insert a bunch o' profanity here]

xoxo

spellcheck

When I was spellchecking that last entry and blogger told me "no misspellings found," it reminded me that the other day some program or other told me "your spelling is perfect."

That cracked me up. Self-esteem-building word processors! What will they think of next?

xoxo

spring!

I think I'm feeling it.

Part of it is daylight savings time, of course. But even so, when I left work last night at 5:45, it's not just that it wasn't dark out, it's that it was bright. Very bright. Almost put on my sunglasses bright. There's a different quality to the light now. I like it.

I'm seriously considering going for a walk.

xoxo

read *another* book, Andrea

Did you know that there were more murders on the three Law & Order shows last year than there were in the actual borough of Manhattan? I read that interesting factoid last night in a Sunday Globe review of Lush Life by Richard Price, which is coincidentally the book that I am reading. I wish I had it with me--the book, that is, not the review--so I could quote you some passages from it, because Mr Price has quite the way with both dialogue and characterization. (Which, seeing as he writes (er, wrote) for The Wire, I guess I really should have expected.)

There's a scene in which Matty, the middle-aged cop who's one of the protagonists, is picked up by a young bartender at a private detail he works, and is slam fucking her in an alley or hallway, upon which she breaks into sobs. So he immediately backs off on the vigor. Which causes her to instantaneously lose her arousal and demand he go back to what he was doing. And there's a line there, which like I said I would quote if only I had it available, but the gist of it is, "then she started sobbing again so he knew she was happy." I read that and I was like, oh, yeah, I know that woman.

The whole book is full of little things like that, tiny bits of description and dialogue that are almost throw-away but that are so real. I'm about 3/4 of the way done, and while there's a bit of dragginess in one of the subplots, on the whole I would highly recommend the book. It's a nice piece of writing.

xoxo

psychiatric news of the day

Well, we met with D's new psychiatrist today--who is still at the clinic that I hate, but in a different section with apparently some different staff, so we'll see how that goes. The new doctor is a very pleasant young Indian woman. I liked her. D was a little disappointed that she wouldn't cut his blood tests back to once a month quite yet, but other than that it was okay.

The good news is that I've gotten him several times in the past month to take the (prison!) bus to or from his appointments, though only with me accompanying him. Honestly, only three or four months ago he was freaking out at even trying to do that, so this is a big improvement in his level of social anxiety/paranoia. And then today, he actually went into Shaws with me after his doctor's appointment. Every time I've tried to get him to go into a store with me for the past year and a half, it's always been, "no, that's okay, I'll wait outside." Today I didn't even ask him... he said, "I'll come in with you." So I'm pretty pleased.

And in blog-reader followup, I must inform you that possibly-Irish-Danny was on the bus with us today, but he did not, alas, have any interesting cell phone conversations, nor was Spanish Danny accompanying him.

xoxo

it costs how much?

Mr Indemnity and I are unanimous in our opinion that "Kristen" is probably not worth $1000/hour. I mean, she's pretty enough, but she's not the most amazingly hot woman who ever lived or anything. Furthermore? Who would pay that kind of money for one hooker when you could pay an identical amount and get four less-expensive but also-very-attractive hookers for your money, and have a real party?

It boggles the mind.

For the record, I'm glad Mr Indemnity is back from the jungle, because c'mon now. Who of my other friends is going to sit around having this kind of conversation with me?

xoxo

according to today's news...

Josh Beckett apparently needs some arnica.

Also? Could not Dice K and Mrs Dice K have timed this pregnancy a little bit better? When you're making that much money to throw a baseball do you not have some kind of ethical obligation to only knock your wife up in the months of February through May, so she'll give birth during the offseason?

So, c'mon now. Who's pitching open day in Japan?

xoxo

nipplemania

Just as a weekend update:

I was flipping through a magazine and I saw an ad for a new Bali bra with "concealing petals for complete modesty." Which will make me "feel confident." Huh. I really wasn't all that aware that the fact that someone somewhere might ascertain the fact that I have nipples was something I needed to be freaking out over. But okay.

Then, as a contrast, I was walking past an Ann Taylor store--for my male readers who may or may not know this, Ann Taylor is a rather conservative woman's clothing store which sells the kind of apparel you might wear to work if you're required to dress on the more professional side or the kind of dresses you might buy for a wedding or a christening, by which I mean to say, Ann Taylor clothes definitely do not bring the sexah--and they had a rather disconcerting window display. All the mannequins had extremely pointy, pointy tiny breasts. You know how some women with very small breasts have a disproportionate nipple ratio, so that when they're erect, it's basically like the whole boob is? Well, that's very visibly the look all these mannequins had *underneath their business suits and Bar Mitzvah dresses.* It was...odd.

So, once again, I am forced to deduce that the media is sending me mixed messages, and thus, I should just ignore the whole thing, and in fact keep ignoring the state of my own nipples, much as I don't spare any time in the average day thinking about my kneecaps, my pinky toes, or my right eyebrow. It seems like the right course of action.

xoxo

doulas

Speaking of labor and birth, when I was in massage school, one of the possible career paths I pondered was becoming a doula. If you don't know what that is (and even if you do!), a doula is a person a pregnant woman hires to support her, physically and emotionally, in preparing for birth and then during labor. (There are also postpartum doulas who help the new mom in the weeks after birth.) Not all doulas are massage therapists, but if *I* were hiring one, I personally would want the one who could give me prenatal massage and help my back pain during labor.

I would be so good at this. Think about it, those of you who know me and know what my energy is (when I'm not bitching about something on here). Am I not totally the kind of person you would want talking to you and touching you while you attempt to get an eight pound baby out your vagina?

But I really decided against this because of the big downside. You have to be on call 24/7 so that when one of your clients goes into labor, you are there. There's no going away for a weekend if you have a client anywhere near her due date. And if you don't have any clients near their due dates, where's your income coming from, huh? It'd be a fun and rewarding career path, I think, but that's a tough way to live. I dunno. Maybe ten years from now when I'm in another place in my life.

Of course, there's the other downside too. When I think about my (highly prejudicial, I'm sure) impression of the kind of woman who would hire a birth doula, I think of someone who's upper middle class and entitled, yet thinks of herself as somewhat crunchy and New Age. Probably lives in Cambridge, or possibly Marblehead. Maybe Newton. Drives her big ass SUV to Whole Foods to buy organic vegetables on her way to bikram yoga, talking on her cell phone all the way as she cuts people off. You know, not the kind of person I would actually like. So that's a stumbling block, too, haha.

You know what I'd like to do in the best of all possible worlds, like if I won the lottery or something? (Yes, I know, big talk about something that'll never happen.) I'd be a volunteer labor doula for poor young women whose babies' fathers may or may not be involved and who don't have much family support. In theory, that sounds very rewarding. In practice, I'd probably hate them all too.

Oh, just kidding. I think.

Maybe I wouldn't be so super awesome at this after all!

xoxo

cell phone cameras =

work of the devil.

Ran across a new dad today who was showing some acquaintances--and probably some strangers for all I know--pictures of the birth on his cell phone, all the while saying proudly, "...and the doctor says, 'you're emailing before we're even done stitching!'"

I'm thinking this was less of a good-natured humorous complimentary remark than Dad was taking it to be, but whadda I know? I could just be projecting again.

xoxo

scrubs n' stuff

The whole premise for this blog entry is that I really, really need some new clothes for work. This led to a shopping experience that I'll relate shortly, but first I need to insert an obnoxious opinion.

My life would probably be a lot easier if I bit the bullet, gave in, and started wearing scrubs. Some people who do my kind of job do. Some people like me wear street clothes. Some people wear street clothes and a lab coat. There's no standardization. I've rejected the lab coat and the scrubs partly because I work with a lot of very little kids, and experience has taught me that the scarier and more liable to suddenly jab them with a needle that you look, the more trust issues you have to overcome before you can do anything to them, even if it doesn't (and it doesn't) involve any jabbing.

But mostly I've avoided scrubs because I find them the sloppiest and most unprofessional looking garment anyone can wear and it galls me that over the past fifteen or twenty years they have become the default clothing for anyone who does anything in a hospital or doctor's office. Send 'em back to the OR where they belong. If you're doing brain surgery or assisting with brain surgery, you get a pass from me for wearing the equivalent of pajamas to work. The rest of you all? I don't care how cute and stylish your scrubs are. I've got cute and stylish Old Navy pj bottoms, too, but that doesn't mean they're acceptable for wearing in public, never mind seeing patients. Wear some fucking actual clothes.

Okay, I feel better.

Anyway, seeing that I do wear fucking actual clothes to work, and the ones that fit and I wear all the time are getting worse for wear, I need some new ones. So, the other day when I was out doing an errand that needed to get done, I figured I would also take the opportunity to try on clothes and hopefully buy something. Now, another tangent--

I've been doing pretty good with not hating my body as of late, and thus, being quite nice to it, exercising regularly (well, except for that little mini-hiatus, but really, exercising more regularly than I usually do in the winter) and buying it pretty camis and stuff. (Is it weird that I'm talking about my body in the third person? Deal.) But, anyway, been doing okay with allowing myself to feel attractive.

So the other day, I try on this pair of jeans. Yes, I know I said I was supposed to be looking for clothes for work. So? (There's another tangent here, but I'll leave it for the end.) Anyway, I tried on this pair of jeans and they made my ass and thighs look awesome, if I do say so. However. They were cut way too low and even though they were not too tight at all, just the cut of them gave me an unacceptable level of muffin top, and I was immediately filled with a rush of extreme self-loathing. I mean, the whole dressing room experience was also tainted by the fact that the weather was making my hair frizz, and the five-year-old jacket I had on was looking kinda wrinkled and disheveled, and the lighting was ass, so I wasn't predisposed to looking into the mirror and thinking, "ooo, pretty." But what those pants did to my stomach filled me with such a sudden, visceral disgust for my body, I can't even tell you.

And I know it was irrational. Look at the sentence: "what those pants did..." I know that logically what I should think and feel is, wow, those pants are cut weird, making your ass look great while your stomach looks like hell, not, gah! you're hideous, Andrea. But logic and reality are two different things, huh? It really pisses me off that I can let all the good feelings I've been having about my body just fall away so easily, even in the face of knowing I'm being illogical.

Oh, and that final tangent. Part of the reason that shopping for clothes for work is so hard, and why I put it off till my work clothes are threadbare, and get seduced by trying on jeans while I'm supposed to be doing it, is that I really feel my body is only flattered by wearing either a.) jeans or b.) dresses, neither of which are really what I'm supposed to be looking for in work clothes.

This is why people go for scrubs. Everyone looks like ass in scrubs, so you can just let it go.

xoxo

spewing

I've meant to write about this before and just never have, but a couple of recent conversations have pushed it forward into my consciousness. A friend was talking to me about a mutual friend, whom a third (fourth? this is getting convoluted) friend had described as being recently distraught. The first friend expressed to me that she was somewhat dreading spending time with putatively distraught friend #2, because in her experience friend #2 was resolutely negative when worried about something and "you can't give her any advice," and this irritates friend #1.

It seemed alien to her that friend #2 might want to spew without looking for a solution. It seemed perfectly normal to me, since in my own anxiety-disorder-flavored world, I often process the same way. When a bunch of negativity--whether that be worry, sadness, or anger--takes up space in my head, in order for it not to get stuck in there and create a feedback loop of disordered thought, I often just need to express it, to dump it out, to spew, in order to let it go. Just the physical process of expressing it makes it into something manageable. I tried gently to explain this to friend #1.

"But you don't do that," she said, puzzled. I almost burst out laughing, and thought but didn't say, Well, maybe not to you, but that's what the blog's for.

And it brought to mind another recent conversation, as well as a few offhand remarks from various people who do read my blog and who apparently assign much greater significance to some of my ranting than I do. I've had people bring up to me things I'd posted about months before and more or less forgotten about, even if I was really pissed or really depressed at the time, as if they were truly significant, and it was my turn to be puzzled. Perhaps if I hadn't spewed them, they'd have remained in my head and grown into something I'd still be stewing about or obsessing over six months later. But having expressed them, they were just bits of negativity that could be examined and set free.

We all have our ways of managing our emotions, except I guess for those of us with no coping skills at all, and this is one of mine. My apologies if that has ever annoyed or misled any of my readers, because I value that you exist, and I value your reading those rants. (Except if you hate reading them, in which case I hope you skip them and come back when I'm actually being entertaining.)

But for future reference, if it doesn't involve someone screwing over my kid, I'm probably not that angry or bitter or sad about it, and you can assume I'll be over it soon.

xoxo

just say no, part deux

One of the MDs I work with has an old shoulder injury, which she periodically reinjures because she engages in extreme sports and has never gotten the physical therapy her orthopedic doc wanted her to have and, in general, doesn't take care of it the way she should. When I was in massage school, I used her for some homework and a paper, because she was an interesting case. So she got free bodywork from me, and she found out her injury responds very well to trigger point work. Which is all well and good.

However, now that I've been out of school for a year, she still thinks she can just come up to me and whine when her shoulder's spasming and expect me to go into her office and jam my knuckle into it for fifteen minutes. Still for free. She's paid me for one massage in the past year, but has found it more cost-effective to just beg for me to donate my services a few minutes at a time.

And, you know, of the four docs in my department, she's the one I'm least friendly with. She doesn't pop into my workspace to chat like the others. She only seeks me out when she wants something, work-related or personal. Well, today she's in pain and angling for "just a few minutes..." She tried to get me a few minutes ago and I told her to go away, I'm eating. As full of the milk of human kindness as I am, if it comes down to eating lunch or jumping to work on her whenever she wants, I think I'll go with lunch, thanks.

And now, of course, I feel like a bitch, so you know I'm going to do it.

It's right up there with not being able to forgo tipping. I really suck!

xoxo

read a book, Andrea

So, I finally bought Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman, after having picked it up, looked at its back cover, and put it back down approximately 563 times over the past three years (or roughly twice every time I've been in a Borders or Barnes & Noble over said period.) I knew I'd crack eventually.

Why? Because it's the same book I keep reading over and over. Oh, they've got different names and different authors, but they're all the same book on a Platonic level. Non-fiction, so I don't have to tax my brain too much with plot. Funny enough to keep my apparently-now-less-than-optimal attention, while clever enough that I can fool myself into thinking I'm, you know, thinking. And with enough pop culture references to feed my obsessions.

And, of course, most importantly, there's the delicious masochism involved in enjoying something that is a barely better written--or at least cleaned up and professionally edited--version of one's own blog spewing, crackpot theories and all, but which is, theoretically at least, earning the author big buckets o' money.

Okay, Mr Klosterman hasn't (so far, in this book) publicly discussed his underwear. But I think my own willingness to do so could only be a plus in today's publishing climate.

xoxo

glut

I noticed today that some new construction more or less in my neighborhood now has a sign in front of it saying it's going to be a bank. Okay. That makes, by my count, four banks or credit unions that are either being built or have opened in the last year within a mile or two radius of my house.

What's up with that? There's that much of a shortage of places to put your money around here? I really hadn't noticed it being a problem.

xoxo

ar-ni-ca! ar-ni-ca!

Everyone get that joke? No? I hate when I think I'm being so freakin' clever and no one gets the reference.

Anyway! Today I went to the Mass AMTA meeting with my friends M2 and S, which besides--or despite--being free (I mean, other than my dues I've already paid), gave me 3 CEUs, a surprisingly sumptuous continental breakfast, lunch, and snack, and loads o' swag. Including the arnica. Plus, of course, the opportunity to win many many fabulous door prizes. Which, I didn't. But theoretically I could have come home with an Oakworks massage chair or an $800 gift certificate to the Upledger Institute.

So, all in all, despite having to get up really early on a Sunday, sitting through the snoozy business meeting part of the proceedings, and being wiped now, it was well worth it. And if you need any arnica rubbed on anything, I'm your girl.

xoxo

blur

As mentioned in the previous entry, I woke up ridiculously early today, 4:30 or so, which, when you need to be at work at 7:15, is really overkill. So, one of the things I did, besides chuckle at the weather hysteria, is watch the hockey episode of South Park, the one that's the spoof of every feel-good sports movie ever made.

And in it, they use Song 2 by Blur. If anyone remembers when I did my list of the top five hookiest pop songs ever written, this was in the top three, so obviously, it's stuck in my head now. So much so, that I had to interrupt writing this post to go watch the video on youtube. (What? My patient isn't here yet. I'm sure I'll do something that I actually deserve to get paid for anytime now.)

It leads me once again to muse on how if you just manage to write just one ridiculously catchy song, you are set for life. I mean, unless you spend bazillions of dollars on heroin or something. But, really, just one song that people can't get out of their brains, and you will make so many royalties from all the commercials and movies and TV shows that want to use it, you'll be able to dive through your piles o' money like Scrooge McDuck.

Now, excuse me while I go watch that video again.

xoxo

weather hysteria

My bedroom is at the front of the house, right over the street. (Yeah, yeah, in my next house I will not be so stupid when allocating rooms. Live and learn and still die stupid.) I can always hear when the plow trucks or sanders come up the street, and of course, they sound different, so I pretty much always have an idea of what's going on winter-weather-wise before I ever lift my head from the pillow in the morning.

This morning when I woke up ridiculously early, I was lying in bed quite a while and I didn't hear anything. I surmised it wasn't snowing the way they had predicted. After a bit, I put the TV on, again without lifting my head from the pillow. Along the bottom of the business news, they had an ongoing list of cancellations for today. And not just cancellations for places out in Worcester county or along 495, local coastal Boston and North Shore cancellations. That's odd, I thought. How come I didn't hear the plows?

I look out the window and there's blacktop on my street and a quarter inch of snow on my driveway and sidewalk and it ain't doing nothing. Obviously, all those cancellations were decided on last night in a fit of weather hysteria. Too funny.

I hope all the high school juniors whose SATs were cancelled for an inch of snow are thoroughly enjoying their extra three hours of sleep right now.

xoxo