I just realized yesterday, in a work conversation about "wait, is anyone seeing patients the day after Thanksgiving?," that that's in two weeks. Holy crap. Thanksgiving is on the earliest possible day this year.
Which means many of my neighbors are going to have their Christmas lights firmly affixed to their houses on November 23. Now, I have no problem with Christmas lights per se. They're pretty and colorful and festive. I have a bit more problem with giant inflatable Santas and such, but as much as they offend my retinas, they make the little kids happy, so that's cool. I do, however, have a problem with all this decorating happening in mid-November and then the lights coming off the house on December 26. We're not celebrating the freaking shopping season, we're celebrating Christmas. Which has twelve days.
Excuse me while I drag my Luddite-holiday ass off to grumble with the other crotchedy and out-of-step purists.
xoxo
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
germophobia...
and related matters!
So, yesterday, there was a story on my AOL welcome screen (shut up) about the resurgence of bedbugs. Being as full of poor judgment as the next person, I clicked on the link. Then, being also as suggestible as the next person, I sat there in my office and scratched my way through the article.
Now, I already knew about the resurgence of bedbugs, since round about Labor Day when all the students were moving back into town, there was an article in the Globe about picking up furniture that people left on the sidewalk that mentioned it in a cautionary way. Since even back when I was a poor student, I only took my secondhand cast-off furniture from people I knew, and I am even less likely to be trawling Brighton Ave for other people's sofas today, this was a matter of idle interest only. But, according to yesterday's article, I should be AFRAID! VERY AFRAID! Bedbugs are everywhere, including, I guess, reputable hotel chains. The writer suggested keeping one's luggage on the metal luggage rack only and--get this--bringing a flashlight to inspect behind and under the hotel mattress before you sleep in it.
I'm sorry. If the day comes that I really feel I need to travel with a flashlight and flip over the boxspring before unpacking, I will just fucking stay home, preferably in a hermetically sealed plastic bubble. Do you remember the big expose on 20-20(or one of those shows) a few years ago about hotel bedspreads which are changed, like, never, and which your handy-dandy black light tests show to be full, just chock full, of other people's old bodily fluids? Well, lemme say this. Both before and after this helpful information from ABC News, I have sat my nekkid butt on many, many Hampton Inn and Marriott bedspreads and lived to tell about it. In fact, it probably helped contribute to my Superior Immune System. For all you know. You are not going to catch anything from a hotel bedspread, even if a lonely CPA from Cincinnati despoiled it while watching cable porn three weeks ago. It's just gross, not dangerous. So don't think about it, and you'll be fine. I promise.
And that was actually one of the points of the bedbug article, after they finished whipping up the hysteria. Bedbugs don't carry any diseases. They're a nuisance, not a health hazard. But since we're living in a first world country and no longer used to dealing with even the most benign of vermin, the idea of bedbugs is enough to send people on their vacations with flashlights and a thin edge of hysteria.
In another example of this, in the book Home Comforts, the author, who is certifiably a complete germophobe whacko, imparts with a palpable shudder the information that dust mites are arachnoids. The idea that there are microscopic *spiders* living in your sheets is supposed to make you swear that, yes, yes, you will wash your bedding in hot water 4x a week and vacuum every single fucking day. In fact, dust mites are not a problem unless you or a family member have dust allergies or asthma, and the fact that they are microscopic spiders doesn't change that. If you find the idea that they're arachnoids gross, don't think about it. It seriously will be a lot easier than treating your bedroom like it's an operating theater requiring sterile conditions.
And, finally, I find the bedbug article to be yet another example of how the single most important mission of the American media--it's mission statement, you might say--is to instill paranoia. If Muslim terrorists or global warming don't get you, then it's going to be the meteor that's passing too close in 20-whatever or the e.coli in your hamburger or something toxic imported from China or maybe the fact that you're too obese or not obese enough. Meanwhile, mind the bedbugs and the dust mites and the hotel bedspreads, and don't think too hard about the fact that we all die of something sometime.
xoxo
So, yesterday, there was a story on my AOL welcome screen (shut up) about the resurgence of bedbugs. Being as full of poor judgment as the next person, I clicked on the link. Then, being also as suggestible as the next person, I sat there in my office and scratched my way through the article.
Now, I already knew about the resurgence of bedbugs, since round about Labor Day when all the students were moving back into town, there was an article in the Globe about picking up furniture that people left on the sidewalk that mentioned it in a cautionary way. Since even back when I was a poor student, I only took my secondhand cast-off furniture from people I knew, and I am even less likely to be trawling Brighton Ave for other people's sofas today, this was a matter of idle interest only. But, according to yesterday's article, I should be AFRAID! VERY AFRAID! Bedbugs are everywhere, including, I guess, reputable hotel chains. The writer suggested keeping one's luggage on the metal luggage rack only and--get this--bringing a flashlight to inspect behind and under the hotel mattress before you sleep in it.
I'm sorry. If the day comes that I really feel I need to travel with a flashlight and flip over the boxspring before unpacking, I will just fucking stay home, preferably in a hermetically sealed plastic bubble. Do you remember the big expose on 20-20(or one of those shows) a few years ago about hotel bedspreads which are changed, like, never, and which your handy-dandy black light tests show to be full, just chock full, of other people's old bodily fluids? Well, lemme say this. Both before and after this helpful information from ABC News, I have sat my nekkid butt on many, many Hampton Inn and Marriott bedspreads and lived to tell about it. In fact, it probably helped contribute to my Superior Immune System. For all you know. You are not going to catch anything from a hotel bedspread, even if a lonely CPA from Cincinnati despoiled it while watching cable porn three weeks ago. It's just gross, not dangerous. So don't think about it, and you'll be fine. I promise.
And that was actually one of the points of the bedbug article, after they finished whipping up the hysteria. Bedbugs don't carry any diseases. They're a nuisance, not a health hazard. But since we're living in a first world country and no longer used to dealing with even the most benign of vermin, the idea of bedbugs is enough to send people on their vacations with flashlights and a thin edge of hysteria.
In another example of this, in the book Home Comforts, the author, who is certifiably a complete germophobe whacko, imparts with a palpable shudder the information that dust mites are arachnoids. The idea that there are microscopic *spiders* living in your sheets is supposed to make you swear that, yes, yes, you will wash your bedding in hot water 4x a week and vacuum every single fucking day. In fact, dust mites are not a problem unless you or a family member have dust allergies or asthma, and the fact that they are microscopic spiders doesn't change that. If you find the idea that they're arachnoids gross, don't think about it. It seriously will be a lot easier than treating your bedroom like it's an operating theater requiring sterile conditions.
And, finally, I find the bedbug article to be yet another example of how the single most important mission of the American media--it's mission statement, you might say--is to instill paranoia. If Muslim terrorists or global warming don't get you, then it's going to be the meteor that's passing too close in 20-whatever or the e.coli in your hamburger or something toxic imported from China or maybe the fact that you're too obese or not obese enough. Meanwhile, mind the bedbugs and the dust mites and the hotel bedspreads, and don't think too hard about the fact that we all die of something sometime.
xoxo
quick update
I have a longer topic I need to address with you all, but until I get the time to do that properly, just a little follow-up from a previous topic:
I saw Mr Muscular Hispanic Bobbypinned Mechanic again! He was wearing a bronze metallic leather jacket. So now I'm forced to revise my assumption from "huge endowment" to "gay." Possibly gay with a huge endowment, of course.
Which, you know, would make him quite the popular muscular bobbypinned mechanic. So, cheers.
(Did you ever stop to think what fantasy life I'd make up for *you* if I saw you out and about in public? If so, were you skeered? Just a little?)
xoxo
I saw Mr Muscular Hispanic Bobbypinned Mechanic again! He was wearing a bronze metallic leather jacket. So now I'm forced to revise my assumption from "huge endowment" to "gay." Possibly gay with a huge endowment, of course.
Which, you know, would make him quite the popular muscular bobbypinned mechanic. So, cheers.
(Did you ever stop to think what fantasy life I'd make up for *you* if I saw you out and about in public? If so, were you skeered? Just a little?)
xoxo
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
pandora
Do you use this?
Today at work I had a 4 1/2-hour long, mind-numbingly boring task I just had to sit down and plow through and I knew there was no way I was going to make it through without music. Unfortunately, I had none with me. So, I figured, okay, yeah, let's mess about with some internet radio.
Pandora, in case you don't use it, uses the music genome project to personalize what it plays for you. You start by telling it some artists, songs, or genres you like as a starting point, and then you vote yay or nay on the songs as they come up to tweak it, etc. But what's really cool (to me, anyway) is that when a song comes up, you can click on "why is this recommended for me?" and it will tell you what "genes" are in the songs you like that are also in this selection. I thought it would be sort of simplistic: "subtle punk roots" or "electric instrumentation" are kind of self-evident. But apparently I also like extensive vamping and minor key tonality. Amongst other things. None of which I have ever heard of or have any clue about.
I may just become obsessed with this. Maybe my apparently instinctive love for minor key tonality explains why I cannot listen to country music. Or something. I'm sure it explains something.
xoxo
Today at work I had a 4 1/2-hour long, mind-numbingly boring task I just had to sit down and plow through and I knew there was no way I was going to make it through without music. Unfortunately, I had none with me. So, I figured, okay, yeah, let's mess about with some internet radio.
Pandora, in case you don't use it, uses the music genome project to personalize what it plays for you. You start by telling it some artists, songs, or genres you like as a starting point, and then you vote yay or nay on the songs as they come up to tweak it, etc. But what's really cool (to me, anyway) is that when a song comes up, you can click on "why is this recommended for me?" and it will tell you what "genes" are in the songs you like that are also in this selection. I thought it would be sort of simplistic: "subtle punk roots" or "electric instrumentation" are kind of self-evident. But apparently I also like extensive vamping and minor key tonality. Amongst other things. None of which I have ever heard of or have any clue about.
I may just become obsessed with this. Maybe my apparently instinctive love for minor key tonality explains why I cannot listen to country music. Or something. I'm sure it explains something.
xoxo
Monday, November 5, 2007
misc.
1.) Gone, Baby, Gone is a very good movie, if soul-suckingly grim. Casey Affleck's performance is amazing. No more nepotism cracks from me. Plus, the moral question the movie leaves in your mind, namely what if you do what you really think is the right thing and you are disastrously wrong?, is an interesting and important one to consider.
2.) Spent the day today with my friend S. Massages, hot tubbing, and Thai food are, all things considered, a damn good way to spend a Monday. And lots of good talk, of course. Which leads to #...
3.) More thoughts on aging! S recently turned 45 as well. We were discussing our disgruntlement with the whole concept and she said, "...and I'm almost 50." I was like, wait, no, 45 is 45, not almost 50. Though turning 45 will effectively put an end to my saying I'm in my early 40s. Sigh. But, no, I refuse to admit to being almost 50.
xoxo
2.) Spent the day today with my friend S. Massages, hot tubbing, and Thai food are, all things considered, a damn good way to spend a Monday. And lots of good talk, of course. Which leads to #...
3.) More thoughts on aging! S recently turned 45 as well. We were discussing our disgruntlement with the whole concept and she said, "...and I'm almost 50." I was like, wait, no, 45 is 45, not almost 50. Though turning 45 will effectively put an end to my saying I'm in my early 40s. Sigh. But, no, I refuse to admit to being almost 50.
xoxo
Sunday, November 4, 2007
today's epiphany
Warning: this post concerns some upsetting imagery, heh, and may be somewhat disjointed, because I don't really have time to shape it properly. I just need to get the thoughts on electronic paper before they're gone.
I was lying in bed early this morning pondering why the Johnny Rotten Nipplegate image Tripleindemnity placed in my head required so much brain bleach to remove. (WTF do you think about when you're awake way early because of the time change?) Let me be clear about this: I may be a prude, but I don't particularly want to see anyone, male or female, young or old, pretty or nonpretty, pinching their own nipples on network TV, or really, anywhere. It's just not an exhibition I personally need to be a part of. But part of the true revulsion that occurred in my poor squicked psyche was due to Tripleindemnity's description of Mr Rotten as old, bloated, fat, and in need of dentistry as he pinched his own nipples on network TV. That behavior, as aesthetically upsetting as it is, is far less aesthetically upsetting when it's done by young slinky heroin-addicted punks than by their decrepit 30 year older selves.
So. You know (or you should, peasants) my birthday will soon be upon us. It's one of those birthdays with a five in it, which is almost as horrifying as a birthday with a 0 on the end. And you know, if you've been following along, that I've been having pangs about growing older. Part of it has been wrapped up in the certainty that I am losing my looks, which somewhat confused me, since it's not as if I was ever one of those women who was beautiful, and therefore had her whole identity invested in that. I was cute and, for a brief period in my midtwenties, I was pretty. But mostly, I was, well, fairly sexalicious.
And my epiphany, which god knows, is so simple that I feel like a moron for not being able to put my finger on it sooner, is that what my identity is wrapped up in is being a sexual person. Sexually desirable, if not pretty, and possessed of a strong sex drive, even when I'm not acting upon it, and just, yeah, a sexual person. Someone who may or may not be reading this blog entry and who may or may not remember making the comment, once looked over and said to me, "You just exude sexuality," and I did, when he was around, anyway, and it was one of the nicest, sincerest compliments I ever got. And the second part of the epiphany is that I have internalized at a gut level--though I reject it on an intellectual level--the prevailing cultural idea that exuding sexuality is at best vaguely ridiculous and at worst fucking gross when you are no longer the young, pretty, slinky thing you once were. And if an important part of my self-identity is vaguely ridiculous or fucking gross, where am I?
Seriously, we all know there was a point at which scrawny ugly but sexalicious Mick Jagger screwing everything that crossed his path slipped from admirable to ewww. And, I think I may have mentioned here or elsewhere, Paula Deen, cooking show host and inventor of the best. cake. ever., is pilloried all over the internet for her bawdy Southern grandma persona because it just squicks people out no end that a fat (if exquisitely well-groomed and very attractive) old woman still likes sex and likes to talk about it, joke about it, and flirt. I guess the only way to be a socially acceptable sexalicious old person is to be completely discreet about it and never let any of it out except behind closed doors with whatever partner you've managed to snag with, I dunno, your other admirable qualities.
I'm not fucking ready for that.
So, yeah, I remain resentful of aging. Goddamn it.
(Old women should probably stop swearing so much too, huh?)
xoxo
I was lying in bed early this morning pondering why the Johnny Rotten Nipplegate image Tripleindemnity placed in my head required so much brain bleach to remove. (WTF do you think about when you're awake way early because of the time change?) Let me be clear about this: I may be a prude, but I don't particularly want to see anyone, male or female, young or old, pretty or nonpretty, pinching their own nipples on network TV, or really, anywhere. It's just not an exhibition I personally need to be a part of. But part of the true revulsion that occurred in my poor squicked psyche was due to Tripleindemnity's description of Mr Rotten as old, bloated, fat, and in need of dentistry as he pinched his own nipples on network TV. That behavior, as aesthetically upsetting as it is, is far less aesthetically upsetting when it's done by young slinky heroin-addicted punks than by their decrepit 30 year older selves.
So. You know (or you should, peasants) my birthday will soon be upon us. It's one of those birthdays with a five in it, which is almost as horrifying as a birthday with a 0 on the end. And you know, if you've been following along, that I've been having pangs about growing older. Part of it has been wrapped up in the certainty that I am losing my looks, which somewhat confused me, since it's not as if I was ever one of those women who was beautiful, and therefore had her whole identity invested in that. I was cute and, for a brief period in my midtwenties, I was pretty. But mostly, I was, well, fairly sexalicious.
And my epiphany, which god knows, is so simple that I feel like a moron for not being able to put my finger on it sooner, is that what my identity is wrapped up in is being a sexual person. Sexually desirable, if not pretty, and possessed of a strong sex drive, even when I'm not acting upon it, and just, yeah, a sexual person. Someone who may or may not be reading this blog entry and who may or may not remember making the comment, once looked over and said to me, "You just exude sexuality," and I did, when he was around, anyway, and it was one of the nicest, sincerest compliments I ever got. And the second part of the epiphany is that I have internalized at a gut level--though I reject it on an intellectual level--the prevailing cultural idea that exuding sexuality is at best vaguely ridiculous and at worst fucking gross when you are no longer the young, pretty, slinky thing you once were. And if an important part of my self-identity is vaguely ridiculous or fucking gross, where am I?
Seriously, we all know there was a point at which scrawny ugly but sexalicious Mick Jagger screwing everything that crossed his path slipped from admirable to ewww. And, I think I may have mentioned here or elsewhere, Paula Deen, cooking show host and inventor of the best. cake. ever., is pilloried all over the internet for her bawdy Southern grandma persona because it just squicks people out no end that a fat (if exquisitely well-groomed and very attractive) old woman still likes sex and likes to talk about it, joke about it, and flirt. I guess the only way to be a socially acceptable sexalicious old person is to be completely discreet about it and never let any of it out except behind closed doors with whatever partner you've managed to snag with, I dunno, your other admirable qualities.
I'm not fucking ready for that.
So, yeah, I remain resentful of aging. Goddamn it.
(Old women should probably stop swearing so much too, huh?)
xoxo
Friday, November 2, 2007
spoiled American gits
So, I'm watching reruns of House Hunters which should really be called Spoiled American Gits, if there were any truth-in-television-show-names laws at all. Here's a couple in Minnesota with a baby under a year old walking into a prospective home and looking at the "sunroom" which is the size of my dining room and living room put together. "Oh, honey! This could be the baby's playroom!"
No, you stoopid spoiled American git, your baby does not need a "playroom" the size of many people's studio apartments.
They go upstairs and look at the bedrooms and bathrooms. "Do you think all the baby's things will fit in this room, snookums?"
How many "things" does a friggin six-month-old have, other than what goes in the ginormous playroom? Need lots of closet space so his Hugo Boss suits don't get crushed, do we?
And the master bath is a sad disappointment. "It looks ::sniff:: like the bathroom in a camper, doesn't it?"
It doesn't have double sinks. Spoiled American Gits don't use the same sinks as their spouses these days, you know. You may stick your parts in their orifices and vice versa, but you wouldn't want to spit toothpaste in the same basin they do.
Nevertheless, this is the house the Spoiled American Gits decide to buy. In the follow-up visit, x months later, they have repainted the red walls in the kitchen--the only thing that gave their McMansion any character at all--off white.
Not only are they Spoiled American Gits, they are tasteless douches. I worry for that baby.
xoxo
No, you stoopid spoiled American git, your baby does not need a "playroom" the size of many people's studio apartments.
They go upstairs and look at the bedrooms and bathrooms. "Do you think all the baby's things will fit in this room, snookums?"
How many "things" does a friggin six-month-old have, other than what goes in the ginormous playroom? Need lots of closet space so his Hugo Boss suits don't get crushed, do we?
And the master bath is a sad disappointment. "It looks ::sniff:: like the bathroom in a camper, doesn't it?"
It doesn't have double sinks. Spoiled American Gits don't use the same sinks as their spouses these days, you know. You may stick your parts in their orifices and vice versa, but you wouldn't want to spit toothpaste in the same basin they do.
Nevertheless, this is the house the Spoiled American Gits decide to buy. In the follow-up visit, x months later, they have repainted the red walls in the kitchen--the only thing that gave their McMansion any character at all--off white.
Not only are they Spoiled American Gits, they are tasteless douches. I worry for that baby.
xoxo
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