Fashionably Late to the Party

The Walking Brain Dead

2012-02-13T15:45:00.003-05:00

I've taken to updating my blog on Skirt! again. My latest post is about how almost everyone on The Walking Dead is an idiot.

Since not all my blog readers are friends with me on Facebook, and won't see the links to my writing elsewhere that I post to FB, I'm planning on mentioning them in a quick post here. I'm really hoping that was a coherent sentence--I have to go work towards making money now.

Happy Almost Valentine's Day.

The Brace

2012-02-08T14:25:00.000-05:00

A lot of people, when they're trying for a baby, hope for a perfect, healthy little bundle of joy. As a parent-to-be, I get that, I really do.

As a person born with birth defects, I practically hurt myself trying not to snicker and roll my eyes at people who talk about wanting a perfect, healthy baby. Because you don't always get that. And that's OK.

One of my ankles was rotated inwards, so when I started to learn to walk, I kept tripping over myself. My mother had to go to several doctors until she found one (an orthopedist*) that didn't insist I'd grow out of it.

So the orthopedist gave me a brace that would force my ankle to rotate properly. As you can see, it was 2 circa 1971 baby shoes screwed to a piece of wood. Comfy, no?

I was supposed to wear it as I slept. Only I wasn't having any of it. My parents would put me to bed and then hear, rattle, rattle, rattle, BANG, as I bumped into the sides of my crib while untying the shoelaces and throwing the thing onto the floor.

They tried tying the laces behind my ankles. I still untied them. I couldn't walk, and probably couldn't talk all that much, but goshdarnit, I had the manual dexterity to undo any double-knot/double-bow combo they threw at me.

Finally, my mother put the brace on me during the day and didn't turn her back on me for one second, lest I start taking the damn thing off. There exists only one photo of me from that time that I've never even seen. Because no one could stop watching me long enough to get the camera.

My poor mother wanted a perfect, healthy baby and instead she got a slightly bent child with the determination of Baby Stewie. People make plans, and God laughs his ass off.

(*If your insurance allows, go straight to a specialist when you can. A few years ago, I fell in the street, exacerbating a knee injury I got when I was 12. It was very painful. My primary care doctor told me that all women my age have bad knees and I needed to lose some weight. The orthopedist I went to after that sent me for an x-ray to make sure nothing was broken and as soon as he felt my knees, said with loads of sympathy, "Walking on stairs must be killing you." After 2 rounds of physical therapy, I still have bursitis in both knees, so that first doctor needs to go fuck himself.)

Tunnel of Thanks for Nothing

2012-02-06T09:22:00.000-05:00

HA and I own a bundt cake pan that we've never gotten around to using. With all these migraines, baking hasn't been the highest priority.

But I've been having a few good days, so I've been thinking about taking the pan out for a spin. And what better use for a bundt pan than a good ol' Tunnel of Fudge cake?

If you're too young to remember, once upon a time in the 80s, you could buy a cake mix that included a packet of gooey frosting that you put inside the cake. (First you'd pour in some batter, then the tunnel of fudge, then more batter.) Soooo good.

After some quick google-fu, I discovered that the original Pillbury bake-off recipe used a frosting mix that isn't made anymore. So now the only way to make a Tunnel of Fudge cake is to make a chocolate cake that, through some food chemistry voodoo, forms a tunnel of fudge in the proper location.

I have a few problems with this.

Chocolate cake with chocolate filling is WAY too much chocolate for me.
The official version of the recipe insists that chopped walnuts are critical to the food chemistry voodoo. Not only can't I eat walnuts because of the migraines, but I firmly believe that nuts don't belong in chocolate cake. Not in brownies. Not in chocolate chip cookies. You may disagree, but that's fine by me--more yucky brownies with nuts for you.
Several bloggers that have made this cake comment on the ridonkulous about of sugar in this cake. I am a fat 40year old with a family history of diabetes and no desire to mess up my health any more than it already is. If a blogger who's making a cake a week thinks this has a lot of sugar, maybe I don't mess with this one.
Seriously? No one can come up with a fudge/frosting recipe that would lead to a tunnel of fudge in any type of cake? That seems implausible. And I am NOT the person to start experimenting in the kitchen until I strike upon the recipe that I think should exist. Hell, I can't even be bothered to go more than 5 pages into the Google results.

Please leave all bundt cake recipe suggestions and Tunnel of Fudge reminiscences in the comments.

MTA

2012-02-03T11:30:00.001-05:00

Found on Mossy Cottage Knits, like, forever ago. Who knows? Maybe I even posted it 4 years ago, but this weekend is the only one this winter when the subway line closest to me is actually going into Manhattan (track work), so let's celebrate with a folk song.

What I Haven't Been Saying

2012-02-01T09:26:00.001-05:00

Privacy and blogs don't play well together. But I think the time is right to share. Don't worry, this isn't going to be a bleak confessional thing. Not my bag.

You see, HA and I want to be parents, so a couple of years ago, we threw the birth control out the window. Figuratively, of course. We lived on the 7th floor and had no desire to kill anyone will falling contraceptives.

We told a couple of friends, but not family. Not how other people arrange it, but we didn't want anyone to get excited too soon. It's bad enough caring whether Aunt Flo is going to visit this month without your parents taking an interest in it.

What they don't tell you about trying to get pregnant is that your doctor will tell you to stop taking any medicine that could cause birth defects as soon as possible so you're not taking any chances. Since you weren't taking that medicine for shits and giggles, this is an issue. (Not for all meds, of course. Schizophrenia meds, for example, are worth the risk to the baby. But migraines, allergies and acid reflux? Suck it up future mama.)

Hector the Migraine Fairy moved in around this time thanks to the lack of medicines. It didn't help that the lemon juice I was drinking for my acid reflux turns out to be a migraine trigger. Even once I quit the lemon juice, 1-2 days out of every 3 involved a migraine.

16 months into this grand experiment, I couldn't take it anymore. The pointless lack of medicine and frequent migraines, I mean. I wasn't that hung up on my inability to get pregnant. I'm from a large extended family--the 5th oldest of 17 first cousins, so I'm not particularly impressed by the ability to get pregnant. One of us was bound to be infertile--it's Mother Nature's population control, and my family has no interest in outnumbering the Duggars. Not to dismiss other people's feelings and experiences, but it really doesn't bother me.

We went into it knowing that it might not work. The plan was to try for a while, then adopt through the foster system.

Which is what we're doing. The process is taking as long as infertility treatments (or newborn adoption) would, but without me having to inject myself with hormones and the high price tag. And the baby-induced interrupted sleep--yet another one of my migraine triggers.

Most people have questions about the process, which I'll discuss in another post, since this one is getting too long. As we've gone through all the steps, and learned all we can, I've realized that I'm far better equipped to deal with a kid with emotional problems than a baby who doesn't sleep through the night. Every time I see someone struggling with a stroller on the subway, I feel such relief that I get to skip that.

People tend to react to this news like we're applying for sainthood. Yes, we'll be helping a kid heal from the trauma inflicted on them by someone else. But that's not any bigger or better than what parents do when they raise a kid from birth (and screw them up themselves). The diaper changing, the potty training, the stooping over to hold the kid's hand as they learn to walk, the helping them climb up and down stairs over and over and over again, the reading Goodnight Moon for the 3,427th time, putting up with the tantrums, the refusal to eat, the insistence on staying awake despite the fatigue-induced crankiness. The enduring all this without abandoning the child to the wild like any sensible mammal would do. (You think a meerkat mamma would put up with a little meerkat who wouldn't eat his bugs? More bugs for meerkat mamma is what that is.)

Raising kids isn't easy no matter how you get into it.

Random Randomness

2012-01-30T08:58:00.001-05:00

The super came and fixed the plumbing on Friday (2 days after I first told him about it). Because it was an emergency.
I'm really looking forward to the Oscars this year because there will be a performance of a song from the Muppets.*
And Bret McKenzie is totes gonna win an Oscar. I don't even have to hear the other nominated song to know that.
That may be the first time I've ever used "totes" in a sentence.
With that meaning, I mean. It's not like I've never mentioned tote bags in my life.
I keep imagining Bret and Jemaine in their TV apartment. Bret tries to find the perfect spot for his Oscar and Jemaine is all, "Bret, stop showing off your Academy Award. We're a band. You shouldn't have written a song without me."
Here's a song by someone I went to high school with. My fave lines because they bring me back to my days of trying to socialize and date in a city crawling with hipsters:

But do I gotta get pierced and tattooed
Just to sit next to you

And while we're at it, here's a video of Kermit & Miss Piggy responding to Fox News' complaints that the movie was pushing a liberal agenda. Unsurprisingly, it is made of awesome.

The Joys of Plumbing

2012-01-27T09:45:00.000-05:00

This Jenuary just hasn't been my month. Cold, migraines, stomach flu and now plumbing issues of a different nature.

The background

The cold bathtub tap hasn't closed all the way for weeks now. It closes most of the way and the water trickles a little throughout the day. The super knows about it, but he has a day job and it takes him a while to get to things. He's still faster than the landlord's one plumber who takes about 6 weeks to show up. To replace a freaking washer that I could replace myself if I had a socket wrench, which I refuse to obtain on principle.

Wednesday morning's events

Wake up to discover that cold faucet isn't closing at all and there's an annoying amount of cold water running.
Try to adjust it and make it worse.
Realize that this didn't get worse with no one touching it. His Not-So-Awesomeness just didn't notice after his shower.
Get screwdriver and pliers to turn off cold water the hard way.
Discover my inability to loosen the screw on the tap cover, due to a combination of my own illness-induced weakness and how tight the super made the screw when he last worked on the faucet.
Perform morning ablutions.
Turn off water to the entire apartment under the kitchen sink.
Check the bathtub.
Discover that I only turned off the water to the kitchen sink.
Turn on kitchen sink water supply.
Turn off apartment water supply (mostly, see above referenced illness-induced weakness).
Check the bathtub.
Discover that water is closer to a trickle now.
Try unscrewing the faucet cover again.
Consider divorcing His Not-So-Awesomeness.
Think better of it.
Have breakfast.
Turn water back on.
Take shower.
Attempt to turn water off with towel turban on head.
Swear profusely.
Remove towel.
Turn water off.
Leave apartment for doctor's appointment and work, relieved that at least the super unclogged the bathtub drain last week so I don't have to stay home bailing it out all day.

Insights Gained During My Recent Bout of Stomach Flu

2012-01-25T09:17:00.001-05:00

#1 Illness makes me dumb. I forgot about the existence of Immodium until after a sleepless night that could've been prevented by that particular medication. Which was in the house. Unexpired and everything.

#2 I am a mean, scary person because HA was going to ask if I'd taken Immodium before the sleepless night, but he figured I'd get bitchy at him for suggesting something so obvious.

#3 That point in the stomach flu when you run to the bathroom every time you eat or drink something? It's just like being a Baby Alive doll. (That photo turns up when you search for "Baby Alive" in Flickr Creative Commons and it was too cute not to use.)

#4 I still have fond memories of my last bout of stomach flu, even while reliving the experience. It occurred at HA's apartment less than a year after we started dating. He got me Gatorade and saltines the next day and let me stay on his couch and showed me Carry On Up the Khyber. He really proved himself to be a Guy Who Does Not Suck.

He also pleaded with me to call an ambulance, but I didn't think it was necessary, and the experience was unpleasant enough without the addition of a bedpan and lack of privacy, so I refused.

#5 As ridiculous as it sounds, it's possible to be repulsed by the smell of Cheerios. Cheerios, people. Just when I thought my body had gotten bored with thinking up new ways to betray me--Cheerio intolerance.

Well played, Jen's body. Well played.

Field Notes from the Disco

2012-01-23T10:12:00.001-05:00

I wrote this years ago, pre-blog (as in, before blogs existed) and emailed it to some friends because I just had to share and had no other forum.

For your edification and entertainment, a report on my weekend:

So I visited a friend who lives up around Boston this weekend and we went dancing at some club in Saugus or some such place (because we decided that our time was better spent boogeying than driving all the way into Boston).

My friend teaches aerobics, goes out dancing almost every single weekend and is a fabulous dancer (as well as being pretty & having a nice body--a detail which will come into play shortly). So whenever we go dancing, she gets lots of attention (being one of the best dancers in the room, if not the best, plus the thin & pretty thing).

This gives me the additional entertainment of observing her would-be suitors.

Saturday night's would be suitor: tall, skinny suburban white guy, who danced like a tall, skinny suburban white guy.

Tactical error #1: Deliberately ogling and talking to his friends about Hot Girl in full view of her Fat Friend (Since I've stolen all my dance moves from her, I really do resemble a heavier version of her when we're out dancing).

A) Fat Friend will undoubtedly tell Hot Girl about this & maybe she's sick & tired of being ogled while she's dancing and possibly

B) Fat Friend could be bitter from not being ogled when out dancing and could pout & encourage Hot Girl to leave early. (Just a theoretical possibility that should not be ignored when dealing with Fat Friends of Hot Girls--THIS Fat Friend didn't give a rat's ass about being ogled as she was too busy rejoicing that the DJ was accomodating her & her friend's requests for cheesy disco songs--Abba, Bee Gees, sigh.)

Tactical error #2: Attempting to dance with Hot Girl without bringing over a friend to dance with the Fat Friend. This leaves the Fat Friend free to

A) rescue Hot Girl from lame guy following pre-arranged signals and

B) observe all his lame-ass attempts to get Hot Girl to like him so she may then report on same allowing Hot Girl & Fat Friend to laugh at him on the way home.

Tactical error #3: Failing to notice that he was not a very good dancer and that dancing in close proximity to Hot Girl/Dancing Queen results in making him look extra-dorky and making Fat Friend surreptitiously laugh really hard at him while still in the club.

Tactical error #4: Trying to endear himself to Hot Girl by making multiple attempts to do The Bump with the Fat Friend until she finally snaps & says, "You need to stay the fuck away from my ass." (It actually did my bitchy NYer's heart good to be mean to him, so he may actually get bonus points for this one.)

Tactical error #5: While wisely retreating during the playing of "I Will Survive", retreating all the way out the room, thus allowing Hot Girl & Fat Friend to leave completely unaccosted. Poor suitor must now wonder if he would've gotten Hot Girl's phone number if he had actually asked. This made extra-pathetic and tragic in light of:

Tactical Error #6: Suitor chose to pursue a Hot Girl who met her ex-husband while out dancing thereby rendering all his efforts (which may include going to the same club next week to look for her) completely useless (except, of course, for the boundless amusement provided to HotGirl and Fat Friend).

The best part was that my friend didn't notice any of this going on while we were at the club. Even the part when he indicated to me via gestures that he thought my friend was really hot. There was much laughing on the drive home as I described the above to her.

Open Letter to People Who Suck, Memory Lane Edition

2012-01-20T09:31:00.000-05:00

My upstairs neighbor seems to have taken up an exercise regime that involves moving a large piece of furniture back and forth every night around 10:30. Which has put me in mind of past loud neighbors.

Dear guy who lived upstairs from me and welcomed me to the building by saying that you and you brother/roommate were pretty quiet,

This was a true statement. Until you started a band that rehearsed in the bedroom above mine. Where my computer was located. You weren't very good, even with the midnight practice sessions with your amp turned up to 11. Imagine my shock when I went up to tell you to turn it the fuck down and discovered that your brother and his girlfriend were watching TV loudly so they could hear it over your excessively amplified guitar. Truly, this must have been the first instance in history where one brother didn't tell the other to hold it the fuck down.

And BTW, real bands don't practice in bedrooms. When I had a pro drummer as a rommie, her drum set never even entered the apartment. Because she didn't suck.

And while I'm at it...

Dear woman across the hall from me in that same building,

Way to get laid at 5 AM after being out all night. But did you really think that blasting Barry White music would keep your roommates from knowing about it? I mean, the music was so loud that you couldn't hear me pounding on the door and I had to go downstairs and press your apartment's buzzer all to tell you to turn it the fuck down. And that time I didn't complain, and your date left and you changed the music to Katrina and the Waves "Walking on Sunshine" and sang along? Appropriate music selection, I admit, but does everyone in the building have to wake up to celebrate that had sex?

Seriously, you're a Kindergarten teacher. Is going out for a post-coital jog after not sleeping all night going to assist you in surviving 30 5 year olds all day? Couldn't you have gotten some somethin'-somethin' at 1 AM, so you could catch some sleep after? I know I would've appreciated that schedule and I only had to sit at a desk all day.

Day-m, I'm starting to appreciate my current upstairs neighbor now. OK, who's got an annoying neighbor story to share?

So We Actually Went Out

2012-01-17T09:29:00.000-05:00

And did stuff and everything. Between the cold fairy and the migraine fairy, I haven't been up and about much for the past few weeks. And now, thanks to MTA track work, I'm looking at over a month of being unable to go into Manhattan on the weekends.

So His Awesomeness and I seized MLK day and used our MoMA membership. First, we had crazy yummy food at the 2nd floor cafe. Then we looked at art. The big exhibit at the moment is by Sanja Iveković, a feminist activist Croatian artist. Cool stuff, pretty accessible. The statue/monument at that link is a response to all the WWI and WWII monuments that ignore women's actual contributions during the war, and relegates them to a symbolic role. It was erected within walking distance of the monument it spoofs and the large photograph that shows both of them at once was quite powerful.

But the day wasn't all high falutin'. In the photography area, there was a series of snapshots, photographer unknown, from a certain person's collection. As in, you or I could do the same thing with a shoebox of grandma's old pictures. An artist didn't arrange them in a certain way. The museum curator just selected them and hung them. A random collection of old photos is cool, but it's not art.

You see, the first time I met HA's mom & aunt, we went through two, count 'em two modern art museums.* If you've never been to a modern art museum with people who don't like or get modern art, well, I can't say I recommend the experience. I spent the whole time defending and explaining the art. I had to dig deep and bring my A game and probably did my art history teachers proud, but now I get annoyed at art that I couldn't possibly justify to someone.

*Sample exchange from that day:

HA's mom or aunt looking at an Untitled 3-D painting/sculpture thing (possibly this one): I hate it when they don't title it.

Me in my mind: Me too.

Me out loud: Well, that makes you participate in the experience. You have to decide what it is.

Me in my mind: "Untitled" is such a cop-out.

Me out loud: It looks like a turtle's eye

Since I've been so much on the couch lately, my endurance is nil, so I hit the wall as we got to the 4th floor (less than halfway through the place). We went to the 5th floor cafe for some amazing cocoa and pomegranate cheesecake. Then we used our last burst of energy to visit Vincent Van Gogh, right by the cafe. I try to stop by every time I'm at MoMA since the amazing Doctor Who episode where the Doctor bends the rules and undoes a great injustices--the fact that Van Gogh is so admired and beloved now and was completely unappreciated in his own time. He does this by taking Vincent to a 21st century exhibit of his work and gets the curator to talk about how great Van Gogh is while he's standing right there. Just thinking about that scene makes me goose bumpy. Because I'm not dead inside.

Fashionable Lateness

2011-12-13T10:14:00.000-05:00

Embarrassingly, but not surprisingly considering how rarely I post, most of my blog visitors are searching for something random I happened to post about. Since I posted about Catholic funeral etiquette, I've been getting visitors who want to know about that subject. I'm glad to help, but I doubt any of those people have stuck around for the profanity-laced jocularity.

Awesomely, two people came here in the past month by searching "do frenchwomen do crafts". They do have yarn stores in France, so I'm guessing yes. (I may have never mentioned this, but when I was in Paris for my honeymoon 4 years ago, I bought a Phildar knitting pattern booklet for some adorable children's knits. None of which I've made yet, but maybe someday.)

Also, as long as I'm digressing, what is up with all the adverbs today? Probably a side effect of trying to avoid them in my novel.

Anyhoodle, I also get some people trying to find out if it's OK to be fashionably late to a party, or how fashionably late they should be, or some variation of that. Since I've thrown a few parties in my day, opinions? I has them.

First, let me say that when you should arrive at a party varies by culture and even by your group of friends (and possibly their age). Marian Keyes wrote in one of her books that in England, you show up exactly on time, while in Ireland, it's tremendously rude to show up less than an hour late.

In my 20s (in the boondocks of Brooklyn), I threw a Halloween party and the first guests arrived an hour after I said the party started. It was an old friend and she made a joke about how I could stop worrying that no one was coming. Which I had totally been doing. Even though it wasn't the first Halloween party I'd thrown for that group of friends.

A couple of years before that, I was invited to a party a college friend's place in a more fashionable section of Brooklyn. I showed up at 8 like the invite said. The host told me that he said 8 because that way everyone would show up at 9. He then ignored me for an hour while he talked long distance to a friend. He was always ducking out of things to call friends in crisis, so it wasn't out of character, but still. Dude.

Now when I throw parties, people tend to show up early. Partially, this is because I live somewhere easily accessible by public transportation and you can never be sure how long it's going to take to get anywhere. Another part is that we're in our 30s now, and don't end our evenings in the wee hours of the morning, so we all start our evenings earlier. I think part of it might be because I've met several of my current friends through DWNY (a Doctor Who fan group--HA is a founding member--how's that for geek cred?) and we used to host video meet ups and people didn't want to be late and miss any of the show.

Of course, this meant that some people would show up an hour early while we were still cleaning, and then corner us into a conversation that kept us from cleaning. One time, a planned subway diversion didn't happen, so everyone was early. The first person to apologize for being early was the third person to arrive.

So when you find yourself wondering "should I be fashionably late to this party?", ask yourself how well you know the hosts. Would they be comfortable chatting with you while they're still chopping the crudités? Then arrive on time, and if you find yourself arriving a little early, they come on in and help them set up.

If you don't know them that well and you're early, go for a walk, go for a cocoa, anything to keep from turning up before they're ready for you. If you don't relish the thought of having a few minutes to chat with the hosts before everyone arrives, show up 15-30 minutes after the starting time.

That's for regular parties. For sit down dinner parties where everyone is going to eat at the same time, 15 minutes late should be the max. Do not get between people and their dinner if you can avoid it. This is the one occasion when the start time really means something.

The whole concept of being fashionably late in theory feels like you want to make an entrance, when in practice, people want to be fashionably late because they're afraid to be the first guests to arrive, which gets in the way of standing around with a drink in your hand, not talking to anyone because you're too shy to mingle. So suck it up, and be considerate of your host when planning when to arrive at a party.

Speaking of mingling, I was once disgusted by co-workers who went into a work cocktail hour with no intention of mingling with anyone, when their mission should've been working the room to convince everyone that we deserved the contract we'd won, and that they should like us. (Most of the guests were clients.) So I read a book on mingling so I'd never be like that. The one tip from the book that I still use is to have a few conversation openers planned. That way, you can fall back on those sentences when the whole talking to human beings thing gets scary. For example, if you're at a birthday party, you can start all conversations with "How to do you know the birthday girl?" At DWNY meet ups, I often ask people who their favorite Doctor is and the conversation flows quite nicely from that.

What do you guys think about it?

How To Write a Novel

2011-12-07T13:35:00.003-05:00

Step 1: Goof off online for a bit. This is to distract you from how much your writing sucks, so that you are able to pick up a pen.

Step 2: Clear desk in preparation for typing in the handwritten stuff from the last writing session. (I can type faster than I can think, but handwrite & think at the same pace, so I write my fiction by hand.)

Step 3: While moving breakfast dishes from desk, drop spoon on the floor.

Step 4: Listen to spoon slide under desk.

Step 5: Feel under desk with foot for spoon. Fail.

Step 6. Decide to leave spoon there until it's time to move the desk.

Step 7: Realize that the soon is from this morning's cottage cheese and said acquaintance with dairy will give rise to a mighty stank if left in place.

Step 8: Reach under desk with the business end of a swifter broom.

Step 9: Retrieve an Advil liquigel, emery board, one cheerio and an unhealthy amount of dust. (When you're done judging me, go check under your desk. I'll wait. Yeah, that's what I thought.)

Step 10: Realize that the swiffer has pushed the spoon against the wall behind the desk.

Step 11: Make 5-10 failed attempts to retrieve the spoon with the business end of the swiffer, while composing a blog post about the escapade in your head.

Step 12: Retrieve the spoon with the handle end of the swiffer.

Step 13: Feel unjustifiably clever while tossing spoon into the kitchen sink.

Step 14: Write blog post, calling it "a writing warm up".

Step 15. Fix all the autocorrects of "swiffer".

Step 16: Post blog post and make a nice cup of tea.

Step 17: Type up that stuff from the other day. No, really.

Bullet Time

2011-11-10T10:47:00.004-05:00

My Facebook Account is down temporarily, which means that I haven't checked my News Feed this morning and...and...and it's just messing with my mojo, OK? It's totally thrown off my morning routine. Which could make for a good FB status, except that I can't post to Facebook right now.
This should bother me so much less than it does.
I got my second round of Botox shots last week. They hurt less than the first time. I'm still waiting to see if they do the trick.
I've got some sort of autocomplete going on as I'm typing this. I don't know whether to thank/blame Blogger or my shiny new iMac.
Have you heard about this campaign to use the pre-paid reply envelopes that come with pre-approved credit cards to send messages to banks? It's enough to make me sort through the giant stack of unsorted mail looking for envelopes I can send back.
Christmas shopping? Seriously? I am so not feeling it yet.
I may skip making handmade gifts for the eleventy-one kids in my extended family. The migraines have really decreased my knitting output this year.
Or I may decide to start whipping up cork elves for everyone. After making 150 for my brother's wedding (I have pix of all 150 lined up, but haven't gotten around to posting them a year and a half later), it takes me less than 45 minutes to do each one.
We'll see.
I've checked Facebook 10 times since I started writing this. Because I wants it.
Huzzah! It worked the 11th time. To the Facebook!

Power Watching

2011-10-12T09:22:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the modern miracle that is Netflix, I've power watched several TV series. There are some definite advantages to watching the episodes all at once. No waiting until next week or next season for things to get resolved, for example. (I imagine that watching Lost this way will be somewhat less painful than watching it while it was still on. I decided to wait for the DVDs when I saw the at first pleasant, and then not so pleasant agonies fans were going through in the first season. I still haven't gotten around to it.)

It was comforting watching The Dick Van Dyke Show at the rate of an episode or two a day. For a few weeks, my before-bed ritual was watching some wacky adventures.

But too many episodes too watched too close together and it can get on my nerves. There was a few episodes in one of the later seasons where Mary Tyler Moore got into wacky misunderstandings with barely an episode in between. It struck me as lazy writing, especially on a show that featured writers sitting around saying, "no, we can't do that premise. We did it 2 weeks ago."

Unlike some people, I can't watch an entire season in a weekend. Which would be a handy skill considering the migraine situation. (My plans for last weekend: haircut & clothes shopping. My actual weekend: PJs and couch with migraines. Yes, plural. I had a few hours pain free Sunday morning and then my fucking head started up again. I feel like I should name my migraines, like a friend of mine named her tumor. Suggestions welcome.)

Another downside is that no one else is watching the show at the same time as me. I have no one to discuss it with!

(Side note: I was once on a e-mail list of acquaintances that, among other things, rehashed and discussed TV shows. The list started to die when the list owner got a Tivo, didn't watch America's Next Top Model the night it aired, then got pissed off when people discussed it the next day anyway. Because she couldn't be expected to ignore those emails and then come back to them later. Or something.)

I finished Dick Van Dyke and now I'm into Monarch of the Glen, which is not a period drama, even though the name makes it sound that way. Present time, scottish manor that the young laird is trying to turn into a money making (instead of money-losing) business. Quirky characters, hilarity ensues amongst nature's beauty. I gave it 5 stars out of 5 while watching the first season, but now that I'm on the 4th, it's lost a star in my estimation. From what I've read online, it may lose another by the end of the 7th season.

The most frustrating part is that I have no one (even online, apparently) to turn to and say, "What the hell were the writers thinking?" or "Did they write out that character, thereby screwing up a season-ending happy ending because they can't write a show without the will they or won't they thing going on? Or did that actress just want to leave the show?".

Still, it's comforting to watch an episode a day. Even though it sometimes involves bagpipes, which my head doesn't appreciate. But that's what remote controls are for. (I dream of a remote control with a headache button. It would lower or raise the volume by 5 so I wouldn't have to press the volume buttons 5 times to adjust it every time something got too loud.)

Anybody else have a show they wish they could discuss with people? But can't because no one else on the planet cares about it anymore?

The Past Life Thing

2011-09-21T08:22:00.000-04:00

When I was, I dunno, let's say 4 years old, I walked into the kitchen and saw my mother washing drinking glasses and setting them upside down on a towel to dry. My response to this?

"When I was your grandmother, I told you not to do that."

And then I walked away.

At the time, my mother had one living grandmother (called Big Grandma because my oldest cousin couldn't say "great", which is awesome because she was a wee tiny lady), and one deceased one. Who had told her not to do that. I guess because the glasses fog up or something.

A few days or weeks later, we were at my grandparents' house and my mother told her father (the son of the deceased grandmother) that she had something to show him. Then she washed some glasses, put them upside down on a towel and I came along and said the same exact thing.

My extremely Catholic grandfather's reaction?

"There are things in Heaven and Earth that we're not meant to understand."

And that was that. My mother has since has no doubt that I used to be her grandmother and has even come to find it not freaky or terrifying at all.

You know what is freaky?

My cousin/godson was once driving around the neighborhood with his parents, spotted a house and said, "I remember when we used to live there." He had never stepped foot in that house. To this day, he has lived in only one house. The house he pointed out is the one where our grandfather and his 3 brothers used to live. With their mom, who I used to be.

I keep thinking I'll do some sort of writing project inspired by all this. Nothing as ambitious as The Years of Rice and Salt (which is a great book that you should totally read), but something.

And for the record, I do sometimes wash glasses and put them upside down on a towel to dry. So apparently, people can change. Even if it takes a reincarnation or two.

Oh, Dear Lord!

2011-09-19T07:51:00.000-04:00

This past Saturday was my family's annual September Birthdays Bash. Ostensibly, this event is to celebrate the 5 September birthdays in my extended family, but really it's an excuse for Aunt Bea and Uncle Brian to make a big turkey dinner and for the rest of us to stuff ourselves with stuffing and consume an unholy amount of gravy.

All without the sucktasticness of Thanksgiving, so it may actually be the happiest day of the year.

Before dinner, we were looking at photos of my grandparents' and great-grandparents generation. One great-grandfather was a rum-runner during Prohibition who had his boat shot out from under him by the police during a rum run, and played piano for Jimmy Durante. As is the case with interested ancestors, I gather he was a bit of a jerk. In fact, in my past life, I divorced his sorry ass and became a single mother to 3 sons in the 1930s rather than stay married to him.

More on that later this week, because I have something even more interesting to share.

After the pictures, my mother sorted through a plastic bag of greeting cards my grandmother had saved. Some went back to the 1950s. Some may have been earlier, but it's the ones from 50s that you will not believe.

Allow me to remind you that this branch of my family tree is Catholic. My grandfather was so into it that during one blizzard, he walked to church and helped the priest say mass since no one else showed up, but it was Sunday and these things had to be done. At one point, there was also a nun (possibly also the school principal) who would call the house, say "Tom, I'll be at JFK at 4" and hang up and he'd drop everything and pick her up at the airport.

This history makes it unsurprising that there were greeting cards with wording similar to this:

Father, I am giving you this Blessing, including:

___ Masses

___ Prayers

___ Rosaries

___ Ejaculations

You read that last one right.

As you can imagine, there were many jokes along the lines of "no wonder this is such a big family."

About.com has the real definition (mini-prayers) and examples. I'm a little sad that I looked that up. I thought it was more borderline taking the Lord's name in vain or maybe church lady Hallelujahs.

The blanks above were so the kid in question could write a number. A couple of the cards had 5 of everything, but one had 10 and I have to wonder what my Uncle Richie had gotten up to that made him feel it was necessary to double down on the ejaculations.

Mmmm...Books

2011-09-12T12:08:00.005-04:00

I love fiction, but rarely tear through a book. Years of reading on the subway while commuting to work has affected my brain, training me to read in 45-60 minutes bursts. When I get to read at home, I often find myself deciding that I've had enough and need to go do something else. I'll even have to renew library books that I haven't started yet (after 3 weeks).

Once I had to return a book that I hadn’t begun reading because it was new and had a waiting list (no renewals allowed). I got the book about a month later and loved it, btw. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella. Even if you want to pop Shopaholic in the face, you'll enjoy Twenties Girl. Or at least that's where I stand on things. I've enjoyed all her non-shopaholic books, including those written under her real name (Madeleine Wickham).

(I know quite a few people who can't stand Shopaholic, including some people who probably blow all their money at restaurants and bars instead of clothes, so y'know, we're all big, fat hypocrites. Just think how boring the world would be if we all had our heads on straight. I don't loathe Shopaholic, but I do want to smack her. Because I possess self control and am still fat (because self control isn't the only factor in weight), yet I spent years listening to co-workers about half my width going on and on about how they'd weigh a ton if they had those chocolate truffles in their house. Because a box of 20 chocolate truffles are going to turn you into a complete lardass. Eat them, or don't and shut the fuck up about it. I brought in a box of truffles from The Chocolate Show to be nice, so stop acting like I've wounded you in some way.)

(You do get the connection there, right?)

Anyhoodle, I recently got What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty from the library and knew I'd need to actually read the thing in 3 weeks to get it back on time. I think it ended up taking me 3 days. Maybe 4. Because the whole "I've had enough for now" thing didn't happen.

You see, Alice wakes up after falling and hitting her head, convinced that she's 29 and pregnant with her 1st child. In fact, she's 39, has 3 kids and is getting a divorce. Which freaked me the fuck out because loving your husband while everyone (including him) tells you that you hate him is just terrifying. Her ex-to-be even bets her money that she'll go back to wanting a divorce as soon as she gets her memory back. And of course she doesn't get her memory back until the end and I just had to find out what would happen then.

Excellent read.

What have you read lately that you couldn't get enough of?

Let's be Random, Shall We?

2011-09-09T09:05:00.001-04:00

I wish I could google things like "where the hell did I put the pencil sharpener?"

The other night, I dreamed I was in France and my attempts to speak French actually woke me up.

This makes me feel like I should finally get proficient in French. I only lived there, for fuck's sake.

Because I'm not busy enough. Apparently.

Remember the old "You must pay the rent" bit from, I want to say Electric Company, so let's go with that, though it could've been Ville Allegre? What kills me about that bit (which I repeat on the first of every month), and what most people forget is that they started the sketch by saying that you can make up games with just one prop and your imagination. The whole point was to teach kids to make up their own games. The actual result was teaching kids to recite the "You must pay the rent" bit verbatim, proving that we of Generation X will not do what we're told.

The original sketch doesn't seem to be on You Tube. But you know what is? Dozens of videos of people re-enacting the bit.

The Fall TV Season Approacheth

2011-09-07T09:50:00.001-04:00

This past week, I've been even more psyched than usual to read the latest Entertainment Weekly (aka EW, pronounced "E.W." by some and "ew" by me). They have a big fall TV preview issue, complete with a list of the shows sorted by premiere date. I've even gone so far as to circle all the shows I want to check out on that list, so I can set the Tivo accordingly.

But I'm not equally interested in every new or returning series. I've realized that there are several categories of TV show.

Returning, and I'll definitely be watching the whole season.
New, and I may stop watching after a few episodes/when it's cancelled after a few episodes.
New, and maybe I'll make it through the first episode without throwing anything at the television set.
New, and I hope it doesn't suck, but I'm not holding my breath.
New, and please don't let it suck.
New or Returning and I don't care. I don't care how good it is, you can't make me watch another crime drama/police procedural/soap/reality show.

I won't name specific shows, since it's all subjective and I don't expect you to share my tastes. (Though if you're not watching Fringe, I just don't know you anymore. Just don't watch it while eating. Just trust me on this.) And it's enough work to read the issue and circle all the show names for eventual DVRing. I'm not going to categorize each and every show because that would be almost as boring for you as it would be for me.

What are you looking forward to watching?

Migraine Movie Marathon

2011-09-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

I spent my Labor Day Weekend in pain, so I got better acquainted with the couch and watched many movies. Some pretty high falutin' flicks in the mix because we have IFC now. Release the mini-reviews!

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly--A very slow moving film by necessity--it's about a guy with locked-in syndrome. How fast can it go? Perfect pacing for when you're laid up yourself.

The Last King of Scotland--Gee that movie got brutally violent at the end. I actually covered my eyes with both hands. And I saw some pretty disgusting stuff when I was a volunteer EMT. But damn, Idi Amin was fucked up. Like Frank Miller fucked up. (I saw Sin City a couple of weeks ago and I'm still suffering flashbacks. I think the mind of Frank Miller is a very scary place and we're all lucky he channelled all that fucked-upness into comic books rather than enacting any of the horrific acts of violence he makes up. He may be a delightful and well adjusted individual in real life, but I don't think I'll be getting close enough to him to find out.)

The Canterville Ghost, 1990s Patrick Stewart/Neve Campbell incarnation. We watched this as a follow up to the WW2-era version, which was much better, even though it included jaunty American GIs teaching the locals how to swing dance. Because only Americans really know how to party. Or something.

The Namesake. Man, I could go for some samosas. This film had as many close-ups of food as Julie & Julia. Probably would've enjoyed it more if I'd watched it straight through instead of stopping to watch something else with HA several times. There are some huge jumps in time between some scenes. I suspect the book is less disorienting.

The Sweet Smell of Success. Sounds like a jaunty showbiz romp, right? Not so much. More like the Acrid Stench of Failure and Unhappiness. Also, I can't look at vintage Tony Curtis without picturing him in drag. Also, also, they didn't care too much about cigarette continuity--at one point, Burt Lancaster took out a cigarette and lit it, and I was like "you were less than halfway through a cigarette 5 seconds ago. What did you do with that one? Are you just wasting cigarettes to show off?"

The Searchers. Good movie. Whole lotta racism. Yes, the movie is supposed to make us think about racism and conclude that it's wrong, but damn, when you've already reached that conclusion, it's hard not to dismiss certain characters as assholes.

So what did you did with your Labor Day weekend?

Goodnight Irene

2011-08-29T11:58:00.003-04:00

I live in a part of Brooklyn that doesn't have to evacuate in any severity hurricane, so we just dug out the flashlight, put a couple of candles and a lighter on the kitchen counter, filled a couple of pitchers with water and called ourselves prepared. We also cleared off the bathroom floor and put towels around the base of the toilet, because sometimes when it rains, the water coming out of the washing machines in the laundry room (one floor down) comes up out of our toilet. This didn't happen, so we came through the storm completely unscathed.

Things I thought I'd be able to get done while we were stuck in the house during the hurricane:

do the mending
start sewing myself a bathrobe (Now that I've learned to sew in a straight line with my sewing machine, I want to move on to clothes. I figure I can wear a bathrobe even if it turns out like ass. Also, the only robes Macy's has in my size are in synthetic fabric, which is exactly what you don't want next to your skin in a steamy bathroom on a humid day. Macy's also has housedresses in my size, of the style my grandma wore. This is just not a look I'm willing to embrace at this point in my life.)
clean the apartment
make a loaf of bread with the bread maker
watch a bunch of TV and movies with His Awesomeness

What I actually did during the hurricane thanks to the migraine that started Thursday night when the storm was nowhere near NYC and is still lingering (in a greatly lessened state) today:

Cleaned out the fridge to make room for the pitchers of water.
Found the jar of clotted cream I bought in June so I could make scones for my birthday. (It's a small jar and I've looked for it without finding it enough times that I thought it was the jar that HA dropped and broke. Now I have no idea what was in the broken jar.)
Checked the expiration date, which is December, so it's still good.
Considered making scones
Realized that I was in too much pain to stand up for that long.
Continued my campaign to mold the couch cushions to fit my body perfectly.
Moaned and whimpered a bit to break up the monotony.
Watched massive amounts of TV and movies, both through Netflix streaming and Tivo.
Did some reading for my writing group (during the worst of the storm, when my migraine was at a low pain point--go figure)

Some of the specific programs and movies that filled my weekend:

Tangled. I dozed through what I think was the comic relief bit in the middle, so I would like to see it again when I'm feeling better. When Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore sang the oscar-nominated song from this movie at the Oscars (You Tube link), their age difference made the whole thing a bit creepy. OK, distractingly creepy. Their animated versions are much more age appropriate, so that was fine, except that I can’t un-see the Oscars performance no matter how much I pop open my skull and rinse my brain out with water.
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? Spoiler alert--it doesn't. It was made in 1957 and makes fun of ad men, as well as TV and radio. They actually stop the movie about an hour in so that Tony Randall can come out and explain that they're taking a break for the TV fans who are used to having their stories interrupted for commercials. Then he goes into a radio soap opera-type spiel (Will this happen? Will that happen? Will success spoil Rock Hunter?). Very meta.
The new episode of Doctor Who. Loved. One of these days, I'm going to watch all the River Song episodes in reverse order to see the story arc from her point of view. (She & The Doctor are both time travelers and they're going in opposite directions. So when they first meet, she knows all about him and each time we see her is actually an earlier point in her life from the last one. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey. It's actually less confusing than I'm making it sound, because 4-day migraine.)
Passover Fever, which, well, it's no When Do We Eat? which, by its title alone, is the perfect Passover movie. I enjoyed it, and I'm just glad to have it off my Netflix queue because every time I see the name, I think of this clip from The Soup:

And now that song is stuck in your head too. You're welcome.

Weird Dreams

2011-08-26T15:49:00.002-04:00

So the pill I've been taking to prevent migraines (moderately effective at best) has strange nightmares as one of the side effects.

Weird dreams I've had so far:

I was hanging out with some people, went into Staples to get something and then the whole place was full of zombies.
I was hunting down a serial killer. At one point in the dream, he was sentenced to jail, but not for afternoons, so he was still holding someone prisoner and was feeding them every afternoon. Why no one just followed the guy to his lair so they could free the person, I dunno.
The Project Runway dream.

Weird dreams I expect to have soon:

Zombies on pogo sticks.
Kangaroos on pogo sticks.
Singing houseplants.
All my unread books chasing me, calling "Read me! Read me!"
The one where I become Empress of Canada.
Poutine, and lots of it.
The one where I'm on Hair Battle Spectacular and have to design and execute a fantasy hairdo.
The one where I'm an Angry Bird.
Angry Birds on pogo sticks.

Over It

2011-08-24T13:55:00.002-04:00

I've been stumped for a blog post the past few days because the one in my head is about stuff I'm over and I don't want to be too mean or anything. People *can* hear you on the Internets.

It's not that shocking to say that I'm over Kate Plus 8. It's nice to see the older kids a little less unhappy over the little ones grabbing all the parental attention. But I can't manage to care about watching the kids play or go on product placement adventures. Since the show's been cancelled I'm clearly no the only one who's over it.

I hope that I'll manage to stop watching the Duggars when the next season rolls around. I disagree with most of their values (I don't say all just because both I and the Duggars are anti-murder and pro-charity, for example. It's so easy to forget that about people we disagree with)

But I'm feeling a little headdesky over a certain podcast that I've decided not to name, but if you're a knitter, you'll know which one I'm talking about. I've listened to all 100 episodes so far even though I came in after she'd been doing it for a year or so and I still let them pile up like the rest of my podcasts. Regular listeners know that our podcaster has been trying to make a living from the podcast for years. She certainly has a large enough audience to make it theoretically possible. She tried corporate sponsors, took donations and even did a public tv style drive where she said that if people donated x amount of money then she'd be able to podcast monthly or maybe it was even more frequently. The thinking was that if she didn't have to spend time on other paying gigs she'd be able to devote more time to the podcast. Almost immediately after making this pact with her listeners, she stopped podcasting for a chunk of time because life just got in the way (as it does) and probably also because she's an admitted perfectionist which kept her from starting any podcasts before she was 6000% ready.

She's that self sabotaging friend you want to shake some sense into but it never works.

My headdesky moment came in her second to last podcast where she announced that she's finally realized that she can't make a living at podcasting so she's dropping the advertising and removing the donate button from her site. Because if she can't make a living at it she won't accept any money for it at all. Because of the perfectionist thing I imagine. If she can’t make tens of thousands of dollars at it, she won't take any money, even though doing the podcast costs her money (travel to interview people, visit notable locations, etc.).

Sigh.

I haven't cancelled my iTunes subscription yet, though I would t be the first listener I know that she's lost. Because that self sabotaging friend who never learns? Is still a friend. Which I supposed our podcaster would consider success. She started the podcast to reach out to other knitters and as much as she drives me crazy, I'm not sure I've completely had it with her yet.

But the only way to keep up that friendship is to vent to someone. When will she ever learn? Why does she keep doing this to herself? Because otherwise you can't keep watching them shoot themselves in the foot.

Yet, I have ended real life friendships for similar reasons. One time in particular, I remember thinking "I can't keep having a front row seat to this relationship". The couple is married now and although he treats her much better than her 1st husband, I have no doubt that he's still rude to her and selfish and I'm relieved not to have to witness that.

I know you've all had friends like that, so feel free to vent/dish in the comments.

Sewing Dreams and Fantasy Hair

2011-08-17T12:47:00.004-04:00

Last night I dreamed that I was on Project Runway (automatic video warning) and the challenge was to make outfits for one of the other designers. (They actually did that one in whatever season Santino was in.) I had to make a dress for Becky (again with the automatic video), who is one of this season's contestants.

My dress ideas were all over the place, and when we finally got to Mood to shop for fabric, the store had been remodeled and there was hardly any fabric. At least that I could find. Everyone else found fabric just fine. But everything I touched turned out to be a ready made skirt, or table runner or whatever.

I finally decided to make her a bright red dress and found some bolts of red fabric. I got 2 yards of it, which was probably not enough. When I went to pay, all the other designers were waiting. Tim Gunn had taken pity on me and was letting me shop longer. He'd even left some of his own money to pay for my fabric.

Even more unrealistic than Tim bending the rules was the price the cashier rang up--$6. Not that I know the going cost of fabric, but most weeks, the Project Runway designers have a budget of over $100 for fabric & notions. (Oh, and in the dream, I realized too late that I hadn’t bought any notions--thread to match the fabric, a zipper, etc. Good luck making a dress without that stuff.) Season 1 winner Jay McCarroll once said in an interview that he once paid $15 just to fart in Mood. I visited Mood looking for fabric for my wedding dress. It was cheaper to order fabric online from St. Louis.

I'm just glad I woke up before I had to try to make the dress.

Before I had the dream, I was planning to blog about the return of so-ridiculous-it's-awesome reality show Hair Battle Spectacular (automatic video warning--what is *wrong* with these people?!). In season one, all the hair stylists had ridiculous nicknames like Cajmonet (pronounced like "cas" in "casual" and "monet" like the painter, and meaning "cash money"), Fingaz (because she has just fast fingers) and Minista (because she's an internet minister, or something, mostly for the purpose of performing gay marriages).

Minista uttered the best sentence ever spoken on any reality show ever: If Sexy Lexi wins Hair Battle Spectacular, it will be a slap in the face to fantasy hairstylists all over the world.

Sweet, sweet hyperbole, I love it so.

It's hard to tell if anything that awesome will happen in season 2, but I can dream.