a few baseball notes

1.) Did you watch the White Sox-Twins tie breaker game just now? If you didn't, you should have. Talk about two pitchers stepping it up when it counted. Anyway, the Twins only had one real chance to score in the whole game. They had a guy on third, one out, and the batter hit a shallow fly to center. They sent the runner from third, betting Griffey was too old to throw him out, but Junior proved them wrong. Of course, what was key was that the White Sox catcher Pierzynski did a stellar job blocking the plate. When I remarked on that, my dad said, "Well, yeah, he's a Polock." I was like, what? our people make good catchers? I dunno. Sometimes around here it's like living in the Land of Nonsequitors.

2.) So now is the first time in 102 years that both Chicago teams will be in the postseason. Isn't that cool? The city of Chicago must be crazy right now.

3.) But, speaking of that, I'm having a dilemma. I don't know whom to root for in the Cubs-Dodgers series. On the one hand, I'm kind of committed to rooting for the Dodgers, i.e. Red Sox West in Exile. On the other, as I've mentioned before, I always root for the Cubbies, especially after 2004, when the morning after the Red Sox won that first World Series, my inbox was stuffed with emails from every single person I internet-knew from the Chicago area, at least nominal Cubs fans all, congratulating me and telling me how happy they knew I must be, having baseball-suffered their whole lives as I, and all Red Sox fans, had baseball-suffered our whole lives to that point. So, y'know, I really want to see the Cubs win a World Series; their fans deserve one. What to do, what to do.

xoxo

be impressed

Be very impressed.

I just had my annual review at work and, as you all already know, I'm sure, I rock. Apparently all the time I spend shopping online and blogging is not affecting my job performance one iota. But in the course of my review, I was informed that both my own department and another department have nominated me for a Partners in Excellence award. (Yeah, I work for a Partners hospital, and yeah, I am aware that with every blog entry I write, I'm making it easier and easier to stalk me. I hope all y'all are mentally stable.)

Now, I like to pretend that I am too cool to care about shit like that. I was all prepared to make the joke about my princely 3% max raise and my (possible) Partners in Excellence award buying me [the equivalent of a cup of coffee], but honestly? The fact that this other department recognized that I had gone above and beyond for them in the service of good patient care, and wanted to publicly acknowledge that, really kind of touched me. So, yeah, I guess I'm not too cool to care about public strokes. And I'm enough of a dork to brag about them.

You should still be very impressed!

xoxo

i *know*

I'm the blogging equivalent of can't-shut-up cell-phone woman! Don't worry. It'll pass. Meanwhile...

1.) Commercials I have seen while drinking my coffee this morning. Credit card commercial wherein a woman keeps redecorating her living room and finding it disappointing, until she realizes her problem is her husband sitting on the sofa. She "redecorates" him with new clothes and all is well. I hate this. It's so disrespectful. Next, a commercial from the (you can't make this shit up) high fructose corn syrup people reminding us their product is made from lovely, healthy, all-natural corn, is nutritionally just the same as sugar, fine in moderation, and therefore is not Obesity and Diabetes in a Jar. So don't worry! Finally, SAM-e, an herbal supplement that will cure my bitchy, bitchy moods. Yeah, okay, let me know when you invent herbal klonopins, kthxbai.

2.) I'm watching this landscaping show where the homeowners must get rid of the cacti, rosebushes, and blackberry vines in their lovely backyard because omfg, they have a toddler and she might hurt herself. You know what? If little Precious gets a cactus thorn in her lil hand, she will quickly learn not to touch them again. Cause and effect is a wonderful thing to learn at a tender age. I'm all for babyproofing that calls for removing potentially *fatal* hazards. But worrying that Sweetie might get a booboo? Give me a fucking break. (I hope the potential parents of my theoretical future step-grandchildren aren't reading this, because I'm never gonna get to babysit, am I? Goddamn it.)

3.) Wishlist. I saw a picture of someone's beautifully restored and remodelled 1920's bathroom with gorgeous clawfoot tub, beadboard on the bottom of the walls and paint above, no tile. I had such bathroom envy I could hardly stand it and I realized why: that's the kind of bathroom I grew up with (not gorgeously remodelled of course) and some part of me still thinks that's how a bathroom should look. I also think my ideal (retro) kitchen would have a separate pantry, like the one I grew up with. Also, a deep double sink that you can bathe a baby in. I see these $20,000 bathrooms and $40,000 kitchens with the steam showers and the granite and the whatever and while I can appreciate that they are often pretty and always fancy, I don't think that even if I had the kind of money to do that, that it would be what I want.

xoxo

changing tastes II

Here's the part I didn't get to.

There are some people who can tell you "x is my favorite y" whether y = food, book, actor, painting, or any of a thousand other things with both certainty and consistency. They know their favorite whatever and it's been their favorite whatever for fifteen or twenty-five or forty years. Me, the only y I can say that about is movie; my favorite movie has been my favorite movie since I was ten and time and repeated viewings have not changed that. But everything else? Not so much.

It's not that things I used to adore I now look at and say, "what were you thinking?" Usually. [Insert obligatory ex-husband joke here, kthx.] It's more like "Persistence of Memory" where I can still appreciate it, still like it, and still remember why it grabbed me like it did when it did, but its power as my image of "the best" is gone. Similarly, for years I would have told you that Heart Shaped Box was my favorite song, but then suddenly some time in the last couple years, it just wasn't anymore. It wasn't even my favorite Nirvana song anymore. I don't hate it, I'm not sick of it, and I still remember exactly what it was about it that made me just love it so very much. But when it pops up on my iPod these days, I don't think "Best.Song.Evah." (I could keep giving examples, but I hope I've gotten across what I'm talking about.) And I wonder what this means about my personality. Or my aesthetic sense. Or how my brain works. Or...I dunno...something.

In a related note: so my friend L is one of those people who has a very consistent set of likes, a very consistent aesthetic sense. She likes the same things she liked 30 years ago, and is kind of confused about people who don't. She'll say to me, "Oh, you really really like [whatever], right?" and I'll be like, "Well, I did when we were in college, but [whatever] isn't my favorite person/place/thing now" and that honestly puzzles her. Whereas I could pick out a piece of clothing, piece of furniture, piece of music for her based totally on what I know she would have liked in 1980 and be certain she'd still really like it today. It seems like a really basic divide on our respective takes on life and I wonder if it means she's got a stronger aesthetic sense than I do, less of an aesthetic sense than I do, or if it's all relatively meaningless.

And yet and yet and yet... I *do* think I have a lifelong overarching aesthetic sense, that there are kinds of ys that I'll always like, even if the exact specifics change. This is perhaps best shown by 25 years of various and sundry friends referring to certain footwear as "Andrea Shoes." I couldn't quite define what those are, nor could my girlfriends, but we know 'em when we see 'em. Andrea Shoes are Andrea Shoes, even if this Andrea has never had her foot in them. And, as I may have mentioned lately, much as you people sit at your monitors and roll your eyes and snicker at Boho Paradise, I've always taken a little crap for some of my less...conventional...decorating decisions. But even some of the mocking people come through with, like, leopard-print vases for Xmas, because even if they don't like it, they know an Andrea vase when they see one on the clearance table at Kohls.

So, yeah. I'm probably over analyzing this, since mental wanking is as sad of a character defect in me as the fondness for animal prints and sparkly shit.

xoxo

changing tastes

I really have more I want to write about this and some other things, but since I only have a brief window of opportunity here, I'm just going to do a quickie before the urge is out of my head.

I was just searching for something on art.com, something I have bookmarked on my laptop at home but now can't find without the bookmark goddammit, and in my search came across the (totally unrelated) "Persistence of Memory" by Dali. This, for years, was my favorite painting. Absolutely. In college I even had a poster of it. It gave me that same kind of unsettled feeling that I enjoy in photographs of gates and doorways, fiction I read and fiction I (used to) write, certain of my favorite movies, and my sex life.

Looking at it just now, I realized that while it still is kind of a cool painting (and it *is* an acknowledged masterpiece, right?, or have "they" changed that?), I wouldn't want a print of it now. There is nothing about it that would compel me to put it on any of my walls. And I sort of wonder about that. I can still appreciate it. It still evokes that similar kind of emotional response in me. But it's lost something. Or I've lost something.

Talk to me about this. Tastes that have changed for you and tastes that haven't.

xoxo

Paul Newman died

That's sad. I always liked him. His movies, his eyes, and his salsa and popcorn.

xoxo

strange days indeed

Is there a debate I'm supposed to be watching or something?

Well, be that as it may, I'm watching the Sox game. They just showed a whole hell of a lot of empty seats in the stands. I gotta say, if I were there, in the 60 degree rain, waiting through an hour and a half delay, to see a late season Yankees-Sox game that means absolutely fucking nothing (and how very sad those people who were ecstatic to have scored these tickets back in March must be), and then they scratched Dice K in favor of, more or less, a minor leaguer, I'd have probably decamped to the Beer Works by now, where I could watch the game in warmth and dryness and with better beer value for my money.

I know that makes me a bad fan and probably a bad person. And I'm okay with that.

I wish, however, that someone could explain to me why I am so unenthusiastic about this team and the upcoming playoffs in general. I think I'm having post-traumatic Manny-loss stress disorder or something. Perhaps the Dodgers will make it to the World Series and I'll have a team to root for. I always was a D-Lowe fan anyway.

xoxo

more linguistic confusion

In the grand tradition of "rod iron", I just read someone remark that they had hammy downs. It literally took me about 45 seconds before I could parse that. Ohhhhhh.

I find it difficult to believe that someone whose native language is English would really think that that is in fact the actual phrase, but on the other hand, most people whose native language is not English but who are posting in English on the internet are very careful about checking idioms that they are not completely familiar with. So I'm betting illiterate American. Who obviously doesn't deserve anything better than hammy downs.

xoxo

the ol' not-really-a-compliment

You all know I don't talk politics in here and actually barely talk about anything of substance these days, and I know everyone's all focused on the economy right now anyway, but I need to say something about this.

Did you see where the president of Pakistan told Sarah Palin she's gorgeous and that now he knows why all of America is crazy about her? Once I closed my gaping jaw, I thought, Perfect. What a perfect way to demean someone with total plausible deniability. "You may be running for the second highest office in America, missy, but you're still just a piece of ass to me," running right along side of, "What? I was just paying the lady a gracious compliment!"

Can you just imagine if Sarah Palin *was* VP (please, god, no, please, god, no) and she started out a meeting with some hunky international leader she hadn't met before by saying, "Well, aren't you good-looking! No wonder your country's citizens voted you in, Mr. Prime Minister." You can't imagine it, can you? Because that kind of thing doesn't happen to men in this world.

But apparently a woman in politics has to look like Margaret Thatcher to avoid it. You know that's why *I* never ran for office, right? ahahaha

No, seriously, every time I think it's okay to be a woman in 2008, something like this slaps me upside the head and makes me realize that, no, it still really isn't.

xoxo

i have no idea why

...but blogger will not let me fix the formatting of the previous entry, no matter how many times I've tried to edit it.

I just want you all to know that I do in fact know how to use paragraphs.

Sigh.

See, I'll give you lots and lots of them now.

xoxo

please.shut.up.

Waiting for the prison bus this morning was a young woman with two children, one a little girl about 4, the other a baby about a year. The entire time she was waiting, she was talking on the cell. Nothing interesting that I could pass on to you my readers, you understand--though I admit I tuned out for a moment when I heard "...I wiped myself and then I looked..."--but it was an uninterrupted torrent of insipid gabbing. When the bus was coming, she hung up long enough to get her stroller on and pay, but before she even sat down (blocking the aisle with her stroller of course), she was back on the phone.

She kept talking nonstop until I was off the bus at least, totally ignoring her kids--the little girl pushed the stop button a couple times which her mother paid no attention to at all--and leaving me with one question. How the hell did she ever stop talking long enough to get knocked up not once, but twice? Or was the father(s) of those children just a strong believer in earplugs?

xoxo

sueño

I've been having a weird sleeping issue. No trouble falling asleep, which historically has been a problem, especially when I'm anxious. No trouble staying asleep--I actually slept till after nine on a recent day off work, proving the efficacy of the cozy, cave-like nature of Boho Paradise. Nope, I've been getting a good, full night's sleep almost every night. And yet, I've been waking up exhausted.

I thought perhaps that I've been sleeping more restlessly than normal, and that was the cause of my tiredness. But this morning I woke up with one of my arms underneath my torso, as I do sometimes, and the arm was completely dead from shoulder to fingers, proving I'd been in that exact same position for quite a while. Apparently *not* restless.

So now I've got no idea what's going on with my body. (And I've got no idea why exactly I'm telling yous either. But there you have it.)

xoxo

creepiest movie evah

And unfortunately, no, not creepy in a good horror movie way. Creepy in a skeeved-me-out and left-me-wanting-a-shower way. Oh, Netflix recommendations, you have let me down. So down.

What film are we referencing? Gigi. I don't know what I rented and rated highly that convinced the Netflix computers that I'd like this movie, but I know that if I had been paying better attention and realized it was a musical, I'd never had had a chance to get skeeved by it. I live in a strict No Musicals Zone. There are ordinances against them here at The Adventures. But, be that as it may, apparently they caught me on a day my reading comprehension skills had deserted me. And then the Netflix description, which my reading comprehension tackled *just fine*, totally misrepresented the plot, musical or not. I thought this was going to be a comedy about a young woman whose family were grooming her to be a whore and who were scandalized when one of her paramours wanted to marry her. That film would be worth a couple hours of my time, right? Theoretically.

Well, you know, no. That isn't exactly the plot or the point of the movie. It's a "love" story about a girl who appears to be about sixteen--and a very young, immature, innocent 16, despite the fact that her family really are grooming her to be a whore--and a guy who appears to be over thirty. Now, this all takes place in Paris, circa 1900, and yes, I realize that was a different time and culture. I mean, yes, my own grandmother got married at age 16 in the early 1920s, but my grandmother also left her home and parents at age 13 and emigrated by herself to a new country to live with a brother, and by age 16 had been working in factories for a couple years. At 16, my grandmother was a woman, not the childish schoolgirl naif Gigi is portrayed as. Add to that Gaston's dirty old man uncle advising him throughout the entire movie that he ought to go for the girls who are "young and fresh", the younger the better, and you know, ewwww. Gross.

And then there's the whole musical number where Gaston wonders in song just when Gigi suddenly "blossomed" without his noticing, how one day she was a child and the next not. WTF is that supposed to be a euphemism for? Growing boobs? Getting her period? Sorry, but if you're a 30 year old guy the women you should be banging should have been boobful and menstruating for a good five to ten years. At least. So, again, gross.

Then, leaving aside the whole veiled semi-pedophilia angle, there's the sexual politics. We, the audience, are supposed to find this a charming romance because Gaston, instead of setting Gigi up as his mistress with a house and money and the freedom to go her own way when he gets sick of her (or she gets sick of him), marries her. So that when he gets sick of her--when she's no longer "young and fresh"--she'll be trapped in a loveless relationship with no freedom, no power, and no ability to leave. That's our happy ending. Instead of a whore in control of her own destiny, she's married. Woo fucking hoo.

This won Academy Awards in 1958. Really? Has the world changed so completely in fifty years that this really was a charming romance then?

xoxo

oxymoron

I didn't think I would ever say this--indeed, I didn't even think it was possible--but I had a Greek salad for lunch that had too much feta on it.

I know! Dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!

xoxo

memoirs and persona

I just finished Candy Girl, Diablo Cody's book, which a kind blog reader lent me. It's funny, in a make-fun-of-everything-but-especially-herself kind of way. And it has lists! (My favorite? The ten worst songs to strip to. Diablo: #7, any Eminem song about matricide, Quaaludes, or fatherhood. Andrea: Oh, c'mon, that's all the good ones!)

So, basically, you know where this is going, right? I read this book, and go, yeah, I could write that. Except for never having been a stripper for a year and thus having no insights on the sex industry. So then I think, well, yeah, I could write a sarcastic, vaguely self-deprecating but charming memoir (with lists!) if only my life wasn't so fucking ordinary and lacking in experiences anyone would like to read about.

But that's not true either, is it? I've lived through my only child having two psychotic breaks and being diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia, and I've come through it with not just a lot of painful recollections, but a bunch of fairly hilarious (in a laugh-or-you'll-cry kinda way) anecdotes. I mean, *that* book might be less Diablo Cody and more Augustin Burroughs or David Sedaris (why do gay guys have the writing market cornered on the "turn the most horrific life experiences into gut-bustingly funny reading" books and isn't it time for a het girl to write one?) but I even have the subtitle for it: Dispatches from the Mother of the World's Politest Psychotic. But you know I'd never invade D's privacy by writing that book.

Oh, and there are other not-quite-routine portions of my life, some of which other people have been known to find both amusing and titillating. But I'd never write that book either. At least under my own name.

Maybe I just need a snappy new fake name, much like Diablo Cody. If my name wasn't Andrea, who would I be?

xoxo

and more "what were they thinking?"

Big corporations have marketing and development departments, right, to decide on their new products or product features? And, theoretically, the people who work in those departments don't spend their entire days doing illegal drugs, correct?

So who thought up the new washing machine whose main feature is that you only need to add detergent once every six months? I may be (ha!) lazy, but even I do not find pouring some Tide in every load to be a taxing endeavor. And, then, the new dish soap that conditions your (delicate, female) hands while you are scrubbing your pots? Didn't Palmolive go with Madge and that angle 35 years ago? And haven't we in the intervening 35 years decided that dudes can wash dishes too? (I mean, I'd be willing to consider in our metrosexual world that they considered some men might worry about dishpan hands, except the commercial? All women admiring their manicures, while a talking sponge pervs over their hands. Okay, so maybe these people are using crack during the workday.)

xoxo

sunday am tv

I come downstairs this morning and D has MTV Cribs on. They're doing a countdown of the most expensive homes on their show, but that's not my point. My point is, the one I caught is Mr Ice T's residence. Two things. He has a vending machine. He says, "You know how your friends come to your house and rummage through your cupboards and eat all your cookies? You send 'em down here. 'You want some Skittles? It's a buck. Stop beggin'.'" Oh, that just cracked me up. At 7am at least. Secondly? I may have referenced that I have in my closet at least two versions of my completed (sucky) novel, i.e., paperweight. But back when I actually had fantasies that it would ever see the light of day, by which I mean "Borders", and I was casting the movie in my head, as you do, Ice T was The Captain. (Have I made enough humiliating admissions in here this week? Well, it's a new week actually.)

And then a commercial comes on for the Universal Training Institute. Yes, also known as UTI. Are these assclowns serious? We all want to mention our alma mater and have people's thoughts wander to memories of pissing blood, right? If you're going to open some fly-by-night "career college" at least put a little more effort into the whole scam than that. Your suckers, er, students, may have GEDs, but I bet they've also had bacteria in their urethras at some point too.

xoxo

addendum

I forgot this. Another bathroom cleaning note. (Every time I think I've hit rock bottom in blog topics, I prove myself wrong.)

I kinda accidentally found the plastic bolts that hold my toilet seat to the toilet, so I took it off. And cleaned parts of it that no way I could get at when it was attached. It was pretty, um, not pretty, shall we say. So it occurs to me to ask: is this something I've been supposed to be doing all along? Do you all take the seat off the toilet now and again and scrub the hinges and such? Is this yet another one of those things everyone but me knows?

xoxo

despite all evidence to the contrary

...like the fact that it appears all I did yesterday was blog, it's been a busy week. What was I doing till 1 this morning? Why, cleaning and fixing up and redecorating the upstairs bathroom. (Which was really unwise, because I had to be at a doctor's appointment with my dad this morning at 7:45, but more about that shortly.)

Anyway. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate and despise cleaning? Organizing, straightening up, decluttering, all that's fine. But I hate to clean. And it occurred to me as I scrubbed the bathtub out three times last night that the probable reason for that is that I suck at it. I feel like there's some magic secret to cleaning that everyone (okay, almost everyone, okay, some people) know that I don't, some way to make it easier and more efficient and less the equivalent of poking sharp sticks in your eyeballs such that other people don't find the whole thing as odious as I do.

Here's a slight digression. Let me explain about the bathtub by first discussing the light fixture over my bathroom vanity. It's ugly, as are all the light fixtures native to this house, and like all the light fixtures in this house, it is needlessly complicated to change a light bulb in it. Putting a new bulb in that particular fixture means my standing on the actual sink, unscrewing two [well, one now, 'cause one's missing/broken] bolts, removing a heavy rectangular piece of glass and resting it precariously on the--wait for it!--soffit, and then changing out the bulb. Then putting it all back together while still standing on the sink. This is why, though the fixture actually calls for four bulbs, there's been one working one in there for, like, I dunno, let's just say "a long time." But last night I replaced 'em all.

Can I tell you this? Four sixty watt bulbs in that fixture and you could do fucking neurosurgery in there. Oh, it's a wee bit brighter than any bathroom ever needs to be, in my humble opinion. And in the blinding new light, it became apparent to me that the tub, which I had already spent a considerable amount of time scrubbing soap scum out of, was still not actually clean. So scrub more, rinse more, scrub more, rinse more. And I had my epiphany. Yes, I realize people who scrub out their tubs with more regularity than do I probably have then less effort to make. But I've watched that BBC show where the two semi-batshit nutty cleaning chicks go into the houses of people who think letting their dogs poop indoors is okay and haven't taken out the trash since 1978 and clean it top to toe in a day using nothing but lemon juice and organic vinegar or something, and they get better results than me and my abundant supply of probably cancer-inducing cleaning products and back-breaking labor. So, obviously, I just suck at it.

I then used my new drill (!) to make some holes in the wall for my new towel ring. Using a new power tool at 12:30 am is probably not the best of all possible ideas either, and I couldn't even finish the job because I didn't have the right size screwdriver upstairs. But all my digits are still attached and my wall doesn't look like I harmed it irreparably, so I went to bed at 1 am relatively satisfied.

But 5:45 came around a little quicker than I might have preferred. What kind of doctor's office even has appointments at 7:45 am? I think it's because my dad's doctor is, like him, an old guy, and like him, needlessly gets up at the crack of dawn and thus thinks that 7:45 may as well be noon. So, dad's doing pretty damn good for 82 (other than, y'know, Helen Keller! Helen Keller!), though he needs to get a venous test on one of his legs, because his MD thinks his thigh pain might be from poor circulation in his groin. He had it done a few years ago, and it was normal, but the doc thinks there was a difference in the pulses on the two sides, so he wants to try it again. But the other thing that he needs is--and this is one of the points of me telling you all this--a podiatrist because apparently his toenails are disgusting.

So, did you know that podiatrists make housecalls? I got me one coming to the house tomorrow between two and four! It seriously cracked me up. I felt like I was calling the plumber or something. I mean, other than that the podiatrist was a lot more responsive than your average plumber. He called me back within three minutes of me leaving a message on his voicemail to tell me he wasn't yet in the office, but that he'd call me in half an hour as soon as he was with an appointment. And he did, and he said he had some time Friday afternoon. Apparently, the podiatry business requires hustle! As well as a weird obsession with feet, but I prefer not to think about that. (But *I* am wearing closed toe shoes when he's in my house tomorrow. Seriously.)

xoxo

just one more thing

(Yes, I am procrastinating. In my defense, my new cordless drill/screwdriver is charging even as we speak. Not that that should be stopping me from the other thirty-five things I could or should be accomplishing, but it is one semi-reasonable excuse for the fact that I'm sitting here posting idiocy.)

But anyway:

http://tinyurl.com/4u6dxs

Am I wrong, or is placing a chandelier over a bathtub just a really, really bad idea? As in safety-hazard level of bad idea?

It's probably as scary as me with the cordless drill, actually.

xoxo

have you seen this?

http://www.cockeyed.com/photos/bodies/heightweight.shtml

This is exactly the kind of thing I wish I could have seen as a young woman, struggling with body image and, indeed, some body dysmorphism. I remember being 21 or so, in a store shopping with my mom, pointing out other women to her and asking, "Am I fatter than she is? Is my butt as big as hers?" I really had no idea. I could probably have looked at a woman who was exactly my size and estimated she was ten or twenty pounds lighter than me. I could have looked at a woman exactly my height and weight and thought she looked fine while I was "fat," and totally disbelieved that she weighed what I did.

I looked at the woman on that chart who correlates with "me" today--should I say it? I'm gonna say it, publicly. It'll be good for me, I'm sure--the woman who's 5'2 and 130, because I was 128 the last time I checked (within the last couple weeks), and I thought, yeah. She looks fine. Normal. Not too thin, not too fat. HWP, as they say. Fine. Therefore (at least with my clothes on) I must look just fine too.

There's so much outright lying about this in the media in all kinds of directions--if you're a female celebrity, your published weight is adjusted down, until you reach scary-anorexic levels, at which point it's publicly adjusted up, and if you're a male celebrity, your height is adjusted up, and if you're a pro athlete, I dunno, they just make up stats for both height and weight out of thin air. And then no one has any idea what a person who's 5'2 and 130 or 5'9 and 210 or 6'3 and 150 really looks like. (I've seen/heard young guys, for example, making remarks that any woman who weighs over 150 must be morbidly obese. Um, no.) It's ludicrous, but it's why projects like the one on that website are so valuable. Somebody's got to combat the media nonsense.

xoxo

group therapy and the secret to happiness

M2 told me this great story yesterday. Many years ago, in the early years of her marriage, she and her husband participated in a couples therapy/marriage encounter seminar. (Why, yes, by many years ago I do mean the 70s. Why do you ask?) They participated in this group not so much because they wanted to or felt they needed to, but because at the time her husband was like an RA in graduate student housing, or something of the sort, and doing a lot of conflict resolution and leading of groups and it was more or less expected that he be in group therapy himself.

Of all the dysfunctional people/couples in the group, the one M2 remembers most vividly is a completely off-the-charts crazee controlling and OCD woman who freely admitted, and found nothing wrong with, the fact that she could not go to bed at night until she completely scrubbed the toilet after everyone had used it and restored it to a totally pristine state. (I'm not sure if her husband was allowed to pee if he woke up during the night with the need, but I'm guessing no.) But the reason M2 frequently thinks of this woman, with a tiny stab of loathing in her heart, when she cleans her own bathroom, is that she felt compelled to come up to M2 at the end of the group and tell her that no matter how bad her own relationship was, she felt comforted that at least they weren't as dysfunctional as M2 and her spouse.

Now, it so happens that several months later M2 and Mr M2 were in fact at a point where they considered splitting up, but (in M2's words) they were both too lazy to do anything about it. And here they are over thirty years later, still together and doing just fine, so--I must point out to you all--this is another case of laziness being completely vindicated. But despite serious almost-divorce-worthy marital problems in the offing, it still galls M2 all these years later that Crazee Controlling Obsessive-Cleaning Chick would see her relationship as worse than her own.

But, as she told me, laughing, that appeared to be the main benefit, if not the actual point, of the group therapy. Every single participant, no matter how dysfunctional, no matter how miserable, left thinking, well, crap, at least we're not as bad as *them*, towards at least one "them."

I'm thinking this is actually the secret to all human happiness. As long as you can look around and think, hey! at least I'm not as completely fucked as so-n-so!, you too can feel that life is totally worth living.

xoxo

junior

I just recently came across mention of a baby named Kalub Jr. Well, you know me. My first reaction was "Woo hoo! second generation of people who can't spell!" As well as, "Hmm. People were doing that 'just fucking make up a name' thing 25 [or however old Kalub Sr is] years ago? I thought that was an obnoxious trend of more recent vintage."

I was then going to segue into a rant about my feelings on people who named their sons "junior" anything, but I reconsidered. I can only offend so many people in one month and I'm probably just at my quota. So I'll just say I do not approve.

D has his dad's first name as his middle name, which I obviously have no problem with. It was partially to placate my ex so he'd let me name D what I wanted, but also because the two names do just sound good together. They have the right syllabic pattern. Kinda like Tampa Bay Devil Rays. If D had been a girl, or if he had had a sister, her name would have been Dana Cecelia (and no, that's not an ignorant misspelling of Cecilia; that's the Polish, because it was my beloved grandmother's name. The first person who comments that Kalub is Caleb in like Greek or something is going to get an internet bitchslap from me, so just, y'know, control yourselves.) I understand totally wanting to carry a name through a family or honoring someone by giving your baby their name. But I do not approve of giving your child your own name verbatim. Especially if it leads to the poor kid being called Junior, Little Bobby, or god forbid, BJ.

Thanks for your baby-naming cooperation!

xoxo

cleanin' out my closet

See, I was decluttering tonight!

Can I tell you what I threw out from the top shelf of one of my bedroom closets? My income tax documents from 1987. Go ahead, mock me. People who have tax returns they filled out during the Reagan administration deserve merciless ridicule, I admit it. I made $20,000 in 1987. I would mock that, too, except for the sad fact that I didn't make all that much more than that in 2006, the year I was in school full time the entire year and D was in the hospital. Which I'm sure we can all agree goes a long way towards explaining why I ran out of money in December 2006 and bounced the one and only check I ever bounced in my 25 years as an Eastern Bank customer, and why I've been working so hard at rebuilding my savings in the intervening months, buying hardly any new shoes at all and only furniture from overstock that's 40% off or better.

I also cleaned out two more trash bags full of clothes for charity. While I was doing that, and making some painful decisions, lemme tell you, I came across a dress I bought in probably 1998 or 1999 and have never worn. The story of this garment is this: I bought it at Banana Republic off the super discount end of the season sale rack without trying it on, just grabbing it because it was the size I always wore at BR in those days and there was one left and it was, I dunno, 70% off or something. And then when I got it home it was a tiny bit too tight in the hips, partly because it was a very constructed dress made of that thick nubby silk with no stretch to it whatsoever. Now, I have spent my whole adult life bouncing up and down over a twenty five pound or so range of weight, so I figured, hell, if I'm five pounds lighter next summer this dress will be fine, and into the closet it went. Well, I've spent the past ten years or so periodically trying this dress on and every time I have, swear to god, it's been either too tight or too loose. But, oh Goldilocks, today it was just right. I think this means I need to take it to the dry cleaners tomorrow and then wear it out to dinner or something some time in the next three weeks before it suddenly gets too cold for it to be seasonally appropriate, because this may be my only window of opportunity for another ten years.

I also have a black velvet cocktail dress in that same closet, never worn, tags still on, of similar vintage, that I bought with L at the Ann Taylor outlet when the Worcester Common Fashion Outlets used to exist. It was $160 marked down to thirty bucks, and it was beautiful, even though I had nowhere to wear it to and it was slightly too big. By the time an event came along that it would have been perfect for, I was super-skinny (for me), and it was way too big. As of today, it's back to being just a teeny tiny bit too large--like it could come in maybe an inch at the bodice and waist--but it's still beautiful. I put it on and spent like ten minutes in front of the bathroom mirror admiring how gorgeous it made my shoulders and collarbones look, because obviously I'm self-absorbed and also a dork. But honestly, blog readers, come about November when black velvet cocktail dresses become seasonally appropriate, at least one of you all should invite me to something that would involve me taking the tags off that dress finally. Because it rocks the fucking house, as do my collarbones. I'm just telling you this in advance so yous have plenty of time to start planning the swanky Xmas party that would do my dress justice. Because I'm considerate like that.

xoxo

no actual content right here

I will at some point stop talking about decorating, my own and others'. Probably when I'm done with my house, so...2013 or so? My blog readers will all be dead of boredom by then, but I can't be responsible for that.

So in the meantime, a few more comments.

It cracks me up endlessly when people on RMS offer up advice like, "Take the bookcase out and put a sofa there," totally ignoring the fact that furniture has a practical as well as an aesthetic component and a bookcase and a sofa do *not* serve the same purpose. What exactly is someone supposed to do when they get rid of their bookcase? Pile the books on the new sofa? I may not be an expert, but I think that's probably frowned upon.

Oh, but I do know the answer to this. You aren't supposed to have books. Or any personal effects, really, that serve any actual useful purpose. That's "clutter." I swear to god, if you post a picture of your living room and there's a freaking remote on your otherwise completely-clear coffee table, three people will immediately sniff that you need to get rid of your clutter. God forbid you should actually have a magazine out, unless of course, it's not a magazine that you read, but rather one that's chosen because the cover color-coordinates with your throw rug.

And kitchen counters! They are supposed to have nothing on them except for a very few chosen accessories that provide "pops" of color. Nothing useful. Not a coffee maker, not a freaking loaf of bread. Oh, yes, you need to put in a $40,000 kitchen with four acres of (granite) counter top, but nothing is supposed to be on those counters. Again, I may just be showing my own ignorance, but I personally don't need four acres of counter top to actually prepare a meal, so if I had them, I'd like to think it wouldn't be beyond the pale to keep my coffee maker and KitchenAid out on them, and y'know, perhaps some actual nonperishable food. (Sigh. I'm such white trash. We're apparently all about the clutter in our tenements and trailers. And some of us even read [own!] books. )

It's not like I don't even know how people live like that, it's like I don't even know why anyone wants to live like that. I mean, I am working hard on getting rid of my clutter that *is* clutter, but that doesn't mean I want to live in a space where everything I own is an aesthetic prop. That's just crazy talk.

xoxo

quick question

So! While waiting for my patient to show up, I was just looking at World Market online (since we don't have any of those around here). They have Lord Krishna throw pillows. They're very attractive. I thought, Cool! Another major world religion I can desecrate!

Should I go for it?

xoxo

actual content right *here*

Swear to god, I'm gonna write an actual post now! I know it's been awhile.

(And because it's been awhile, this will probably end up being tangential and poorly written. Deal.)

I want to talk about receiving. Maybe it's important to talk about the genesis of this little collection of thoughts and maybe it's not. I'm just going to say this: I had a long email conversation with someone over the past couple days that touched on how we treat the people we purportedly care about. My position is that consideration, kindness, and respect towards the people we love (or say we love) is not extraordinary; it's how we should behave. My correspondent agreed that it's how we should behave, but felt that it is, unfortunately, somewhat rare, and thus is something that shouldn't be taken for granted when it is bestowed on us. I guess I can't really argue that.

But it made me think about how receiving kindness and consideration and respect properly can encourage more of it in relationships.

Despite what anyone who knows me now might suspect, back in the day, when I was married to my ex, I was often a real cunt to him. That is definitely not my natural inclination. (Shut up.) In fact, I frequently fought my spontaneous impulses to do things that he might prefer or enjoy. Part of this was due to the cultural messages that told me that if I put anyone else's needs or preferences above my own or if I wasn't constantly fighting to get my own way all the time, I was a weak and spineless doormat. And being nice to someone you purportedly love would only lead to being taken advantage of. Do what you want! Don't let anybody dictate to you! You go, girl!

Not, of course, that we never did anything nice for each other. I gave him neck rubs and shaved the parts of him he couldn't reach. If he asked. And I wasn't pissed off at him. If I went to bed before him, he'd "tuck me in" by which I mean to say, I'd yell, "S, come fix my blankets!" and he'd come in and arrange them around me the way I liked. Again, if he wasn't pissed at me. There were those little bits of tenderness and care, because we did love each other--in whatever fashion we were able to in our fucked up way, that is. But there should have been so much more.

And I was thinking that one of the reasons that there wasn't so much more, at least from my side, had nothing to do with the cultural messages. It had to do with his being unable to receive in a way that was reinforcing of my behavior. When we first started living together, if we actually had money for groceries I would tell him I was going to cook. And often enough, I'd make something to the best of my 19 year old ability, and he'd "forget" to come home on time and eat it. So, my attempts to make an actual meal would grow fewer and further in between and then he'd complain I never cooked. Which would make me furious and resentful. And led to years of us each just fending for ourselves and rarely eating dinner together. When all he ever had to have done was a.) show up at dinnertime b.) eat what it was I made and c.) say thank you. I'd have been cooking for him.

He also sucked in major, major ways at receiving gifts. I can very rarely remember him receiving a gift from me, or anyone else, that didn't have something "wrong" with it in some way. Nothing was ever exactly what it was he wanted and he didn't ever even have the grace to not let that show. He couldn't take any pleasure in the fact that somebody spent the time and effort to go out and try to buy him something he might like or want or need. It was all about the actual thing gifted, and that thing was never exactly what he would have gotten for himself. It got to the point where he really thought Christmas presents meant you told your family and friends exactly what you wanted, down to the brand, color, and specific model number, and if they didn't provide it for you exactly as you specified (kinda like with a bridal registry, come to think of it!) you had the right to feel slighted. To act slighted. To say as you were unwrapping the present, "no, this isn't what I wanted." I think these days even his own sister doesn't give him anything on gift-giving occasions. That's what that inability to receive gracefully leads to.

See, tangential. But, really, what I mean to say is this: receiving well means people will give to you more. It is a happy circle. Be kind and respectful and considerate to the people you love, but also accept the kindness and respect and consideration they give you. It'll make everyone's life better.

xoxo

various updates

...on previous thoughts.

First of all? Mr Indemnity and I figured out yesterday why having a disabled child is a blessing. It's because then you get a handicapped placard and you can park anywhere you damn well please. Thank you, Jesus! (Okay, yes, I do know I'm going to hell. I also know that Mr Indemnity is probably going to deny his part in this conversation. I'll remind him in advance that lying will also cause him to go to hell.)

Secondly, another thing that's going to make me throw something through my TV some time quite soon? Identifying someone as a "real person," as in "people like Sarah Palin because she's a real person." Um, unless there is a global conspiracy that I am sadly ignorant of and all my elected officials are, in fact, androids, or perhaps aliens from the planet Zorg in clever disguises, they're all real people too. The phrase you may just be looking for is "ordinary person." Thanks!

Thirdly! Other decorating rules or trends that I have been unaware of and/or flouting? Your curtains or drapes are supposed to touch the floor. (You can't tell by the pictures I posted, but the curtains behind my bed do in fact touch and drag on the floor. This is only because they're those ones from Ikea that have the hemming tape handily included, but I was too lazy to do so, and figured you can't tell anyway; it was not on purpose. But apparently my laziness has been vindicated.) Also, your drapery rods should be hung above the actual window, in many cases much higher, and perhaps wider than the window as well. Who the fuck knew? When I replace the ::gasp:: vertical blinds in my front window such that I am not a laughingstock on my street anymore, I will do so with drapes hung correctly. Promise!

xoxo

okay

I lost a huge-ass blog post I was writing, so rather than try to recreate it, let's cut to the salient points.

1.) If you are my friend, be serious and realize I'm probably not going to read the political chain letters and articles you forward me, even if I share your political beliefs.

2.) Having a child with "special needs" of any kind is not a fucking blessing. Especially for the child. So shut the fuck up about that before I throw something through my TV, kthx.

3.) Wanting a job with which you can reasonably support yourself and whatever dependents you have does not ipso facto make you a feminist. Even if you are a chick. Srsly.

These insights were much more brilliant in context. Also srsly.

xoxo

news, views, and capsule reviews

News first? Andrea 1, Target Corp 0.

Actually, I have no idea why I think *I* won. They made me go all over the North Shore, visiting stores of theirs I rarely if ever go in, just for the privilege of giving them my money. However, I was successful in finding the correct match to my lonely sheer, so woo hoo. I suppose this will assuage my bitterness that certain friends of mine who are in new relationships and thus spending all their time smooching did not spontaneously offer, as they ordinarily would have, to go to the Target in Watertown, or perhaps Everett, for me. But who am *I* to suggest that smooching should take a backseat to my window covering needs, ahahaha? That'd be silly.

Now onto the capsule reviews! These are the movies I have recently rented. First of all, I'm Not There. I thought, and had had it suggested to me, that I probably wouldn't like this film because I'm not a Dylan fan. (I know, I know, gasp. Both Mr Indemnity and M2 have shaken their heads sadly at me over this on multiple occasions.) But anyway, my dislike for this movie had nothing to do with Dylan fandom or lack thereof. I didn't get it, and the way in which I didn't get it felt much the same to me as the way I don't get certain literary fiction. Namely that they (by which I mean the creators) would like me to feel like I don't get it because I am too stupid, too obtuse, or too lowbrow, when in fact I don't get it because there's nothing to get and it's pointlessly artsy for the sake of being artsy.

Secondly, Margot at the Wedding, or whatever that Nicole Kidman movie is called. This really was like much literary fiction, in that it had no real plot to speak of. Instead, it was the character study of a really unpleasant person. Despite that, and despite the fact it got mixed and lukewarm reviews, I kind of enjoyed it. Maybe my enjoyment stemmed from the fact that I spent the first fifteen minutes of the movie thinking Nicole Kidman's son was a girl or that there was a totally gratuitous scene of Nicole masturbating. Or maybe it was Jack Black's ironic moustache. I dunno. But I didn't find it a complete waste of 97 minutes of my life.

Thirdly! Soylent Green. As you know, if you've been paying attention and taking notes (as well you should be), sometimes when I run out of HBO series and new movies to Netflix, I rent classic movies that I haven't seen or am not sure whether I've seen or have only seen severely edited on network TV. I'm not sure which category Soylent Green falls into (for reasons that will become clear as I go on). I was kind of convinced that I'd seen every cheesy Charleton Heston movie ever made on TV when I was a kid, especially the science fiction ones, (but Omega Man put a lie to that), and I certainly, certainly knew what the famous tagline to this movie was and thus the crux of the plot. But I started watching it and now I really don't know. I will say, cheesiness aside, this is (so far, because I haven't finished it) really quite a good movie. It was made in 1972 and takes place in 2022, so it's interesting, as all near-future scifi is when the actual date arrives or comes closer, to see how very wrong, or right, the projected future turns out to be.

One thing I thought was fascinating is that the dystopia depicted is said to be caused by global warming and the greenhouse effect. I had no idea anyone knew about that circa 1972; I don't remember hearing anything about it until the early 80s, when all that hairspray I was using to get my hair to look like that was being blamed for the hole in the ozone layer. And of course, the two things no one ever predicted in these books or movies are the cell phone and the flat screen. We first meet Shirl, the female lead, playing an Asteroids-level video game on a contraption the size of an arcade game, which is just hilarious from our 2008 perspective, of course.

But more about Shirl. This is why I am both convinced I had to have seen this movie at some impressionable age and yet sure that it makes no sense that I saw it on TV. Shirl is, by profession, a concubine. She is, in the terminology of her world, "furniture." She comes with the luxury apartment, like the refrigerator or the carpeting. Charleton Heston, who is a cop, meets her while investigating the murder of her employer. His first act is to inspect her arms and then look down the back of her dress, checking for bruises, to see if she has any obvious reason to be holding grudges against the dead man. When he comes back to question her a second time, he finds her partying with her girlfriends, who are all in the same line of work. He takes her into the bedroom, supposedly for privacy, and orders her right into bed, where the "questioning" explicitly takes the form you might expect. Shirl is not upset by this. [In fact, when he tries to leave before dawn, she entices him to stay with promises of breakfast (real food! a luxury!) and a shower with actual hot water (also an unimaginable luxury!)]

Okay, you can probably guess why I think I had to have seen this at some point when it was able to worm its way into my impressionable little brain and libido. On the other hand? If this movie was on the television in 1974 or 76, I can't imagine it wouldn't have been edited such that a lot of what was going on would have gone over my pubertal head. Or maybe it wouldn't have. I guess barring regression hypnosis, I'll never know, will I?

Okay, I think that's that.

xoxo

are we pleased?

With Lowell and Beckett's returns? Why, yes, yes we are. Are we pleased with gaining another game on the [they'll aways be Devil] Rays [to me]? Why, yes, yes we are. We're also pleased to be visiting the Texas Rangers and pleased to hear to MVP! chants whenever Pedroia comes up.

I'm not just using the royal "we" here, I'm speaking for all of you. Because I know you're all reasonable people.

xoxo

more illustrating

See? Doesn't the one sheer look ridiculous under the valance? (These walls are getting painted or possibly Venetian plastered, by the way. Ignore their off-whiteness for now.) That's my massage table on the right. I've got a beautiful new mirror and some floating shelves for this room too but they're not going up until the walls are done.


Just a close-up of the Very Furry Blanket on my couch. It's covering up a rip in my ::ahem:: distressed leather.

My faux Roman pot. Do you think it needs sticks in it?

And here's Buddha again, living on top of my new Bombay chest full o' DVDs in Boho Paradise. He may just stay there. I've become attached to him.

xoxo

one more thing

...about color, this time.

So I mentioned the aqua blue with brown? Any kind of light blue, teal blue, mint green, or pink with brown is very on trend right now, in clothing and in home decor. I didn't buy that chair or those sheers because it's fashionable. I bought them because it's a very pretty color combination and I like it. But I am well aware that because it is trendy, eventually it's going to look dated. I'm certainly not going to sniff at the chair in 5 years and go, "Oh, yeah, so 2008, must be replaced." Unless I fall into buckets o' money somehow. But I am aware that ten or fifteen years from now, people will sniff at the light blue/brown combo and go, "So dated! Ugly! Must go!" which is, in my opinion, very ridiculous. Because it's intrinsically pretty. It's not the equivalent of an avocado green refrigerator.

On the other hand, I see oh so many people on Rate My Space (for example) suggesting that other people paint their walls sage green. Or gray. The sage green must be a trendy thing, because I can't see any other upside to it. I'm a fan of green in general, but sage? The worst of all possible greens. (I just offended at least one of yous, right? I'm so sorry. Just remember the soccer moms won't even steal my packages and be comforted that you're right and I'm wrong.)

And gray? When baby D was baby D, we had a kitchen with gray walls. I picked that primarily because I wanted to put those big retro black and white checkerboard tiles on the floor. The floor never came to be because it's hard to renovate an apartment when you have a baby (and a husband with a coke problem) but I lived with those walls for several years and it wasn't good. And then after that, my old office/exam room in work had bluish-gray counters and trim, which was not my doing. I used to have nurses who came down from the ER or the SCN laughing at me. "Dude! How can you tell if someone's cyanotic in here? This color makes everyone look like you need to call a code." So, yeah, my advice is, if you want to paint your walls a trendy gray, just remember you, your family, and your guests are all going to look like hell standing or sitting next to them. Learn from my experience!

Sage green or gray walls do = avocado refrigerator. Srsly.

xoxo

more rating spaces

Since I started paying attention to it, I'm finding the whole concept of trends in interior design/home improvement bemusing.

Did you know vertical blinds (like the ones in my living room picture window that I'm looking at *right now*) are horrible! ugly! and OUTDATED!!? I didn't. I mean, they came with the house, and they aren't the prettiest things in the world, and they're pretty dingy at this point because they came with the house, they're old, but they keep people from being able to stare right into my house while I'm watching TV, so I kinda figured they're serving their purpose. But now I'm feeling horribly self-conscious about them, like my neighbors drive/walk by them every day and shake their heads, wondering when the hell we're going to get out of the 80s. This is probably why the soccer moms don't steal my packages--they strongly suspect my taste is iffy and I wouldn't have anything they want.

Anyway, I fail to see why vertical blinds are any more intrinsically ugly than horizontal blinds or goddamn "Roman shades", other than that they are identified as being something that everyone put in their houses circa mid-80s to early 90s. And about those Roman shades, the ones I told you I bought last week? Cannot figure out how to put the fuckers up. Not only do the brackets that came with them bear little to no resemblance to the ones pictured in the instructions such that I can't even tell what direction I'm supposed to install them in the window frame, but even without attaching the brackets to anything, I cannot figure out how the shade would hook on to them. So now they're in a closet, waiting for either one of my smarter friends to come over and show me the light or my brain to start working better. (I've been not feeling well, and I think it's made me stoopider than usual; that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.)

So in lieu of putting the shades in my dedicated massage room, I decided to cover up the shades that are already in there with some sheers. (There are already my favorite valances in the world in there: bronzey-brown velvet with dangly beads [shut up] from Target 5 years ago.) Because I just bought a new accent chair to go in that room which is brown with light aqua, I figured the sheers should be aqua-ish blue. Did Target have some? Why, yes they did. Except they had three. Since you really need two for each window, I could not figure out why the fuck they would have an odd number left in the store. But, anyway, I bought the three they had and figured I could buy one more online. But, alas, no. They do not carry that particular curtain in that color and length on the website. I have one sheer on each of the two windows right now and I think it looks retarded. I'm thinking this means I need to go on a field trip to the next few closest Targets to me and try to find one more. If that doesn't work, I'm sending you all out to *your* Targets to search for me; be on alert!

I know, I know. I don't write anything for a week and then this is the best I can do? It's a pity.

xoxo