xoxo
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
dribble of consciousness
Or, things I've been thinking about.
1.) I was telling Mr Barma a story last week, an aside of which is that my dad's crony has a son who has been in prison for many years now because back in the 80s, he supplied drugs to some girl who may have been his girlfriend or just some chick he was boning or wanted to bone (I forget) who promptly OD'd, and instead of taking her to the ER, he panicked, let her die, and hid the body. Eventually leading to his being convicted of manslaughter or perhaps second degree murder. Something like that. Anyway, you hear that kind of thing all the time: the woman who drove home with the pedestrian she struck stuck in the windshield and just...left the car in the garage, the prodomme on the South Shore who allegedly had the client die in session and just dismembered and dumped the body, etc etc. Time and time again, people end up getting in way waayyyyy more trouble than they would have otherwise because they panic and don't take responsibility for their part in someone's death or injury. Have you ever wondered what *you* would do? I like to think I would be smart (not to say brave) enough to do the right thing immediately but then I think of how seductive avoidance has been in less serious circumstances, particularly when I've been in a bad place with anxiety and depression (bills you have no idea how you're gonna pay? don't open them! leaving them for a couple months always makes things better, right? haha), and it kind of scares me that I could do something heinous like that. How about you?
2.) There was this guy I knew when I was young, Paul P. Friend of friends of my future ex-husband. Paul P, who was in a shitty, shitty band that my friend R sang in briefly, had curly blond long 80s rocker hair, and every women I knew, including myself, who ever saw this guy thought he was hot with a capital HO. He was also kind of an abusive bastard to his girlfriend, including I think, but have no proof of, physically, but since I didn't like her anyway and my moral sense was not so highly developed when I was twenty, that was of no consequence to me. Anyhow. One day Paul P cut all that hair off and...no longer hot. It was like Samson. All the power was in The Hair. I find that amazing.
3.) In a somewhat related 80s rocker note, I was reminded today of the fact that Billy Squier is very indirectly responsible for all my current sexual satisfaction, which is even stranger than Paul P losing his mojo when he cut off his hair.
4.) I am trying to cut back to washing my hair every other day to keep the new color in and also because I think my tragic, tragic dry ends are going to be better served with less washing, but it is hard. I hear tell of other people who wash only like once a week and just rinse and condition the other days, and while I think that that would be actually good for me, it kind of skeeves me.
Why is 75% of this post hair-related? I.don't.know.
xoxo
1.) I was telling Mr Barma a story last week, an aside of which is that my dad's crony has a son who has been in prison for many years now because back in the 80s, he supplied drugs to some girl who may have been his girlfriend or just some chick he was boning or wanted to bone (I forget) who promptly OD'd, and instead of taking her to the ER, he panicked, let her die, and hid the body. Eventually leading to his being convicted of manslaughter or perhaps second degree murder. Something like that. Anyway, you hear that kind of thing all the time: the woman who drove home with the pedestrian she struck stuck in the windshield and just...left the car in the garage, the prodomme on the South Shore who allegedly had the client die in session and just dismembered and dumped the body, etc etc. Time and time again, people end up getting in way waayyyyy more trouble than they would have otherwise because they panic and don't take responsibility for their part in someone's death or injury. Have you ever wondered what *you* would do? I like to think I would be smart (not to say brave) enough to do the right thing immediately but then I think of how seductive avoidance has been in less serious circumstances, particularly when I've been in a bad place with anxiety and depression (bills you have no idea how you're gonna pay? don't open them! leaving them for a couple months always makes things better, right? haha), and it kind of scares me that I could do something heinous like that. How about you?
2.) There was this guy I knew when I was young, Paul P. Friend of friends of my future ex-husband. Paul P, who was in a shitty, shitty band that my friend R sang in briefly, had curly blond long 80s rocker hair, and every women I knew, including myself, who ever saw this guy thought he was hot with a capital HO. He was also kind of an abusive bastard to his girlfriend, including I think, but have no proof of, physically, but since I didn't like her anyway and my moral sense was not so highly developed when I was twenty, that was of no consequence to me. Anyhow. One day Paul P cut all that hair off and...no longer hot. It was like Samson. All the power was in The Hair. I find that amazing.
3.) In a somewhat related 80s rocker note, I was reminded today of the fact that Billy Squier is very indirectly responsible for all my current sexual satisfaction, which is even stranger than Paul P losing his mojo when he cut off his hair.
4.) I am trying to cut back to washing my hair every other day to keep the new color in and also because I think my tragic, tragic dry ends are going to be better served with less washing, but it is hard. I hear tell of other people who wash only like once a week and just rinse and condition the other days, and while I think that that would be actually good for me, it kind of skeeves me.
Why is 75% of this post hair-related? I.don't.know.
xoxo
more kulture
Are we up for some movie reviews? Oh, sure we are.
First of all, My Favorite Wife, 1940, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. This is, let us be clear, one of those screwball romantic comedies in which the whole plot and every comedic opportunity revolves around someone behaving in a way that no real person ever would. In this specific case, Cary Grant is unable to bring himself to tell his new wife that his old wife (Irene Dunne), who was shipwrecked for seven years and declared legally dead, is back and very much alive. Okay, that's ridiculous but whatever. You go into watching this type of movie expecting that, no?
What really threw me out of my suspension of disbelief is that Irene Dunne comes back from her seven years of being shipwrecked on a South Pacific island as pale and peaches n' cream as the day she left. Please. The woman was not marooned with a vat of sunscreen or a convenient canopy to hide beneath between 9 and 4. I kept looking at her and thinking she ought to be really, really tanned/sunburned. (That's not even taking into consideration that when she arrives back at her former home dressed in men's sailor clothes apparently provided by the crew of the Portuguese freighter that rescued her she's also wearing a full face of perfectly applied makeup. Who *knew* those sailors were into the lipstick?) Yeah, yeah, I'm overthinking again. Gotcha.
Then there's the 1940 movie code-enforced sexual prudery that necessitates dancing around certain plot points. The judge, annulling the second marriage, asks Bride #2, "Kissless?" Apparently you couldn't use the word "consummated" in a 1940s movie even though every adult member of the audience knew what was really being asked. Oy. Then there's the whole subplot about Cary Grant being jealous of the (Johnny Weismuller-, Tarzen-, George of the Jungle-like) hunk Irene was marooned with. She denies that anything happened between them and I'm thinking, well, it's proven (by the two little tiny children she left behind) that she was a young, healthy, fertile woman when she was shipwrecked. If I were her, I'd be bringing up in my own defense that, hey, if I were hooking up with this guy for the past seven years, don't you think I'd have gotten knocked up at least once or twice? I mean, unless there was also a barrel of condoms on that island along with the vat o' sunscreen. But you couldn't touch that line of reasoning in a 1940 movie either. Sigh.
Not that I'm totally trashing this film. Both Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are very charming and it has its funny parts. The judge who both declares Irene dead at the beginning of the movie and annuls the second marriage toward the end in particular is fairly hilarious and steals the scenes he's in. So, y'know, enjoy it and don't dissect it. (Oops, too late.)
Okay, secondly, Blow Up, 1966. Premise: famous fashion photographer in swinging mod London accidentally photographs a murder in a park and tries to figure out what happened. This is a very, very slow movie. There are whole lonnnnnggggg scenes devoid of any dialogue in which the guy is just staring at his blown-up photographs. (In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't actually finished watching this. Maybe it picks up.) My bigger problem is, I don't know what I'm supposed to feel about this guy. Am I supposed to think he's the douchiest douche who ever douched?, because really, yeah. He's incredibly rude to, and dismissive of, the women who model for him, and he forcibly strips/indecently assaults a couple of young girls who are hanging around his studeo trying to be discovered (but it's okay! because they end up liking it and having a three-way with him). Or, in the cultural context of 1966, would I be expected to see him as an arrogant but cool, hip, happenin' kind of guy and not a complete slimeball? It's really hard for me to get into a film when I don't know if what I feel about the protagonist is what the writer/director is expecting me to feel. It changes the whole meaning of the film, y'know? On the plus side, this is a beautifully filmed movie and the hair and clothes are fabulous.
Finally--and I can admit this because Mr Barma already admitted it publicly--Twilight, 2008. Oh, what to say, what to say. First of all, as I may have already observed, I'm sure the auditions for this movie consisted of "ok! show me a brooding expression!" because 90% of this movie consists of various characters giving each other Meaningful Looks. Then there's the whole "sparkly vampire" thing, which they don't even do well. And the ridiculous baseball game. And the whole psychosexual subtext of OMG, you smell so good, I can barely keep from eating you, but I lurrrvvvve you, so I won't. Even though if I did, we could be together forevah. (Wha? Huh?) Though, as I may have already also observed, I would have been ALL OVER THIS SHIT when I was fifteen. I can't even tell you. And now I have this semi-scary urge to go read the books because the cheesetasticness is so delicious. Don't worry. I won't tell you all about it if I do.
Okey dokey. That is all!
xoxo
First of all, My Favorite Wife, 1940, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. This is, let us be clear, one of those screwball romantic comedies in which the whole plot and every comedic opportunity revolves around someone behaving in a way that no real person ever would. In this specific case, Cary Grant is unable to bring himself to tell his new wife that his old wife (Irene Dunne), who was shipwrecked for seven years and declared legally dead, is back and very much alive. Okay, that's ridiculous but whatever. You go into watching this type of movie expecting that, no?
What really threw me out of my suspension of disbelief is that Irene Dunne comes back from her seven years of being shipwrecked on a South Pacific island as pale and peaches n' cream as the day she left. Please. The woman was not marooned with a vat of sunscreen or a convenient canopy to hide beneath between 9 and 4. I kept looking at her and thinking she ought to be really, really tanned/sunburned. (That's not even taking into consideration that when she arrives back at her former home dressed in men's sailor clothes apparently provided by the crew of the Portuguese freighter that rescued her she's also wearing a full face of perfectly applied makeup. Who *knew* those sailors were into the lipstick?) Yeah, yeah, I'm overthinking again. Gotcha.
Then there's the 1940 movie code-enforced sexual prudery that necessitates dancing around certain plot points. The judge, annulling the second marriage, asks Bride #2, "Kissless?" Apparently you couldn't use the word "consummated" in a 1940s movie even though every adult member of the audience knew what was really being asked. Oy. Then there's the whole subplot about Cary Grant being jealous of the (Johnny Weismuller-, Tarzen-, George of the Jungle-like) hunk Irene was marooned with. She denies that anything happened between them and I'm thinking, well, it's proven (by the two little tiny children she left behind) that she was a young, healthy, fertile woman when she was shipwrecked. If I were her, I'd be bringing up in my own defense that, hey, if I were hooking up with this guy for the past seven years, don't you think I'd have gotten knocked up at least once or twice? I mean, unless there was also a barrel of condoms on that island along with the vat o' sunscreen. But you couldn't touch that line of reasoning in a 1940 movie either. Sigh.
Not that I'm totally trashing this film. Both Irene Dunne and Cary Grant are very charming and it has its funny parts. The judge who both declares Irene dead at the beginning of the movie and annuls the second marriage toward the end in particular is fairly hilarious and steals the scenes he's in. So, y'know, enjoy it and don't dissect it. (Oops, too late.)
Okay, secondly, Blow Up, 1966. Premise: famous fashion photographer in swinging mod London accidentally photographs a murder in a park and tries to figure out what happened. This is a very, very slow movie. There are whole lonnnnnggggg scenes devoid of any dialogue in which the guy is just staring at his blown-up photographs. (In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't actually finished watching this. Maybe it picks up.) My bigger problem is, I don't know what I'm supposed to feel about this guy. Am I supposed to think he's the douchiest douche who ever douched?, because really, yeah. He's incredibly rude to, and dismissive of, the women who model for him, and he forcibly strips/indecently assaults a couple of young girls who are hanging around his studeo trying to be discovered (but it's okay! because they end up liking it and having a three-way with him). Or, in the cultural context of 1966, would I be expected to see him as an arrogant but cool, hip, happenin' kind of guy and not a complete slimeball? It's really hard for me to get into a film when I don't know if what I feel about the protagonist is what the writer/director is expecting me to feel. It changes the whole meaning of the film, y'know? On the plus side, this is a beautifully filmed movie and the hair and clothes are fabulous.
Finally--and I can admit this because Mr Barma already admitted it publicly--Twilight, 2008. Oh, what to say, what to say. First of all, as I may have already observed, I'm sure the auditions for this movie consisted of "ok! show me a brooding expression!" because 90% of this movie consists of various characters giving each other Meaningful Looks. Then there's the whole "sparkly vampire" thing, which they don't even do well. And the ridiculous baseball game. And the whole psychosexual subtext of OMG, you smell so good, I can barely keep from eating you, but I lurrrvvvve you, so I won't. Even though if I did, we could be together forevah. (Wha? Huh?) Though, as I may have already also observed, I would have been ALL OVER THIS SHIT when I was fifteen. I can't even tell you. And now I have this semi-scary urge to go read the books because the cheesetasticness is so delicious. Don't worry. I won't tell you all about it if I do.
Okey dokey. That is all!
xoxo
Sunday, March 29, 2009
quick hit
I firmly maintain that I have no control-freak tendencies at all. However, my son just helped me put away groceries and despite his asking "what cabinet do you want this in?" whenever he wasn't sure, I totally had to go back and rearrange where on the shelves he put things.
There is something wrong with me.
That is all.
xoxo
There is something wrong with me.
That is all.
xoxo
Saturday, March 28, 2009
more rain boots
I found the koi ones! Nordstrom online has them.
Then there's these tattoo-themed ones.
Both of these are almost twice as much as the skull ones I posted yesterday. Are they almost twice as cute? I don't know! What to do, what to do.
xoxo
Then there's these tattoo-themed ones.
Both of these are almost twice as much as the skull ones I posted yesterday. Are they almost twice as cute? I don't know! What to do, what to do.
xoxo
is this true?
Do you think this describes me? (Seriously, in only 5 minutes, my patient will be here and I'll go do some work. I promse.)
Your results are in! You are...
The Peach Random Gentle Love Master (RGLM)
Playful, kind, and well-loved, you are The Peach.
For such a warm-hearted, generous person, you’re surprisingly experienced in both love and sex. We credit your spontaneous side; you tend to live in the moment, and you don’t get bogged down by inhibitions like most women your age. If you see something wonderful, you confidently embrace it.
You are a fun flirt and an instant sweetheart, but our guess is you’re becoming more selective about long-term love. It’s getting tougher for you to become permanently attached; and a guy who’s in a different place emotionally might misunderstand your early enthusiasm. You can wreck someone simply by enjoying him.
Your ideal mate is adventurous and giving, like you. But not overly intense.
Your results are in! You are...
The Peach Random Gentle Love Master (RGLM)
Playful, kind, and well-loved, you are The Peach.
For such a warm-hearted, generous person, you’re surprisingly experienced in both love and sex. We credit your spontaneous side; you tend to live in the moment, and you don’t get bogged down by inhibitions like most women your age. If you see something wonderful, you confidently embrace it.
You are a fun flirt and an instant sweetheart, but our guess is you’re becoming more selective about long-term love. It’s getting tougher for you to become permanently attached; and a guy who’s in a different place emotionally might misunderstand your early enthusiasm. You can wreck someone simply by enjoying him.
Your ideal mate is adventurous and giving, like you. But not overly intense.
Friday, March 27, 2009
friday wrap-up and linkorama
1.) Is it wrong that I just want to wear yoga pants every single day now? It's a step up from actual sweatpants or scrubs. C'mon now.
2.) Okay, is it wrong that we're all out of milk and I'm too lazy to go to the store and get some? Okay, is it wrong that I was earlier at the 7-eleven and didn't buy the milk, because I had too much damn stuff to carry already, like the can of coffee from CVS, that only *I* will partake of? I'm giving back my Gandhi card.
3.) If you saw the following linked elsewhere on the interwebs today, my apologies. However, if you haven't, you will thank me later. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/27/artist-paints-hersel.html
4.) I want rain boots! Do you like these? And, more importantly, do they go with yoga pants?
5.) I'm sick of articles about Facebook and the pitfalls of Facebook. Shut.Up. And even *I* am not self-absorbed enough for Twitter, so how scary must the people who actually do it be?
xoxo
2.) Okay, is it wrong that we're all out of milk and I'm too lazy to go to the store and get some? Okay, is it wrong that I was earlier at the 7-eleven and didn't buy the milk, because I had too much damn stuff to carry already, like the can of coffee from CVS, that only *I* will partake of? I'm giving back my Gandhi card.
3.) If you saw the following linked elsewhere on the interwebs today, my apologies. However, if you haven't, you will thank me later. http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/27/artist-paints-hersel.html
4.) I want rain boots! Do you like these? And, more importantly, do they go with yoga pants?
5.) I'm sick of articles about Facebook and the pitfalls of Facebook. Shut.Up. And even *I* am not self-absorbed enough for Twitter, so how scary must the people who actually do it be?
xoxo
Thursday, March 26, 2009
nonstandard ingredients
The "girls" were ordering lunch today from someplace I've had sandwiches from before, but because I had a muffin for breakfast at like 9:30, I just wanted something light. So I got a Caesar salad.
It arrived with mushrooms on it. Which I had to pick off. Do you not think a person should be able to order a common foodstuff and have it arrive without weird adulterations? Caesar salad: romaine, croutons, cheese, maybe anchovies, Caesar dressing. That's it. No mushrooms. No black olives (which this also had--I like me some olives, but they don't belong in a Caesar salad either, sorry.)
Stop the madness.
xoxo
It arrived with mushrooms on it. Which I had to pick off. Do you not think a person should be able to order a common foodstuff and have it arrive without weird adulterations? Caesar salad: romaine, croutons, cheese, maybe anchovies, Caesar dressing. That's it. No mushrooms. No black olives (which this also had--I like me some olives, but they don't belong in a Caesar salad either, sorry.)
Stop the madness.
xoxo
Monday, March 23, 2009
minty freshness
So, as a result of the container garden post (see comments thereof), Mr Indemnity and I were having a little e-mail exchange this afternoon, my side of which was, basically, "If I get the mint to grow, mojito experimentation *all summer* at my house, woohoo!" and "What's a mint julip, anyway?"
Mr Indemnity, as is his wont, used his amazing google-fu to send me a couple of mint julip links. Wikipedia helpfully told me that in a mint julip, the mint leaves should be "only lightly bruised." Mr Indemnity, as is also his wont, told me I was a sick, sick individual for finding that extremely amusing.
I protest! Highly! Tell me you don't think it's hilarious. C'mon now.
xoxo
Mr Indemnity, as is his wont, used his amazing google-fu to send me a couple of mint julip links. Wikipedia helpfully told me that in a mint julip, the mint leaves should be "only lightly bruised." Mr Indemnity, as is also his wont, told me I was a sick, sick individual for finding that extremely amusing.
I protest! Highly! Tell me you don't think it's hilarious. C'mon now.
xoxo
not so ringing endorsement
I walk into our reception area and one of my co-workers says, "Andrea!"
"Yes?"
"Did you dye your hair?"
"I did."
"I can tell. It looks darker." Pause. "It looks nice, though."
I think, from my many years of experience, that that's girl-speak for "oh, what the fuck did you do to yourself?"
I think it looks kinda awesomely shiny myself, plus I'm really, really sick of having to touch up my roots every three weeks or so, so darker (i.e. nearer to my now-natural color) is better. I do know, however, in my grad pics from 2007, which is the last time my hair was this dark, I looked awfully tired and old. So the jury is out.
In another not-so-ringing endorsement, I bought a couple two-packs of the seamless microfiber underwear I like from Target last week, and out of the four pairs, one is significantly smaller than the other three. WTF? I mean, I know this is cheap garbage and you get what you pay for, but do they have *no* quality control? Are those little underaged sweatshop workers that bad at their jobs? Sigh.
xoxo
"Yes?"
"Did you dye your hair?"
"I did."
"I can tell. It looks darker." Pause. "It looks nice, though."
I think, from my many years of experience, that that's girl-speak for "oh, what the fuck did you do to yourself?"
I think it looks kinda awesomely shiny myself, plus I'm really, really sick of having to touch up my roots every three weeks or so, so darker (i.e. nearer to my now-natural color) is better. I do know, however, in my grad pics from 2007, which is the last time my hair was this dark, I looked awfully tired and old. So the jury is out.
In another not-so-ringing endorsement, I bought a couple two-packs of the seamless microfiber underwear I like from Target last week, and out of the four pairs, one is significantly smaller than the other three. WTF? I mean, I know this is cheap garbage and you get what you pay for, but do they have *no* quality control? Are those little underaged sweatshop workers that bad at their jobs? Sigh.
xoxo
Sunday, March 22, 2009
admissions, embarrassing and otherwise
1.) Right now, even as I type, they are advertising Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp on VH1Classic, and if I had more money than sense, plus could leave my dad unattended for a considerable amount of time, I would *completely* sign up for this and go sing with Steven fucking Tyler. Which is possibly the saddest vacation ambition anyone has ever had, especially for someone like me who can neither sing nor play any musical instruments, plus when they did the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp episode on the Simpsons, it was hilarious because who even knew such a thing was real? Plus, has Steven Tyler spent *all* his money on drug relapses and divorces such that he has to degrade himself with this? Can't he just borrow some money from Liv?
2.) Also on VH1Classic, I was just treated to 1980s Madonna, and I must say, she was once an attractive and normal-looking woman.
3.) The reason I am sitting on my loveseat in my pajama pants watching VH1Classic with my laptop on my stomach is that I have so much frigging stuff to do today, none of which I actually want to do, so lazy procrastination seems like the way to go. Maybe I should either make another pot of coffee and/or suck down one of the energy shots that are on my kitchen table and get really, really caffeinated, so that I am psyched! psyched, I tell you! to do the mounds of laundry, disgusting cleaning, and Andrea-grooming tasks that really need to be completed today. On the other hand, an overly caffeinated Andrea is usually not a good thing. It's a dilemma. If it were really the 80s like it is on VH1, I could do some lines. Oh, I kill myself.
4.) Now 1980s Bowie is on VH1 and I'm getting...distracted. I really need to switch to CNN or something or else nothing's getting done today.
5.) On a more serious note, in the interwebs surfing portion of this morning's procrastination-fest, I came across a discussion of (trashing of) some famous contemporary artist I'd never heard of. She apparently is known for impressionistic portraits of well-known people, which a lot of people apparently think are kinda soulless, as well as technically not so good. (But she's famous, so someone likes her.) Anyway, to get to the point, and I do have one, one of the portraits that were being trashed in this discussion was one of Eminem, and looking at that picture made me tear up. Oh, god, let me explain. In certain photos of Mr Mathers, he has a striking resemblance to D. Or, how D used to look. For instance, when 8 Mile came out, there was a spread in EW in which Em looked exactly like D, except that D was still a teenaged boy then and Em was a grown man in his late 20s, and it was like looking at a future portrait of D, like what he would look like when he came into his total filled-in adult face. If that makes sense. Except now that D has his adult face, that's not what he looks like at all. He looks like, and it breaks my heart to say it, someone who is mentally ill. Fat from the antipsychotics, and fairly unkempt because he just doesn't take care of his grooming like he used to. It's incredibly shallow and disgusting of me to even care, but that picture of Eminem made me tear up because it reminded me how handsome my son used to be, and it seems like just another thing he's lost to this fucking disease. I dunno. It's the least of his problems, right? But it's just another little minor heartbreak for me.
Okay! Enough silliness and enough maudlin crap. Gonna go bathe and get productive.
xoxo
2.) Also on VH1Classic, I was just treated to 1980s Madonna, and I must say, she was once an attractive and normal-looking woman.
3.) The reason I am sitting on my loveseat in my pajama pants watching VH1Classic with my laptop on my stomach is that I have so much frigging stuff to do today, none of which I actually want to do, so lazy procrastination seems like the way to go. Maybe I should either make another pot of coffee and/or suck down one of the energy shots that are on my kitchen table and get really, really caffeinated, so that I am psyched! psyched, I tell you! to do the mounds of laundry, disgusting cleaning, and Andrea-grooming tasks that really need to be completed today. On the other hand, an overly caffeinated Andrea is usually not a good thing. It's a dilemma. If it were really the 80s like it is on VH1, I could do some lines. Oh, I kill myself.
4.) Now 1980s Bowie is on VH1 and I'm getting...distracted. I really need to switch to CNN or something or else nothing's getting done today.
5.) On a more serious note, in the interwebs surfing portion of this morning's procrastination-fest, I came across a discussion of (trashing of) some famous contemporary artist I'd never heard of. She apparently is known for impressionistic portraits of well-known people, which a lot of people apparently think are kinda soulless, as well as technically not so good. (But she's famous, so someone likes her.) Anyway, to get to the point, and I do have one, one of the portraits that were being trashed in this discussion was one of Eminem, and looking at that picture made me tear up. Oh, god, let me explain. In certain photos of Mr Mathers, he has a striking resemblance to D. Or, how D used to look. For instance, when 8 Mile came out, there was a spread in EW in which Em looked exactly like D, except that D was still a teenaged boy then and Em was a grown man in his late 20s, and it was like looking at a future portrait of D, like what he would look like when he came into his total filled-in adult face. If that makes sense. Except now that D has his adult face, that's not what he looks like at all. He looks like, and it breaks my heart to say it, someone who is mentally ill. Fat from the antipsychotics, and fairly unkempt because he just doesn't take care of his grooming like he used to. It's incredibly shallow and disgusting of me to even care, but that picture of Eminem made me tear up because it reminded me how handsome my son used to be, and it seems like just another thing he's lost to this fucking disease. I dunno. It's the least of his problems, right? But it's just another little minor heartbreak for me.
Okay! Enough silliness and enough maudlin crap. Gonna go bathe and get productive.
xoxo
Saturday, March 21, 2009
veggie tales
You'll be happy to know that, like me and all other right-thinking individuals, President Obama does not like beets. That's right up there with butternut squash, turnips, and cooked spinach as one of the few vegetables I will not eat. (And I'll make an exception for cooked spinach if it's chopped up and buried in lots of ricotta in a calzone or lasagna.) According to the news, Mr Obama just said no to beets in the new White House vegetable garden.
I would very much like to grow a container garden this year on my sunny back deck and follow my Commander-in-Chief's example. Especially since our neighbor over the fence who leaves us bags of garden tomatoes when the harvest is in is almost as old as my dad and has already had a carotid endarterectomy, so who knows if he'll be planting this year? I like to browse the Burpee catalogue wistfully and pretend I am someone who could grow all those lovely vegetables and flowers. But, sadly, while I am good at nurturing people and animals, when it comes to the vegetable kingdom, there isn't a plant in existence that I cannot manage to kill with my black thumb. So instead of vegetable gardening being a thrifty recessionista activity, with me it would go like this: buy potting soil, buy containers, buy seeds and/or seedlings, buy MiracleGro, watch everything die, die, die, and say goodbye to about $100.
On the other hand, I do have a wild patch of chives in my backyard, because once you plant those, they come back every year and spread, spread, spread. So if you wanna make potato salad, I'm your girl! But other than that, it's farmer's market, supermarket, kindness of neighbors. Sigh.
xoxo
P.S. Spellcheck is telling me calzone is not a word. Are they crazy?
I would very much like to grow a container garden this year on my sunny back deck and follow my Commander-in-Chief's example. Especially since our neighbor over the fence who leaves us bags of garden tomatoes when the harvest is in is almost as old as my dad and has already had a carotid endarterectomy, so who knows if he'll be planting this year? I like to browse the Burpee catalogue wistfully and pretend I am someone who could grow all those lovely vegetables and flowers. But, sadly, while I am good at nurturing people and animals, when it comes to the vegetable kingdom, there isn't a plant in existence that I cannot manage to kill with my black thumb. So instead of vegetable gardening being a thrifty recessionista activity, with me it would go like this: buy potting soil, buy containers, buy seeds and/or seedlings, buy MiracleGro, watch everything die, die, die, and say goodbye to about $100.
On the other hand, I do have a wild patch of chives in my backyard, because once you plant those, they come back every year and spread, spread, spread. So if you wanna make potato salad, I'm your girl! But other than that, it's farmer's market, supermarket, kindness of neighbors. Sigh.
xoxo
P.S. Spellcheck is telling me calzone is not a word. Are they crazy?
Friday, March 20, 2009
awesome new bus conversation
This just happened on my way home and I could not wait (could.not.wait.) to report in.
Two Target employees, a young woman and a young man, board the bus. The young woman sits directly behind me. The guy asks her, in a kinda joking-but-not-really way whether it's cool if he sits with her. She says okay, but then goes on to totally shut him down, meeting all his conversational attempts with either one word answers or barely veiled sarcasm, the way young women will do when they're pissed at a guy. NOT THAT I'D KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. Ahem.
He catches on. "Are you mad? C'mon. Talk to me."
She says something quiet that I can't quite catch.
He says, "I just think the age thing will be a problem. Don't you?"
"No."
"It's ten years. When you're thirty, will you want to be with someone who's 40?"
"I don't see the difference. I'm twenty now and I want to be with someone who's thirty." Which, score one for her, because really, as we all know, the age difference becomes less, not more, important as you age. Anyway, at this point, I *think* I've got this all figured out: she's mad because he's suggesting her relationship isn't gonna work out, and he's suggesting her relationship isn't gonna work out because he totally wants in her pants. I am so totally wrong.
"Well, what do you want? What do you want to happen?" he asks.
And she says in a very quiet, very sad voice, "I just want to stay with you."
My heart breaks a little for her.
Oh, honey, I want to tell her, don't be so sad. This loser is 30? He sounds like a not very bright or mature 22 year old, frankly. And if you want an older man, I'm sure you could probably find one who has a more promising career than, y'know, working the register at the Tarzhay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But we were at my stop and I really don't dispense advice to the lovelorn unless asked.
"I just want to stay with you." Awwwwwww. It's killing me.
xoxo
Two Target employees, a young woman and a young man, board the bus. The young woman sits directly behind me. The guy asks her, in a kinda joking-but-not-really way whether it's cool if he sits with her. She says okay, but then goes on to totally shut him down, meeting all his conversational attempts with either one word answers or barely veiled sarcasm, the way young women will do when they're pissed at a guy. NOT THAT I'D KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT. Ahem.
He catches on. "Are you mad? C'mon. Talk to me."
She says something quiet that I can't quite catch.
He says, "I just think the age thing will be a problem. Don't you?"
"No."
"It's ten years. When you're thirty, will you want to be with someone who's 40?"
"I don't see the difference. I'm twenty now and I want to be with someone who's thirty." Which, score one for her, because really, as we all know, the age difference becomes less, not more, important as you age. Anyway, at this point, I *think* I've got this all figured out: she's mad because he's suggesting her relationship isn't gonna work out, and he's suggesting her relationship isn't gonna work out because he totally wants in her pants. I am so totally wrong.
"Well, what do you want? What do you want to happen?" he asks.
And she says in a very quiet, very sad voice, "I just want to stay with you."
My heart breaks a little for her.
Oh, honey, I want to tell her, don't be so sad. This loser is 30? He sounds like a not very bright or mature 22 year old, frankly. And if you want an older man, I'm sure you could probably find one who has a more promising career than, y'know, working the register at the Tarzhay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
But we were at my stop and I really don't dispense advice to the lovelorn unless asked.
"I just want to stay with you." Awwwwwww. It's killing me.
xoxo
things and stuff
1.) Be glad I did *not* end up dismembered and littered in green plastic trash bags along the side of some local road this morning. It coulda happened. (Getting to work extremely early on Friday mornings continues to be, shall we say, "an adventure." And not the kind we prefer to write about here.)
2.) For the first time since I started acupuncture in December, I had a major anxiety attack the other night. I had been quite tempted to cancel Marcy for next week, because I'm really busy in and out of work, but now I guess I shall keep my appointment.
3.) M2 and I were discussing our...tiredness...with the whole breast cancer lobby. It's not as if there are not a whole hell of a lot of other diseases that a.) affect a whole hell of a lot of people and b.) could use publicity and research dollars, but now it's pink ribbons and pink this and that, and we are weary of their (well-organized, I'll grant you) asses getting all the attention. As I pointed out, the tv commercial that really gets to me, is the one where the woman says, "I dream of a world without breast cancer." It always makes me say, aloud, "Yeah and in a world without breast cancer, you're just gonna die of something else. Seriously." Life is fatal. Not that I'm not glad breast cancer is treatable these days or that I would want anyone I know, including myself, to be stricken with it, but you know. I think you know. And, yes, voicing thoughts like that is what's gonna give me the kind of karma that leaves me dismembered in plastic trash bags. I know that too.
4.) Oh, never mind.
xoxo
2.) For the first time since I started acupuncture in December, I had a major anxiety attack the other night. I had been quite tempted to cancel Marcy for next week, because I'm really busy in and out of work, but now I guess I shall keep my appointment.
3.) M2 and I were discussing our...tiredness...with the whole breast cancer lobby. It's not as if there are not a whole hell of a lot of other diseases that a.) affect a whole hell of a lot of people and b.) could use publicity and research dollars, but now it's pink ribbons and pink this and that, and we are weary of their (well-organized, I'll grant you) asses getting all the attention. As I pointed out, the tv commercial that really gets to me, is the one where the woman says, "I dream of a world without breast cancer." It always makes me say, aloud, "Yeah and in a world without breast cancer, you're just gonna die of something else. Seriously." Life is fatal. Not that I'm not glad breast cancer is treatable these days or that I would want anyone I know, including myself, to be stricken with it, but you know. I think you know. And, yes, voicing thoughts like that is what's gonna give me the kind of karma that leaves me dismembered in plastic trash bags. I know that too.
4.) Oh, never mind.
xoxo
Thursday, March 19, 2009
singles
That's what I watched last night. Very lightweight pleasant trifle of a movie, which might have been better had any of the characters been someone I could really give a crap about. I was struck, though, by how much I enjoyed the early 90s nostalgia--the (objectively good) music, the (objectively bad) clothes.
I really have no idea why I'm so fond of that era, considering I was massively clinically depressed throughout most of that time and so very, very lonely--more than now even!--and confused about how my life had gotten to that point with crappy decisions and a rejection of who I really was inside. My neighborhood was getting scarier by the day, my beloved grandmother died, I was afraid of becoming involved with a guy for fear of picking a clone of my ex-husband all over again. And my work life was blighted by this girl (and she was just a girl) that M1 and I had working for us, who was a lying, stealing, sociopathic borderline personality who we gave second chance after second chance to because she was smart and funny and very young and we felt bad for her. Jesus Christ. I even hung out with her outside work on occasion (see: very very lonely) but you can believe I counted the silverware when she left my house.
So, yeah, anyway, why I would love to wear jeans with ripped out knees, a bodysuit, and a flannel while I sit in front of my primitive computer and write dark, dark stories where no happy ending is ever possible, while Soundgarden plays in the background, I don't know! But there you have it. Nostalgia is a funny thing.
xoxo
I really have no idea why I'm so fond of that era, considering I was massively clinically depressed throughout most of that time and so very, very lonely--more than now even!--and confused about how my life had gotten to that point with crappy decisions and a rejection of who I really was inside. My neighborhood was getting scarier by the day, my beloved grandmother died, I was afraid of becoming involved with a guy for fear of picking a clone of my ex-husband all over again. And my work life was blighted by this girl (and she was just a girl) that M1 and I had working for us, who was a lying, stealing, sociopathic borderline personality who we gave second chance after second chance to because she was smart and funny and very young and we felt bad for her. Jesus Christ. I even hung out with her outside work on occasion (see: very very lonely) but you can believe I counted the silverware when she left my house.
So, yeah, anyway, why I would love to wear jeans with ripped out knees, a bodysuit, and a flannel while I sit in front of my primitive computer and write dark, dark stories where no happy ending is ever possible, while Soundgarden plays in the background, I don't know! But there you have it. Nostalgia is a funny thing.
xoxo
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
update
It's amazing how giving someone a massage, having tea and gossip, and then going for a walk on (what I will hazard to call) the first real spring day with a good friend and the nicest dog in the world will do for a person's pissy internet-fueled mood. In other words, I'm much better now.
Did you all have a lovely day too? I can only hope.
xoxo
Did you all have a lovely day too? I can only hope.
xoxo
the fat rant again
On my mail welcome screen this morning, there was a link to a picture of Fergie (the pop singer, not the former British royal) claiming she looked "chubby." I wish I could have captured the photo for you all, but it's in flash and my computer wouldn't let me do it and I'm too technologically stoopid to figure out how to get around that. But let me assure you, Fergie does not look chubby in this picture; she looks like a woman with huge boobs in a tank top and not-supportive-enough bra. Her upper arms next to her huge breasts look like toothpicks. If we can use your malevolent correspondent as a guidepost for chubby, Ms Fergie's arms are probably two inches smaller than mine.
So my rage is engaged. First of all, it goes to show that anyone can have a bad candid photo taken and have it used as "evidence" that OMG, they don't look the same as when they're airbrushed on a magazine cover. Shocker, that. Secondly, what if she really was ten pounds heavier than normal because she's not touring (I have no idea, having zero knowledge of her career) or because, like most of us, it's March and there's winter insulation there? How would her "chubbiness" if it in fact existed be newsworthy? So fucking what.
The only purpose of this media toxicity is to make teenage girls and young women feel bad about their own bodies because they look, or think they look, that "chubby" or ::gasp:: moreso, and obviously if it's being poked fun at in public, it must be something you need to be filled with shame over, OR to make teenage boys and young men even more critical of what a real non-airbrushed woman looks like because obviously if you think Fergie looks hot in that picture and it's giving you a boner, you're wrong wrong wrong and you need to retrain your erotic brain. Or something. Gah.
Then, separately, there was the study that's been in the news about how teenage girls who think they are fat, whether or not they actually are objectively overweight by any standard, are more prone to suicide. And the "brilliant" authors of the study reached the conclusion that this was an example of the obesity epidemic causing more healthcare dollars. What, what? Your research proves that it's the perception of being fat that causes the suicide attempts, not actual obesity, but yet it's still the fat people's fault? Excuse me? How about all the harping about being overweight being the absolutely worst thing that could ever happen to anyone and unrealistic standards of appearance being toxic to young women as a cause for depression, huh? Might that be a little closer to what your study really proves, you stupid stupid fucks?
Okay, I'm done. I'm getting dressed and going out for the day and ignoring the interwebs till I calm the hell down.
xoxo
So my rage is engaged. First of all, it goes to show that anyone can have a bad candid photo taken and have it used as "evidence" that OMG, they don't look the same as when they're airbrushed on a magazine cover. Shocker, that. Secondly, what if she really was ten pounds heavier than normal because she's not touring (I have no idea, having zero knowledge of her career) or because, like most of us, it's March and there's winter insulation there? How would her "chubbiness" if it in fact existed be newsworthy? So fucking what.
The only purpose of this media toxicity is to make teenage girls and young women feel bad about their own bodies because they look, or think they look, that "chubby" or ::gasp:: moreso, and obviously if it's being poked fun at in public, it must be something you need to be filled with shame over, OR to make teenage boys and young men even more critical of what a real non-airbrushed woman looks like because obviously if you think Fergie looks hot in that picture and it's giving you a boner, you're wrong wrong wrong and you need to retrain your erotic brain. Or something. Gah.
Then, separately, there was the study that's been in the news about how teenage girls who think they are fat, whether or not they actually are objectively overweight by any standard, are more prone to suicide. And the "brilliant" authors of the study reached the conclusion that this was an example of the obesity epidemic causing more healthcare dollars. What, what? Your research proves that it's the perception of being fat that causes the suicide attempts, not actual obesity, but yet it's still the fat people's fault? Excuse me? How about all the harping about being overweight being the absolutely worst thing that could ever happen to anyone and unrealistic standards of appearance being toxic to young women as a cause for depression, huh? Might that be a little closer to what your study really proves, you stupid stupid fucks?
Okay, I'm done. I'm getting dressed and going out for the day and ignoring the interwebs till I calm the hell down.
xoxo
Monday, March 16, 2009
you could put an eye out
Over the weekend I read an internet exchange about what people's earliest memories were. I always find this kind of conversation fascinating for the dichotomy of it: some people's first memories are of momentous, traumatic, or otherwise emotionally engaging events and while others' are of completely trivial occasions. Mine, as we shall shortly go into, is of the former type, but I find the other much more interesting. First of all because what is it, neurologically or psychologically, that made someone's brain hang onto *that* particular bit of trivia? Secondly because it seems those types of earliest memories would be more pure and uncontaminated by other people's tellings.
Anyway, my first memory is from when I was two and a half. It was a weekend evening, and my mom had the area rug in our "den"/family room partially rolled up as she'd been cleaning beneath it. I was running back and forth aimlessly as little kids are wont to do, tripped on the edge of the rolled up rug, and fell against the (sharp!) wooden arm of the sofa. (In the sixties, our parents weren't all that big on the concept of "childproofing"; it's a wonder anyone of my generation made it to adulthood, eh?) I hit just at the corner of my left eye, and OMG, blood everywhere.
I remember my dad holding me in his lap while my mom looked at it, and my mom freaking out at how deep the cut was, saying we had to go to the ER, that I probably needed stitches. Being as I was two, my considered opinion on going to the hospital was Do.Not.Want. and I was insisting I was okay, that I just needed to go to bed. I remember being in the room in the ER and the various doctors and nurses asking me, "Did someone do this to you, honey? Who did this to you?" (Which, actually, way to go with the possible-child-abuse awareness in 1965, former Lynn Hospital.) But I remember being kind of mildly pissed like, were they stupid? I already *told* them I fell and hit my head on the sofa and so did my parents, geez. As you can see, my personality was already fully formed.
In discussing this in later years, my mother was convinced that the reason they were so concerned was because, instead of fighting and crying, struggling and screaming, like they expected from a toddler, I was really mellow and passive and resigned, letting them just do whatever they needed to do. That tickles me, too, that even then I was stoic in that kind of situation.
For many, many years, I had a visible scar at the corner of that eye. You can't see it anymore, but if I run a finger across where it was, I can still feel the skin's a little thicker there. I wonder if by the time I'm an old lady (shut up), even that will be gone. Also? If I'd hit my face an eighth of an inch over, my elementary school years would have been much different. Probably not for the better. I mean, we have already established that the pirate eyepatch is the sexiest and most rock 'n roll of all possible accoutrements, but, sadly, you probably can't pull one off when you're a shy little Catholic schoolgirl.
The preceding has been brought to you by our Department of Pointless Anecdotes! You're welcome!
xoxo
Anyway, my first memory is from when I was two and a half. It was a weekend evening, and my mom had the area rug in our "den"/family room partially rolled up as she'd been cleaning beneath it. I was running back and forth aimlessly as little kids are wont to do, tripped on the edge of the rolled up rug, and fell against the (sharp!) wooden arm of the sofa. (In the sixties, our parents weren't all that big on the concept of "childproofing"; it's a wonder anyone of my generation made it to adulthood, eh?) I hit just at the corner of my left eye, and OMG, blood everywhere.
I remember my dad holding me in his lap while my mom looked at it, and my mom freaking out at how deep the cut was, saying we had to go to the ER, that I probably needed stitches. Being as I was two, my considered opinion on going to the hospital was Do.Not.Want. and I was insisting I was okay, that I just needed to go to bed. I remember being in the room in the ER and the various doctors and nurses asking me, "Did someone do this to you, honey? Who did this to you?" (Which, actually, way to go with the possible-child-abuse awareness in 1965, former Lynn Hospital.) But I remember being kind of mildly pissed like, were they stupid? I already *told* them I fell and hit my head on the sofa and so did my parents, geez. As you can see, my personality was already fully formed.
In discussing this in later years, my mother was convinced that the reason they were so concerned was because, instead of fighting and crying, struggling and screaming, like they expected from a toddler, I was really mellow and passive and resigned, letting them just do whatever they needed to do. That tickles me, too, that even then I was stoic in that kind of situation.
For many, many years, I had a visible scar at the corner of that eye. You can't see it anymore, but if I run a finger across where it was, I can still feel the skin's a little thicker there. I wonder if by the time I'm an old lady (shut up), even that will be gone. Also? If I'd hit my face an eighth of an inch over, my elementary school years would have been much different. Probably not for the better. I mean, we have already established that the pirate eyepatch is the sexiest and most rock 'n roll of all possible accoutrements, but, sadly, you probably can't pull one off when you're a shy little Catholic schoolgirl.
The preceding has been brought to you by our Department of Pointless Anecdotes! You're welcome!
xoxo
Sunday, March 15, 2009
color correction
I'm dressed. I have on me exercising clothez, which are basically my regular clothes because--in case you haven't been paying attention--I have been way too cas lately. But anyway, I have on this long sleeved hooded yoga-type t shirt I bought fairly recently, and while I like the style, and it's very comfy, it's this bright teal/aqua blue color and it makes me look like death. The last time I had a shirt this color was approximately twelve years ago and that one made me look like death, too, so why I do not learn from my fashion mistakes, I DO NOT KNOW.
Anyway, I'm trying to decide whether to change into my semi-beloved peace sign gray sweater hoodie, because I look a lot less like death in that. Which is a plus. But I've been wearing that all the time lately and I'm afraid my friends are gonna start rolling their eyes at me like "Do you not own any other clothes, chica? We are sick of that sweater and its possibly faux-ironic statement and would appreciate if you stopped subjecting us to it."
Moral of the story: ummm...I got nothing.
Happy Sunday!
xoxo
P.S. Do NOT hit anyone with your Bentley today. No good can come of it.
Anyway, I'm trying to decide whether to change into my semi-beloved peace sign gray sweater hoodie, because I look a lot less like death in that. Which is a plus. But I've been wearing that all the time lately and I'm afraid my friends are gonna start rolling their eyes at me like "Do you not own any other clothes, chica? We are sick of that sweater and its possibly faux-ironic statement and would appreciate if you stopped subjecting us to it."
Moral of the story: ummm...I got nothing.
Happy Sunday!
xoxo
P.S. Do NOT hit anyone with your Bentley today. No good can come of it.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
god loves me after all
1.) Mr "Julie, Julie, Julie" Lugo has a possible torn meniscus. Thank you, Jesus!
2.) For the first time in seven--that's seven!--months, my period came just when it was supposed to. Thank you, Jesus! (Or, possibly, Marcy.)
3.) My dad, instead of just moaning, whining, and bitching about how much his shoulder is killing him, gave in and let me give him a massage when I got home from work today. I even snuck some arnica on him. Jesus, deliver me from stubborn men, and thank you!
On the other hand, I am still probably going to hell, because every time they start mentioning on the news about how Donte Stallworth hit a pedestrian "with his Bentley," I start giggling uncontrollably. Something about how we just *have to know* what kind of expensive car he was driving when he killed the poor bastard strikes me as absurdly hilarious.
xoxo
2.) For the first time in seven--that's seven!--months, my period came just when it was supposed to. Thank you, Jesus! (Or, possibly, Marcy.)
3.) My dad, instead of just moaning, whining, and bitching about how much his shoulder is killing him, gave in and let me give him a massage when I got home from work today. I even snuck some arnica on him. Jesus, deliver me from stubborn men, and thank you!
On the other hand, I am still probably going to hell, because every time they start mentioning on the news about how Donte Stallworth hit a pedestrian "with his Bentley," I start giggling uncontrollably. Something about how we just *have to know* what kind of expensive car he was driving when he killed the poor bastard strikes me as absurdly hilarious.
xoxo
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
"of course it's a tragedy"
As regular readers will know, we here at The Adventures usually stay very, very far away from politics and controversial societal issues, preferring instead to expend our blogging energies on baseball, bitching, and breasts. And on those rare occasions that we break with our usual editorial policies, we usually live to regret it. However, when our own thought processes turn in a certain direction and then, completely independently, we run across someone somewhere else discussing a germane point (that no one usually says out loud), we take it as permission from the universe to Discuss.
So, here's the thing. When we were discussing the beauteous Ms Cates a couple weeks ago, it brought to mind Fast Times. I saw that movie in the theater when I was 19, enjoyed it immensely, and felt it was a fairly true depiction of high school circa 1980, neither sensationalizing nor whitewashing what it was like to be a teenager in my generation. Then I never saw it again until a couple/few years ago when I rented it, mainly because I wanted D to see it. While I had fond memories of it, entire plot points were lost to me. I totally had forgotten that one of the main characters in the movie has an abortion. Watching it, I was like, whoa, they could never make this movie today, simply because of how that was handled. The only angsting about it is in the fact that the asshole who knocks her up abandons her to deal with the mess herself. There's no "OMG, OMG, what shall I do? I'm killing my baby!" Today, of course, we have to have friggin' Juno (which I liked, btw) wherein a likable young woman can consider getting an abortion but must ultimately reject the idea.
Well. In the late 70s, early-mid 80s (in other words, my high school/college years) I knew--I won't say "a lot" but--several women who had abortions (which of course means I actually knew more, acquaintances or friends of friends whom I wasn't close enough to to know about their medical procedures and personal problems) and lemme say, Fast Times was realistic about that too. While an accidental pregnancy is always stressful and scary, and semi-unpleasant medical procedures are never fun, none of these women had any guilt or angst over aborting and their feelings afterwards were pretty much, "oh thank god that's settled." And lemme also say, not *all* these women were teenagers either; one of my college friends' long-married mom, who must have been the age I am now, if not a bit younger, got unexpectedly pregnant and, seeing that her youngest child was already middle-school-aged and she herself was a bit anxious and depressed (perimenopause without the benefit of acupuncture, I'm betting!), said basically, "Nope, can't do it, can't start all over again." And we all (including her husband apparently) thought, yup, that certainly sounds about right, don't have that baby.
So, thinking about that recently, jogged by our discussion of our Phoebs, I thought to myself, that just proves it, the "pro-lifers" have won, whether abortion is still legal or not, because the stigma and shame, the whole attitude, around it has totally done a 180 in the past twenty-five years. I wonder how many of those women I knew would, in today's climate, choose to continue the pregnancy, whether or not they were mentally and emotionally prepared to raise a baby without fucking the poor kid up for life.
Then yesterday, I happened to read a very excellent point someone made about how, even if you are "pro-choice", you must these days qualify it with "of course abortion is a tragedy" or people look at you in horror. And how that, like I said, means that really, the "pro-lifers" have won. Well, I personally am still stuck in my 1980 mindset, I guess, because I will come out here and say that I don't, myself, feel it's usually a terrible tragedy, that I don't think any of the people I know who terminated pregnancies should have continued them, and that you will never convince me that a non sentient first or early second trimester fetus that cannot survive outside the womb is a human person. Also? The fact that my impulse is to qualify that by saying, "But you know how much I love kids! You know I heart babies!" is also proof the pro-lifers have won.
xoxo
So, here's the thing. When we were discussing the beauteous Ms Cates a couple weeks ago, it brought to mind Fast Times. I saw that movie in the theater when I was 19, enjoyed it immensely, and felt it was a fairly true depiction of high school circa 1980, neither sensationalizing nor whitewashing what it was like to be a teenager in my generation. Then I never saw it again until a couple/few years ago when I rented it, mainly because I wanted D to see it. While I had fond memories of it, entire plot points were lost to me. I totally had forgotten that one of the main characters in the movie has an abortion. Watching it, I was like, whoa, they could never make this movie today, simply because of how that was handled. The only angsting about it is in the fact that the asshole who knocks her up abandons her to deal with the mess herself. There's no "OMG, OMG, what shall I do? I'm killing my baby!" Today, of course, we have to have friggin' Juno (which I liked, btw) wherein a likable young woman can consider getting an abortion but must ultimately reject the idea.
Well. In the late 70s, early-mid 80s (in other words, my high school/college years) I knew--I won't say "a lot" but--several women who had abortions (which of course means I actually knew more, acquaintances or friends of friends whom I wasn't close enough to to know about their medical procedures and personal problems) and lemme say, Fast Times was realistic about that too. While an accidental pregnancy is always stressful and scary, and semi-unpleasant medical procedures are never fun, none of these women had any guilt or angst over aborting and their feelings afterwards were pretty much, "oh thank god that's settled." And lemme also say, not *all* these women were teenagers either; one of my college friends' long-married mom, who must have been the age I am now, if not a bit younger, got unexpectedly pregnant and, seeing that her youngest child was already middle-school-aged and she herself was a bit anxious and depressed (perimenopause without the benefit of acupuncture, I'm betting!), said basically, "Nope, can't do it, can't start all over again." And we all (including her husband apparently) thought, yup, that certainly sounds about right, don't have that baby.
So, thinking about that recently, jogged by our discussion of our Phoebs, I thought to myself, that just proves it, the "pro-lifers" have won, whether abortion is still legal or not, because the stigma and shame, the whole attitude, around it has totally done a 180 in the past twenty-five years. I wonder how many of those women I knew would, in today's climate, choose to continue the pregnancy, whether or not they were mentally and emotionally prepared to raise a baby without fucking the poor kid up for life.
Then yesterday, I happened to read a very excellent point someone made about how, even if you are "pro-choice", you must these days qualify it with "of course abortion is a tragedy" or people look at you in horror. And how that, like I said, means that really, the "pro-lifers" have won. Well, I personally am still stuck in my 1980 mindset, I guess, because I will come out here and say that I don't, myself, feel it's usually a terrible tragedy, that I don't think any of the people I know who terminated pregnancies should have continued them, and that you will never convince me that a non sentient first or early second trimester fetus that cannot survive outside the womb is a human person. Also? The fact that my impulse is to qualify that by saying, "But you know how much I love kids! You know I heart babies!" is also proof the pro-lifers have won.
xoxo
Monday, March 9, 2009
things that please and displease me
1.) When I go to Gulu Gulu and order a hot chocolate with a shot of Bailey's, they charge me only for the Bailey's, even though the hot chocolate is very fancy with real whipped cream and chocolate dustings and all. This pleases me. Also, the adorable little waitress there yesterday (not ours) who was wearing what looked like a vintage spandex minidress from 1988 with lace tights and little pointy-toed flats, an outfit I may have totally rocked myself when I was her age. And she didn't even have to have the embarrassing 80s hair to go with, so she wins. See, this is totally the universe's way of giving me pretty-women-in-cool-clothes eye candy to make up for my disappointment in watching old movies that suck. This pleases me as well.
2.) When I went for a walk at the beach with Mr Indemnity to take advantage of the warmish weather and the daylight savings time, I ran for a little bit just because I wanted to and it felt awesome. And I was able to do this even without the benefit of the sports bra because I had a down vest on over my hoodie, keeping everything nicely smooshed down. This pleases me.
3.) Zappos have redesigned their website and it looks aggressively ugly and cheap. Plus it's kind of wonky. Why go from a website that looked fine and worked well to one that is inferior? Plus, I'm sure you paid someone lots of money to make that mess. It defies comprehension. And it displeases me.
4.) There is apparently some kind of black hole or portal to another dimension in my house into which things fall and never are seen again. I bought some deep conditioner a month or so ago, used it twice or maybe three times, then used a sample of another deep conditioner they gave me at Aveda, which was only enough for a couple usages, and when I went to look for conditioner #1, it is no longer in my bathroom, no matter how hard I look. How does a bottle of conditioner just vanish? I do not carry it around with me, take it to work or on little outings so it can visit its old friends at the CVS. It is a puzzlement. It displeases me.
That is all. Happy Monday!
xoxo
2.) When I went for a walk at the beach with Mr Indemnity to take advantage of the warmish weather and the daylight savings time, I ran for a little bit just because I wanted to and it felt awesome. And I was able to do this even without the benefit of the sports bra because I had a down vest on over my hoodie, keeping everything nicely smooshed down. This pleases me.
3.) Zappos have redesigned their website and it looks aggressively ugly and cheap. Plus it's kind of wonky. Why go from a website that looked fine and worked well to one that is inferior? Plus, I'm sure you paid someone lots of money to make that mess. It defies comprehension. And it displeases me.
4.) There is apparently some kind of black hole or portal to another dimension in my house into which things fall and never are seen again. I bought some deep conditioner a month or so ago, used it twice or maybe three times, then used a sample of another deep conditioner they gave me at Aveda, which was only enough for a couple usages, and when I went to look for conditioner #1, it is no longer in my bathroom, no matter how hard I look. How does a bottle of conditioner just vanish? I do not carry it around with me, take it to work or on little outings so it can visit its old friends at the CVS. It is a puzzlement. It displeases me.
That is all. Happy Monday!
xoxo
Sunday, March 8, 2009
trashing the classics again
I am very very behind on the reviews and I guess I have to accept the fact I'm just not going to get to all of them. This just proves I could not do this for a living, because whether something is really good or really horrific, I just can't always be arsed to organize my thoughts about it and present them in an amusing fashion. Well, maybe if I were getting paid. I dunno. Cash is a good motivator.
Anyway. Last night I attempted to watch my latest Netflix, How to Marry a Millionaire. I wasn't expecting much: just a light, fluffy comedy with eye-candy (Marilyn and Lauren and pretty clothes, right?) to pleasantly pass a post-work, exhausted Saturday evening. I should have known I was in big trouble when the first five minutes of the movie were a band playing the most incredibly insipid orchestral music imaginable, none of which had anything to do with the following plot. Seriously, if this is the crap people had to listen to in 1953, it's no fucking wonder rock music was invented.
And it's all downhill from there. I can ignore my distaste for the fact that we're supposed to be rooting for these gold-digging women. It was a different time. I cannot ignore my distaste that they're actually stealing, selling off the contents of the furnished apartment they're renting. Conscience-less larceny is cute? Excuse me? (Okay, I admit, George Clooney gets a pass in Ocean's Whatever, but a caper movie about professional criminals pulling off a big clever heist is different than a bunch of bimbos having no qualms about stealing other people's stuff in a quest to trick some poor assholes into being their gravy train forever more. It's NOT CUTE.)
Then the interminable jokes about Marilyn being blind without her glasses on, but her being too vain to wear them around men. Oy. The first time she walks into something is mildly funny; the 8th time in half an hour? Not so much. Besides which, while I know there was apparently no Sexy Librarian meme in 1953, making a beautiful woman in glasses just that much more sexy, c'mon now. She's Marilyn Monroe. Do we really think no one would give her a second glance if she wore her damn glasses?
And in further disappointment, I hated all the clothes. I guess that's just me. I'm finding, I guess, that unlike the thirties, some of the forties, and the sixties, the sartorial choices of the 1950s in the old flicks leave me really cold. While I want the entirety of, say, Nora Charles' or Holly Golightly's wardrobes, there's nothing in this movie I'd wanna wear. Which is, I guess, sort of a shame, with me being built nothing like Audrey Hepburn or Myrna Loy. Ah, well.
I fell asleep probably less than half way through the movie. I just couldn't take any more. I will, however, probably try to finish it tonight or tomorrow. Maybe it gets better! Ha!
xoxo
Anyway. Last night I attempted to watch my latest Netflix, How to Marry a Millionaire. I wasn't expecting much: just a light, fluffy comedy with eye-candy (Marilyn and Lauren and pretty clothes, right?) to pleasantly pass a post-work, exhausted Saturday evening. I should have known I was in big trouble when the first five minutes of the movie were a band playing the most incredibly insipid orchestral music imaginable, none of which had anything to do with the following plot. Seriously, if this is the crap people had to listen to in 1953, it's no fucking wonder rock music was invented.
And it's all downhill from there. I can ignore my distaste for the fact that we're supposed to be rooting for these gold-digging women. It was a different time. I cannot ignore my distaste that they're actually stealing, selling off the contents of the furnished apartment they're renting. Conscience-less larceny is cute? Excuse me? (Okay, I admit, George Clooney gets a pass in Ocean's Whatever, but a caper movie about professional criminals pulling off a big clever heist is different than a bunch of bimbos having no qualms about stealing other people's stuff in a quest to trick some poor assholes into being their gravy train forever more. It's NOT CUTE.)
Then the interminable jokes about Marilyn being blind without her glasses on, but her being too vain to wear them around men. Oy. The first time she walks into something is mildly funny; the 8th time in half an hour? Not so much. Besides which, while I know there was apparently no Sexy Librarian meme in 1953, making a beautiful woman in glasses just that much more sexy, c'mon now. She's Marilyn Monroe. Do we really think no one would give her a second glance if she wore her damn glasses?
And in further disappointment, I hated all the clothes. I guess that's just me. I'm finding, I guess, that unlike the thirties, some of the forties, and the sixties, the sartorial choices of the 1950s in the old flicks leave me really cold. While I want the entirety of, say, Nora Charles' or Holly Golightly's wardrobes, there's nothing in this movie I'd wanna wear. Which is, I guess, sort of a shame, with me being built nothing like Audrey Hepburn or Myrna Loy. Ah, well.
I fell asleep probably less than half way through the movie. I just couldn't take any more. I will, however, probably try to finish it tonight or tomorrow. Maybe it gets better! Ha!
xoxo
Friday, March 6, 2009
hey again, kids
Oh, there are so very many things I would like to whine and bitch about, but considering that one of my co-workers who is younger than I am had to have quite serious emergency-ish surgery yesterday, and everyone is losing their jobs and losing their houses, and children are starving in Darfur, it probably behooves me to count my blessings instead. Like the fact that the toilet only *almost* overflowed this morning, meaning that I just had to plunge it out at 6 am, not plunge it out and wash the bathroom floor at 6 am. That's a good thing, right?
And like the fact that when I fell on the ice again today, at just about the same place on the hill I wiped out last time, I did not end up bleeding. That's a good thing also, right?, and my own damn fault because I bought the Yaktrax but they're still in the box, plus I was looking at the ice intently and trying to cross it very gingerly when I ended up on my butt, so that level of clumsiness can't be anyone's responsibility but my own.
And like the fact that when one bus didn't come and the next was twenty minutes late, making me late for work, the patient who was waiting for me is both 23 and someone I've known since he was six months old, so he was just patiently chillaxing in my waiting room, unconcerned and un-upset. So that's all good, too, right? Right!
So we can skip all that and discuss instead a NYT article I saw linked to yesterday about "glam-mas." Glam-mas are grandmothers who, unlike Mrs Obama's apparently wonderful mother, don't want to help care for or even much get to know their grandchildren. The glam-ma tag being, while arguably clever, misleading, because for every one who doesn't want to babysit because she's too busy going to the spa or going on dates, there's another who doesn't want to babysit because she's too busy with her career or because she just isn't interested in anyone else's kids, even if they are her flesh and blood. One of the women interviewed in the article complained that when her mother came to visit after the birth of her baby, she was bored and made no bones about it, and when the new mother was having trouble nursing and thus distressed, sort of rolled her eyes, said something along the lines of "I don't know why you don't just give that child a bottle," and repaired to the patio to smoke. Which, frankly, is kind of hilarious.
Be that as it may, it must have been a slow day at the NYT Style section when they decided to do an article about this and act like it's some kind of new phenomenon. There have always been grandparents who really didn't give a crap. (As one of the comments I saw directed towards this said, "Wait. Doesn't everyone have one Nice Grandma and one Mean Grandma?" Numerous people laughingly agreed, with slight variations like Crazy Grandma and Crazier Grandma.)
But you know what I'm gonna say. I curse the unfairness of the universe when those people get adorable little grandbabies and I do not. I would *so* make time in between going to the spa and dating to rock them to sleep, change them, feed them their parents' nutritionally approved choices, take them to the park, buy them the chicest damn baby clothes you ever saw***, read to them, whatever. Hell, when they're old enough and if of the proper gender, I'd take them to the spa with me and pay for their first pedi. C'mon now.
xoxo
addendum: *** the last time I had lunch with M2, she was showing me the latest picture of her youngest grandchild on her phone and she said, "Can you read what her t-shirt says?" I couldn't. It said Dingo Snack. Hahahaha. I would most definitely buy any future grandchildren or step-grandchildren of mine Dingo Snack t-shirts or the equally snarky equivalent thereof. Promise!
And like the fact that when I fell on the ice again today, at just about the same place on the hill I wiped out last time, I did not end up bleeding. That's a good thing also, right?, and my own damn fault because I bought the Yaktrax but they're still in the box, plus I was looking at the ice intently and trying to cross it very gingerly when I ended up on my butt, so that level of clumsiness can't be anyone's responsibility but my own.
And like the fact that when one bus didn't come and the next was twenty minutes late, making me late for work, the patient who was waiting for me is both 23 and someone I've known since he was six months old, so he was just patiently chillaxing in my waiting room, unconcerned and un-upset. So that's all good, too, right? Right!
So we can skip all that and discuss instead a NYT article I saw linked to yesterday about "glam-mas." Glam-mas are grandmothers who, unlike Mrs Obama's apparently wonderful mother, don't want to help care for or even much get to know their grandchildren. The glam-ma tag being, while arguably clever, misleading, because for every one who doesn't want to babysit because she's too busy going to the spa or going on dates, there's another who doesn't want to babysit because she's too busy with her career or because she just isn't interested in anyone else's kids, even if they are her flesh and blood. One of the women interviewed in the article complained that when her mother came to visit after the birth of her baby, she was bored and made no bones about it, and when the new mother was having trouble nursing and thus distressed, sort of rolled her eyes, said something along the lines of "I don't know why you don't just give that child a bottle," and repaired to the patio to smoke. Which, frankly, is kind of hilarious.
Be that as it may, it must have been a slow day at the NYT Style section when they decided to do an article about this and act like it's some kind of new phenomenon. There have always been grandparents who really didn't give a crap. (As one of the comments I saw directed towards this said, "Wait. Doesn't everyone have one Nice Grandma and one Mean Grandma?" Numerous people laughingly agreed, with slight variations like Crazy Grandma and Crazier Grandma.)
But you know what I'm gonna say. I curse the unfairness of the universe when those people get adorable little grandbabies and I do not. I would *so* make time in between going to the spa and dating to rock them to sleep, change them, feed them their parents' nutritionally approved choices, take them to the park, buy them the chicest damn baby clothes you ever saw***, read to them, whatever. Hell, when they're old enough and if of the proper gender, I'd take them to the spa with me and pay for their first pedi. C'mon now.
xoxo
addendum: *** the last time I had lunch with M2, she was showing me the latest picture of her youngest grandchild on her phone and she said, "Can you read what her t-shirt says?" I couldn't. It said Dingo Snack. Hahahaha. I would most definitely buy any future grandchildren or step-grandchildren of mine Dingo Snack t-shirts or the equally snarky equivalent thereof. Promise!
Thursday, March 5, 2009
people from the past
Through some convoluted chain of thoughts yesterday, I started reminiscing about one of my good childhood friends, circa 4th, 5th, 6th grade, Lisa M. She wasn't my best friend--that would in those years be Debbie L, who had an unfortunate tendency to throw me beneath the train, by, for instance, showing one of my private (and potentially embarrassing) communications to one of the Mean Girls*** in our class, but since we were all like eleven at the time and Debbie L's father was one of the most scarily abusive assholes out there, we won't judge her too harshly, hmm?--but Lisa M and I were tight. We had this whole plan for our future wherein we would publish books that I wrote and she illustrated. She was the first person to whom I confided that I'd gotten my period. We had long, involved, puzzled discussions about sex: we knew theoretically what was supposed to go where, but the mechanics of how exactly two people made that happen was a complete mystery. She was, in short, a cool girl.
Well, at some point, in our elementary school years together, Lisa M's dad sadly died of cancer. And at some point, maybe a year, maybe two years later, her mother, who was a waitress, remarried, to one of her customers. There was a lot of gossip that this occurred "too soon" and speculation that her mother was chatting up, perhaps even dating, this guy before her husband was actually in the ground. I believe my own mother, bless her, was on the side of, "well, if so, who's to say she was wrong, and who's to say her husband didn't encourage her finding someone else once he knew he wasn't gonna make it, her having two little kids to support and all." Anyway, Lisa M's mom did remarry and, since this guy had money, moved Lisa and her sister to Beverly Farms. (North Shore geographical note: "Beverly Farms", where people who live in Beverly, but who have pretensions say they reside. See also, "West Peabody", "Magnolia" and "Bradford".) This was less than ten miles away, but when you are 11, ten miles may as well be one hundred and fifty, y'know? So, though we spoke on the phone on and off for another year, we never saw each other again, and then eventually lost touch altogether.
I think, of all the people from my childhood or adolescence who I don't know what happened to, she is perhaps the only one that I would like to meet again. Did she keep drawing? What does she look like now? Is she still cool and funny and totally trustworthy? Did things work out between her mom and her stepfather? How did she feel about all that?
Thing is, I have no idea what her name is now. She may, of course, have married. Maybe more than once, hey. And even before that, there's the chance she took her stepfather's name. I googled the name I knew her by and found a young black woman in Los Angeles and a woman, more or less the same age as us, from Georgia, who tragically died at 41. So, no luck.
xoxo
***said Mean Girl OD'd on drugs in our 20s, so we won't judge her too harshly either, though she was a fucking bitch
Well, at some point, in our elementary school years together, Lisa M's dad sadly died of cancer. And at some point, maybe a year, maybe two years later, her mother, who was a waitress, remarried, to one of her customers. There was a lot of gossip that this occurred "too soon" and speculation that her mother was chatting up, perhaps even dating, this guy before her husband was actually in the ground. I believe my own mother, bless her, was on the side of, "well, if so, who's to say she was wrong, and who's to say her husband didn't encourage her finding someone else once he knew he wasn't gonna make it, her having two little kids to support and all." Anyway, Lisa M's mom did remarry and, since this guy had money, moved Lisa and her sister to Beverly Farms. (North Shore geographical note: "Beverly Farms", where people who live in Beverly, but who have pretensions say they reside. See also, "West Peabody", "Magnolia" and "Bradford".) This was less than ten miles away, but when you are 11, ten miles may as well be one hundred and fifty, y'know? So, though we spoke on the phone on and off for another year, we never saw each other again, and then eventually lost touch altogether.
I think, of all the people from my childhood or adolescence who I don't know what happened to, she is perhaps the only one that I would like to meet again. Did she keep drawing? What does she look like now? Is she still cool and funny and totally trustworthy? Did things work out between her mom and her stepfather? How did she feel about all that?
Thing is, I have no idea what her name is now. She may, of course, have married. Maybe more than once, hey. And even before that, there's the chance she took her stepfather's name. I googled the name I knew her by and found a young black woman in Los Angeles and a woman, more or less the same age as us, from Georgia, who tragically died at 41. So, no luck.
xoxo
***said Mean Girl OD'd on drugs in our 20s, so we won't judge her too harshly either, though she was a fucking bitch
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
i r a bad feminist
On one of the websites I read fairly frequently, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth yesterday about an Australian newspaper article in which the (female) author asked, "Whatever happened to wifely duty?" and suggested that women, even if not exactly in the mood, suck it up and accommodate their amorous husbands, and that "just doing it" usually leads to more and better sex.
As much as I would like to work myself up into a lather about this and suggest it's advocating marital rape, denying a woman ownership of her own body, that it's not 1950 or 1850, and so forth and so on, I cannot. I ::sob:: agree with it. If there's one thing I really wish I had done differently in my former marriage, one lesson I have learned since, it's that saying "no" too much is really bad for your relationship, specifically the intimacy in your relationship, and that, indeed, if you don't say no and just go with it even if you aren't initially feeling it, you almost invariably end up enjoying yourself.
Okay, you say, that's easy for you to say, Andrea. A low sex drive is not one of your (many and varied) problems. In fact, we your blog readers suspect you're kinda a big slut. Ah, blog readers, I counter, that has not been uniformly true throughout the course of my adult life. In fact, I was just telling a friend this very afternoon that during my pregnancy with D, my husband and I might have had sex once. Perhaps. I had no interest. At all. Did I feel guilty about making the father of my child go basically without for about a year? No. Should I have? Well, um, yeah. Damn right. If p-i-v wasn't on the menu, there's a lot of other things that I should have been happily willing to do to for someone that I reputedly loved. Complete self-centeredness is rarely the right choice.
So, yeah, I r a bad feminist.
Except. I think it absolutely goes the other way too. It's not wifely duty, it's spousely duty. And it's not duty, it's a spirit of openness and care and rejection of rejection towards someone you love. Why is that wrong?
xoxo
As much as I would like to work myself up into a lather about this and suggest it's advocating marital rape, denying a woman ownership of her own body, that it's not 1950 or 1850, and so forth and so on, I cannot. I ::sob:: agree with it. If there's one thing I really wish I had done differently in my former marriage, one lesson I have learned since, it's that saying "no" too much is really bad for your relationship, specifically the intimacy in your relationship, and that, indeed, if you don't say no and just go with it even if you aren't initially feeling it, you almost invariably end up enjoying yourself.
Okay, you say, that's easy for you to say, Andrea. A low sex drive is not one of your (many and varied) problems. In fact, we your blog readers suspect you're kinda a big slut. Ah, blog readers, I counter, that has not been uniformly true throughout the course of my adult life. In fact, I was just telling a friend this very afternoon that during my pregnancy with D, my husband and I might have had sex once. Perhaps. I had no interest. At all. Did I feel guilty about making the father of my child go basically without for about a year? No. Should I have? Well, um, yeah. Damn right. If p-i-v wasn't on the menu, there's a lot of other things that I should have been happily willing to do to for someone that I reputedly loved. Complete self-centeredness is rarely the right choice.
So, yeah, I r a bad feminist.
Except. I think it absolutely goes the other way too. It's not wifely duty, it's spousely duty. And it's not duty, it's a spirit of openness and care and rejection of rejection towards someone you love. Why is that wrong?
xoxo
Monday, March 2, 2009
comments, we get comments
I was talking with someone recently--Mr Indemnity, was it you?--about how the most consistently jaw-droppingly weird comments/replies you could ever think to read are on, of all places, boston.com. It doesn't seem to matter what I read over there, any dip into the commentary is just head-spinning. And I have no idea why. Are these all the same people who used to write crank nutty letters to the editor back in the day when people didn't read the newspaper all online?
Today, for example, I accidentally came across the following (in reply to a question about "Facebook cheating"):
Make no mistake, this is the day and age of the restless married woman. I know 14 men (including myself) between the ages of 38-45 (all with multiple children under the age of 10) and all going through the same mess. We're all married to selfish women who looked in the mirror one morning, saw a few wrinkles and scared themselves into believing there was something better out there - and it seems to be contageous. Forget about respect for themselves or their families, they feel it's better to lie and betray rather than deal with their feelings in a responsible PAXIL FREE way. They have no regard for the real victims - THEIR KIDS. My recommendation - launch her, focus on you and your kids and most of all - move because she's beneath you.
Really, dude? Really??!???
You know *13* other guys who are being cheated on? And have told you about it? Do you belong to some kind of club or support group or something? Or do you just live in the World of Massive Over-share? Maybe I'd believe it more if these mythical lying hussies didn't *all* have multiple children under the age of ten, 'cause that tends to suck the life out of most people's sex drives, n'est pas?, as well as taking up enormous amounts of time that might otherwise be spent on whoring around. And then there's the hilarious all-capped apparent rant against antidepressants. Tom Cruise, is that you? Besides which, Paxil--excuse me, PAXIL--will pretty much suck the life out of most people's sex drives, too, so I don't really imagine all fourteen cheating sluts are on it anyway.
Hoo boy.
But, as god is my witness, this is a wholly typical and representative comment in that venue. Maybe the powers-that-be ought to dose the Quabbin with some prophylactic PAXIL and calm down most of the state.
xoxo
Today, for example, I accidentally came across the following (in reply to a question about "Facebook cheating"):
Make no mistake, this is the day and age of the restless married woman. I know 14 men (including myself) between the ages of 38-45 (all with multiple children under the age of 10) and all going through the same mess. We're all married to selfish women who looked in the mirror one morning, saw a few wrinkles and scared themselves into believing there was something better out there - and it seems to be contageous. Forget about respect for themselves or their families, they feel it's better to lie and betray rather than deal with their feelings in a responsible PAXIL FREE way. They have no regard for the real victims - THEIR KIDS. My recommendation - launch her, focus on you and your kids and most of all - move because she's beneath you.
Really, dude? Really??!???
You know *13* other guys who are being cheated on? And have told you about it? Do you belong to some kind of club or support group or something? Or do you just live in the World of Massive Over-share? Maybe I'd believe it more if these mythical lying hussies didn't *all* have multiple children under the age of ten, 'cause that tends to suck the life out of most people's sex drives, n'est pas?, as well as taking up enormous amounts of time that might otherwise be spent on whoring around. And then there's the hilarious all-capped apparent rant against antidepressants. Tom Cruise, is that you? Besides which, Paxil--excuse me, PAXIL--will pretty much suck the life out of most people's sex drives, too, so I don't really imagine all fourteen cheating sluts are on it anyway.
Hoo boy.
But, as god is my witness, this is a wholly typical and representative comment in that venue. Maybe the powers-that-be ought to dose the Quabbin with some prophylactic PAXIL and calm down most of the state.
xoxo
snoooowwwwww day
About 45 minutes ago I called work to see if anyone had made it in yet, got our little faux-MILF receptionist, and told her, "Fuck it! I'm not coming in." Now, really, I could have been outside at 9 am clearing snow (so my psycho dad wouldn't do it while I was at work), then come back in to shower, then trudged to the bus stop to wait for a bus that might or might not come, only to make it to work to find out my afternoon patients (which is all I have on Mondays) all cancelled, but doesn't "fuck it" sound like the better option? I can't exactly remember the last time I called into work, but I'm pretty sure it was January 2005. Unlike, say, our office manager who was out three days last week with "strep throat" or one of our docs who was out the better part of a week recently with that stomach thing, 'cause she's got so many pre-existing conditions that every virus is an adventure, or everyone else who's always leaving in the middle of the day because daycare/the babysitter/school called. So I refuse to feel guilty.
Except, you know by my saying that, that I do feel guilty. My parents raised me to be Responsible and Reliable and Hardworking (which is a good thing, because given my well-documented natural tendencies towards sloth, can you just imagine the Cheeto-eating, video-game-playing, unemployment-collecting couch dweller I'd be otherwise?) but sometimes I wish I could turn that off at will.
Discuss with me your own moments of "fuck it!" to make me feel better or, alternately, berate me for my obviously shocking irresponsibility and feed my masochism. Either one's good. Kthxbai.
xoxo
Except, you know by my saying that, that I do feel guilty. My parents raised me to be Responsible and Reliable and Hardworking (which is a good thing, because given my well-documented natural tendencies towards sloth, can you just imagine the Cheeto-eating, video-game-playing, unemployment-collecting couch dweller I'd be otherwise?) but sometimes I wish I could turn that off at will.
Discuss with me your own moments of "fuck it!" to make me feel better or, alternately, berate me for my obviously shocking irresponsibility and feed my masochism. Either one's good. Kthxbai.
xoxo
Sunday, March 1, 2009
*now* my day is complete
I've mentioned my also-embarrassing love for Billy Idol's "White Wedding", the video of which I watched approximately 6837 times in college, not always while intoxicated?
Okay, go watch this: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f3ef6b6667/white-wedding-literal-video-version#player
I think I just hurt myself laughing. Sundays really are awesome.
xoxo
Okay, go watch this: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f3ef6b6667/white-wedding-literal-video-version#player
I think I just hurt myself laughing. Sundays really are awesome.
xoxo
what else i want
(Besides, y'know, the Slap Chop.)
I was just lounging in the tub contemplating the universe and my pedicure, which btw is still looking not-so-bad, and I had a brilliant yet untenable idea. What I would really like would be a service like Netflix, but with books. A fabulous middle ground in-between using the library and buying your reading material. Let me explain.
The problem with the library, for me, is that it is convenient neither in terms of location or hours, but more importantly, that there's a time limit on how long you are supposed to keep what you borrow. I know the penalty for late return is extremely minimal, but in moral terms, if you promise to return something in two weeks and you keep it for two months, that's just Not Nice. And sometimes I just want to keep something for two months and digest it slowly (or quickly, but just when I'm in exactly the right mood for it.)
The problem with buying your books, either in the local bookstore or on amazon, is *not* for me, the actual paying for it. Being a writer myself (ha!) I have no problem with authors making at least a pittance for their artistic labors. I in fact heartily support it. My problem with buying books is that then you have them. You can try giving them away to your friends, but all too often they wanna give them back when they're done because they don't have room for them either. You can try to donate them to charity, but that's surprisingly difficult and inconvenient too. You can ::gasp:: toss them, but that's just wrong.
So a Netflix-like service where they conveniently deliver the book you want to your door for a fee, you keep it as long as you damn well please without guilt, and then you send it back, would be perfect. But it would never work. First of all, nobody reads anymore. At least, far far fewer people read books than rent DVDs. Secondly, books are far heavier and more expensive to mail than DVDs, so that would hugely drive up the rental cost, plus, since the postal service won't let you just drop them in a mailbox, every time you wanted to return one you'd have to go to the post office. At which point, convenience-wise, you might as well be going to the library.
Ah, well.
xoxo
I was just lounging in the tub contemplating the universe and my pedicure, which btw is still looking not-so-bad, and I had a brilliant yet untenable idea. What I would really like would be a service like Netflix, but with books. A fabulous middle ground in-between using the library and buying your reading material. Let me explain.
The problem with the library, for me, is that it is convenient neither in terms of location or hours, but more importantly, that there's a time limit on how long you are supposed to keep what you borrow. I know the penalty for late return is extremely minimal, but in moral terms, if you promise to return something in two weeks and you keep it for two months, that's just Not Nice. And sometimes I just want to keep something for two months and digest it slowly (or quickly, but just when I'm in exactly the right mood for it.)
The problem with buying your books, either in the local bookstore or on amazon, is *not* for me, the actual paying for it. Being a writer myself (ha!) I have no problem with authors making at least a pittance for their artistic labors. I in fact heartily support it. My problem with buying books is that then you have them. You can try giving them away to your friends, but all too often they wanna give them back when they're done because they don't have room for them either. You can try to donate them to charity, but that's surprisingly difficult and inconvenient too. You can ::gasp:: toss them, but that's just wrong.
So a Netflix-like service where they conveniently deliver the book you want to your door for a fee, you keep it as long as you damn well please without guilt, and then you send it back, would be perfect. But it would never work. First of all, nobody reads anymore. At least, far far fewer people read books than rent DVDs. Secondly, books are far heavier and more expensive to mail than DVDs, so that would hugely drive up the rental cost, plus, since the postal service won't let you just drop them in a mailbox, every time you wanted to return one you'd have to go to the post office. At which point, convenience-wise, you might as well be going to the library.
Ah, well.
xoxo
1-800-449-7282
Oh, you people who don't get up early-ish on Sunday mornings and put the TV on while you drink your coffee have no idea what you are missing. So I shall tell you! Consider it just another public service of this blog.
Best infomercial-like only-on-tv product evah? The Shoe Skirt! That is--and you can't make this shit up, though obviously some extremely disturbed individual did--a bed skirt with shoe pockets in it which fits under your regular bed skirt, so all your footwear can conveniently be stored hanging from your mattress. Thus freeing up all that extra closet space! You know you want one. (Actually, *I* really want a Slap Chop. Can one of you all buy me one for the next gift-giving occasion? Thx.)
And as a bonus, VH1Classic, in between commercials for things I never knew I needed, just saw fit to show me The Knack playing "My Sharona." Yay! And right now they're showing me David Bowie. Since I would *so* do the 1975 version, the 1985 version, or the 2009 version of David Bowie, this is also stellar.
Sundays are awesome.
xoxo
Best infomercial-like only-on-tv product evah? The Shoe Skirt! That is--and you can't make this shit up, though obviously some extremely disturbed individual did--a bed skirt with shoe pockets in it which fits under your regular bed skirt, so all your footwear can conveniently be stored hanging from your mattress. Thus freeing up all that extra closet space! You know you want one. (Actually, *I* really want a Slap Chop. Can one of you all buy me one for the next gift-giving occasion? Thx.)
And as a bonus, VH1Classic, in between commercials for things I never knew I needed, just saw fit to show me The Knack playing "My Sharona." Yay! And right now they're showing me David Bowie. Since I would *so* do the 1975 version, the 1985 version, or the 2009 version of David Bowie, this is also stellar.
Sundays are awesome.
xoxo
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