more media toxicity

I bought an InStyle magazine today while I was out doing my errands. As women's magazines go, InStyle isn't usually very toxic. Mostly it just makes you--by which I mean me--want to be a good consumer and go out and buy shit, with lots of pictures of pretty clothes and shoes and jewellery and household goods. Well, it succeeded once again in its mission, because now I'm really really sure that I want some white jeans to wear with my awesome Kork-Ease platforms this summer.

But there was also this unbelievably horrid feature on "one month to wearing a bikini." Starting out, four weeks out, with what weight-lifting one should be doing to maximally perkify everything, which...not so bad, right? I guess a lot of people can identify with the impulse to step up one's workout routine in anticipation of wearing skimpier summer clothing. But then things devolve, with detailed instructions on what you can and cannot eat or drink a week, 2 days, or the day of the beach so OMFG you don't bloat! Don't swallow air! Get a body wrap (even though it costs probably $100 and last 48 hours)! Self-tan x number of days before so your skin will be perfect!

All this effort for one trip to the pool or beach. What if you go every weekend? Do you spend all summer sans carbonated beverages, chewing gum, and salt, and spend thousands of dollars on skin care just so the other people on their lounge chairs aren't traumatized by your less than absolutely perfect body? And, oh boy, you'll be having fun too, as you spend every second in your bathing suit wondering if the bagel you slipped up and ate is making your stomach OMFG totally gross.

And you men wonder why women like me have so much lingering fuckedupedness about our bodies. I can read this crap now and roll my eyes, and even work up an outraged blog entry, but this is exactly the kind of sick shit that kept me at age 20, all 116 pounds, flat stomach and perky boobs, from ever taking off my shorts at the beach.

Feh.

xoxo

today

Possibly Irish Danny sighting!

What's he been up to? Well, he had to get "swabbed."

I dunno. If another few weeks go by without any more sightings, I'm going to start getting worried that the DNA evidence didn't go his way.

xoxo

market research...

because your opinion counts!

Since state licensure has gone through and I've finally received my actual state license, making it all legal and aboveboard for me to go to people's houses and charge them money for massage no matter what town or city they live in, I've started thinking again about getting some personal business cards. I spent a chunk of my spectacularly unproductive day today browsing them online and the dissatisfactions I had the last time I thought about this are all coming back to me.

Massage therapy business cards--the reasonably priced, not totally custom-designed ones you can order on the internet, that is--seem to fall into one of a few categories.

There are ones with cartoon (female) therapists working on cartoon (female) clients, which are often quite cute and well-designed and sort of retro, but they're very girly. Then there are ones with pictures of hot stones or aroma therapy bottles or other spa-like accoutrements, which also are, well, sorta girly. My own perception is that you're kind of cutting out half your possible clientel with either of these, because I think a male person is going to look at a business card like that and file it mentally under "female stuff."

Then there are the Asian themed ones, with yin yang symbols or Buddhas and such. Many of these are also very attractively designed. My problem is that that may be all well and good if you are actually practicing an Asian modality like shiatsu or tuina, but I don't. It seems like it would be somehow misrepresenting my work, even if the wording on the card made it clear that I practice Western bodywork. Plus, if you aren't practicing an Asian modality, you'd be using what are cultural and/or religious symbols just because they look cool. Which seems wrong to me, and disrespectful. (Yes, I do have a kanji tattoo. Shut up.)

Finally there are the really lame sort of New Age-y waterfalls and rainbows and other "peaceful" imagery. That's not me, either, and doesn't really represent how I feel about my work.

What I really like is something like these: http://www.poshbetty.com/pbBizCardsInfo.php
especially options 4 or 1. Something that looks good, kinda stylish and a little funky (like your therapist), but doesn't scream "only fer wimmins!" But it has fuck-all to do with bodywork.

So, my market research questions are thus. Do you think the graphic on the card needs to be something associated with the service? Should a massage business card look "massage-y"? Do you think the card should suggest anything about the personality or philosophy of the service provider and tenor of their work? Does the design of someone's business card or other promotional materials have anything at all to do with whether you would book with them? Would anything about the design of someone's card totally turn you off?

xoxo

totally wasted opportunity

Do you know what the lolcats are? (If not, the rest of this entry isn't going to make much sense. Deal.) I go on icanhascheezburger pretty much every day, and I make my kid look at the ones that I find particularly funny if he happens to be in the same room, and forward them to his e-mail if he's not. You guys well know I have never claimed to be anything but easily amused.

Anyway, last night I was down on my yoga mat and Evil Kitty came upstairs to see what I was doing. I was in a spinal twist, lying on my back with my knees going in one direction and my head in the other and my arm extended over my head. And, as I've mentioned, I do yin yoga where I hold each pose for five minutes to loosen up my fascial restrictions, yo. So when Evil Kitty comes over and starts head butting me and licking my bare arm, I don't move. I also try hard not to laugh, 'cause I don't think that's particularly helpful for my fascia, but it's a losing battle. Finally she sits down on top of my shoulder and extended tricep and makes herself comfortable, pressing me down into the mat.

And it occurs to me that if only I had one of my family members standing by to capture this on, y'know, digital film, I'd have a perfect lolcat.

"Facilitated stretching...ur doin it rong."

That's probably only funny if you're a massage therapist or a personal trainer, though, right?

xoxo

another quickie baseball note

No, I am not here to complain, lament, or even comment about the last three games. Nor am I here to discuss how Mr Ortiz and Mr Ramirez couldn't get any runs home in the ninth inning last night, as much as it pained me. I'm not even here to excoriate one Julio Lugo, even though that would possibly/probably/definitely please Mr Barma. (I will say the day he starts getting called Jjjjoooolio in my house is fast approaching.)

What I am here to do is register a protest about just how much I hate that that team in Tampa Bay is now called the "Rays." What? Did they have a bunch of devils complaining that their former nickname was culturally insensitive? If not, what purpose does this name change serve? I mean other than aggravating me for reasons that are fairly opaque even to me.

And, I swear, last night during the game Don and Jerry called them "the Rays" approximately 10, 648 times. They didn't say "Tampa Bay" once. Okay, maybe once. Or twice. But not often. I know that's probably because they were trying to train their brains so they wouldn't spend the rest of the season slipping up and saying "Devil Rays", but it was pissing me off. (Maybe it wouldn't have pissed me off so much if my Manny hadn't struck out in the top of the ninth, but I said I wasn't going to talk about that.)

Tampa Bay, you're on notice. Change it the fuck back.

xoxo

general hospital

I always joke about how on these medical TV shows, everyone is always having sex in the med closets, etc, and how despite having worked in healthcare my entire adult life, I have never seen evidence of such behavior. And it's a sad, sad disappointment.

Well. One of my friends at work, who is putatively retired but still does work for us here and there, just asked me if I had heard that So-n-so had been fired. I had not. For what? I asked. Apparently, for having sex. In the hallway. With his secretary. To add insult to injury, not only hadn't I heard about that, but I also was sadly ignorant of the fact that So-n-so had also, previously, had an affair with someone who used to work *in my very own department*. And that when she used to disappear for awhile in the afternoons, she was with him.

Ahem. I guess I just do not walk down the right hallways in this place.

Also, other people are having far more exciting work days than I.

I take it back. General Hospital is not just a pack o' lies.

xoxo

praise

Before I start, can I just say that "praise" is one of those words where the longer you look at it, the more weird and misspelled it appears? No? Okay. Down to business.

While I was just eating my lunch, I was reading a blog about promoting healthy self-esteem and preventing eating disorders in young girls and keeping them from wanting to be objectified or sexualized or something. And while I am all in favor in preventing eating disorders and promoting self-esteem and keeping objectification and sexualization within the province of those who are old enough to know what they're choosing, one of the little pieces of advice given seemed off to me. It was suggested that you only praise girls for such things as their kindness and intelligence, not for being pretty or "other superficial qualities."

I guess one of my problems with this is that praising someone for their intelligence is the same thing as praising them for their beauty. It's not something you have any control over; the genetic lottery just came up in your favor. So why is one fair game to be positively commented on and the other isn't? Well, obviously, because the blog writer's bias is that we should only care about brains, not appearance.

Which leads me to my next problem with this. That's not how society works. That's never been how society works. Standards of physical appearance may have varied widely between cultures and over history, but there's never been a culture on Earth that didn't have one. So, to totally ignore a young girl's appearance while praising her for every other positive attribute she possesses isn't apt to instill a healthy body image in her. She's going to think you aren't praising it because there's nothing nice you can say. (Trust me, I've been a girl. I know this shit.)

I've heard alternately, that what you should praise in kids is their accomplishments only. And I have a problem with that, too. I got lots of praise as a kid and as a young woman for getting good grades and winning awards and such, but really? I knew that those things came super easy for me and weren't really an accomplishment. I didn't dislike being praised for them, of course, and I did take some pride in them, but even when I was pretty young, I was aware that for some people, getting a C was more of an accomplishment than my getting an A.

So, my philosophy? I think you ought to praise kids for everything positive you see in them. Praise them when they do a kindness. Praise them when they get a good grade. Praise the way they draw or run or sing. Tell them they have a smart brain and pretty hair and they look nice in their new dress-up clothes. It's all good.

xoxo

day late, dollar short

This is what I would've blogged yesterday had I had the chance. Just pretend it's topical, 'k?

One of the best parts of taking public transportation is reading over people's shoulders, especially if they are reading a publication you would never in a million years buy yourself. Yesterday on my way to work, the guy in front of me was reading the Herald. The headline was: Jury Backs ER in Unnecessary Rectal Exam Suit.

First of all, bwah. And are you telling me the verb "backs" was an accident? I think not.

Unfortunately I was too far away to read anything but the headline without my glasses, because it was just a hunch, but I was fairly sure my Globe would not have a half-page story on this matter when I got around to reading it. And I was right. Anyone want to fill me in on the details of the unnecessary rectal exam? I feel like it might be something I need to know.

xoxo

my fascia

...says hi to your fascia.

I had a whole session of myofacial work done today (my first time!) and then, when I got home, my Mass state license was in the mail. $225 for a piece of flimsy cardboard, not even laminated, but I guess that's just the way it goes.

Marathon Monday? Nah. Massage Monday!

xoxo

"shine a light"

So, Mr Indemnity convinced me to go see this movie at the IMAX this afternoon. Okay, so I didn't need that much convincing, though I will say we both had some trepidation about a 40 foot high Keef. This led to much only-partially-facetious pre-theater discussion about whether it would be better to eat before or after, and if the experience would require any extra caffeine or ingestion of alcohol.

(For the record, we went with paninis beforehand, and split the difference on the rest: I had caffeine and sugar, Mr Indemnity had "plumb" brandy.)

Anyway, a few random thoughts on the movie--

1) Mick's face is wrecked, but seriously? I would still trade abs with him.

2) I was deeply, deeply disappointed that they PC'd up "Some Girls." If Mick effin' Jagger can't sing "black girls just want to get fucked all night", who the hell can?

3) Does Jack White always look that young? Or only when he stands next to Mick? If so, does that mean if I stand next to Keith, I'll look like an embryo?

4) I would happily go the rest of my life without hearing "Sympathy for the Devil" ever again. It's reached "Stairway to Heaven" status, where the cliche factor overwhelms any coolness the song ever had. On the other hand, I can still listen to--or better yet, watch--Mick do "Satisfaction", a song that was written if not when I was still in diapers pretty damn close to it.

That is all.

xoxo

and now for something (almost) completely different

Two strip club notes!

The other day I saw a Golden Banana truck. The Golden Banana is, for those of you uninitiated, a venerable North Shore strip club. I have tried for two days to imagine just why they would need a big giant truck like that, but to no avail. I mean, I hardly think it was filled with 459, 877 pasties and/or g-strings. But what do I know?

Secondly, I rented Gone Baby, Gone and I noticed an egregious error of fact that somehow flew right by me during the theatrical experience. Casey Affleck is being brought by his buddy the drug dealer to the home of the two really ugly cokeheads where the escaped pedophile is supposedly hiding out. On being told that they're going to Everett, Casey snarks something along the lines of, "What? No good parties in Lynn?" and HBTDD snarks back, "This is going to be even better than strip clubbin' in Lynn."

Please. Despite it being Lynn, Lynn, City of Sin, there are no strip clubs within city limits. If you wanna see chicks take their clothes off (um, for money) you must go to Revere. Do they do no fact checking at all? Does Dennis Lehane know nothing about what's on this side of the Tobin?

It's just sad.

xoxo

more fun on the prison bus

We haven't done "overheard cell conversations" in here for a long time, have we? Well, this morning's was a classic.

Gentleman sitting behind me, having a long catch-up with an old friend. The conversation touches on such benign topics as how he lost thirty pounds just by walking everywhere, his application for SSDI and why his psychiatrist thinks he'll never successfully return to his previous line of work, and how his 83 year old mother recently stopped driving solely because she couldn't afford the car repair and how she's now going stir-crazy because she hates hanging out with the other old people. Then this:

"I've got really severe GERD--acid reflux. It's so bad they prescribe me pain medication for it. I don't take it though. It's money in my pocket. That's half my month's rent right there. We've got this nice apartment in a really good neighborhood..."

Okay. Is there any possible other way to interpret that besides "I sell my painkillers for a tidy profit"?

I remain completely amused at how readily the riders of the prison bus admit to their felonies in public.

xoxo

21 years, 364 days, and 23 hours ago

...a very awesome person was welcomed into the outside world at St Margaret's Hospital in fabulous Dorchester, a little squished and forcep-marked, but absolutely beautiful.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

xoxo

color confusion

Okay. I have a friend who insisted to me that his car is brown when quite obviously to me, it is gray. As supporting evidence he offered up whatever color name the manufacturer gave it, and I was like, "I don't care. They can call it what they want, but it's gray." And then I really didn't give it any further thought.

Until yesterday. I have a newish purse which is a distressed gunmetal color, sort of a non-shiny silver. Last night, D asked me if I had an Altoid, and I told him they were in my bag, but that he'd have to dig for them, because they were probably at the bottom. So, my silver bag was inside my tote bag, and I could see him, from where I was, kind of cursorily look in the silver bag and then start looking in the tote. "No," I said, "they're in that silver bag. You just need to take some stuff out."

He looked at me, totally flummoxed. "What bag?"

"That one. The silver one. The smaller one."

He looked at me again, this time even more confused. "This one? That's not silver. That's brown."

Seriously, do men see gray/silver as a different color than women do? Does it all look brown to you guys? Or am I the one with a problem here?

xoxo

let us pause

...to un-mock Mr Lugo. And praise Manny.

Oh, I'm glad I stayed up to watch this. And now I'm going to bed. So if anything untoward happens in the bottom of the ninth, I'll be blissfully unaware of it until tomorrow.

xoxo

and a shopping note

I went to the Anthropologie store on Boylston today, the one with the big room o' sale, and I got an $88 olivey green cardigan for...wait for it...$9.95. Also an $88 black blouse for $19.95. I also got a $69 Max Studio top at Filene's Basement for $39.99. So, yay, bargains.

I still haven't bought any pants for work, though. In case you've been wondering.

xoxo

quickie baseball note

I know I'm a day late, but did you see Papelbon strike out A-Rod last night after the two+ hour rain delay? (And after the goddamned Fox announcers, whom the off-season has not dulled my hatred of, went on and on and on about how getting up and down and warming up twice was bad for Pap and how A-Rod was definitely going to have the advantage. No. A-Rod was not going to have the advantage because he is, as we all well know, a big choker, and Papelbon is not.) Anyway, if you didn't see it, it was a thing of beauty.

And, also, how funny is it that Fox was apparently much more afraid of the wrath of the NASCAR watchers, than of the wrath of Red Sox/Yankee fans? And what does that say about American society today? I hasten to add that I mean funny as in peculiar, not funny as in amusing, since I did in fact miss the last out, not being able to locate FX among the gazillion satellite channels we get in time. And I was not amused.

xoxo

relationship advice

Clicking on links, as you do, I came across a forum where one can ask for counsel about one's love life from various random strangers throughout America and, indeed, the entire English speaking world. One of the questions posed was this: "How do I make a guy want more from me than just sex?"

I admit to being absolutely fascinated about this on several levels, and since I'm doing laundry and the Sox are presently in a rain delay, you get to hear about it.

My first point of fascination is that the answer to the question as posed is so self-evident I can't see there could be any debate about it. Namely, answer, you don't. You can't. It is impossible to "make" anyone do anything or feel anything. But if we all believed that, the relationship gurus would be out of business and I would not have, upstairs on a bookshelf, a tome entitled How to Make Anyone Fall in Love With You. (It was a very misguided Christmas present a few years ago. Shut up.)

So then we get a lot of people who do believe you can "make" someone have feelings for you or who just don't have much in the way of reading comprehension, chiming in with suggestions to make the guy wait, "don't give up the milk for free", and other similar pieces of charming advice. Well, stupid people, that will not make a guy want more from the young woman in question than sex, though it may cause guys who only want sex to stop calling. Which was not what she asked for, but whatever. What fascinates me about this is that people, in 2008, are still advocating withholding sex as a relationship tactic. Seriously?

Sex as a weapon. Yup, that's how healthy, functional romantic partnerships are formed. Plus, y'know, we all know wimmins don't want, need, or like sex, and it's something we do just to trap men. Sigh.

Then we have the people who suggest the young woman plan dates in public places where they do fun and interesting things, not just go back to her place and boink. Well, you know, that may indeed give her the opportunity to do some things she wants to do with the dude in question, but I fail to see how it's going to "make" him want to do stuff with her (rather than suffering through it in hopes some later boinking is in the offing.) Again, reading comprehension, reading com-pre-hen-sion.

Just one person--one!--gave basically the advice I would have: that though you cannot make anyone have any particular feelings for you, what you can do is be the kind of fascinating, fun, great-to-be-around person who attracts people who want to be with you in bed and out of bed. Have something to offer besides your genitalia. Duh.

(I would so totally write one of those relationship-advice self-help books, if only I thought my long history of failed romances would play better on the book jacket. Maybe I could just hire me a devoted husband to accompany me on the book tour!)

xoxo

it does occur to me

...that the other thing I should be embarrassed about admitting in the previous post is that I subscribe to EW. But c'mon now. You people know you wouldn't believe it for a nanosecond if I claimed my coffee table was covered with issues of The Economist or The Paris Review, so who would I be kidding?

It also occurs to me that actually it's neither the scowl nor the facial scruff that makes Mr Laurie as House more sexeh than Mr Laurie in previous TV shows. I think it's that he's one of those rare people who gets better looking as he ages.

And finally, what with all the cross-talk about young looking MDs, I would be remiss in not mentioning that if your doctor is in Massachusetts and you are deeply suspicious that s/he looks as if s/he should still be attending high school and flipping burgers at MickeyD's on the side, you can go to this website: http://profiles.massmedboard.org/MA-Physician-Profile-Find-Doctor.asp
and find out indeed what year s/he purportedly graduated from med school and thus an approximate age.

It'll also tell you about any malpractice suits lost and criminal convictions. If, you know, you're worried.

xoxo

and in a different magazine

I got my EW today, which, hallelujah, it usually never comes on Friday. Anyway, there's a little snippet about Hugh Laurie, reminding us he was a big TV star in Britain for 20 years or whatever before becoming House. As you may know, I am a big fan of House. Not the show, with the ludicrous medical information contained within making my head explode every time I attempt to watch it, but the character. I think Mr Laurie is ridiculously good-looking and his crankiness as House is quite hot (hey, we cranky people have to stick together). In fact, I once hotlisted someone almost entirely because he used House as his avatar. I should probably be embarrassed to admit that, but whatever.

Well, in this EW snippet they have pictures of Mr Laurie in his other roles and...not so hot and not so good-looking. And I am perplexed. Is it the beard he has now that makes him drool-worthy? Or is it the scowl?

Hmmmm.

xoxo

in the mags

So, I learned a couple things from a woman's magazine today.

"Canadian researchers recently found that women are more than twice as likely as men to have sexual dreams about celebs." I kind of laughed to myself when I read that because, as those of you who have been following my emotional life for some time may remember, back in the fall of 2006 I was convinced I had completely and permanently lost my sex drive and that I would never have a sexual thought again. And then I had that amazingly erotic dream about Anthony Kiedis licking my stomach (in a hotel anteroom) and I woke up thinking, "Yeah, baby! I'm back!" So I am a data point in favor of this being, y'know, plausible. The fact that this is explained by the contention that we all feel like we know celebs closely and personally and women like to have sex with people they feel they know intimately, perhaps not so plausible. I'm excited grant money is being spent on answering these crucial questions, though.

Secondly, "a healthy portion of potato is about half of one, baked." Now, I have at least a couple of male friends who when eating with me often remark that I don't eat much. I disagree, but I mention it to underscore that I don't have some incredibly huge appetite. And even I know that half a baked potato is not a friggin serving. C'mon now. This is exactly the kind of crap these quack nutritionists push on women, who then eat these incredibly tiny and unrealistic amounts of calories, which leads to a.) their metabolisms slowing down and b.) binge eating, because you can only go so many days or weeks eating a half a baked potato and a 3" by 4" piece of baked chicken and calling it dinner before you're eating a pint of Haagen Daz in front of the freezer at 10 pm. I don't care, it's crap like this that's causing the "obesity epidemic." Well, that and high fructose corn syrup.

xoxo

the psych update

So D had to go see the new psychiatrist for the second time today, and in the on-the-good-side-of-week's-ledger, she must have had cancellations, because even though we were twenty minutes or so early, she took us right in and we were out the door for home before it was even our appointment time. And it must have been casual Friday at the clinic, because she was wearing jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt with a ruffle at the neck. Above and beyond freaking cute. She looked 15. (And, yeah, I do know it's a sign of my advanced age that now I am saying about doctors who aren't even residents "she looks like a baby!")

In other good news, D told her that now he was going to have a new therapist, and though he was feeling nervous about it, he was going to try it out. This after I didn't even nag him about it last night, just said (once!) that it was something he really needed to do. I cannot tell you how much this both makes me happy and emphasizes to me that he is in fact an adult now. A very young adult, due to the life experiences he has missed and the trauma his frontal lobes have taken from the disease, but an adult nevertheless. Every time he takes responsibility for himself and his recovery, I am heartened.

xoxo

oh

It's been a good news/bad news sort of week.

On the bad news side: My taxes are so effed up that I may have to wave a white flag, file for an extension, and call in an actual professional to deal with this mess. The display on this, my beloved and much abused laptop, suddenly developed a big black splotch halfway down on the right side this evening, portending I suppose its eventual demise. D, after being without a therapist for six months, finally got a letter from the clinic assigning him to a new one, but has informed me that he doesn't wish to go now. The Red Sox.

On the good news side: The weather was lovely today and now I'm positive it's spring. April is one of the twice-yearly ET cash-in months at work, so I'll be getting an extra chunk of money. I spent an exceptionally pleasant day off yesterday relieving some of my stress. The Red Sox.

And some things in life are just outside the whole good news/bad news continuum. Some things, like the absolutely fresh and feta-covered chicken kabob salad I ate for lunch or patients who are double-booked but don't really require all that time or handsome men who remember to stretch their hamstrings and psoas, aren't good or bad. They're perfect.

xoxo

okay!

Now we can talk about the Red Sox again.

I think Dice K (whom my dad calls "K9" at least 85% of the time, but I'm not supposed to make fun of old men who are losing it, so forget I spoke) is going to have an excellent year.

I am somewhat at a loss about what I'm going to do if JD Drew continues to perform, because *then* who will I hate with every fiber of my being? I mean, certain of the relievers show promising hateability, as they will, but you really need to show me Gagne-esque levels of game-blowing before I cross over to the state of absolute loathing that Mr Drew has inspired in me just by breathing in a Red Sox uniform.

Even though Tuesday is my early day, I didn't get home from work in time to see Buckner throw out the first pitch. I'm sure it will be replayed on local news approximately 4,938 times in the next twenty four hours, so I suppose it's no great loss. I did catch Steven Tyler singing "God Bless America" which leads naturally to the question "why?" For the love of the sweet crying baby Jesus, why?

Did you read the article in today's Globe about World Series rings and the history thereof? If not, I suggest you do because it was interesting. And I said so.

That is all.

xoxo

you'll notice

We have not talked about my Red Sox in here all week. There is a reason for this.

Sob.

xoxo

strange foreign models

So, word is Naomi Campbell was arrested again, this time for allegedly spitting on a police officer when an airline lost her luggage. I guess the anger management classes they sentenced her to last time didn't really take.

Huh.

Maybe she should start blogging. I hear it's a wonderful outlet.

xoxo

strange foreign products

Okay. I'm in my office. There is always food here. If it's not being proffered to us by representatives of evil drug companies or bestowed on us by our kind patients, the secretaries are out buying it, because seriously, those chicks eat all day long. Well, I just noticed that there's this bag of...something...on top of a filing cabinet.

There's a cartoon bear in a chef's hat on the package, and all the writing, every bit of it, is in Polish. Next to the bear, there are also pictures of triangular shaped brown things and of a fruit I might believe is possibly a plum. I'm thinking these are perhaps chocolate covered prunes, which are more than likely an Eastern European delicacy, but absent any ability to read Polish, I'm scared to find out. Where the hell is the ghost of my dead grandmother when you need her?

I'd also be curious to know why chocolate covered prunes would be in this office, but that's probably the least strange thing that's happened here this week.

xoxo

it's amazing

A lot of the time I don't answer my phone. I answer it only when I recognize the caller and they're someone I really actually feel like talking to at the time. Those two occurrences coincide less than one might expect, unless of course you realize I rarely feel like talking to anyone. Then the scarcity is totally predictable.

Anyway, the only other time I answer is when I'm kind of taken by surprise. I did that just a few minutes ago. I had someone coming up to my door to deliver something just at the same moment my cell started to ring, and I answered it without looking. Well, it was someone I might just as happily have let go to voicemail, especially since I didn't call her back after she left me a message yesterday. Totally innocuous conversation, predicated on "just calling to see how you're all doing..." until the caller lets drop a remark that lets me know she's heard through the extended family/friend grapevine something I consider none of her business really.

And it's amazing. I am on the one hand mildly pissed off, but not surprised, at the gossipy bunch of busybodies involved in spreading this little bit of news--it had to go through 3 people to get to the caller, I know the chain--and on the other, I am cracking up that these people have so little else to think and talk about that this minor piece of gossip is, y'know, actually interesting to them.

My god, if they only knew the real dirt. Someone's head might actually explode.

xoxo

pushing to other addicts

Oh, hi.

I'm still alive, without any broken typing fingers, and not suffering from new onset aphasia. While I've had a few fleeting thoughts of things to blog about over the past few days, it's been a busy week, and when I've had the energy to write, I haven't had the time, and vice versa. Blah blah excusecakes.

Be that as it may, this morning in work I had a little patient who was in residential care and who was brought to the appointment by a staff member. I happened to be wearing my Romika leopard print calf hair clogs and said staff member complimented them and asked me what kind they were. (I should have known by the awesome lime green cowboy-ish boots she was wearing that she was a fellow aficionado of the funky shoe.)

"Romika!" she said. "I'm 51, and when I was in my late 20s/30s and my kids were young, I lived in San Francisco and I walked everywhere, up and down the hills. I used to wear Romikas all the time. Those were the most comfortable shoes ever. But I haven't seen them anywhere since. Where do you buy them around here?"

"Actually, I don't..."

And thus was another shoe junkie turned on to the wonder that is Zappos.

Hey, after they came through by e-mailing me when my size in the black Kork-Ease came back into stock and overnighting them to me for free, they deserve all the business I can throw them. In fact, I think you should stop reading and go buy some shoes or boots or sneakers or sandals or a purse right now. Go on.

xoxo