off the rack and off the hook

The summer before my senior year in high school (so 1979), rompers were a big fashion trend. Terrycloth ones were particularly the shit. For those of you young people who are now gagging or laughing hysterically, all I can say is, it was 1979. I myself had a yellow terrycloth one my grandmother sewed for me. It was fairly modest as such things went: it covered the top third of my thighs, it had a little polo collar, and the fabric was thick enough that I could wear it without a bra and no one would be the wiser. (It also zipped all the way down the front, which feature endeared it to my future ex-husband, easy access n' all.)

But I also had another romper that was store-bought. It was navy blue, thin cotton jersey trimmed in white. Oh, it definitely needed a bra beneath. But, also, it was short. It barely covered my ass. I am astounded in retrospect that a.) my mother let me wear that out of the house and b.) that as self-conscious about my bulgy Polish catcher's thighs as I was, *I* wore it out of the house. Nevertheless, I did. I liked it. And one summer night, my future ex and I were in Oscos buying god knows what (not condoms, no one used condoms in 1979, yo) at like 9:45, right before they closed. It was hot, and I was wearing that super short romper with (wait for it...wait for it...) the other big fashion fashion trend of that summer: Candies high-heeled slides. I remember turning the corner of an aisle and almost bumping right into one of my high school teachers, and being totally embarrassed that he'd seen me so skimpily and sexily dressed. High school teachers are supposed to stay in their coffins when they're not at school, right?, never mind running around in the real world where you could run into them. Geez.

So, Andrea, what brings up *this* pointless trip down memory lane, and aren't you ever going to run out of boring stories of your youth? No, probably not. And I'll tell you. I was reading an article on jezebel about "trashy" sexy prom dresses being in style, and various commenters, from 18 to 50, chipping in with stories and in some cases pictures of what they wore to prom. And I was thinking, in my day, we wore Gunne Sax and they were not sexy. They might have had spaghetti straps, but they did not show cleavage. Or more than the suggestion of what your butt or boobs looked like underneath.

But, as my romper story reminded me, it wasn't as if we were more demure. It was just that what erogenous zones the fashion world was prompting us to show off were different: you could go to your local teenage-girl clothing store and buy very brief shorts that showcased your entire leg and you could buy spike heeled casual shoes and you could buy tight fitted T-shirts and tube tops that came up to your armpits to show off the shape of your breasts and accent your shoulders, but you weren't going to find tops that actually uncovered cleavage or anything that showed your bare belly. If your cleavage or your belly were better physical features for you than your legs or shoulders, too bad. You could only show off what the styles of the day let you show off.

You never need to worry, however, because fashion is cyclical and ever-changing. You just need to wait five years and whatever looks good on *you* will eventually come back. (This whole dropped-waisted dress and top thing that's being seen in the stores now for the first time since 1988/89 is a good example: you couldn't find in your wildest imaginings anything that looks worse on me, so I've got to just try to mercifully ignore it till it goes away again.)

But I'm not sure that you people with penises are totally cognizant of this fact and how it relates to what you see in the street and in the bars, etc. The other day Mr Barma was trying to get me to admit that I like showing off cleavage, and while it is true that I am not averse to it, especially when it gets the men in the orange aprons to go above and beyond the call of duty to find me the shit I need in Home Depot, it is also true that for the last several years all the V-necked shirts in the stores have been really lowcut and all the summer dresses have been cut to show boob. That's the style. You have to buy what's on the rack if it's at all flattering to you. There have been whole decades of my life when my cleavage never saw the light of day, include decades when it was a lot less freckled and middle-aged looking than it is today, more's the pity. Higher-necked shirts were in vogue, and I had to find other ways to look pretty when I cared to.

I'm just holding out for those palazzo-pant, empire-waisted, long sleeve dressy jumpsuits circa 1994 to come back. I rocked those. And I still have a black one from Express in the back of my closet, waiting for the day.

xoxo

and more crucial decision-making required

Also this morning, I got email enticing me to buy something that I might, unlike several types of body wax, want. See this beautiful bedding? I was thinking of buying it for the summer, since I've been using the same duvet cover for the past year and a half+, the one I bought when I first started doing Boho Paradise over. The problem with it now is that the down comforter inside of it is probably 7 or 8 years old at the very least and it's lost its fluff, plus the down has shifted. I definitely need a new one, but I'm thinking I'll wait till fall for that and have something lighter for the warm weather. Following me?

The problem with buying this beautiful quilt is that the sheets I have used every single night since I bought them together with the duvet cover are a deep gold color. Beautiful with the chocolate brown duvet, not so pretty with a "poppy" quilt. Now, I have to admit that I have, somewhere, cream colored queen size sheets I used to use on my bed. But those gold sheets? If you remember, and even if you don't, they're 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sateen, so thick, so soft, and better with every wash, and now I am fucking completely spoiled. I don't want to go back to using crappy sheets. I'm a princess.

So I was looking at overstock, where the original 800 thread count sheets came from, supah wicked cheap considering, to see if they still had the exact same ones that I could get in cream. And they don't. They have many that are almost the same, and most of them have a good number of excellent reviews with a few "these sheets are crap" thrown in. How one person could say a set of sheets are amazingly soft and another say they're awful and scratchy, and they're the supposed exact same sheets, I dunno. I tend to think the "these sheets are crap" people are the kind of people who are never happy, but I could be wrong.

So, yeah, I have to make a sheet decision before I make a quilt decision. As they say: first world problems! Which, speaking of, I was thinking seriously of donating my whole (or, okay, most of my) federal tax return to charity. Doctors Without Borders keeps sending me things thanking me for giving them money for Haiti, but could they have some more please? And since I'm not going to do the Walk for Hunger this year, I want to send them a hundred bucks or so too. But because April is one of the biannual ET Cash-in months, woohoo!, I can easily buy bedding and donate to the poor.

We'll just ignore that I need a new refrigerator (and dishwasher and hood), a landscaper, a shitload of carpeting which I will never ever be able to afford, some ceilings fixed, kitchen countertops plus a new floor, and and and... <--just in case I haven't whined enough lately about my house! You know you miss it.

xoxo

how do you know it's monday again?

I had an appointment at the PCP's today. Don't ask me why. I am fine. But if I didn't go, when I called next month to get refills on my prescription, they'd give me a hard time. So I sucked it up and went, even though it meant a $15 copay and literally hours of time (between going there, sitting in the waiting room, then sitting in the exam room) just to say, "I'm feeling great!" But now I have clearance to go 6 months before I see them again, woohoo.

However, while my doc was in the room with me (finally!) accessing my records on his laptop, he could not find any results of the labs they drew in January. I know they took blood when I was there in January. Absolutely positive. He made some kind of lame excuse along the lines of "oh, I must have decided it was too soon after they drew you" but let's face it, either someone lost the tube or my results didn't make it into my record. Whatev. Draw me again, I've got the easiest veins in eastern Massachusetts. So his nurse, Denise, came back to do that, apologizing profusely because she knew how long I'd already been there. "I'd have drawn you when I took your blood pressure, but I thought I remembered you having labs recently." Ha! We confirmed that neither of us is hallucinating nor is the perimenopause fucking with our brain functions.

Anyway, her reappearance in the room afforded us a few extra minutes to chat, and therein I learned her Easter plans. She's all excited for the projected lovely weather on Sunday. See, they aren't having an egg hunt in the backyard. No. All the nieces and nephews, not to mention her son, are older. So instead, they're having a nip hunt! I died. I was like, I wanna come to *your* house on holidays. This is a genius idea right up there with M2's Indian food Thanksgiving tradition.

In semi-related holiday news, best Passover wishes to those of you who start observing tonight. I don't know if there's any way to work tiny bottles of hard liquor into a seder, but you probably should brainstorm. There's still time!

xoxo

big ol' glamour DON'T

I saw the ultimate white trash fashion statement just now on the Blue Line, and I was so traumatized by it, I couldn't wait to tell you all about it until I was actually at my own computer. Cue Mr Indemnity: "If you had an iPhone, you could blog anywhere." I'll just go with the old-fashioned 20th century approach of "I gotta borrow your computer! Now!" thanks.

Okay, to the point. Woman with French manicure which, sorry to everyone who I'm about to insult, is at best ghetto-fabulous in the first place. This chick however has kicked it up a notch. Her tips were not white, nor pink. No, they were a dark gunmetal gray, verging on black. Can you visualize it? In case you can't, lemme spell it out: she went to the salon to get her nails painted in such a way that it looks like she has dirt underneath them.

I didn't know that looking like a five year old who's been playing outside in the garden and hasn't washed her hands properly and is about to get yelled at by her mom was a fashion statement. Shows what I know. Sigh.

Okay, carry on with your ownselves.

xoxo

say it

Last night I was talking to a friend on the phone and she said, totally spontaneously and unexpectedly, "I really admire x about you." I was like, wow, thank you, that's so nice of you to say, wow. And she said, "I always think it, but I guess I don't say it. Maybe I'm just feeling sentimental tonight."

And I've been thinking ever since about how often I think nice, positive things about other people that I don't express to them. Just look at the people I work with. I may tell you people what a sweet, kind girl our lil MILF is, but do I come out and say that to her in a serious way? Do I tell Townie Girl that I totally respect the fact that, despite dealing with a painful and debilitating chronic disease for the past 2/3rds of her life, she gets up and comes to work four days a week rather than go on disability, which she certainly could? Have I expressed to my boss often enough that not only is he a fine physician, he's an absolutely stellar human being? Why not? Why do I (we) hesitate to compliment people on things which aren't completely superficial? Why do we hold back from saying what we think? Are we afraid it will make them uncomfortable? Will it make us uncomfortable? Why?

I think that's my next challenge, to myself, and to you all. If you're thinking something nice about someone, look at them and say it. Maybe you'll be embarrassed. Maybe they'll be embarrassed. But in the long run, I think it'll be good. For all of us.

Yeah, yeah, namaste, bitches.

xoxo

in other news

of the non crotch-related variety, I did my taxes last night. Since it isn't even April, for god's sake, this is quite the turn of events. You would think I would feel a huge weight off my shoulders, since you know how much anxiety the whole process induces in me, but no. The adrenaline involved in waiting till April 12th or so and *then* finishing them produces a much bigger high. Apparently. Procrastinators of the world, unite! Sometime. Maybe, y'know, in a few weeks. We'll get around to it, I'm sure...

In other news, I am really really sick of the general public. Had a patient scheduled yesterday who had originally been scheduled Monday, and who had called 20 minutes before her appointment to cancel, because she didn't have a ride. Okay. Not a problem. It was pouring rain, I understand. Yesterday, however, she called half an hour past her appointment time. "Can I come now?" No. No, you may not. You cannot just show up whenever you feel like it. That is why there are little things called "appointments."

Then this morning, I had a little patient who's been treated for head lice since Tuesday. Okay. Thanks for letting me know after I've already been picking through her hair for five minutes, and cue the psychogenic itching, emphasis on psycho. She was not even finished and out the door for two minutes when our lil MILF is sticking her head in to tell me the mother of one of tomorrow's appointments is on the phone. The child has a spot of impetigo behind her ear (which is an area I most certainly will have to touch) that is "just starting to dry up." Should she still come? I tell our lil MILF to tell her no. The mother is not happy with that. Snottily: "She's been on topical and systemic antibiotics for weeks, you won't catch it." Um, if you're so sure she isn't contagious anymore, then WTF was your question, lady? Needless to say, she's coming. I hope she doesn't lean her non-intact skin up against any of the chairs in the waiting room, because while I'm going to take precautions in my office, I'm not going out there and disinfecting any furniture, yo.

I go next door to get lunch and when I get back, our other receptionist (who does not have a colorful blog nickname for reasons that are unclear) tells me the nurse of the inpatient baby who is supposed to be coming down at 1 pm needs to talk to me. I call her back. The mother of said baby, despite being instructed to keep him from napping till his test, keeps letting him fall asleep. The nurse says "I TOLD her it was for *his* benefit, and I turn my back and she's letting him nap again." Jesus wept.

I'm getting a bottle of wine on the way home is all I'm saying. It's on my weightloss plan. Seriously. Look it up.

xoxo

Saturday Addendum: Impetigo mom had a change of heart and rescheduled! Someone else also rescheduled for reasons that are unclear. And a baby I was going to have to do got transferred into The Big Hospital. So my day at work today is looking pretty sweet. I may go home early!

it belongs in your candles and your ears

Once upon a time--okay, last summer--I bought a hot towel cabi from purespadirect.com. The hilarious thing about this (aside from the the instructions for the actual cabi, which were so badly translated from the Chinese as to be a work of art all on their own self) was that they required one to produce a massage therapy or aesthetician license number in order to make a purchase. The idea being, I guess, to protect themselves from liability should an amateur scald, or otherwise injure, someone with one of their products. If you only knew how much trial and error was involved in my learning to get the towels just right this would be even more funny. (The last time Mr Barma protested the temperature of a towel I was putting on him, I told him I thought he was a manly man, and that he should just suck it up. Geez.) But, anyway, now that I am on their customer list, purespadirect of course sends me email trying to sell me stuff. This morning's email was pimping something I am definitely not qualified to operate. That would be a "wax trial kit" with four different types of wax and spatulas and gauze, the whole shebang.

Ah, this is definitely the kind of thing one should, if one is not stoopid, leave to the professional aestheticians in the house. Lemme tell you my experience with at home waxing. But first I should preface it by saying that several years ago, at a time when I had, apparently, more money than brains, I got a few consecutive bikini waxes from a nice Eastern European woman at a swanky salon. She had her own theories, which she was happy to expound on. She told me that some of her clients would ask her to do small areas at a time, but she would dissuade them. She preferred to do the largest strips feasibly possible. This, she felt, did not draw out the agony. I deferred to her professional judgment and found that, yes, she would get everything done quickly, efficiently, and with as little discomfort as one could reasonably expect. Because, y'know, ripping the hair out of your groin by the roots is not going to ever be pain-free. You do the math. But she certainly made it as pleasant as it might be.

Nevertheless, I eventually realized I was spending a whole lot of money for something the vast, vast majority of the world was never going to see, and that that money could be better spent elsewhere. And having watched a consummate professional and her technique a number of times, I got the "bright" idea I could do it myself. So I took myself off to Sephora where I purchased a Poetic Wax kit from Bliss. The wax itself was an alarming bright blue color, all the better to see against your skin, no matter what race or nationality you might be. Other than, I guess, "smurf." The idea was to warm up this wax, apply it with the spatula thingy and then pull off in the direction of the hair growth. Having watched how the nice European lady, held *here* and pulled *there*, I thought I had it all under control.

Until I pulled off the first strip. I could reproduce for you the string of obscenities I yelled whilst sitting on my bathroom floor, but I'm sure you get the idea. I took some hair off, all right. Also the top layer of skin. And now I had, oh my goodness, a whole bunch of hardened blue wax clumped on delicate areas of my flesh that wasn't going *anywhere* unless I ripped. And I couldn't bring myself to rip even a second time, nevermind a third, fourth, and fifth, etc etc amen.

I think the PTSD I experienced from this incident has kept me from remembering exactly how I got all that wax out, but I believe it involved futile attempts at cutting and eventually tearful removal of more skin. I was in that bathroom for hours, and I did not emerge a happy woman.

And that is the very last time any kind of wax has been applied to any of my body hair, professionally or otherwise, boys and girls.

So if purespadirect think they are going to entice me to buy "four different types of lukewarm waxes and two different types of hard waxes" they are very much mistaken and they should concentrate on, I dunno, giving me a good price on lotion or maybe some hot stones. Just sayin.

xoxo

opiate of the masses

So also the other day, Mr Indemnity and I were discussing this book he's reading about the banking crisis, which warped into a discussion of the evil credit card companies and how people's real income hasn't gone up in the past 30 years, etc etc. And I said, "Yeah, and how about the income gap between the top 5% in this country and the rest of us?" because, as you know, I never remember statistics and just make them up as I go. Mr Indemnity corrected me that it was actually the top 1% and the rest of us, and said it's the worst it's been since the Gilded Age of the 1880s. And he wondered why people weren't more outraged about that, since back then it led to the rise of the unions, also etc etc.

So I said (are you ready for this? I haven't fed y'all any of my crackpot pet theories for awhile), "Well, that's because your average 'middle class' American doesn't know they're poor. They have enormous credit card debt and they take out big car loans and huge mortgages and they're one job loss or health crisis away from bankruptcy, but because they have, ooo! a big house and ooo! a new minivan and ooo! an iPhone and a Wii and some nice shoes and some furniture from Crate and Barrel, they don't realize they actually don't own shit, the bank owns most of it. Back in the 1880s, if you were poor, you knew it, goddamn it." Consumer debt is the new opiate of the masses. Who the fuck needs religion when you can go to the mall or the car dealership?

xoxo

monday notes

How do you know it's Monday? Here's how I know it's Monday. I stared at a business door (a door that had "please use side entrance" painted on it) for the entire length of a traffic light before I could make sense of the hand-written sign that was also on it. It said

N
O
U
P
S

and I really was wondering what the hell language that was before the light dawned. A little slow this morning, okay?

However! The Monday bonus was a Possibly Irish Danny sighting, for the first time in probably close to a year. I totally figured that boy had moved or bought a car or, y'know, gone to Middleton for awhile. Winter coat and hat and long pants on so I couldn't tell you if there were any new tats, alas.

And in other news, I am still hungry. But did I cave and get Bertuccis? No, I did not. Admire my self-discipline, suckahs.

xoxo

topical, sorta; funny, definitely

I was telling Mr Indemnity that when I was (power)walking at the beach yesterday, "Super Freak" came on my iPod, which naturally made me think, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" which naturally led me to musing how The Chapelle Show was probably the funniest program ever put on TV which naturally made me want to look up the racial draft skit on youtube. Because it's hilarious and it, y'know, features Mr Tiger Woods prominently.

Mr Indemnity said he'd never seen it, so I told him I'd send him the link. But then I thought, Andrea! share with the whole class!

I'm not Rick James, bitch, but namaste anyway.

xoxo

the alpha and...

I just read an article about the portrayal of "omega" males (i.e. losers) in the cinema today and a response to that on jezebel, wondering why there are no films about omega females, and I gotta tell you, it all makes me really uncomfortable for reasons that are...crystal clear, akshully. See, I am a loser.

By every standard my culture throws at me, I am a failure. I'm not married, nor are men fighting to get with me. I don't have a prestigious job nor am I on the fast track to anywhere. I don't have much money. I don't own a wide variety of expensive consumer goods and high tech doodads. I don't have any brilliant, successful, athletic children who are, furthermore, going to give me brilliant, successful, athletic grandchildren. I don't have a gorgeous, pristine house that is immaculately clean. I'm not beautiful and I'm not thin. I've pretty much tanked at everything society tells me I should have succeeded at as a woman. And I've been made to feel ashamed about most of the things on that list at one time or another.

Mostly I don't give a shit anymore, though if you're a careful reader and take fucking notes LIKE YOU SHOULD, you can probably guess which of those things are still capable of making me feel like poop from time to time. But, mostly, I know what my worth as a human being is, big ol' societal loser or not. And yet still it rankles when I see glib commentary in the media about whole classes of people being "omega." Do we really need to do that (and on a feminist website, for fucks sake)? Do we really need to look at humanity in some kind of reductive sociobiological way, where if you aren't the alpha chimp who gets to mate with whomever you want and eat the best berries, you might as well crawl off into the bush and die?

I dunno. Maybe I'm just bitter. Plus I don't trust hierarchies. See below. Cough.

xoxo

you wouldn't think it was actually possible

But if anything could do it, this would make me feel genuinely sorry for Mr Tiger Woods. It's the same as when Mr "Hiking the Appalachian Trail"'s love letters to his hot Argentinian came out and were endlessly mocked. Say what you will about the hubris, not to say stupidity, of public figures cheating on their spouses and thinking they won't get caught, or cheating on their spouses and putting things in writing, I can't help but feel sympathy when someone's private communications to their paramour are made public and then, y'know, made fun of.

If you have never written a nauseatingly mushy or disgustingly smutty letter, email, or text to someone you are in love or lust with, then you are, I will suggest, either a highly repressed individual who never discusses either your emotions or your sexual fantasies OR you are someone who does not communicate through the written word. The rest of us? We've written private things to our lovers that would make other people roll their eyes, laugh hysterically, or gag. I myself may or may not have saved sent emails on this very computer that would be, shall we say, eminently mockable if you weren't the intended recipient. The fact that I am a nobody, so no one cares, doesn't make me deserving of privacy whilst cheater-cheater famous Tiger isn't.

Oh, and did you know that a tomato mozzarella panini from Panera has 770 calories? Look it up.

xoxo

oh, hey, kids

1.) I'll take a picture at some point, crappy camera n' all, but for now let me just tell you that, my electrician John and his helper Steve having come and done their thing, not only do all the outlets in my kitchen work again and not only do I have a new outlet in a place that never had one before but will now be wicked convenient, my dining room chandelier that's been in a box on the floor for ::mumble:: months--the one *you* helped me pick out--is now up. And it looks fabulous. The hilarious part is that my dad loves it. He keeps going over to it and making approving comments. The other hilarious part is that there were *a lot* of crystals to screw into it and John was cracking me up going "only 400 to go!" etc as he was assembling it. But that led to a conversation about the guy who owns my beloved Kellys. John was involved (with a lot of other people, obviously) in the electrical work when they built the one in Danvers and also did some work in the guy's house. And apparently the guy had a Waterford crystal chandelier shipped from Ireland that took two people working a 40 hour week to attach all the crystals to. Holy shit. I'm glad my onion ring money is going to a good cause!

2.) It stopped raining two and a half days ago and my sump pump is still running. A-maz-ing. On Tuesday they were draining water out of "my" pond right into one of the main streets, which I have never seen before. I mentioned that to John and he said that he and his wife used to live right behind "my" CVS and when the pond got as high as the condo parking lot (that the water was being drained through to the street), every single house on his street would get water in the basement. Okay. So I understand the reasoning behind draining the pond. But just dumping the water into a major road and hoping the sewers can handle it doesn't seem like the most advanced engineering solution. But whadda I know? I'm just a taxpayer.

3.) Every few years I get sucked into watching a season of American Idol. Yes, I know, I'm not proud. So this is one of those years. Mr Indemnity alerted me last week that this Tuesday was going to be Rolling Stones week and I told him I was already all over that. (And that the frontrunner this season is a blond dreadlocked girl named Crystal Bowersox. Mr Indemnity: "That doesn't even sound like a real name." Me: "Does Bono sound like a real name? Sting? Bob Dylan? hahahahaha") Anyway, this Tuesday comes along and we the American public are treated to a young man doing Under My Thumb as a reggae number. And he doesn't seem to realize what the lyrics are about. Hint: smiling perkily throughout them makes you look like a potential serial killer. Oh dear sweet Jesus. The kid singing Gimme Shelter didn't seem to understand what that was about either. But that's the fun of Idol and its theme weeks: making people sing a genre they don't like, know nothing about, and can't understand, and watching the predictably skeery results!

4.) I signed up for a Sunday morning yoga class at the wellness center associated with my place of employment, starting in April. I'm also thinking hard about joining the gym again. I need some structure to my working out, maybe. I've been "on a diet" for a week now, trying to detox from the incredible carb cravings I've previously detailed, and can I just say this? I am fucking starving. Apparently the detox hasn't kicked in yet. Sigh. But I am persevering. Mr "Kellys" isn't getting any onion ring=Waterford crystal money out of me for at least the next month, yo.

5.) It's a nice day! Happy spring!

xoxo

me n' my authority problem

Whether or not you believe in the Myers-Briggs, let me just tell you that my being an INTP explains a whole hell of a lot about how I get through this world. We, the few, the strong--no, wait, that's the Marines--we the few, the introverted, logical, and intuitive really really hate hierarchy, bureaucracy, stoopid pointless petty rules and regulations, and those who seek to force them upon us. What brings this up, Andrea? Why, mock JCAH survey this morning, dudes!

I did not acquit myself well when our administrator and the mock surveyor lady started asking me questions about how I do a certain (meaningless) thing, why I do it that way, and if the people in [other department] do it that way as well. In fact, I am very sure that my disgust and irritation about the absolute stupidity of these questions showed all over my face, because the mock surveyor gave me two cafeteria coupons instead of one for my "patience" in participating in this little farce and Led Zep Girl (our department manager) felt obligated to point out to me after they left that none of this was directed at me or my competence personally. Sigh.

I suppose if I ever want to get anywhere in this world I really should learn to kiss up to these people, hide my disdain for the whole thing, and not get offended by their questioning the way I do my job (very fucking spectacularly well, thank you!) One, two, three: Oh, Andrea. I'm 47 years old. Face it. I'm not getting anywhere in this world and it's too late to learn how to be a phony.

Feeling attacked when people who aren't as smart as me start trying to tell me how to do something? That I could probably work on. Ha!

Oh, yeah...namaste, bitches! It's a new week!

xoxo

my point being

I just read an amusing article on jezebel about the writer's gym phobia/panic. Probably many of us know the drill: everyone there seems fitter and more attractive than us, they're all in pricey clothes from Lululemon or the Nike store, they know how to work all the machines and where to go and what to bring to class, and they follow the instructor perfectly *without* bumping into anyone else. The author goes on to say that the only gym she ever felt comfortable in was the one she joined in Paris while studying there. It was one of the first American-style gyms in the country, and the French were, y'know, not so clear on the concept. Some people would duck out halfway through a class to go have a cigarette, while others would just go stand on the side of the room when the going got tough, "looking baffled and irritated."

Does this sound like a country where anyone should or would actually care if the First Lady is screwing around? I think not!

Stay strong, Carla!

xoxo

in double OT, suckas

What is "how did Andrea and Mr Barma win trivia last night?", Alex.

But I'm not gloating. That led to bad karma and a humiliating loss last time. Also, we got the first three questions of the night completely and utterly wrong, as in "got no fucking clue" wrong, so while pulling out a come from behind win might seem impressive, it wouldn't have been necessary if we didn't suck with the force of a brand new Dyson during the first quarter. No bragging justified there.

In other ever-so-fascinating news, I am reading this (Buddhism) book called "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach and in the author's photo, she looks exactly like *someone* but I have no idea who. I'm leaning towards "someone from massage school who wasn't in my class" or "some therapist or neuropsychologist that used to work here at the hospital" but that's only because this woman looks so crunchy I don't know any other niche I could fit someone I know who would look like that into. The fact that I can't pull this out of my long term memory also explains why I couldn't remember that Charlotte on Sex in the City is "Kristin Davis" last night. My brain probably needs to be defragged.

And one question: do you think I should attempt to clean the garage and the basement before the electrician comes next week or is that a waste of my energy that could be better expended watching twenty hours of Adult Swim since we always get the cartoon trivia questions wrong? Decisions, decisions.

xoxo

again, i think you should all be interested in my crap

Shut up. At least I haven't started posting pictures of what I cooked for dinner last night and I'm not discussing my (nonexistent) baby's toilet training. That's a step up from most personal blogs, yo. (Just ignore this morning's little dream report.)

So, on to my very ::ahem:: interesting morning. We'll do it in list form, shall we?

1.) Took dad to see his PCP. Now he's going on Zoloft. Go, pharmaceutical industry! Actually, I'm not actually opposed, though I don't see how it's going to bring back his wife, his dead brothers, his sight, his hearing, his car, and his ability to function independently, which, y'know, there is absolutely reason to mourn. But if he's perkier, that's a good thing. I'm trying to convince him that now all the snow's gone, he ought to go back to taking his little walks to the corner, and the Zoloft might help. And then that would also make him perkier. Non-vicious circle!

2.) D was officially discharged from skilled (visiting) nursing today. I knew this day was coming and I fought it, but I know it's true that he doesn't need it anymore. Completely compliant and mostly independent with all his meds and all his appointments, there's no justification for the services to be paid for.

3.) Got my bank statement in the mail this morning and despite the fact that I've felt like I've been spending money like your proverbial drunken sailor (do they really spend more money than other drunks? don't know!), I only spent five bucks more last month than I deposited. I have no idea how that happened, considering I haven't yet made any money from my Top Secret Project nor have I done my taxes, so my income has been as usual. Anyway, go me. And, yes, I do know a person who was way more organized than me would have planned ahead which months have big bills due and which don't and thus not be surprised when they don't, but aren't delightful financial surprises delightful? My new filing system is still kicking ass, though, so don't mock too hard.

Okay, maybe tomorrow I'll tell you something interesting. Hey, this blog is like one of those DVDs that you just keep watching because you're sure it's gotta get better. Ha!

xoxo and namaste, bitches!

freudian psychology 101

If you have a dream in which you are cleaning up an overflowing toilet full of shit that someone else caused, the symbolism can't be *that* obvious, can it? Hmmph. I would like to think my highly refined subconscious is more creative than that. But apparently not!

xoxo

from the celeb files

First item: hilarious!

Have you seen the E-Trade commercial in which the E-Trade baby's girlfriend is accusing him of cheating with "that milkaholic Lindsay"? (Can I pause to say that, with the amount of complaining I do in here about advertising, I must give props to E-Trade and their ad agency, because I find the E-Trade baby commercials fairly brilliant?) Well. Lindsay Lohan is suing them, because she feels this ad is making fun of her. Because, obviously, she's the only woman in America named Lindsay. Dude, if you think that just the mention of your (very common) first name plus substance abuse automatically makes the American public think of you, perhaps what you *should* be worrying about is your own excessive partying. Also? Excessive cocaine use does lead to paranoia.

Second item: not so hilarious.

Lil Wayne has been sent to Rikers, and not in protective custody, but gen pop. That's harsh. I know, I know, to quote the theme song of my very favorite TV show when I was like 11, "don't do the crime if you can't do the time DON'T DO IT!" And not to sound too much like some bleeding heart liberal. But really. I cannot imagine a white celebrity of similar fame/status being put in gen pop in a non-country club prison. Someone cite me an example if you have one.

Third item: perplexing.

Former frequent blog subject and first lady of France, Carla Bruni, is reputed to be having an affair. Um, it's France. Isn't that expected? Call me when the pics of the Obama -Sarkozy/Bruni wife swap at the Nato summit last year come out. Then I'll be interested. (That was just my perverted little fantasy? Really? Are you sure? Damn.)

xoxo

i want it so bad

Speaking of cravings...

This morning on the way to work, I was flipping through a copy of that bastion of fine journalism, the Metro, that someone had left on the bus. Therein I came across an article about staying fit during pregnancy. Well. It's been almost a quarter of a century since I myself needed to worry about that (not that I did--I was 22/23 years old and at my peak physical condition, healthy and strong) but since you can read an entire Metro in less than ten minutes, I wasn't skipping any features. The "expert" interviewed for this article was some celebrity trainer who is either pregnant or has recently been so. Are you beginning to suspect the quality of information imparted? Yeah.

This was my very favorite lil gem: since preggos often crave coffee and chocolate, they should carry "fruit puree" around with them. Besides the obvious WTF of "fruit puree" as opposed to, say, um, fruit, what kind of planet does this woman come from when she thinks a craving for chocolate or coffee is going to be assuaged by fruit? There's absolutely no similarity there. And is chocolate considered bad during pregnancy now? Is that another one of those insane new guidelines? (In my mom's day, you could smoke and drink during your pregnancy. During mine, you could drink coffee and eat tuna. Another generation or two and your poor pregnant woman is going to be made to subsist on nothing but prenatal vitamins and some kind of prescription protein shake or something. And you know what? The kids won't be getting any damn smarter.)

Anyway, my "expert" advice as someone who's gone to the gym and been pregnant is this: if you have a craving for chocolate, EAT SOME.

The End.

xoxo

more airing of grievances

You would think the beautiful weather would be putting me in a good mood, but no. I'm pretty sure it's just PMS or some other hormonal fluctuation that's making me feel like punching someone, and I don't intend to actually do it, but I am feeling ridiculously irritable. I made what I thought was going to be a very modest list of goals and things that need to be done or that I would like to get done this week. That's always a mistake. I get depressed looking at it. And it doesn't even take into consideration the things I already did today before I made the list (i.e. two phones calls that needed to be made plus a bonus one that one of the others engendered, dropping my clothes off at the dry cleaners this morning--I forgot to put picking them up on the list, so I guess that'll be item #25, ordering a couple things online that needed to be done...)

My dad has been whining that there's nothing to eat in the house. Let me use the ol' universal translator: "There's nothing I want to eat in the house. And you didn't cook any big dinners from scratch last week, so I feel justified in whining, because dinner doesn't count unless you slaved over it." He's also been whining that I haven't done his bank deposit yet. Of course, he only asks me to do it when I'm not going anywhere near the bank. It's my fault for not remembering when I am going by the bank. Because I have nothing else to think about. And if I were to make a special trip to the bank after work and thus get home later than usual and thus not cook a big meal from scratch, well, you know where that goes.

The outside of the house looks like crap. There's a little hole in the driveway that needs to be fixed. There's a portion of the brick built-in planter that was cracked and now, after having snow piled on it this winter, has fallen over so also needs to be fixed. I don't know what I am going to do about my sad front lawn. I don't know what I am going to do about that tree of the city's that needs trimming, which obviously they aren't intending to do. All of this is money and work and I fucking hate it.

I can't stop eating. Specifically, I can't stop eating crap. I haven't exercised, except for a few long walks, since I strained my lat on the right side doing yoga almost a month ago. My lat is fine now, but I've gotten back out of the habit. Why can I not just have the discipline to do the stuff I know is good for me? "Exercise three times this week" is on the goddamn list. Will giving myself checkmarks like a second-grader motivate me? Behavioral psychology 10-fucking-1.

I could keep going, but that's probably enough for now. But you see how irritable I am? Sigh.

How you doin'?

xoxo

inexplicably appropriate for today

xoxo

in which i express my disgruntlement

Kiss my big fat blinding white Polish ass, Red Sox.

After "winning" the chance to buy (ooo, aren't you lucky! we might even take your money!) green monster tickets, and logging in promptly at noon when sales were to open, I stayed in the virtual waiting room for over 90 minutes. And there weren't even any good magazines. No, seriously, I was a good little obedient Red Sox slave and patiently I waited, not refreshing my browser, as I was cautioned not to do. And when my devotion was rewarded at 1:30-something and I was ushered out of the waiting room and into the ticket buying queue, what did I find?

Well, I'll tell you. All the really in-demand games, Yankees, Dodgers, etc, were totally sold out already, and every single other game I tried--and I tried for almost half an hour--had only standing room green monster seats. I am so, so sorry but no, I will not pay over eighty bucks to stand at a ballgame, and especially, I will not pay over eighty bucks to stand at a ballgame when it's the beginning of April and likely to be 40 degrees at game time nor will I pay over eighty bucks to stand and watch the Sox play Kansas City. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

And the next time I should be on the Green Line when Fenway is letting out, and I pitch a little fit because those idiotic suburban yahoos don't know how to move into the fucking train, you can all feel smug in knowing it's just insane jealousy.

xoxo

your dog is not a person

This is the other thing I've been meaning to write about!

The other night when we were walking to trivia, we passed by one of Mr Barma's neighbors and he said something mildly--well, maybe "disparaging" is too strong a word, but--disparaging about the way the neighbor and his wife/girlfriend treat their little rugrat dogs. (Apologies in advance to whomever I've just offended with the "rugrat dogs" tag, but seriously, who likes those little yappy things that you have to carry around and put stoopid sweaters on?) Anyway, in response I said, "Oh! Have you heard that term some people use on the internet for their pets? They call them 'furkids'. I bet your neighbors don't have dogs, they have furkids."

I don't make this shit up, I just report it.

Anyway, I then also said that I have just within the last week seen the horrible endpoint of this: someone referring to actual real human children as "skin kids." The mind, it fucking boggles. Even besides the sorta discomforting Silence of the Lambs imagery the term skin kids calls up, do we really have to explain that children are children, and dogs and cats are dogs and cats? I love Evil Kitty enough to *not* have killed her when she ruined every single screen in my house, but I know the difference between her and a human being.

In the forum where I first saw the furkids thing being used, a forum that has nothing whatsoever to do with pet ownership by the way, it has become very clear to me that many of the posters actually care far, far more about dogs than they do their fellow humans. I suspected it--one conversation about "what you would do if you came into a million dollars" engendered about 15 responses of people wanting to set up animal shelters or dog breed rescues and none suggesting that anyone would use their theoretical money to help homeless people or sick babies or abused women, which WTF?--but then in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake when someone actually posted a link to somewhere you could donate money to help Haitian dogs, I almost lost my shit. Seriously? You don't care about orphaned, starving children with no water and no homes, you care about the dogs? Seriously?

It makes me wonder--and I know this is judgmental of me but it makes me wonder--what kind of fucked up relationships these people have had with other humans such that any and all impulses towards love and compassion and generosity that they have are directed towards non-humans. I mean, there are plenty of people like me who love animals and babies and their fellow mankind (in general, if not always in specific, sigh) and I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the kind of person who would say "skin kid." I'm talking about people who use the word furkids when they have, or have had, actual human children. I'm just glad one of them wasn't my mother, KWIM? I'm sure I'd be far more fucked up than I already am had I come in second to a Pomeranian. Truth.

xoxo

more linguistics for fun and profit

Actually this has nothing to do with linguistics. Or profit. And fun is in the eye of the beholder. But though I know "linguistics" is not the right term, I've had such a sucky SUCKY morning in work (two incredibly difficult patients in a row, such that I was running 45 minutes behind by the time I got done with the second, followed by there being *no cookies* in the cafeteria, and THEN, when I went to my backup plan of taking myself off to the vending machine, which I never do, there wasn't even any good candy in it, thus proving that the universe is telling me my fat ass doesn't need any chocolate, never mind what my brain says) that it's the best I can come up with.

What I want to talk about is the phenomenon of certain singers singing with their natural speaking accents and others not. I've been meaning to write about this for awhile, but though it's crossed my mind when I'm listening to the iPod and observing it in action, by the time I 'm actually writing anything, I've been distracted by something else. But today is the day, bitches. (Um, by the way, namaste!)

Those of you who were ::ahem:: lucky enough to hear the *full* story of the night my ex-husband told me he was sorry for all his past misdeeds, may remember the lead-up involving the ICU ward secretary whom I could only describe as having "a Rhianna accent," which is to say, Caribbean. The fascinating thing to me about Ms Rhianna (besides her perfect boobs) is that, though she always has some hint of her speaking-voice accent in her singing, sometimes it is much stronger than others. After listening multiple times to the three songs which she vocals on that I have my iPod, I have come to the conclusion that it's just that certain *words* display that accent more than others. Makes perfect sense. As you know, I will probably nevah (ha!) be able to pronounce the words "ever" or "tired" quote unquote correctly without trying very very very hard. I really need to focus and it will never come naturally. I'm sure there are certain sounds like that for someone with a Barbados accent too, and I'm sure that Rihanna sees no reason to try very very very hard to pronounce them differently when she's singing.

On the other hand, let's take Ms Amy Winehouse, who also pops up frequently on the ol' iPod. She of course sings in a very different accent than which one might expect. You would never hear one of her songs and think, oh yeah, that's a British woman. And of course there's a reason for that too. Ms Winehouse is singing in a certain style, informed by the records she listened and sang along to in her youth. I have no idea if it's a struggle for her to pronounce certain sounds differently when she's singing or whether after doing it for so long, it *is* natural. Some of this also must have to do with that phenomenon of British people being able to copy American accents a lot easier than Americans can copy British ones. (Cf. Idris Elba as the primo example amongst many.) I dunno. I just think it's very interesting!

Also, I still want chocolate.

xoxo

Addendum: OMFG, I forgot--my boss has a whole lower desk drawer full of candy, and there were mini Snickers and Almond Joys. Score!

notes from my day off

1.) Gloating about how you totally humiliated the opposition in trivia can come back and bite you in the ass. Just sayin'. But I still know my Mormons (Brigham Young!), and I got another cheese question right, which is, as I'm sure you could tell, as it should be.

2.) But in more exciting and pleasant news, Mr Barma helped me set up my fantasy baseball. He's the commissioner of our league and I'm taking over the team that came in last in 2009, because their manager bailed. So I renamed the team "the maria experience", which makes perfect sense if you are me or Mr Barma. Plus, it has a nice ring to it. Anyway, Mr Barma was giving me some tips on strategy and guidance on which guys I might want to keep, but he said this was going to stop real soon now because I am, after all, the competition. I don't know. I would think that sleeping with the commissioner should get you something. ISN'T THAT HOW REAL LIFE WORKS??? Ahem. But just to warn you, I'm probably going to have to spend all my online reading time the entire spring and summer on baseball, especially if I'm not getting any more help, so I can't promise further links to things on regretsy, pictures of Rihanna's boobs, or even news stories I expect you to be as outraged about as I am for a few months. But I'll do my best. I know I owe y'all entertainment.

3.) And in actual baseball news, for the first time evah since I've been filling out those "enter this lottery for a chance to purchase Red Sox tickets" emails I get from mlb.com, I got an email from them last night saying I actually was selected. So Saturday, if all goes well and I'm not stuck in the virtual waiting room forever, I can purchase Green Monster tickets. Which has always been a goal of mine, ever since there *were* Green Monster tickets. I wanna see a game from there once just to say I did.

I think that's all for now, kids. Oh, and namaste, bitches!

xoxo

i have a plan

Oh, I know, I have lots of plans, few of which ever actually come to fruition, but I'm just going to detail one specific one. And no, it isn't going to be the one about hanging out in the Home Depot, trolling for middle-aged men with big trucks who look like they can put up drywall (from the Chinese drywall mines!) and whose children are going to procreate soon and give me step-grandchildren. Because you've heard that one. Like even in this paragraph.

No, this one has to do with the big empty space upstairs in my house which has never been an actual "room" per se, but rather a depository for stuff that doesn't go anywhere else, and a walk through to the rooms off of it. I've painted about 50% of it before and during my vacation. I would have painted more during my vacation, but I ran out of paint in that color. And I haven't been back to the Home Depot to buy more. I'm waiting till I have a good hair and boob day. (<--that's a joke, do I need to start inserting irony tags again?) No, no, I just haven't gotten around to it. I was really busy with other things and then the weather at the end of last week and the beginning of the weekend was sucky enough that I didn't feel like doing errands after work. But you don't care about my lame excuses. Just picture my walls all painted in a lovely light creamy orange color, sorta very muted terra cotta-ish. Also picture that the barbecue that was inside the door to the deck for, um, I dunno, ten years?, has been taken away by those strapping young got-junk guys. And picture that my Tibetan thangka art has arrived, in all its orange-gold-green splendor. You can also picture the recumbent bike and Cardio Glider, if you must, but if you do, be sure you visualize the basket of clean laundry on top of one of them. And picture two formerly over-full bookcases that have been pruned and now need rearranging. Then picture Andrea having a brain flash and thinking, oh! now that the grill and various other things that don't belong there are gone, and the walls are going to be a pretty orange color, I can move the bookshelves around, stick an area rug and something to sit on in the half of the room that isn't being taken up by exercise equipment, and make it into a little reading corner. And then it will look like an actual room!

That's not the plan. That's the explanation leading up to the explanation of the plan. Shut up. So, then I saw this rug on overstock, all orange and green and brown (though apparently, from the reviews, actually lighter brown than it appears on the website, which is a positive, actually), and I thought it would look cute in my reading-corner-to-be. I equivocated for a week or ten days and then they sent me a 10% off coupon in my email. So I bought it. Naturally. Next is the question of "something to sit on." They also have on overstock some Angelo Surmelis furniture. It's cute, cheap crap, but I can get a little apartment-sized sofa for less than $500. I would never buy a piece of crap like that for my actual living room, even though as you know I need new living room furniture. Why am I considering it for spare furniture? Why am I considering spare furniture when I need real furniture? The $700 for the rug and cheapy sofa is, after all, 1/3 of an actual nice living room, right? Why not just save it towards that?

Well, here's how this plan all fits together with the overall plan. The overall plan is this (and for those of you who have already heard the overall plan, my deep apologies for making you suffer through this whole long discursive story just to find out something you already know): eventually, in the future, after my dad is gone, and I have fixed up all the things in this house that need fixing, and the economy/real estate market is better, I would like to sell that huge house I hate so very, very much, and if I have gotten someone to pay for it what the fucking city taxes me on, take that money and buy myself a little condo and D an even littler condo. Preferably in the same building. He would have his privacy and a push to more independence, I would have my privacy, and I'd still be able to keep an eye on him and help him out. So! When that day occurs, if I have excess cheap but cute furnishings filling up this too-big house, we'll have something to move into his theoretical tiny condo. In the mean time, it'll make the house look nicer, especially when I have to bring (again, theoretical) clients through there on their way to my new spiffy massage room.

Just like buying the two pairs of shoes at 10:30 at night from zappos, this all makes *perfect* sense. If you're me. (I haven't actually bought a sofa yet though. I'm sure I'll get another 10% off coupon at some point.)

The End, and about fucking time.

xoxo

9-1-1

I've mentioned this story about Pittsburgh EMS to a few people, none of whom had heard anything about it, so I'm glad I saw it linked online today. I was beginning to think I'd just made it up. When M2 and I were discussing it, we agreed that besides the obvious OMG of calling EMS more than once, more than twice, more than five times, and not getting an ambulance at one's door, and besides the WTF of "don't they have big snowstorms in Pittsburgh all the time? it's not DC," the biggest disconnect about all this for us, as people who've worked in hospitals and known EMTs, is that it's totally foreign to our experience.

Those guys, and by "guys" I mean the women too, are macho as hell, and they live to rescue people. "No fuckin' blizzard is gonna keep me from getting to my call." They'd wade through chest-high snow, make a sled outta the gurney, and drag the guy back to the truck. And not, y'know, totally out of concern for the patient. As a point of pride, as well. "It's what we *do*."

Well, except in PA, apparently.

xoxo