there is no such thing as small change

burn the witch

2011-03-21T12:32:00.003-04:00

Florida Preacher Burns Qu'ran

Evangelical preacher Wayne Sapp yesterday burnt a copy of the Muslim holy book the Quran as controversial pastor Terry Jones looked on in a Florida church, reports the AFP.

Jones drew a storm of controversy last year for his plans to burn copies of the Qur'an on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York. The Qur'an burning was presented as an event where the Qur'an was put on trial and convicted of crimes.

The Qur'an was soaked in kerosene for an hour before being set alight while onlookers took pictures.

Jones defended his involvement saying he had attempted to "give the Muslim world an opportunity to defend their book" but received no response.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i've pasted the entire thing here, because there are so many kinds of wrong, i'm too tired to detangle them all. but...

only reason terry jones didn't burn the qu'ran last year was because the car dealer pulled back the free auto offer when shit hit the media fan.

quite sure not one person at this shindig knows that mohammmed, and his followers, recognize jesus as a prophet, right?

quite sure ya can't put an object on trial, right? (ya know, the "guns don't kill people-people kill people" thing?)

and lastly... when a nutjob loony tries to talk to me about his whacko theories, i don't answer either.

bad pennies

2011-02-24T11:51:00.002-05:00

i see a guy waiting to be interviewed. i recognize him as having been fired from 2 places i worked, one a very long time and he was old then. i wasn't his supervisor, so don't know why, other than having been on the back end of his general ineptitude. i share this with my co-workers. when the guy is finally out of the building, they tell my gm. who asks me what's up.

he is genuinely SHOCKED. like :O-kinda face, shocked i tell you, that neither of the places in which i knew the guy are on his resumé. i have to bite my lip as to not laugh. i explain i have nothing personal against the guy, am just sharing information. has he never interviewed a waiter before?

he is hired.

as heard here

2011-02-24T11:38:00.002-05:00

"drop your 5-top and make it a 4." ok, done. "now make it a 7-top." ok.

i turn around and it is 2 fat, harried-looking parents, 2 very tired kids, under the age of 10, and an infant ready to go full-tilt any second.

"we'll just have water and for god's sake, could we have some menus?" underwhelmed by their charm, i comply. "uh, could we have the kids' menu?" "sorry, but we don't have a kid's menu..." before i can finish my statement about the bar menu and what other kids tend to eat, the mother snaps," well, if you don't have a kids' menu, we might just have to leave."

seriously? don't break my heart, lady.

unfortunately, they stay and even though the kids had chicken fingers for lunch and both say they aren't hungry, they order them anyway. they smush ketchup about their plates and each eat like 1 piece. i attempt to engage them asking about the toy alligator and such, and the chilluns seem weirdly nice, with 2 such miserable 'rents.

the baby finally explodes, the mom starts packing up, while the dad is still eating, i go over to ask if i can get them anything else, "obviously," she snaps, "just the check." i clear away what i can and bring it over. the dad is still smacking his lips, chewing, and starts fishing out crumpled paper money from all over his person.

mom had soup and salad, fingers for the kids and dad had a steak and a veg. the bill was $96. ridiculous, yes, i already know that and we all know it's why i whore myself out in the place that i do.

he left less than 10% and a table and floor that looked like a damn barrel of grenades had gone off.

and you wonder why i hate people? seriously?

everything in its place

2011-01-23T11:55:00.007-05:00

the owner does like to tease me about my exceptional distaste for clutter. besides the tedium of having to dust it all (see second category of mockery, re: cleanliness, lol) i find it just visually tiring. one of the immediate appeals of my last home was its blank slate-ness. an empty box of industrial surfaces, wood, concrete and glass. once i took up residence, the downside was obvious: nowhere to put the odds and ends of daily life. no closet for coats. no shelves for bath towels and hygiene sundries. yes, i own a ridiculous amount of glassware and china for a single person, but nary a cabinet for even a small set of dishes.

for months and months, everything was stowed. even my clothes. i lived in a few sweaters and a couple pairs of pants. if i wanted something different, i had to dig through the moving boxes to find it. it sucked. eventually there were kitchen shelves and a clothing rack, but much else remained messily stored, years in the limbo of never-opened cartons. the boxes stacked high over the soffit, were an eyesore without option.

last week, i moved. closets, cabinets, drawers, armoires and a basement cage to boot. spacious capaciousness i could only have dreamed of a few short weeks ago. in just days, nearly everything has found a home. as i live and move through the place, objects and energy will change the arrangements and the patterns, but there will not be boxes in sight for lack of options, nor will anything go unused because it must remain stored. it feels an incredible luxury.

last week, i moved. the space soars with windows, skylights and rings with the industrial echoes of brick, wood and plaster from over a century ago. i am walking distance to the owner and the amenities of everyday life. much like my crystal glasses and over-coats, now tucked tidily away, i feel finally like this is the place for me. the last, now recognized as only a way-station while so much in both his life and mine got untangled and then knitted together.

i never have been so placed by a place. it's a profound and giddy feeling, full of potential and hope. it's been a long time since those angels came to visit me. i think now they might even stay.

massacres and the free market

2011-01-11T15:11:00.002-05:00

this past weekend in a tucson shopping center, 6 people were killed, including a judge and a 9-year-old girl, and 14 people were left wounded, including a congresswoman married to an astronaut.

one-day sales of guns in arizona jumped 60% on january 10th vs. the same day least year.

this is a $500 gun that holds over 30 rounds of ammo. it was the same gun used by seung-hui cho at virginia tech, where 32 people were killed.

according to the brady campaign, arizona scores 2 out of 100 on its rating of state gun laws and its rate of gun deaths is 1- 1/2 times the national average. you do not need a special permit to carry a concealed weapon.

beyond the bipartisan discourse of which other partisan is responsible for a complete krazee going on a murder spree lies the empty cartoon conversation balloon of rational and reasonable gun ownership, the law and the lack of mental health safety net. a boy ejected from community college for nearly a dozen disruptive and dissociative episodes on campus and in class was able to buy a gun favored by cops and gangsters, virtually no questions asked.

when a lone krazee, who was, according to neighbors, quiet and kept to himself, natch, drives a panic of weapons fever, there is something fundamentally flawed with people's thinking. they knee-jerk convince themselves that somehow a gun in the house, or in a hip-holster at the safeway, will safeguard themselves and their families. do they really believe they have the lightning reflex and confidence to shoot first in the face of an intruder or gun-wielding loony whose world-view is absolutely unhinged? soldiers and cops train for this daily and don't always react in time, or on target.

after virginia tech, (gun sales went through the roof then too) i remember pols calling for all teachers to carry loaded weapons to class. that if other students had been armed, less people would have been killed. how do people take the leap that the threat of more violence will curb or cure violence?

states with the highest percentage of gun ownership have the highest rates of gun deaths. the states with the strictest laws have the lowest rate of death by firearm. this isn't liberal hoo-ha. gun ownership in places like alabama and louisana are at least triple what they are in places like hawaii and massachusetts. death by gun is as high as 7 times more. so, yeah, the answer is quite clearly that more people need easier access to loads more deadly weapons. fer sure. duh.

i do know real amuricanz understand that that is why we MUST fear that muslim terror (sic), because they wanna kill us and our flag and get to them heavenly virgins by destroying our liberty and way of life. so by all means let's stomp on over to the damn dessert and blow up their tents, caves and kids before they get to us first. i have yet to hear anybody discussing this as a profound act of home-grown white-faced domestic terrorism. killing someone over their ideas and beliefs. just like the 1995 oklahoma city bombing and the assassination of dr. george tiller in 2009, in wichita. it's terrorism, folks. and it is us.

southern science

2011-01-04T00:18:00.003-05:00

“There was a lot of trauma in the breast tissue, blood clots in the body cavity and internal bleeding,” Stephens says. “So, it looks like maybe they got startled, they may have flown into each other, flown into a house, flown into a tree. They don’t have very good night vision,” he says, “and maybe they ran into each other, fell to the ground and died.”

yup. birds have been flying together, in formation, in all sorts of weather, for MILLIONS of years. these hapless guys just flew into each other. or a house. or a mouse. yeah. that's it. 5000 damn birds flew into the same house, at the same time, flew away, then all just dropped dead. yeah. that's it.

oh, and so obvz, all those dead fish? swam into each other! of course!!

phew. so much better now.

night.

aqua-pocalypse

2011-01-02T23:47:00.004-05:00

poissons-mageddon.

the world must be ending and the beginning of the end is happening in arkansas. 100,000 or so dead drum fish bubbled to the surface in an arkansas river today.

oh, and the dead birds? now the estimate is 5,000.

i'd kill myself if i lived there too, but this is some shit.

happy new year 2011

2011-01-02T21:12:00.003-05:00

1000 dead birds.

the year begins with what could be one of my worst nightmares. in arkansas 1000 blackbirds dropped dead, spontaneously falling from the sky over 1 square mile.

blackbird singing in the dead of night
take this broken wing and learn to...

"doh!"

this times ONE THOUSAND!!!!!!!

my teeth are itching

2010-11-26T11:46:00.007-05:00

our quitted gubner of gaffes and spinner of saucy word salad was at it again this week:

yesterday on her pal glenn beck's show:

"This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy," the former vice presidential candidate said on Wednesday. "But obviously we've gotta stand with our North Korean allies."

confusing north and south korea, was a mistake. fair enough we all make 'em and most of us aren't on tv having to talk about stuff we don't know anything about, and few of us feel the same visceral imperative to stay in the spotlight. she fled to the safety of her fans and facebook page and retaliated by posting links of obama's verbal gaffes. instead of just laughing it off, "oops!" kinda thing, she then wadded her panties all up in a sissy bunch and whined how whenever she makes a mistake (c'mon ms. palin it's often enough that my google alert would 'spolde, ok?)the lamestream media jumps on it and runs and blows it up and i was tired and it's not fair cuz why do you people still like barry? huh, huh, why?

earlier in the week she gave up this little bit of gobbledy-gook:

"I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism, who, what, where, when, and why of reporting"

the first bit of syntax made my head pound the desk and the fact that she forgot the "how" as to the 6th question that should be answered in any solid bit of reporting can likely be attributed to... um... not paying attention in school? or never reading newspapers?

someone with A LOT of time on their hands created this compendium and wasilla greatest hits which is brilliant and scary at the same time:

her high school gpa was 2.2 (maybe bristol is just too dumb after all for them to bother forking out dough for college)

she dropped out of 4 never-heard-of-bumfuck colleges before finally matriculating

compared legal abortions to the tuskegee experiments

like a tiny-town version of #43, she took over a government that had no debt and left it in the hole for $19 millz.

authorized an increase in the sales tax

increased salaries and bennies by 67%

spending on office furniture and supplies went up 117%

her staff of 50 cost the town an average of $140,000 each -- $7 million

she raised property taxes and supported an increase in the sales tax to pay for a sports arena

supported allowing parents to opt their children out of curricula offensive to their privacy, religion or conscience. (which worked brilliantly for not allowing bristol to take sex ed and is working great for the new, and ever-growing, breed of amuricans --including palin- who take the bible literally)

she also admits to having smoked pot. how on earth did i not hear about that when she and her slutty stewardess hairdo were EVERYWHERE in '08? huh? c'mon, lamestream media? how unfair are you?

lots more there, but i want to give myself head-space for something less, um, noisome, tyvm.

abstinence in amurica

2010-11-24T20:28:00.004-05:00

the story that inspired my previous post was an awful read on thanksgiving eve.

so just as another side of the coin option, let's remember what might happen to other girls who are supposed to be abstinent. they get knocked up too.

but their mom is white and purty and famous (and famously polarizing) so they get to galoomph their cankles and notorious uterus all over tv. "dancing with the who-the-fuck-is-that-anyway," has brought the palins weeks and weeks of free publicity, tens of thousands of dollars into bristol's bank account, and all sorts of bizarro tea-bagger shenanigans against the "liberal elite." (newsflash to baggers: we are not watching dwts, ok? having even to hear about it is retarded. oh, wait, that's hate-speech. sorry babay trig.)

anybody else wonder why there is no plan for bristol for college? not like they can't afford it. is she too stoopid? bah. even her momz finally found a school where she could graduate but they've proven smart enough to milk the fame machine so she doesn't have to go to school or really work. by the weight she gained on this show (where everybody else drops to bones from the work-outs), i'm athinking lazeeeeee factors hard-core in there too.

white and rich sure does beat black and poor, huh?

this is america?

2010-11-24T18:32:00.003-05:00

last january, in allegheny pennsylvania, a pregnant woman died from pneumonia that she contracted while in prison. she complained for weeks to the guards that she was having trouble breathing and was coughing up mucous. they refused to allow her to see a doctor. a sick pregnant woman. IN JAIL. by the time she was sent to the hospital it had become a bacterial infection so severe it could not be cured and she died 12 days later.

she was in prison because she got pregnant on her work-release and it was a violation of her probation. her probation was for shoplifting. food. she also had a previous conviction for prostitution. without it being stated in any of the linked articles i found, i suspect this woman came from a dire economic stance. she was black and from a very depressed area of the country and her petty crimes are those borne of desperation, aren't they?

i'm flabbergasted enough that the state forbade her from getting knocked up (my body, my rights, and all that), especially since her crime had nothing to do with being a mom, fit or not. but if that is a stipulation, shouldn't they have provided her with birth control? was she in fact sentenced to abstinence?

but then, even putting aside this astounding patriarchal hysteria, how on the planet earth can putting a pregnant woman in the slammer be thought prudent and judicious? is that not cruel and unusual? and then for guards to play some sort of petty bullshit power game and deny her medical care? this noodle knows there are plenty of prisoners capable of gaming the system and just as many guards who can only function thinking their wards are pieces of shit to be scraped from the hell of their boots. but for the love of mary.

she was 18 weeks pregnant and now she's dead.

21st century amurrica.

who are we fighting for?

2010-10-23T09:40:00.003-04:00

garbled syntax aside, this was in today's ny times, in an article re: the wikileaks, re: civilian deaths in iraq since we invaded:

Civilians have borne the brunt of modern warfare, with 10 civilians dying for every soldier in wars fought since the mid-20th century, compared with 9 soldiers killed for every civilian in World War I, according to a 2001 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

eta, and who's fighting whom?

The war in Iraq spawned a reliance on private contractors on a scale not well recognized at the time and previously unknown in American wars. The documents describe an outsourcing of combat and other duties once performed by soldiers that grew and spread to Afghanistan to the point that there are more contractors there than soldiers.

old home week

2010-10-13T10:18:00.003-04:00

more like 18 hours, but this past weekend i attended my high school reunion. over the years have remained semi- in-touch with the girls who were my closest friends, but as they had children and moved to places that i have a totally selfish lack of desire to ever visit, i don't see them much. they worried about me (probably still do) because i never married nor had kids and just don't fit the mold.

after maddening adventures with public transport and finally getting to our god-forsaken little burg i was greeted by bursts of lady-squealing and lots of hugs. my friends looked great. totally great. thin, fit, good haircuts, happy.

my window was so small though, there wasn't much time for really catching up except on the very superficial surface of life. "how old are your kids?" college? fucking christ on a stick. the status of everybody's parents. they all knew about the condition of my mother, younger than all of theirs, and that elicited much sympathy. i didn't want to bring a pall so we all easily slid elsewhere with the talk.

the reunion itself was more fun than i had hoped, but full of people of whom i had no memory, even after seeing their yearbook pic. yikes.

a handful of the guys still looked good, but most looked awful. awful. fat, bald, toting mousy wives. one guy with hair-plugs, another husband with a fierce mullet. about half the women looked terribly middle-aged with atrocious suburban haircuts, and frumpy fat-lady clothes.

one transgendered person who does not make a pretty woman.

beyond the surface though? few divorces, many in long-term marriages. 2,3,4, even 5 kids. many men self-employed and the rest in finance or tech. quite a few with summer homes. those struggling or bereft are far less likely to turn up at a shindig like this, but i can only hope it was a representative sampling.

for perspective, i had two conversations that nearly had me in tears. one man who was part of our regular crew had a son in a bicycle accident a few years back. for whatever reason the saga was profiled on their local station and i had seen the video. the boy was in a coma for a few weeks, but came out and is up and about. he will never be "normal", but he is alive. it was amazing to see how changed d. is as a man and listen to how his wife and other children rallied and coped. the vision of wonder on his face, his gratitude at being given back his son, made me glad to be human and know this man.

a second man, (i remember him as funny, but gentle, and he helped me out of a few scrapes with less than upstanding guys) who was not in "our" circle, but, say, the next ring out, had married a dancer when in his 30s. in hindsight he knows that her moody artistic temperament was a veil for something far more damaged. she failed to commit suicide and now rests in a vegetative state in a home. his grief and sadness were so close to the surface as to be pouring out of him. as if his wounded heart was held there, beating in his hands, each in and out a pulse of despair. his pain overwhelmed me.

in between such high and low, the rest of us are cosseted by "normal" life, i guess. even me?

no woman, no cry

2010-09-28T00:17:00.002-04:00

sadly, it was a weekend of lots of women, crying a lot.

friday was a fundraiser for a guy who had surgery awhile back and then countless setbacks and complications causing him to be bedridden. his wife has recently changed jobs so can't just up and go before 5:00, has been caring for their two young girls and her incapacitated husband now for months. i'd met her only once in passing and had many absoluts in my system at the time, so the meet didn't stick. the story streamed out of her. her struggle, her exhaustion, her loneliness, her sense of helplessness with not being able to make her man better. yet those weren't the "words." that was all stiff upper lip and gratitude to those who were lending even a finger of a hand to help. i ached for her. people fall in love and yeah, that whole for better, for worse thing... your husband can't even wash himself at 35? mother of god... at 80, mebbe, ya know?

sunday was a wake. a man we knew, in queue for a lung transplant, could no longer wait. up/down, up/down, all signs went south and he died last wednesday. he was sick, but not old. contrary to all the silver hair he sported, both head and face, turns out he was only 58. same age as the owner's oldest brother. reaching distance of the owner, really. he'd been sickly for months, trailing an oxygen tank, not well enough to play the guitar out, but sometimes well enough to join us when others played, and never anything but happy to be out and about. he was one of those rare specimens for whom nobody could find an unkind word. there was a peace and wholeness to him, as a man and a person, that radiated outward and made you feel happy to be with him and know him. i count myself as terribly lucky to ever get those people in my life, even if they have to leave before i want them to.

i had never before met his "lady-friend". i rustled my nerves and said what i could and she started hugging me. hard. this need of people to be touched, held, connected to others always takes me aback. i would never hug somebody i didn't know. yet she wanted human contact, could feel my empathy and grabbed on. did i help her hurt even a wee bit less for even a second? i hope so. there has to be something soul-affirming when strangers tell you that you loved a wonderful man.

his sister, his nieces, his mother all were there with balled up kleenexes and red-rimmed eyes. this is the second son the mother has lost, the 1st to colon cancer 5 years ago. she looked small and tired and alone in her chair at the end of the receiving line and i could only wonder how long ago the mr. had died and how long would this woman live without any of her men?

what struck me was how many 30-somethings were there. musicians, and friends of, (like moi-self) with whom he'd played or saw him play in that little bit of shangri-la on the merrimack. a small stone in a pond rippling out and out and out. we all were terribly sad, but i think there remained for everybody that clarity of thought how blessed we'd been to get him.

there are some who see a a man like this and only see their own shortcomings. i prefer to think i am living my life in such a way that i do allow this kind of goodness in, and that as i get better at that, only more good will come.

i cry still from all the pain i saw and feel. i don't know why a death pall is over life lately. i do know it has to lift.

empty

2010-09-21T00:27:00.003-04:00

just about this time last week, the cat died. you might quibble about "the cat". however, i never liked his given name and it also to me implied a supremacy, a singularity. there was no "other" cat, k?

he was old. i think 19. he'd been more and more tired, eating less and less. that was wonderfully balanced by zero upchucking these last months, but hey. he still jumped off the bed or couch and came wobbling over whenever i came home. he pestered to be fed and wanted to be petted, brushed and held.

til last monday. he whinged for food when i came home mid-afternoon, but only ate a bite. his breathing was shallow but i had to go to work. when i got home, he still came loping, but i could see the effort in his ribcage. i knew, but i didn't know how long it would take? so i followed him from carpet to couch, chair to floor. his breath rasping more each moment, and his bony frame so small under my hands.

i lost it and started to bawl. he was dying, i knew there wasn't much time left. his eyes surged, he began to struggle and stand. my sobbing... selfish owner. for many years and more than a few men he couldn't tolerate my tears. he'd come running, wind himself in and out of me, rub my hands and face. i have never known an animal with more empathy. i couldn't do that in his last moments. suck it up.

his eyes were empty, his jaw slack. then... nothing. he was so small and fragile, yet warm and soft, on the floor. it was hours before the clinic would be open.

i went the night without sleep.

i went to work.

i owned him about 18 years. that is the longest relationship i have ever had with a mammal. including my family. including my family. including my family. including my mother and/or father.

five years ago, when i had to put my dog down, after a night of agony of him in seizure, i went to work also.

in either case, if my kid or spouse had been sick/dying and i'd been up all night in hysterics, i could have called in, right? i guess?

why is it that beings so devoted to us get less credence? my dog and cat brought me far more love and security than my parents ever managed, yet calling out over their loss seemed namby and unprofessional.

can i tell you?

a week later, i am home in a very clean, but empty, loft. i cannot believe how much i miss him. them.

weep for humanity

2010-09-06T12:27:00.006-04:00

this blog has countless lines and laments about the public. i'm forced to work with huge sections of it and pretend to care about their allergies and birthdays, travel woes and what-not. as i've gotten older it's gotten easier, but it takes its toll nonetheless.

over the last weeks i've had a couple too-close encounters with kids between the ages of 10-16 who behaved like savages. all were with their families and in groups of about 6. what children that age were doing in a place that costs $100 per person for dinner is another point entirely, but what they were all doing in a place in which they had no idea, nor enforcement, of how to act was truly shocking. yelling, hitting each other, cross-talking to the point of shouting, poking other staff members to get attention and whims met... exhausting and appalling. parents, aunts, uncles all blithely carrying on like the cherubs were charming little victorian models of seen and not heard.

you also know much of my teeth-gnashing finds fault in the modern ubiquity of reality tv. hours and hours of programming that must be filled with an ever lowering levee of stoopidness. as a kid, i howled with laughter at the gong show and match game, but the unkown comic was in on the joke, ya know? now it's people fiercely fat, ignorant, with a sense of entitlement simply busting at the seams. watching even little snips makes me uncomfortable and weirdly sad.

as if i needed more evidence, the internet offered me this today. this clip must be watched all the way through. it's another simon cowell project and the brit version of american idol, i suppose. the moon-faced obese girls, folds of fat flopping over their belts and spandex and uggs, unable to stitch together a coherent sentence, never mind explain why they'd like to be on the show. their "singing" is shockingly bad -- like william hung she-bangs-bad -- but unlike hung, who rode his 15 minutes pretty well, they are rude to the audience and boorishly insolent to the panel of judges. they go from bff's to fist-throwing enemies within 6 minutes, in view of millions on tv and their parents backstage.

i weep anew for everything that this video proves to be true.

one-way highway

2010-08-14T12:42:00.004-04:00

one of bestest my friends is long-time single and gay. he too is an industry lifer and makes a good living in not too many hours. his condo payment is relatively small for the market so it affords him a pretty broad spectrum to spend leisure dollars how he chooses. he is not a shopper or collector (except of music and recently apple products, lol), so most of his fun money is spent on museums, movies and "reasonable" restaurants.

the last few years he has indulged himself with autumn trips to europe and i was so happy for him when he booked the first one because he's always scoffed at that sort of thing as an indulgence. then 2 years in a row he picked the same city and was about to rebook a third trip there. knowing he likes paris i poked and prodded for him to change his mind unless he wanted to be that old man who went to the same hotel every year for the next 30. he finally relented and is thrilled about leaving in a few weeks.

my idle internet noodles for possible vacations for myself came up with about $1000 for air and hotel for dublin, lisbon, paris, savannah and montreal, which really seemed like a good value. (although strange that such disparate destinations all cost the same?) he's yankee reticent about money but i asked how much he paid. he hemmed and hawed, then i realized he'd booked his trip a year ahead. over $3000 for the flight and a room. yikes. he said he'd rather pay more and have all the details in advance! holy moley! then, even though he is traveling to one of the world's best dining cities where reasonable and heavenly bistro meals are easily had with a mouse click, he refuses to plan for that because he can have "good food at home," and will "just eat whatever." and he truly enjoys dining out!

he will stroll the streets and prowl museums and i'm sure he will have a wonderful time, so i am not disrespecting his choices. it's his trip, lol. i am just a little surprised by the reasoning, i guess, and the willfulness to deprive one's self of all the best a city has to offer.

fat & skinny through time

2010-08-12T10:38:00.005-04:00

sorting through some old photo albums the other night, i was really struck by the body shapes. in high school and college we had a "friend" we openly called "fat sweaty adam". there were plenty of pix of another friend and roommate who frequently referred to herself as "roley-poley." and still another woman who constantly fretted about being lumpy and overweight. her genetic lottery would never have allowed her a pleasing shape, but the extra pounds really did NOT help her already low self-esteem. these were all pix from the early to mid-80s. compared to people now, just 30 years later? they do not even look fat.

we had the flip side friend. who was "skinny-non-perspirant adam" and a few others who were VERY skinny, including one of my college boyfriends. they look like wraiths, and i don't think that i now know anybody THAT skinny. even the skinny kids.

as for me? i'd forgotten how truly skinny i was at certain points, especially the high-ana days. jutting collar bones and such. my face all angles. not sure how i feel about that. oy.

gone fishin'

2010-08-08T19:42:00.006-04:00

the owner is away for a week with his sons, roughing it at some holy-but-not unitarian church camp. they went last year and he enjoyed it enough for a repeat visit. no shirt, no shoes kinda thing and sleeping in a tent.

a friend is prepping for his annual vacation, this year to paris after spending the last two in london. he goes alone and spends about a week doing whatever he damn well pleases, which is mostly haunting museums and pubs. a scant few weeks after he comes home, he'll be going to malibu for 5 days for a friend's wedding.

this morning i realized it has been over a decade sine i took a real vacation. the owner took me away last summer, an excuse to jet around in his then-new convertible. it was mad-fun, but only a few days. the final day we drove the entire way from halifax to home, in and out of rain, and it was an exhausting end to a whirlwind of lobster eating and fucking.

i've taken a few vino boondoggles to napa and oregon, but those too were only 4 days or so, and getting to and from the willamette valley is a biyatch.

my financial situation since i moved here has been consistently precarious, and the resources haven't been available to be hopping anything besides the subway, so a very real reason for staying home.

BUT...

today i got called off work being too perilously close to the overtime bugaboo. everybody i like is elsewhere so i had free time and suddenly nowhere i needed to be and nothing i had to do. a lovely day and i was showered and prepared to face the public. after the phone call, i had some lunch. i read some. i sat on my deck watching brown men play soccer and white ones play softball. little kids were flying kites and dogs were scampering.

i drank iced tea.

i read some more.

now it's dark and i realize i basically did nothing all day and it was fine.

memories of past trips floated through my mind and i ached recalling how much i love to travel. i am no fan of 14 cities in 10 days kinds of trips. i like to share drinks with the locals, eat their food and stroll their streets. wake up early, then plan my day, or not, not to travel with a jammed agenda. to lose track of what day it is and not care what time it is.

my last vacation like that was to london and paris for 10 days. as beautiful as london is, its chilly citizens and damp climate simply don't sing to me like those where the romance languages are spoken. i prowled museums, had amazing dinners at nobu and vong, the best mackerel of my life in a tiny bistro, and walked and walked and walked. although i was with my fiancee, my memory of the trip is that i spent much of my time alone because he was too drunk and/or passed out to be conversant or mobile. when he was awares, he made me cry a lot. that part sucked. hard. however, it made me know i'd be perfectly fine traveling on my own when means permit. as an only child i suppose that's not surprising, but i felt very peaceful having a glass of wine at a sidewalk cafe and watching just everything, with no particular place to be and nobody making me be... anything, except a woman on vacation.

there is nothing like that decompression, immersion and anonymity of away from home and, more importantly, work.

my money puzzle has one piece yet to be fitted. it drives me often to distraction and sometimes to drink. i am on the wrong end of a rube goldberg contraption waiting for the shoe of unknown size to drop. once it falls, and the stress narrative that is a constant loop in my head can be shut the hell off, i will allow myself thoughts of going someplace. away. on vacation. i deserve it. don't i?

dumb and dumber

2010-08-03T11:57:00.003-04:00

one of my issues with "reality tv", from its inception, is that i have zero interest in spending my tube time watching people dumber than i am. that also eliminates most sit-coms as well, but whatevs.

as the genre infests more and more programming time and proliferating channels have more hours that must be cheaply filled, it's just everywhere. and the gossip about the house-witches and the hills who have eyes and the biggest giant losers starving in tv boot camp is nearly unavoidable -- unless i never turn on my internet, or stand in a check-out line.

the corollary to this is a topic i've mentioned before and that is the astounding bottom-of-the-deck intellect of some of my co-workers. really... just... staggering. as the owner tries to maker me a nicer person, i nearly bloody my lips many days biting back the most obvious of remarks and simple observations.

k. sooooo.

there is some show about spoiled brats all chucked in a house with no staff, no money, blah-di-blah. "cut off". my co-worker, a., goes to great lengths explaining this premise. emmm, ok. her eyes fill with wonder when she retells that the girls "didn't know what a broom was and one started to sweep the couch with it."

me: "these girls had servants at home, right?"

a.: "well, yeah, that's why they didn't know what a broom is, or what you use it for."

my mind snaps thinking a. has no idea what servants do and secondly these brats have assuredly seen cinderella and what-not, k?

me: "you don't think the maid ever used a broom in their house?"

a.: "well, how could she if the girl thought you swept the couch with it?"

me: "cuz they script the show?"

her face crumpled, her eyes spun in confusion. other people walked away to not laugh in her face. i did drop it, because i couldn't believe how genuine her bewilderment was!

so, there are people dumb enough to pretend, for 15 minutes of fame, they don't know what a broom does, but there are living, breathing, employed human beings dumb enough to be believe it's true. i weep for humanity.

boggles the mind

2010-07-19T13:36:00.002-04:00

the washington post this week published the results of its 2-year investigation into the post 9-11 security apparatus that has grown up in the last 9 years. it's a fucking tome, but the paper will be running it as a series. all the info had to be gleaned from public records and sifted out of the dizzying complexity of overlay, redundancy and confidentiality. there is NO WAY to accurately ballpark what this is costing. even the guys in the thick of it, who wear pounds of medals and ribbons everyday on their uniforms, are disgusted by the inefficiency and buried by the sheer amount of data. there are head honchos with 6 or more computers in their offices because there is no compatibility standard of hardware/software between supposedly communicating divisions. never mind the guys who won't play in the sandbox.

this is just a snip:

*some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

*an estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in washington, dc., hold top-secret security clearances.

* in washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since september 2001. together they occupy the equivalent of almost three pentagons or 22 us capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. for example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

let's just for a second remind that the last remotely close call, the underpants bomber at christmas? was foiled by a seat-mate who saw smoking trousers. the nigerian and yemeni chatter being monitored by all the best and brightest had no proper filter and there were literally thousands of communications just souped in with everything else, everyday.

lore of $300 hammers and $1000 toilet seats have inured us to expecting government efficiency, but this is one of the most aggressive cancers i have ever seen and nobody is talking about it.

george bush was right. be afraid.

all hope is not lost

2010-07-19T11:37:00.004-04:00

abstinence icon and mommy accessory, bristol palin, and her dumb hunky baby-daddy splashed themselves and their bastard son on the cover of some rag as a wedding announcement. hooray. another magazine has paid levi to NOT show his junk.

conspiracy theorists proffer that the timing is to deflect any glam from chelsea clinton's upcoming nuptials, but we couldn't have a more roadkill-to-pineapples comparison here, could we? the clinton camp is so mum on chelsea's deets nobody is even sure where it's being held and it's 2 weeks away. while the two star-crossed tundra teens are now shopping a reality show about their sure-to-be klassy wedding and lives as newlyweds. (she really wants levi to wear hunting camo as part of his wedding suit.)

but network honchos are kinda-not-so-fast. "don't think we should do it. neither of them have personalities," said one cable honcho. possibly one of the most refreshing quotes i've ever seen from a tv suit, lmao.

one other thing? how the hell did those two brown-eyed brunettes get a tow-head as a kid?

my head hurts

2010-07-18T09:27:00.004-04:00

this is from a rally in arizona, and the suit-clad chubster is named j.t. ready. an ex-marine (actually twice court-martialed and drummed out of the corps), he is active in local republican party antics, pals around with elected officials and self-identifies as both an aryan and a "national socialist". he declines to call himself a nazi, but um, hey, i'm thinking he might not have done so well in school. he posted this to a forum called new saxon:

The truth is that negroids screw monkeys and rape babies in afreaka [sic]. Then stupid white man who licks kosher jew rear lets negroids in. … Stop Negroid immigration and integration now!!! Nature will take care of the rest."

charming, huh?

hot on the heels of arizona's racial profiling law, he and a group of other loons have assembled mountains of ammo and declared border war against "narco-trafficers". they have spent nights out in the desert with their semi-automatic rifles prowling for brown people hopefully loaded down with ponchos of blow. he brought some reporters out there and when asked what he'd do if they actually ran into a running little juan, bleated, "we'll him him! we'll kill him!" unless the u.s. builds a minefield across the entire mexican border, it's not doing its duty and so these guys are just going down there to help. awesome.

drugs are flowing over the border. lots of americans have monkeys they feed and it's all about supply and demand. the cartels are powerful, violent and have utterly corrupted the mexican military and police. people get shot. a lot. in mexico. violent crime rates in arizona have been flat for a decade. there is no crisis of brown guys killing white guys. or anybody. according to tucson border patrol, from october to july, 170,000 people have been apprehended trying to sneak in. only 1100 of those have included prosecution for drugs.

i'm sorry, mr. ready, but those guys you're hunting are coming here to clean pools and mow lawns -- not get your daughters all hopped up on meth and pregnant with baby pedros to infect your master blood-line. but why let pesky facts get in the way of a good old-fashioned witch hunt? even the insane governor of the state is claiming headless torsos have been uncovered in the desert sands. which is an absolute lie. a lie. a lie that she has repeated to the media to keep the fear in a hot froth.

mr. ready's ownership of an arsenal is protected by the constitution. there is no law stopping him and a bunch of other wing-nuts from being in the desert with their shotguns, night-vision goggles and smoke bombs. his hate speech is protected by the first amendment.

this is a snip from his party's mission statement:

Just like African Americans have the NACCP – an African-American rights
advocate – the National Socialist Movement is a Euroepan-Ameican rights
advocate that promotes the interests of White people and works to make sure
European-Americans continue to have a voice in government affairs.

first off, why can't ANY of these idjits spell, and second, has he seen a picture of congress lately? it's a goddamn ocean of white guys, so i am always flummoxed by the lament that it somehow needs to be taken back. from whom?

so i'll just spend the day humming the little ditty from "springtime for hitler":

"Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!"

be afraid

2010-07-15T13:03:00.003-04:00

this guy was in a dispute with his landlord and tried running him over with his windstar minivan. i always knew minivans were evil, but ya know, guns don't kill people, etc.

the adam's apple as devil nose, the snaps on his forehead (was he towing boats with his cranium?) and the bolts on top of his skull all made me nearly lose my lunch. and laugh in a nervous kind of way.

unless his landlord also looks like this, i can't imagine a tulsa property owner welcoming this guy to an apartment.

he's out on bond, btw, and ladies, i'm guessin' he's single.

i are officially an old

2010-07-15T10:17:00.005-04:00

at yesterday's pre-shift meeting, we did our usual run-down of what to expect from the day and night. blah-blah-blah, but part of the info was the concert nearby that would start at 7:00. the bigger shows there trend toward a certain demographic which shoe-horns nicely with that of our regular dining base: over 35, with money to burn. shows there this summer include the doobie brothers, donna summer, a styx/journey double bill. get the drift?

last night's show was squeeze and cheap trick. in a meeting with 8 people, several of whom are over 30, not one had heard of squeeze. not one. a few knew the name of cheap trick, but couldn't drag a song from their memory bank.

"live at budokan" went triple platinum. that's 3 million albums and you could not turn on the radio and NOT hear "surrender" or "i want you to want to me". they were partying anthems and the band sold out arenas all over the world.

squeeze? for god's sake, some of the most infectious pop tunes that rode over on the 80's new wave. early albums were produced by john cale and then elvis costello -- neither of whom can be considered an industry slacker. songs like "black coffee in bed" and "pulling mussels from the shell" are ear worms of the best sort. that catchy hook gets in your head and won't let go. i saw them a bunch of times live, including in jamaica, and they were kick-ass fun. the jamaicans LOVED them too.

"argybargy" was released in england in 1980. we had some very progressive radio stations where i grew up and i could not get my hands on it fast enough. i had the lp and the tape, so i could play the latter in my car. the summer between high school and college, i wore out the tape. my friends had no end of fun that "tempted" was my theme song, since i spent most of those firefly months dashing from party to party and juggling 3 boyfriends, lol.

music i loved as a young woman, that played part of the soundtrack of my life, brought a roomful of blank stares.

i am an old.

what men want

2010-07-11T12:01:00.007-04:00

today's ny times mag had a short q & a with hugh hefner. he of the silk pyjamas and still, at 84, banging the blondie bunnies in his big bed in his big house. proof that living your life the way you want is best, but that's not where i'm a-going here.

he was interviewed by deborah solomon and this is just a snip:

In the meantime, Playboy’s ideal of feminine beauty has become passé. Contemporary models don’t go for that old voluptuous hourglass shape.

Obviously women are taller, healthier, more athletic today than they were before. That certainly is a slimming down, but I don’t think there’s been a great deal of change in terms of perception of beauty.

The look now is more androgynous, flatter.

I question that seriously. When has the notion of flat-chested come in since the 1920s?

You’re referring to flappers?

That was the last time that small breasts were popular.

we've all seen pix from old playboys, including the iconic marilyn monroe "red velvet" shot, that was hef's first centerfold and his jackpot. the women were slim, certainly, but there was s a softness, a plushness, as the owner might say, that was very feminine. women like jane russell and sophia loren put the danger in the curves.

over the decades, both miss america and miss july have gotten thinner. waist measurements of title winners of the former went from just under 26 inches (1920) to around 24 inches (1980s). from 1979 to 1988, 69% of playboy models and 60% of miss america contestants weighed 15% or more below the expected weight for their age and height category.

i don't know that i've seen an actual playboy mag since i was a teen, but the pop-up porn site pix that pester net-browsing all seem to feature the same cartoon girl: big blonde hair, miles of eye-liner, puffed-up trout-pouts and lean bodies with bolted on-basketballs for breasts. pageant girls look less whorishly-exaggerated, yes, but still with the fake tans, fake boobs and extra white veneers.

contrast these images with the female reporter's conjecture of the feminine ideal. are men fapping to the bags of bones that faint or die during fashion week? methinks not so much. those girls succumb to the tyranny of mostly gay male designers who favor androgynous types as strutting clothes hangers to showcase the drape and hang of the outfit.

yet in solomon's head, it's the jutting hips and i'll-cut-you clavicles of the daughters of heroin chic-sters like kate moss (seen her lately? from cover-girl to crone. jeebus.) that haunt men's dreams. solomon, btw, looks just as you imagine a middle-aged manhattan writer would/should. you can just as easily hear her beating the horse of women as oppressed victims of an unrealistic ideal. an argument not without merit, but i see it as the opposite side of her coin. (not to mention the reality of over 60% of women being overweight. how many are truly starving themselves to waif-land and not wallowing in dorito-ville?)

hef made a life and fortune reading and feeding men's fantasies. if somebody knows what men want, i should think it's him. not her.

hot, hot, hot

2010-07-08T18:48:00.003-04:00

it's been pizza-oven hot the last few days. excruciating in an urban environment, with concrete everywhere mocking you and tossing hotter heat in your face. hair and clothes just melted from the shortest walk from point a to point b during daylight hours.

we always get hot muggy snaps in summer and i always bitch. we also now are subject to the tired "it's global warming." "no, it isn't," debate. call it "climate change", like sex-pervert/nobel laureate al gore, or "anthropogenic climate change" for an even bigger mouthful for a simple concept: it's gettin' hot in here.

the last few days in my wine class discussing champagne vines in england and potentially delicious reds from the rheingau within my lifetime, (latitudes too northerly to be considered even 10 years ago for such plantings) i was reminded of conversations with winemakers and vineyard owners. some of whom have been farming their land for over 400 years and some for several decades. whether it's many volumes from an alsatian, or a few books from a guy on spring mountain, they all say the same thing. it's gettin' hot in here. an unmistakable, inexorable, upward climb. but just like the "intelligent design" proponents ignoring science and the glorious serendipity of evolution, we have just as many, if not more, loons running around sayin' it just ain't so. jeebus.

if only those wine-guys would get together and publish their data. they have no agenda, just truth. and the personal worry that future generations may not share their culture of the grape because it's just too damn hot in ribeauville to grow riesling anymore.

child-like pride

2010-07-08T18:36:00.002-04:00

when was the last time you got a badge and a certificate for an achievement? i did yesterday, lol. it was a minor accomplishment in the scheme of life and the goal for which it is just the first baby step, but still.

my name was called by a "master" -- one of only 170 in the entire world. he handed both tokens to me and a room full of people were applauding. it felt like winning a spelling bee. my last certification from wset took 6 weeks to arrive via post and just was a form letter congratulating me on passing and asking when i would send my check for the next phase. cold, uh?

there was a squirmy moment at the end, when all the names of those passing had been called and my two co-workers, who also took the exam, were still hanging back, having failed. ouch. however, i am off today, so can avoid the awkwardness and already did some delving about what i will need to know for the next level. it feels good to finally be moving forward, and doing something so few do. good and... dorky, because so few really want to do this. ;)

this, not that

2010-06-27T16:43:00.002-04:00

last summer at this time i was making myself nutz exercising, starving but not losing any weight. i was frustrated, upset, depressed, humiliated. i felt awful physically and mentally. the owner was berating me weekly about what i was doing wrong and what i wasn't doing right, and that's why i wasn't losing.

fruit was coming into season locally and i started about everyday with a nice big heap of berries in a bowl of fresh no-fat yogurt. healthy, right? diet food, right? each friday i went to haymarket and stocked up on cartons and cartons of berries, grapes, kiwis, pineapples and what-not.

scroll forward to late summer, when i began to learn and accept that it's not just how much you eat, but what you eat. more importantly that the "what" i'd been advised to eat all my life was wrong, and that it was making me fat and unhealthy. the pounds and inches have fallen away, i look and feel better than i have in ages.

yesterday i went shopping, both for myself and an impromptu dinner. faced once again with dirt-cheap berries, shiny red cherries and luscious figs, i fought myself about it all. i decided to follow my nose to the golden raspberries, bought some reds too, but only enough of them for that night's dinner. they go bad so quickly, i knew i would rationalize eating too many too soon.

there is broccoli, cauliflower and bright red peppers waiting for me back home. i know i made the good choice, and am happy i allowed myself the treat last night.

it will be more of a gauntlet down there later in the summer when both native corn and local blueberries are both in season! (noodle shakes fist at sky!! damn you, new england summer!)

USA!!!!!!!!

2010-06-12T23:57:00.004-04:00

it's world cup time and i am already late to the party. every 4 years the world glues its ears and eyes to the drama, the victories and the tragedies. (remember escobar? who was killed after the '94 world cup?)

the us DOES NOT CARE ABOUT SOCCER. call it "football" like everybody else in teh world, and fans here just get confused. little kids play it now, unlike in my day, because it's easier to have more kids running the field without harming the play. i think. who knows. what do i know? 'rents will go see and even coach their kids' teams, but they could give a rat's ass for fifa.

i work with lots of guys and most of them are sports nuts. the ins and outs of football-baseball-basketball, minored with hockey, dominate conversation and EVERYBODY is smarter than theo, doc and bill, ffs.

i also work with lots of south americans who grew up living and breathing soccer. futbal. this is the most exciting time evah for them. i get that.

so the world cup started yesterday morning. all the tvs ran it. south africa vs. mexico. nobody working had a nationality stake, but, ya know, it's the 1st match. ok. cool.

why are you exercised, noodle? because guys i have worked with for 7 months and have never once heard them mention soccer, now cannot unglue their eyes from the tube. for the next month, only the barest minimum of work will get done and that will only be by force. this happens every goddamn time the world cup comes up.

it's bad enough that the brown kids somehow feel like they are still in brazil/peru/ecuador/whatevs/ and so excused from normal duties and can spend most of the day glazed over at the screen, but the americans make me wanna kill them. the long island hockey fanatic, the connecticut football expert and the masshole baseball know-it-all somehow magically transform into soccer knowledge phenoms who cannot be budged from viewing the match-after-match-after-match.

it has happened every place i have ever worked. wtf? bonding must be part of it, but really? who among these guys cares about korea or uruguay? can they find them on a map? pro soccer gets played all over, many months of the year. my ears bleed hearing these guys. and my wallet moans cuz they simply do as little as possible.

today nationalism (jingoism?) got a boost since we tied the brits. quite sure most of the uk was suicidal over it, while most of the us remains blissfully unaware. 'cept for the restaurant poseurs with whom i must deal. grrrrrrrrrrr.

28 more days.

white trash

2010-06-06T01:11:00.003-04:00

am gonna try to make sure to squeeze in all the deets here.

one of the ed hardy women at my work was going OFF tonight about some now-former best friend who was catty-trash-talking about her (my co-worker) being a slut. my co-worker can manage to look slutty in sweat pants and a sweat shirt. what she does in her off-hours i'm mostly fine not knowing, but she claims to not have had sex in 4 months. ahem.

anyway...

my jerry springer recap:

this woman is 26
has 2 babies with 2 different baby daddies
she got preggers within the 1st month of fucking these guys
neither of which has ever held a real job, both of them have lengthy records
one is 33 and has never had a driver's license
when not in jail, both guys live with their ma
this woman is now pregnant with baby #3, from a new daddy
she has been seeing this guy less than 2 months and is already knocked up
this daddy was the b/f of her "best" friend for 15 years
the ex-g/f just had an abortion of this guy's kid 2 weeks ago, before she knew these 2 had hooked up
this guy has no job, no car and a lengthy record
like the others, he deals drugs
the woman has herpes and hepatitis c, both of which she knew she had before fucking this guy and getting knocked up

her trash-talking of the woman i know, took place in a local, after the mom-to-be had several jager-bombs and was calling her out on being a slut and a back-stabbah and a cratah-face, who'd fuck any guy with a nice cah. all of which was relayed 2nd-hand! jeebus!! this happens with adults?

who are these people? i always thought their stories on springer/maury/jenny/sally were exaggerated. um, not. these just have townie accents instead of hillbilly drawls and live in the projects instead of a single-wide.

women running at the mouth

2010-06-05T12:45:00.005-04:00

previous posts have ranted about wives trash-talking their husbands when out with "the girls". it makes all the cosmo-sippers giggle and guffaw and they go home tipsy and vindicated, i guess, having proven to the coven what utter clods the spouses are. how does he manage to get his shoes on in the proper left-right combo and get a paycheck each week? will wonders never cease?

my staff at work includes two couples, both of whom are engaged. (there was a third, but they now are in the throes of a divorce due to brazilian vacation shenanigans on his end, i hear.) recently, and more than once from each the women, there has been soapboxing about what idiots the guys are. planning a big house party, why is c. cleaning the junk room before the bathroom? how dumb is that? why is b. playing the tv so loud and giving the niece crackers when she cries? how dumb is that?

other females, both single and with somebody's, circle around and laff and laff. oh, those impossible menz!

the tirades are all too full of triteness for further repeat and i am sure you get the drift. here's what gets me. we KNOW these guys. see and interact with them several times a week and have informed opinions about dumb or smart they might actually be. your future wife thinks you are an idiot because you are not doing anything "her way". i won't know any of you in a few years, but would like to, only to see how long it truly takes to have your souls completely crushed. good luck to you, hubs.

numbers don't lie

2010-06-05T12:09:00.005-04:00

well, yeah, they do and we all can cite various surveys (like how many married people cheat on their spouses) and massaged statistics (like how the feds count unemployed peeps, but this is not a political rant, lol) to prove this point.

but the land of women's clothing has become an absolute mine-field. men buy their threads by the inch. neck and arm make the shirt and waist and inseam make the pant. now, gents, imagine if you will, that all your jeans are getting a little threadbare and you decide to treat yourself to some new levi's. you're the same weight you were 5 years ago, last time you went shopping, so you go to the mall and pick up 5 new pairs of 32's or whatever. no need to try 'em on, they've always fit. when you get home, all of a sudden you're having a goldilocks denim experience. one pair is too big and one is too small, and of the 5 only 1 fits just right. would it make you crazy?

happily smaller than i have been in a long time, i have dared to shop over the last couple weeks. not quite "there" yet, i have been bargain hunting and set random price ceilings on certain objects, hoping to donate them as too big by the end of summer. size anarchy ensues. how could 5 different pairs of ralph lauren capri, all size 6, fit differently? they ranged from just too baggy, to swimming on me. there was only one pair of size 4's, which were a little too tight for an old white lady. those more booty-prone (yeah, all you sistahs and chicas out there, i mean you) would have happily greased 'em on i guess, but not me.

as for bras, it is one of the few items women purchase with actual measurements. the holy grail of getting some decent ones that fit has brought the owner no end of hilarity. to the point where he likes to mock me in front of men i have never even met about the search. (sometimes i wonder why i tell him stuff, ya know?)

you measure in a certain spot, add 2 inches, and that is the backstrap measurement of the bra that should fit you perfectly. in a normal universe, every 36, 38, 32, whatevs, would fit the woman poking through the racks and drawers for her "size". rubbish. over the last few months, i guesstimate i have tried on over 50 bras. a lot more than that i am thinking. all kinds of brands and price-points. some of them are falling off and some of them are like boa constrictors. some cups so small they wouldn't cover an oyster and some big enough for an official nba ball with kobe's hand palming it in there.

who the fuck are these women who love to shop? it's become torture and a horrible mind-fuck. it's frustrating, humiliating and a massive effort for the end achieved.

of course, men run most fashion houses and retail companies, so i guess we know the root of the issue. huh?

big brass balls

2010-05-20T10:06:00.005-04:00

last night in paris, a guy snipped a padlock, broke a window and stole a bunch of very famous paintings out of the museum of modern art. he swiped a picasso, a braque, a matisse, a modigliani and a leger. estimated value between $300 and 600 million euros.

the THREE overnight guards on duty "saw nothing". video shows a single masked man, before the surveillance system was disabled.

the frames were disassembled rather than shattered, so there remains hope the canvases were not damaged.

while i admire the audacity, this kind of theft is so staggeringly selfish it makes me very sad at the same time. a collector, with both more money than croesus and some serious pathologies, no doubt arranged this heist. the paintings will sit in his mansion evermore (am i the only one imagining a secret room behind a revolving faux bookcase kinda set-up?), where no one but the kleptocrat will ever see them again. he cannot even share them with friends, nor boast of his accomplishment.

but the stoopid starts here:

the director of the neighboring modern art museum palais de tokyo, pierre cornette de saint-cyr, called the thief or thieves "fools."

"you cannot do anything with these paintings. all countries in the world are aware, and no collector is stupid enough to buy a painting that, one, he can't show to other collectors, and two, risks sending him to prison," he said on television.

"in general, you find these paintings," he said. "these five paintings are un-sellable, so thieves, sirs, you are imbeciles, now return them."

i realize to a parisian there are no other cities on the planet, but i should like to remind this fellow of the gardner museum theft of 20 years ago. 13 paintings, including a rembrandt, a degas and a vermeer (his "the concert" is thought to be the most valuable missing artwork in the world), plus a few other objets, were hauled off into the night and effectively disappeared. two guys simply bluffed their way into mrs. jack gardner's manse, handcuffed the guards and smashed and sliced their way into anonymous notoriety. no credible leads in two decades, and the frames hang empty on the walls, as if in mourning. despite a $5 million reward offered by the museum and an expired statute of limitations, all those pretty things remain just gone.

the state of things

2010-05-06T10:12:00.003-04:00

out the other afternoon, i was meeting a friend in a place that's kind of new, but in a neighborhood sorely in need of exactly what it wants to be. it was towards the end of the workday and a wine rep i knew was in there peddling some summer juice. he works for one of my favorite suppliers and is a good egg. he tasted with the manager (?) and left her bottles to share with the staff, one of which was a barbera.

now, i can only guess this woman is in charge of the small wine list, which is why she was tasting, right? the bartender asked which was her favorite, and she answered the barbera, but she mispronounced it, the accents in all the wrong spots. now, i can only guess her rep had called the wine by its name at least once, right? so she'd heard the word only a few minutes prior. even IF she'd never heard of it prior to that day. um, the 3rd most widely planted varietal in italy, not one of the hundreds of krazee obscure grapes that are commercially not viable yet still trail all over the country.

the bartender held it up to his nose. "is it like barolo?" which to me meant he'd never had a barolo, which is fine, because they can be expensive, he's young and works in a neighborhood joint. to which she replied, "um kinda."

GAAAAAHHHHH. NONONONONONO!!

just for starters, barolo is from the nebbiolo grape, while barbera IS the grape. stylistically, barolos are like giant ultimate fighters, muscular, powerful, overpowering when young but lithe with moves that matter with some age, while barberas are mostly easy-drinking fruit-forward jesters, not built to last.

this chick had no idea what she was talking about, drinking or buying. and she has a job doing it. awesome.

fakin' it

2010-05-03T11:49:00.010-04:00

i do not:

have nail tips, acrylics, stencils, decals or shiny dots, french, or reverse french, manicures on my hands or feet
wear a toe or thumb ring
have a pierced lip or nose (so don't need that plastic spacer in the hole when i work that everybody can totally see anyway)
have hair or eyelash extensions (omg! like they totally last like 2 weeks and only cost like, $50, which is like awesome cuz it's one less thing to do everyday!!)
go tannin', so i'm not the color of an oompa-loompa
buy moisturizer that has newborn baby- or horse-by-products as an ingredient
get my brows or beaver waxed (especially by a russian)
dye my hair la brea tar-pit black
iron my hair flat with japanese enzymes for $275
have my girlfriend come over, listen to rhianna and do my hair for fun
have silicone, botox or collagen in me anywhere
think lite cool-whip or lean-cuisine pizzas are good diet foods
own anything by ed hahdee, pink or juicy
have a white handbag
mistake knock-off gucci, prada, rolex, coach or movado for the real stuff, which, um, i know a waitress cannot afford and also know your townie thug-friends get you the fakes for cheaps off the truck
confuse cubic zirconium with diamonds
have covers for my cellphone that match my fake donny-bourke bag or are studded- rhinestone-glittery
wear colored contacts on dates
wear sweat-pants shopping (or anywhere, really)
own sweat-sets
own spanxx (two x's cuz they're extra-strong?)
own uggs or even moreso, fake-uggs
put clothes on my pets (not even a special celtics sweater during the play-offs)
watch the hills, gossip girl, man vs. food, dr. phil, dr. oz or oprah
read twilight books or cosmo
believe that book "the secret"
see chick flix
go to strip-clubs on dates, or with a posse of my bff's for lap-dances from the pole-girlz, cuz it's (not) a fuckin' riot
go to foxwoods, mohegan or vegas for the weekend
see mariah or beyoncé in concert
think julia roberts is awesome
call oddballs "gay", unless they are, cuz weird or strange is something else and the geh's should get to keep their own word
do oxy, percs, vicodin, valiums or coke for a night out (or in or whatevs)
have a bebeh with a guy who was unemployed when i got knocked up and remains such, nor do i have another bebeh with his friend
have any ex-bf's in jail
have a bookie, astrologer, psychic or shady accountant as part of my personal care squad
have face-book fights or frenemies
have fist-fights at the bar with girls from my high school
think slapping your bf is ok, and is, in fact, the proper course of action, "when he deserves it"
cheat on my boyfriend (then cry to my bff's that i "done something fuckin awful" and i hope he doesn't find out cuz he'll fuckin' kill me...)

guess i'm not a real girl?

uncle sam does not want you

2010-04-25T01:10:00.004-04:00

a group of 130 retired military brass has organized and calls themselves "mission: readiness". they released last week's figures (in the post below, but before) about all the kids who are too fat to enlist. they got that data from the cdc. in 1987, 6 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds, or about 1 out of 20, were obese. In 2008, 22 years later, 23 percent of that age group — almost 1 out of 4 — was considered to be obese. from a footnote to a quarter of the population in a generation.

the military rejects the obese because there is no "safe" way for them to drop enough weight during basic training, if they could even get through it. a generation of kids who played on x-boxes instead of outside, they can't do push-ups, pull-ups or run.

using additional pentagon info, mission: readiness, led by general wesley clark, issued a document claiming that 75% of americans eligible for duty are unfit to serve.

the ineligible population breaks down this way:

medical/physical problems, 35 percent.
illegal drug use, 18 percent.
mental category V (the lowest 10 percent of the population), 9 percent.
too many dependents under age 18, 6 percent.
criminal record, 5 percent.

put another way, only 4.7 million of the 31.2 million 17- to 24-year-olds in our country are fit to serve. of the larger number, only 12% are inclined to do so. my brain explodes trying to extrapolate that number then for realz.

2009 saw every branch of the military exceed its recruitment targets. it's the economy, stoopid, ya know? but when the job market improves and there are more openings at home depot, how many kids will still be lining up for desert camo togs? some of that also came from waivers. these may be issued for a guy with asthma who has translation skills or a petty drug offender who's good with a gun, like sarah palin's son. (ya know, the one ya don't hear about?)

the guys at mission: readiness foresee a crisis by 2030, much of it driven by the obesity epidemic.

the horny chinese soldiers dying as virgins (for lack of females in their demographic) and the angry muslim soldiers dying for virgins may not have much to fear in the near future. our kids are too fat to climb the rope ladder and too stoned or dumb to read the instructions on the parachute.

full-cricle waistlines

2010-04-25T00:20:00.005-04:00

in 1946, president truman instituted the federal school lunch program when he learned that many teenagers showing up for service were malnourished. too skinny to swarm the normandy beaches and too weak to haul big guns and ammo through german forests. it was a matter of national security to fatten these kids up, and no surprise that many of them came from rural and inner city areas. too poor to dodge the draft and just not enough pennies in the cabin or tenement for 3 squares a day.

this past week, daniel ruf died trying to make weight and join the marines. he was at the gym in a plastic bag, worn over a scuba suit, working out in a 100 degree room. he had also been taking diuretics and diet pills.

an autopsy determined multi-organ system failure due to hyperthermia, dehydration, and "exercise with occlusive gear" as his cause of death. the coroner's report also said ruf was "moderately obese;" his bmi was 34.3 and he weighed 226 pounds—45 pounds over the military cut-off for a 5-foot-8 male. the marines will accept you if are 10% overweight . they'll burn and shame that excess off you in boot camp.

at this point, 2 out 10 young men and 4 out 10 young women are too fat to join the service.

childhood obesity has tripled since 1980.

talking to a mom the other day, she is required to pack 2 snacks for her child for the school day, and this is in addition to whatever she eats at lunch. so that is eating 3 times between 8:00 and 2:00. my friend is slim and so are her kids. she's hoping they stay that way.

on the train last week, i saw two very fat moms (sisters, by the look) and their roly-poly kids, who were bouncing off the walls, seats and doors. this was to be a 45-minute trip that began at 11:15 in the morning. safe to assume the kids had already had breakfast and lunch wouldn't be too long in the future, right? both mothers had "snack" backpacks. one bulbous little boy was eating a cupcake and doritos at the same time, pausing only to guzzle gatorade. another of the tubby tykes had fistfuls of twizzlers and there were tiny ritz sandwich cookies being gnawed. i'm no candy nazi and there was plenty of junk food in my house growing up, but do these moms ever put a cover on the feed trough? if the kids are all overweight now, which was unquestionable, all that's left is to develop even poorer eating habits and get fatter. and sicker.

over the last few decades the idea has come about to "graze" and eat all day. small meals. i have my low-carb arguments about why this is a terrible idea, but even adhering to conventional wisdom, it's clear nobody knows what a small meal is anymore. a cheeseburger, small fries and small coke at mickey d's is 810 calories. a big mac, large fries and large coke is 1350. which do we think more people order for lunch? have you seen the size of apples in your local market lately? except for the macs in bags, i stopped buying them a few years back because they were too damned big to finish. those green and red monsters are close to 200 calories. that's a "snack"?

even on the subway, when i see infants and toddlers, more often than not, they are eating something -- something carby. cookies, crackers, cheeze-its, those nutri-grain bars, raisins, and/or drinking something fruity. lots of times i see very small kids with sports drinks! is sitting in a stroller really plowing through that kid's electrolyte stores? really, momz?

the mother of the boy who sweated to death is suing the marines, even though her boy was not yet one. it remains unclear if this kid died due to his own irrational desperation to make weight, which if this is the case he's about as a sharp as a sponge and we're all better off he was never issued deadly weapons. if, however, it was the result of a recruiter desperate to make quota, it's a whole other enchilada.

in the sugar-and-salt-dusted face of that little fat boy on the train, i see the wide and bloated visage of the now dead young man only about 10 years older whose mother likely fed him all day long too. these kids don't just blow up from american chop suey and tuna melts from the lunch lady. it's the parents who need the learnin', 'cept nobody done gone talkin' 'bout dat.

school lunches have been a popular punching bag for years now, and i know michelle obama has her finger in that pie to make cafeteria fare more healthy. but that's only 1 thirty minute period of each kid's day.

there are people who are too fat to fit in roller coaster and ferris wheel cars and too wide for baseball seats. how long before we have to butter kids' hips to squeeze 'em into the tank?

talkin' 'bout jesus, everyday

2010-03-28T11:51:00.004-04:00

jesus in the tree bark and in the grilled cheese samich. if i recall, there recently was a potato jesus someplace too.

well, happy easter to all you catholic faithful, because our nazi pope has decided to unfurl the shroud of turin, for only the 5th time in 100 years. it was last seen in 2002 after its extensive restoration. its next appearance was scheduled for 2025, but that has been hastened way upwards.

oh, noes, it is most certainly NOT "religious tourism", but an "opportunity for the faithful to meditate, pray and contemplate on the mystery and extraordinary suffering of christ."

last time this rag was out, over 1 million came to gawk.

in 1988, 3 independent labs carbon-dated separate pieces of the cloth and placed its origin between 1260 and 1390, offering it was simply a brilliant medieval fakery. pt barnum must roll in his grave about this hoax successfully baiting the sheeple for 5 centuries! "egress this way," indeed.

the nuns indoctrinated me to the pope's infallibility, that he is the mind and voice of god here on earth, so i am quite sure that ratzi does not mean this as any kind of icon smoke and mirrors to distract from all the euro-pedo's now flaming up all over the continent. including his personal approval of the transfer of rev. peter hullerman, from within his own district. he directly received a memo advising the priest not be allowed to work with children, had to give up drinking and attend private therapy. none of this happened. the pervert was quietly moved to a different parish, a chess piece in a frock, and eventually convicted of further molestations.

there is not enough red silk papal cloak cloth to smother these fires. we thought it was bad here in boston. now it is in ratzi's own house.

oh! lookee over here, i found a piece of the true cross!

would jesus be fat too?

2010-03-23T12:33:00.007-04:00

so a professor and a minister walk into a museum...

the minister is also a professor and the guys are brothers. they did a study of paintings of the "last supper" done over the last 1000 years. to my frustration, this is a large swath of time and they don't break it down into different eras, like the advent of safe canning, the industrial revolution, the assembly line, modern health codes for food safety (thank you, upton sinclair), mr birdseye and his flash-freezing, the post ww II pesticide era of farming, which dramatically increased agricultural yields, or our modern era of biggie fries and all-u-can-eat buffets.

but anyway...

using special enhancement software, they found that, over the past 1,000 years, the size of the main meal has progressively grown 69 percent; plate size has increased 66 percent and bread size by about 23 percent.

so, if, instead of a few sheets of dry matzoh, he'd had unlimited breadsticks and mountains of butter, would jesus have been too fat to walk on water? cuz he is always krazee skinny in all pix. with his not so secret flings with whores like mary magdalene, and the whole water into wine thing, i never took jesus as an ascetic.

would jesus super-size?

eye bleach, i beg you

2010-03-18T21:40:00.003-04:00

what a dirty week. just... ew.

john edwards' mistress rielle hunter has a spread in esquire. ahem. yes, i said spread. the pix are mostly of her in a man's shirt, a pearl necklace (uh-huh) and no pants. come hither stare and such. including the just totally icky one of her on the blackmail baby's bed with stuffed barney (is he still a thing?) and dora the explorer dolls. she still with no pants. who does this? who poses on their infant's bed with a fuck-me face in a national magazine? to rehab their reputation, no less?

i have no idea what the interview has to say cuz i don't care. i find it staggering that this woman wants to be in the public eye after what she has done and with whom. nary a care for the little who that once grown will click a mouse and see all this garbage, nor the much bigger who's living with their dying mother who see this garbage now.

another of the tiger woods harem has come forward this week with tawdry bits. 4 months after the elin beat-down a porn star with balloon boobs named joslyn james published over 100 dirty tiger sexts. we'll cruise on the fact that by profession a porn actress has no shame and at best a fluid sense of boundaries. other people's dirty talk is always just kinda sad -sounding, i guess, but he wants to slap her, call her dirty names, admits he'd have stage fright for a golden shower (giving, not receiving; tiger has a shy bladder? c'mon, right? his father never made him pee in the bushes rather than lose course time?) and order a turkey club. not all at the same time.

weirdly, the transcript is all just him. she has a way better cell-plan than i do since mine only saves about 20 texts, clean or dirty. much like the blue lewinksy dress it will bring her 15 seconds of mainstream media attention, but then what? again, his kids will get to click and get sick in just a few years. regardless of how nice or not-nice is tiger's wife, she is freshly humiliated. james' family must be thrilled how all those ballet lessons panned out.

then lastly, a nice girl indeed finishes, if not last, than in the mud. sandra bullock, 8 days after her oscar win, got faced with front page frontals of the tattoo model named "bombshell" mcgee, who claims to have been having a year-long affair with bullock's husband, jesse james. james has been married 3 times, and is a cult reality tv guy, who pimps out hogs or some such. i'd read his name, that he essentially pretended to be a descendant of the outlaw, but this whole story makes me yearn for that "coward robert ford" to rise from the dead and come a slingin' with a six-shooter.

somehow bullock went from a joke (miss congeniality) to an oscar winner/powah-playah, with staggeringly profitable movies under her belt. a broad who won a razzie AND an oscar within weeks of each other and showed up to accept each award graciously has become america's real sweetheart. in her oscar speech, and other interviews, she thanked james for "always having her back." that it was the first time in her life she'd had that, and how profound and wonderful it was. she'd used her money and muscle to help james get custody of his kids.

tits mcgee got $30k from a rag for lots of dirty j.j texts. sexts from james for the year they were banging, and including some just days after the oscars. she calls him "vanilla gorilla" saying he has a ginormous dick. (even though gorillas typically have small penises relative to other hominids, but i think she skipped that class in bio.) other stuff has piddled out about her supposed neo-nazi sympathies (and tangentially that james' 2nd wife, a porn star, is married to a felonious neo-nazi), and generally unsavory associates and demeanor.

like tiger's porn actress, mcgee has different boundaries (and they both have sex-cam websites!) than your average jane. all that's swell and i'm not here to throw stones at mistresses, nor the husbands who keep them. my glass shatters too easily. what does make me sick is the lack of regard for collateral damage. the kids. the families, the wives.

just like the man keeping a mistress, there used to be a code of conduct for the girlie. first rule? shut up. be discreet. it blows my mind that these women out themselves. that botoxed conga line of chicks who sucked tiger off? they came out for what ? a chance to be on howard stern? is that the highlight? an asterisk in tiger's wiki about being no.6, no. 16, or no. 696?

jiz-bum james and inky mcgee already dwelled on the seamy side as far as careers and associates.

hunter (her third known name) ran with dark shadows chasing her for all her adult life. she came from money in florida and was a competitive equestrian. her lawyer-father died of cancer while under fbi covert investigation for very likely culpability in a show-horse-electrocution-for-insurance-money-scam.

she then ran hard and fast with that nyc brat pack crowd and was the basis for a jay mcinerny character in his 1988 novel, "my so-called life". "allison poole" was pathologically sexual, riddled with std's and conned her b/f for money for an abortion she never had/needed. by most accounts, hunter was not embarrassed, but rather relished being the source for allison.

she met edwards in a bar.

i have had sex with married men. i have had affairs with married men. i always justified it in my head putting it all on the guy. *I* wasn't doing anything to the wife or the kids. it was all his choice. i just happened to be available and attracted. if the guy made noises about leaving the wife he got dropped like a hot rock. that was never gonna be on me.

i kept myself sufficiently removed that it never went beyond a fling with those guys.

except when it did.

and she found out.

she wrote to me.

she demanded to see my correspondence with him.

trumped, destroyed, by my own hubris, there was no way i would pour gasoline on the flames. to what end? it would only feed her self-flagellation and in no way could help him or salve any of my pain.

i felt ashamed.

i cannot, cannot, cannot, comprehend these women all falling over themselves, pushing their push-up bras in the faces of the paparazzi, to publish sexts and tapes and voice-mails and stuff about socks (eliot spitzer's ashley dupree... oh, so long ago, in a more innocent time).

"hell hath no fury blah-blah" goes back to zeus and hera. (although she frequently lashed out by punishing his bastard offspring, like driving hercules mad so that he'd kill his own wife and children.) yet no matter how many times i witness the scorched earth policy of somebody like mcgee or james, i am dumbfounded. they become emotional agent orange. why intentionally hurt the wife? the fucking kids? what have they done to be a party in your greek tragedy?

they don't get the guy back. they don't look smart or powerful or sexy. they look like cheap discarded toys. they don't even get rich! snaggle-crotch mcgee got like minimum wage for her junk. how does any of this make them feel better? most of america writes them off as money-grubbing whores.

as for hunter, she is a whole other vile species. trying to become some sort of media celebrity while appearing as nothing more than a circling vulture.

they all make me embarrassed by women.

goldilocks and the 3 nightclubs

2010-03-02T13:02:00.009-05:00

spent the weekend with the owner and all 3 nights were about the music. or let's say were supposed to be about the music.

friday, we made a brief appearance at a local hang. upfrontedness: the place has little pretension to be anything other than what it is. budwesier chandeliers, keno, pool tables, dart boards, $8 pitchers. i've never had anything but friendly service from the gals behind the bar. i've got all my teeth, which puts me ahead of most of the regulars, but i've only ever gotten smiles from them, and never been made to feel unwelcome. plus i kinda like a "real" joint. not to be confused with the "faux" dive bars, like lucky's and bukowski's, that cropped up in the 90's.

an acquaintance of the owner's was playing, and as he is wont to do, we made out to show our support. collectively they were not much better than a bunch of high school kids in somebody's basement banging away, like monkeys without thumbs, on christmas presents of fenders and gretsches. they seemed to be enjoying themselves which was more the point. the owner shook some hands and we made it an early night.

next night was a cd release party for a band that includes one of the nicest guys i have met in a very long time. the guy so nice you can't figure out why some clever cookie hasn't scooped him up, except to realize girls his age are still chasing bad boys and telling guys like him they"are too nice." and "let's just be friends." all the band mates are decent chaps too and i've seen them play before. they don't suck and in the year or so i have known them have come leaps and bounds.

what's the problem, noodle, you ask? the venue. ack. although a stone's throw from the owner's door, the place just sucks. total 1000% suckage. last year we went a few days after it opened for this same band. doors opened at 9:00. people were streaming in and we got some comfy seats in great eye-line of the stage.

amble up to the bar for brews. a kid is stocking the cooler. young chicks in slut costumes are rushing about, but not doing a thing. i finally ask the barback and he tells me the bar isn't open yet. wtf? why are you charging a cover and letting people in? there is a bar downstairs, we could have cooled our heels down there in the meantime. it begs the bigger question of why nobody was in to stock at like, oh, 8:00? whatever. downhill from there. barwench so stoopid she couldn't use her bottle opener. the decor looked like sybil and all her split personalities went shopping at a foreclosed nightclub auction. just stoopid. lit up margaritaville palm trees, go-go-cages, cheesy booths with dumbass names. a fetid wall fountain frothing foamy ooze. just awful.

the sound? impenetrable at best. bass, bass, bass. then more bass, bass, bass.

so under duress and in an elephant in the room triad, i'm dragged there again. same shit, different day. bar not ready, (bar manager 101: people at a bar want to drink. they want to drink right away. they then get tipsy early. THEN, they drink even more. if you're not ready to roll at the opening bell, you are losing money. oh, and, if you were maximizing your profits there, perhaps you could comp a few beers for the guys playing instead of being so fucking miserly?) barsluts doing nothing but flashing their beavers, (uh, what's a seabreeze?) ALL the downstairs taps are out of service. it was after midnight before a cocktail whore came over to ask if any of us wanted a drink. she'd been flitting about all night and i'd never once seen her carrying a single thing. 2 of 4 toilets backed up with paper and feces at 10:00. i thought it impossible, but the sound was even worse. so bad, i didn't care enough even to get up and take a look at the guys on stage. so shitty, that if the same bands played on my deck, i wouldn't recognize a single song. so god-awful, that the promoter commented on how many peeps leaving complained that the sound was for shit. (this guy is so out of his head, he thought they were out of their minds!) the place is truly one of the most god-awful shit-holes i have ever been in.

sunday, we came into town, headed for one of the regular hangs. this place is a bare-bones gem. (regardless of how the above shitty shit-hole self-monikers.) great beers on tap, cheap prices for city standards, barkeeps who can pour a proper pint, make a generous cocktail and manage to make eye-contact when busy. the sound is just spot on, no matter who we see or when. NO COVER. EVAH. a friend of mine is a member of one of the best bands this city has ever spit out and they are back together. bygones indeed gone and they sound fucking amazing. guitar, harmonica, cocktail kit for drums and a low-strung thingie for bass. it's rock-n-roll like it oughta be: loud, dirty and with a sense of humor.

not every band is as good as these guys. in fact, damn few. i know that. but if the rest of it falls even remotely within those lines... a few drinks and some decent sounds, ya know -- a good time, shouldn't be all that hard to get just right. why is it then? huh?

face-palm

2010-02-25T01:49:00.004-05:00

i am near to done with the times.

ffs.

an ostensibly lib op-ed guy, a british jew ex-pat (right?, lol) had this in his column today, re: health care reform:

Aren’t Republicans about choice?

wtf, man! republicrats haven't been about choice since nixon. gaah. i just need to go to bed, i guess, but how do these guys sleep?

more than i can chew right now

2010-02-25T01:01:00.006-05:00

i am trying to fix myself. the broken bits. the parts that snap like a steel bear trap when threatened. the pieces that cut my soul and heart like jagged glass and make me cry in the night.

i am looking, searching, trolling. reading. sometimes you need a break. sometimes you visit places that hold warm memories, like-minded folks and a semblance of understanding. and then... nobody was expecting the spanish inquistion! no really, you're looking for fluff and then you get more than you bargained for.

this is a paste/copy/edit i stole from somebody who ain't no dummy, a sadist/dominant, so that i can more easily track the info i need and ponder the ideas (my blog, my rules, and this is all unfinished biz)

from him, in a thread about how common a rape fantasy is for women, although not for me:

Marianne Noble lists three "psychological traits associated with masochism":

a desire for perfection
a fear of intimacy as a kind of assault upon the self
a particularly emphatic sense of individuated selfhood.

The second one -- fear of intimacy -- was a surprise, but then I thought of all the masochistic fantasies ... forceful, penetrating fantasies. I think there are women who want to be intimate but aren't comfortable opening up to intimacy, so they long for a forceful figure, a demon lover or vampire or rapist (or mebbe, my thought... and uh, in real-life, not twilight movie-- or a dominant completely set on autonomy...) who will force her to open up to him.

Someone who has "a particularly emphatic sense of individuated selfhood" is someone who feels independent; she knows who she is, she knows there's no one like her, she feels unique. Sometimes she might feel special, in an enchanted way, and sometimes she feels alone, in a dejected way. Her sense of self is so pronounced that she is always aware of how different she is from others, and she feels isolated.

So she daydreams about dominant figures who will overwhelm her, take her away from herself, make her forget her name, her face, the clawing boundaries of her body, her distances. She wants to encounter a force that will demand she give herself to it, holding nothing back, until she opens and aches and loses herself. Until she loses her self, the self that can be such a burden.

like herpes too

2010-02-23T13:23:00.003-05:00

just like her mom, just when you think you're done having to hear about her, bristol palin is right back at you. now she has been hired to "play herself" on a show called "the secret life of the american teenager." the main character is coping with being pregnant AND a teen! omg-- get the most famous american unwed teen mother on the phone!!

i dare say, there is nothing secret in this girl's life and why does this family still feel so compelled to whore her and her uterus out for money and press? she got knocked up on high school, while having sex under her mother's nose, so why is she being put forth as a role model? unlike most teen moms, she has money, access to child care and the ability to pursue higher education if she desires. she is a privileged white girl with just a little bit of an "oops", i guess?

oh, yeah, and she's smart like her mom too. she had this to say on good morning america:

"Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only ... 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy."

more nanny state nonsense

2010-02-23T11:56:00.004-05:00

under the auspices of the american academy of pediatrics, dr. gary smith, who heads the center for injury research and policy at nationwide children's hospital in columbus ohio, released a paper yesterday asking that hot dogs, wieners, frankfurters, what have you, carry warning labels. not because they are laden with sodium, nitrates and toenails, but because that they are a choking hazard for small children. not content to simply nanny parents of toddlers, he suggests that the food with an ancient pedigree (yo, forcemeat goes way back. ask any peasant of olden timey days, k?) be redesigned.

"no parents can watch all of their kids 100% of the time," smith says. "the best way to protect kids is to design these risks out of existence." jeebus, kids wind up in his emergency room cuz they are choking on food, so oscar meyer better step the hell up and fix this.

yes, by god, let's outlaw cylindrical foods. grapes and bananas, you had better look out! we are so coming to get you!

gee, i don't know. maybe parents could cut the things up? or maybe, even, i don't know, not feed crap to their kids? just sayin'.

i know you are, but who am i?

2010-02-19T13:21:00.007-05:00

long long before this noodle was a twinkle in anyone's eye, my maternal grandmother was having an affair with one of nyc's finest. ahem. he was not her first, nor, i presume, last. (however, he did endure. they wound up married after my grandfather died and stayed together til he died a few years ago.) when his wife discovered the infidelity, she issued an ultimatum. he chose his not-wife. an annulment was easily had, she took their son and disappeared. i do not know if he ever contacted the boy or vice-versa. they vanished.

this was before my mother was even a pre-teen.

their affair was long-running by the time i was born. i have no recollection of how his presence in our lives was explained, but i saw him more often than i saw my grandfather, who was occasionally estranged, ostensibly to punish my mother, and frequently on the road for work. he and my grandmother had long ago stopped sharing a bed or a room. when he retired at 40, he spent much time upstate at his cabin. was he alone? who knows? whenever i asked to go up, i was told it was " not a place for girls."

my grandmother referred to this other man by two different names, even in my grandfather's presence. i'm guessing she was pretending he was two separate people, but i have no idea what my grandfather knew or truly thought. they saw each other nearly everyday, many times after my grandfather had made dinner she would just split. he'd park around the block and she'd walk to the car. even when family was visiting, she would rush to go, then return several hours later.

at some point, this man and my grandmother bought a cottage at the shore. a low-slung 3-bedroom waterfront bungalow with mimosa trees in back and front. i was told i had my own room and there would be a bicycle there for me. even though i was profoundly uncomfortable with this cop -- he was oafish and stupid and broke nearly everything material that he touched -- i was excited to get away. my mom was single, angry and struggling, i was often alone and this would be at the beach!

then i got the talk. and it was the same talk i got many times after. i had to pretend that she was not my grandmother, but my aunt . to neighbors, absolutely, and oh, yes, his sisters, brothers-in law, nieces and nephews are coming for a party so for them too, and don't make me punish you for getting this wrong. i was six. won't take a rocket scientist to figure that in the excitement of the party, and needing the only person i knew inside in the house, i called out to her. to this day, i remember and feel fear over the ire in those icy eyes. one of the girls was named nanette, which is close enough to what i called my grandmother, so she was able to laugh it off that i was mixed up and silly. when everyone was gone, i was beaten, yelled at for being "so stupid" and sent to bed weeping.

over the years and still as a wee noodle, i was brought round as her "niece" to his mother and other of his relatives. many of them were sicilian widows with plastic slipcovers and snippy dogs. i was terrified of these seemingly ancient crones, their shivering pets, dark man-less houses and saying the wrong thing, so i was afraid to talk and too nervous to eat, which made the old ladies upset as well. lose-lose for noodle.

what kind of foundation is that for a kid? "i love you, now pretend you are not mine?" let alone a latch-key kid whose father's parenting is non-existent. some might fault my mother for allowing me into those scenarios. i cannot. she doubtless endured them as a girl, and feared her mother's volcanic wrath far too much to object. if she even saw harm in it? i don't know. we all only have our "own" normal, eh?

cue to grown-up noodle.

when i did fall in love, it always was men more emotionally damaged than myself. "if i just love him enough, more than enough, that will be enough to heal him." i didn't try to change or control them, but perhaps that is what they needed -- someone manning the rudder in the relationship. i had never seen a functional loving relationship up close, and was too full of my own self-loathing to conjure it.

cue to the owner finding and taking me.

with his family "over there", he was careful to keep me at an emotional bay, all the while encouraging me to fall and fall and fall. it was like being trapped in a net, dropping deeper and deeper into a bottomless sea, with the only escape i desired being allowed more intimacy with him. never in my life have i known a person i was lost without.

cue to after the deluge. to kind of now.

we are not like other people. our relationship, the lack of balance and what works best for us is not conventional. our danger sex is almost besides the point. i don't necessarily feel a need to explain any of that. we enjoy being together and out. more than one acquaintance has said they've never known a couple who laughs together as much as he and i. that speaks volumes, yes? he has cared for me and supported me in ways my family never did.

yet the owner feels semantically challenged whenever asked the simple question, "are you seeing anyone?" rarely is he at a verbal loss, and yet two years post-divorce, he still says, "no," and thus deny my existence. this query has come from people who have seen us together, and not just once. that negation, that disavowal, is truly more than i can bear. much of that is him wishing to preserve the possibilities for bedding other women, but it still feels a lie to them and a storm of stones over my heart and a jackboot to my devotion each time he does it.

my work and his hectic social ambitions keep us apart far more than ever before, perpetuating my non-existence, or at best the image of being incidental. he is out and about most often now with other women and there seems little chance on my end, nor inclination on his, to change that.

i find myself adrift and afraid more than i like. i have drowned it more than once in martinis. he fills his life so easily without me, i think, "i guess i don't matter," and it only hammers home even further his renunciations. out-of-sight, out-of-mind. bon homie, sex, massages and music are all easily had with the click of a mouse or a short stroll. i am not in walking distance, nor of a schedule that allows for spontaneity.

where does this leave me?

waiting. alone.

crutch much?

2010-02-19T12:05:00.003-05:00

6 days into being sober, i got to work and a handful of my co-workers were deadly hung-over.

one had failed a difficult certification test the day prior. one he thought he'd ace. beers, manattans, wine AND gimlets made him forget the pain for the night and knocked him out cold.

another had been stood-up by a blind date. i'm guessing of the match.com variety, but she looked too wobbly and still too sad to ask. she had pouted in her apartment, then felt like not being alone, so headed down to her local and did some serious damage.

yet another had been on a 3-day bender from valentine's day. her last relationship ended last year on v-day, so she and some other angry single girly-friends all went on a tear. her face was puffy and hair dirty.

the hostess also looked out-of-sorts, but that's her coke habit more than the booze.

since we dispense and are surrounded by liquor, i suppose it's easier to be open about what we did the night before. it's a running joke that booze is a balm.

it's no secret that the restaurant industry attracts unstable sorts and addictive/self-destructive behaviors seem to be the norm. is it different, really, elsewhere? we have brokers, lawyers and bankers in there tossing back every night. some guys are monday-friday martini regulars. lord only knows what their wives think they are actually doing. still slogging away in the office, i presume.

on the phone with an old friend yesterday, she told me of a recent party she and her husband attended. one husband out of work 18 months, another cut down to 1/4 time. others warily holding their collective breath with lay-offs still in the cards. more than one wife broke into beer-tears. said friend was happy to not be one of them and was again thankful her husband is thriving in his new position and their mortgage whittled way down.

i admit to using the liquor as anesthesia. it ceased to become a simple social lubricant awhile ago. why else am i having drinks at 1:00 in the morning when i get home from work? will i ever be that person who can shut her own self off? will i ever stop being so afraid?

today is only day 8, so i don't know the answers. but i am last asking the questions.

not high, but dry

2010-02-16T20:03:00.005-05:00

this weekend was a perfect storm for us restaurant folks. a 3-day weekend with valentine's day falling the night before a monday holiday before school break. those red-sweatered lovebirds who got locked out of sunday came saturday and the even bigger procrastinators were sweetheart bookends on friday and monday.

towards the middle of my 3rd double yesterday, i was bleary-eyed and jello-brained. "do i have a box of tissues?"; "you eloped and only came here to have cake? here? for CAKE?"; "no, little fat boy, we do not have diet root beer, snapple or butterscotch pudding." mother of god. when it at last ended and i got out of the building -- "oh! that's what the sky looks like" -- i felt much calmer. there was no wind, the water was still and the air lacked its recent bite, but i was bone-weary. my norm on a night like that would have been to walk down to the swanky hotel and saddle up for a nice big-girl martini. feel the tension just ooze out of me and then slide home like a happy relaxed noodle.

no. i promised myself and the owner i am on the wagon.

when at last i got back to the noodle house, and the shoes and bra came off and the bath was running, i heard the wine calling me. no, i told them, i am not drinking. i was exhausted, but knew the owner was in the area, likely on a date with his new prospect, so sleep would just not come.

i could get up and have a nice glass... nope.

by the time he called to tell me about his not-date, it was after 2:00. the riot of voices in my head after that nearly hijacked sleep for the rest of the night, but i finally got the committee to shut the fuck up and managed a few hours.

today, no work, but errands and i snuck in a movie because the weather was so foul. my habit is a drink either before or after, or at least with lunch. i abstained. it was harder today.

puttering and making dinner here i normally have wine.

blogging at night i normally do too and when catching up on my tivo.

no, no, no.

my fingertips on a glass is a near constant when i am not working or under the eyes of the owner. it's reflex, it's habit, i like the taste and i like how it makes me feel. the trouble is, lately it's never just one. ever, and i fear i'm becoming compulsive about it. i can't stop myself, i've made numerous scenes and i have had blackouts. i have embarrassed the owner and shamed myself. i am that person talked about by people who don't know me as the drunk messy too-loud chick in the bar.

how is that the woman i have become?

alcohol keeps tight the lid on the well, hiding the goblins, dragons and mean irish ladies who haunt my dreams. it keeps them out of my days. it shunts away all that i can't face.

today is day 5.

how long before the demons see the screws are loose?

fat girl

2010-02-14T11:43:00.005-05:00

during the holidays, as always, i worked like a crazy person. lots of doubles, few days off and erratic sleep all left little time to cook or even shop for raw snacks. this coincided with a period of making myself nuts tracking my food and weighing every morsel i ate, so i stopped. it was all too stark a reminder of the anorectic calorie-counting and food neurosis of past bouts.

i continued to shrink, to the point of pants dragging on the pavement, even though the scale didn't budge. i admit to eating treats i shouldn't have. cookies and candies were everywhere, including my own house. never gorged, but i'm not supposed to have any. staff meals were a challenge as they are typically a carbo-feast one day it was garbanzos, rice, french fries and chicken nuggets. just yukkkkkk. as a release and an excuse, my drinking increased too, especially the late-night, "just home and need to unwind, so i'll have a glass or 3..." habit, which i thought i had kicked. my weight didn't decrease, held steady, but i noticed my work shirts were much looser. still shrinking.

the scale's recalcitrance was making me despair, so i finally stopped weighing. my menstrual cycle also was behaving strangely so that increased my terror of digital truths.

holidays finished, work at a reasonably human pace, i got back on the scale a couple weeks back. the same. gaaaaaah.

only rational action is go back to basics. i have been bringing my lunch and getting a mostly good balance of what i "should have." (damn the skittles yesterday.) tracking my carbs. unrelated to my weight, i'm going on the wagon for awhile. (another post-- the pain remains too raw...) am very curious what will happen with this new eating and no booze. a few years back trying to cure my bird flu, i went dry for 9 days. it did not help my health, nor did i lose a pound or an inch. now i realize the weight stasis was due to my broken insulin response, so one of my 1st tangential thoughts on drying out really was to the see the difference.my consumption has been extreme for months now.

goal of a week dry and healthy foods before i dare chance the scale.

this morning, manipulating my naked body, the owner asked what i weighed for the 1st time in months. it must be worse than i thought. i swear to god, i can no longer tell what the fuck i look like when i see myself in the mirror. could i ever ? his question, not at all unreasonable, made me sick and embarrassed. we had set a goal weight for me, with particular and peculiar rewards. for ages it has felt like it will never come. i had given up daydreaming about the ministrations i crave under his hands. yet another failure.

he has recently met a woman he finds appealing and attractive. youngish, but not too very. he is again playing the bill clinton game of "define is" when asked by their mutual friends if he has a girlfriend. respective to our dynamic he absolutely does not, so with his semantic gymnastics, they hear he is not seeing anybody. which makes me nobody. she has met him twice now, while he was without me as an encumbrance, in very friendly environments and i imagine him to only have been charming and warm. each enjoying the others' company on an open playing field.

for him i was out of sight, out of mind, knee to knee with a fresh prospect.

for her, an attractive, intelligent and respectful, fun, SINGLE guy - jackpot.

for me, by his words, she is slim, pretty and perfect. all the things i will never be.

everybody panic!

2010-02-11T10:44:00.002-05:00

BLIZZARDPALOOZA!! SNOWPOCALYSPE! THE END IS NIGH!!

before a flake had fallen, schools were closed, flights canceled and parking bans enacted. the entire district where i work was closed by massport, leading many of the major employers in the area to shut for the day.

i checked the weather before bed and expected to awake to a winter wonderland. nothin'. as a good little new england noodle, i went home to get on my blizzard gear, most the courtesy of ll bean. the practical and frugal folks who made those boots i have had since college and my ski coat which will never see a lift or lodge, but i'd be really warm if ever thrown down the matterhorn. gloves, scarf, layered sweaters, hat, etc. i was roasting on my way to work, but the snow had started so i felt ready.

by lunch, it was doing nothing. no wet from the sky. city streets empty. nonsense.

by rush hour, it did look possible to achieve actual blizzardiness, with that knife-like wind and hard pellets of ice stinging my face. per usual, the blue line was fucked so 10,000 people were sardine-canned into each car to get under the water over here to eastie. my station was closed with a power-outage, so i trudged home the longer way. frankly, i kind of like that raw in small doses. as an urbanite, i'm not out in nature much and appreciate the reminder of its ferocity.

the whip and whistle of very hard snow and determined wind sent me off to dreamland and again expected mountains of white in the dawn. i laughed out loud because i can see grass the ground-cover of snow is so meager.

the major bollocks of that blizzard of 2007, when the entire commonwealth hit the road at the exact same time and caused utter marathon gridlock remains fresh in everybody's minds, fer sure. but this chicken-little shit is beyond the pale. it's new england. it gets cold. it fucking snows. put on your big-girl pants or move to nevada.

real amurricanz, redux

2010-02-07T13:43:00.005-05:00

lazy blogger, i've become, off cheating on other boards, but this was too good to take a pass.

our old friend the slutty stewardess has been flogging her book and raking in speaking fees from hyped-up teabaggers. this morning in nashville, she made a crack about obama being charismatic guy with a teleprompter. she apparently was too busy doing her hair to watch his face-off in front of the congress last week, which was unscripted, off-the-cuff and during which he eviscerated most of the republicrats with his smarty-pants-ness.

anyway, her usual blah-blah-blah, then she sat down for a little q & a. during which she could be seen looking at her hand. i've pasted a large format of the pic so you know I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

like a 4th-grader cheating on a test, she wrote her talking points on her palm.

"Energy"
"Budget (cut?)
"Tax"
"Lift American spirits"

she had crossed out "budget" and replaced it with "tax cuts". even she doesn't know which she is for? or was she not sure what the guy would ask her?

she cracks at obama for using a teleprompter, (uh, shrub did too...), but apparently isn't smart enough to use one. also proving she isn't smart enough to know that people in the audience all have little devices that take pictures. pictures that make points and do not go away because they are instantly on the twitternets and spread all over the world faster than she can shoot a wolf.

in case we need proof that even cheat sheet can't help this broad, here is the word salad she offered in reply to the question, "what should a republican congress's top 3 priorities be?" palin replied, "stop spending," "energy policy," and something about hugging and speaking to god:

"I think, kind of tougher to put our arms around, but allowing America's spirit to rise again by not being afraid to kind of go back to some of our roots as a God fearing nation where we're not afraid to say especially in times of potential trouble in the future here, where we're not afraid to say, you know, we don't have all the answers as fallible men and women so it would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country, so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again. To have people involved in government who aren't afraid to go that route, not so afraid of the political correctness that you know – they have to be afraid of what the media said about them if they were to proclaim their alliance to our creator."

now i know why she hates the word "retard."

thanks to huffpo for this bright spot in my day, lol.

photographs & memories

2010-01-09T11:49:00.003-05:00

much of my life i was quite the ham and always taking and being in pictures with friends, but i haven't been willingly photographed in years. friends have snaps of me holding my hand over my face. for the longest time, i just sadly chalked it off to aging badly, my face looked so puffy and round in pix. in fact, just yesterday i found a picture of me from the summer of pain, on a trip to napa. my head looks like charlie brown's.

last month i attended a b-day party with the owner and "had" to be in the "girls" picture, all of us lined up. shown only a small version of it inside the camera, it was the first time in forever i did not hate how i looked. neither my ass nor my face looked fat. although my hair was behaving badly from the humidity in the kitchen, lol.

last week, the owner took a shot of me at the end of a long day. the lighting is very dark and it is just from the shoulders up, but i can actually see the angles and such of my face.

after a month of not, i measured myself again yesterday and more inches have gone, including 2 more from my back. maybe i should be measuring my head!

on someone of such small stature a little can make a big difference. this summer: short sleeves!

the art of conversation

2009-12-05T11:02:00.003-05:00

starting a new job, being the new girl, it's best to keep your trap shut, learn the ropes and the culture before cutting even a tiny bit loose. restaurants are mostly free-wheeling places in which to work and the talk can be filthy more often than not. go ahead, try to shock a restaurant lifer. cannot be done and countless times i have caused jaws to drop with a toss-away that my friends would consider child's play. musicians and jocks can't even hope to compete.

it's also a time to listen and find out with whom you might best mesh.

the gm has been encouraging me to talk to a guy who has a nascent interest in wine and i do frequently overhear him yapping about it in a superficial way. he's taken some classes, and last night i found out he worked under one of the city's best and most respected wine directors. it's a large chain, so they saw each other infrequently. i have known that guy professionally for years and he has helped me in my career. an insane wine brain and good one to know.

co-worker blahblahblahs then mentions a winemaker he has met whom i adore -- as a person and as a brand. i mention that i have been to his estate and spent the day with both uncles who run the alsatian daily ops, while nephew gallivants the globe for marketing. co-worker looked away, did not miss a beat and dropped another name. a burgundy winemaker i have also met who makes very mediocre juice, but wears astonishing suits. instead of saying i know him too, i guess i was kind of waiting to be asked how my visit to alsace was, what did i drink there, or even an, "oh, cool," kind of response. nothing. he then switched gears to moaning about friday crowds and then i had something to do so i scooted. boring.

droning about his brush with two notables just sounded like he was trying to impress while unsure of how he stacks up next to me, but knowingly suspects he doesn't. yet i did nothing to put him on the defense. he's a tiny violin player, always wearing a puss and dragging along with no zip, so i'm no rush to be cozy.

later, when the night was winding down, another guy approached and remarked we rarely talk. one of my first nights, i was trapped listening to his sob story of how sick he is of waiting tables, dreads coming to work and hates everybody he sees. in passing at pos stations or the service bar, all i hear is him bitching about guests and or/managers or sniping at his g/f, who also works there. gaaah. i'm sorry, mr. sour-lemons, please explain why i want to be drawn down into your voracious black hole of "life sucks, woe is me," when i am brand new here? i said something about not seeing him much (which is true) and that when i do he is either grumpy or fighting with his g/f. he laughed and said both of those are true, totally missing the subtext of why i don't feel the need to buddy up to him.

my parents drilled this wee noodle that a conversation was give and take. that it took two, or more, and it wasn't the moment to just yammer about yourself. in fact, that was the most egregious behavior possible in a social setting. even if the person was a stiff, do your best to feign interest before politely breaking away. later i learned that asking people about themselves was one of the easiest ways to protect my own privacy and keep them at a distance. answer the rare question with a question and know that person's life story in minutes while remaining discreet about my own.

the raconteurs in my family taught me how to talk to just about anybody and usually get a few laughs along the way. great skill to have in my profession.

as i am at last finding more comfort in "me" and my place in the world, i find myself less inclined to be sucked dry by those who see only themselves and at the same time feel self-pity. we allow forces and people into our lives, shaping and driving our present and future. as mine gets better, and the positive is tipping the scales so much for the better (emotionally, if not financially, lol) it's enough i say hello and ask about your new puppy. we don't have to go for drinks. ever.

the rich are just like you and me

2009-11-30T18:14:00.003-05:00

on thanksgiving, a man of mixed ethnicity and his pretty blonde wife had a big fight because she thinks he be running around on her with a ho. she scratched at his face and no doubt was screaming like a krazee lady. he's a lot bigger. in hysteria she grabbed a totem meaningful to him and started swinging.

he decided to get away from his wife-now-insane-biatch and jumped in his car. she kept whirling and knocked the windows out.

it was late. he'd already taken some painkillers for bedtime. he crashed his car into a fire hydrant and then a tree.

so like plenty of poors on thanksgiving, their richy-rich house was full of emotional firestorms, recriminations, tears and violence.

they both insist nothing happened and are not talking to the cops or the media. see? just like you and me. "my wife didn't assault me, she was a hero and saved me from a non-dangerous car wreck, where i was woozy, not from the impact, but from pills! none of your beeswax where i was going, zonked on meds, at 2:30 in the morning."

the not rich person in the story? the ho in question? has hired professional harridan gloria alred as her attorney. yup, nothing to hide on her end except the whoring for media deals right now. see? not like you and me.

so many kinds of just plain wrong

2009-11-30T18:02:00.003-05:00

the genius who got z-listers like danny bonaduce and tanya harding into the boxing ring has pulled a stunner.

he went in search of amy fisher. remember the long island lolita who blew a hole in the face of the wife of her married and grossly older guido boyfriend? the one that was the subject of not one, but THREE, made for tv movies (one with drew barrymore and one with alyssa milano) and countless hours of hard copy? yeah, that one.

at the house he meets her new boobs and her husband. an ex-cop.

oh to be a fly on the wall.

book your acela tix for december 18th to philly.

her husband, yes, a former police officer, will "fight" rodney king. yeah, that guy. the one who was on the receiving end of one the most infamous cop beat-downs of our time.

there is no longer lead in the water. why is everyone insane?

family

2009-11-28T14:07:00.002-05:00

the other night at work i was on the receiving end of what can only be described as pity, from a woman about my age when she asked me if i had any kids. trust me, i have never felt that as a missing piece in my life, but it's confounding to most mothers. my owning of a pet seemed to cheer her somewhat. she could now sleep at night knowing i wasn't rattling around alone, all havisham-style, in an empty apartment, without something else that walks and breathes.

the night before thanksgiving, i met some friends for drinks. they were staggered to learn i hadn't been home for that holiday since i left for college. in fact, freshman year my b/f and i booked a vacation to jamaica because neither of us wanted to go home. my mother went ballistic, and dragged that sin out often to scold me about how rotten i was as a daughter. uh, remind again why i don't want to spend time there, with you, mommy dearest?

course, now, there is no home to go to, but that didn't seem quite right to bring up in that context of a shit-hole bar and holiday cheer, lol.

in my earliest thanksgiving memory i was three and we traveled to my aunt's in westchester for dinner. because my mother passive-aggressively controlled time for everybody in her life, we were late. very late. the weather and driving were foul, and my parents fought the entire drive up because of her perpetual tardiness. when we at last got there, my father thought to make a big joke of it all, but my drunk uncle thought violence a way better solution and chucked him down the stairs. the day only got better. uh-huh. there is a picture from that night. i am wearing a party dress, a football helmet, singing and "playing" the guitar. like a little uso kid entertaining the troops.

even when we hosted holidays, my mother could not be on time and would still be showering or something when everybody started arriving. then she'd feel rushed and peevish when she finally swanned downstairs. after, she'd gripe that everybody ate so quickly and she had cooked for days. there was always some kind of tension between various factions, and i was very glad when i was finally old enough to have a drink with dinner. i never understood why everybody felt so compelled to gather, when so few enjoyed each others' company, and i'd be exhausted afterwards. when the clean-up was finally finished, my mother and stepfather would sit, have a drink and pick apart all who had attended, and those who hadn't for good measure. god, it was petty.

in fairness, my father's family got along more easily, and those dinners could be quite entertaining, but when my father drifted away to his new son and g/f, he cut me out of that picture, and nobody else could be bothered to invite me. i became so little a part of him and his family, that when he finally married b. years ago, nobody even told me. his daughter.

mean-spirited, selfish and dysfunctional. i couldn't find enough positives to place and balance the scale. i wasn't following the mold of marriage and kids which also confused. to this day, i'm quite sure my grandmother thinks i am a lesbian because i am still single and child-free. the b/f's i did bring round were not met with enthusiasm, so i just stopped doing it. they never even met the guy to whom i was engaged. when my stepfather died, my mother told me in no uncertain terms he was not welcome in her home or at the funeral. unmarried, she didn't want us sleeping under her roof. even in separate rooms. even though we shared a home here.

the years of silence got easier as each one passed.

thanksgiving, this year and last, i cooked for the owner, a friend and myself. we saw a movie and then came back here to feast. nobody fought. nobody cried. we enjoyed each other's company and had delicious food and amazing wine.

i still struggle with what i "don't" feel for my family, but perhaps those i care about, and care about me in return, are enough. this is the only time in my life someone has been there whom i cannot bear the thought of losing. that is love. devotion. that is family.

i am very thankful to have found that in my life.

sheeple

2009-11-27T10:56:00.007-05:00

oprah is the devil yet millions and jillions of women find her the most inspiring and rightest bestest person on the globe. everything she promotes skyrockets in popularity.

this has been a boon for authors with her book club, although i doubt she made anybody read books who wasn't inclined to do so in the first place. they're still flipping through cosmo for sex tips and how not to look so fat in your jeans while they watch oprah and eat ice cream. there was her smiting of jonathan franzen when he expressed discomfort that her majesty's selection of "the corrections" would forever relegate it to a chick book. he was booted from the show and she dropped the book.

there was the come-uppance when she had to admit she'd been duped by james frey with his fantastical lies in "a million little pieces" and the even bigger fatter liar herman rosenblat with his holocaust love story "angel at the fence". lies, lies, damn lies.

she is not infallible, yet her coven blindly follows her every directive and believes she is all the goodest. much like the witches of bacchus, the women are driven to heights of ecstasy their husbands can never hope to match. terrifying, really, that a sweater give-away prompts an estrogen melt-down of hysteria in the studio.

let's not digress about her flock taking diet advice from an obese yo-yo dieter, or the bully pulpits she allows wackadoos like jenny maccarthy (vaccines cause autism) and suzanne somers (bio-identical hormones and taking up to 60 different pills a day. she looks absolutely awful. wan, puffy, haggard. yeah, her "system" must work great.)

with her announcement that she is leaving the network show that made her empress of the world, lots of retrospective on the net. i found out only today that SHE is the beezlebub responsible for the omnipresence of uggs!. i'd seen them years ago in a pic of the baywatch girls, circa the pamela anderson era. so... mid-90s? there was some connection to australian lifeguards and the boots eventually crossed the ocean to california beaches.

in 2003, oprah gave them away to her screaming midwestern menopausals and they continue to be seen everywhere. watching the owner's soccer game on sunday, i was in the minority not wearing them, ffs. they make women slough their feet, sounding like lazy baboons dragging their tails in the dust, and they all look as if the foot is not held in place by the heel, with broken-down sides. since they were made for walking on sand, not the tiled floor at the mall, that may be why. but you know what? they are ugly. ugly. ugly. $150 of fugly.

her diabolical powers of persuasion know no bounds.

are crocs her fault too?

the end is nigh

2009-11-15T09:28:00.006-05:00

we've previously covered the slow death march of print media. personally, i haven't bought a "paper" in untold months. the ny times and bbc websites have been very serviceable, although i want to punch the designer of the boston globe's. (not that their writing was ever all that great in ink, but the web format honestly just sucks.)

slashing of staffs and departments, plummeting profits. scary times.

long ago, i could spend an entire day reading the sunday times. lolling about with tea and toast, with the fat satisfying in-depth coverage unseen in most other dailies.

when i switched to an on-line reader, the sunday edition still could consume several very satisfying hours when i could find them.

much like gaining weight or growing older, some personal shifts don't register consciously at first. however one or two sundays ago, i realized i couldn't recall the last time i gorged on a sunday times. in fact, there hadn't even been a binge. just a few snacks, more unsatisfying than a single potato chip, which sent me elsewhere for my news junkie fix. frankly i've become a more frequent consumer of sites like the awl and gawker which mock mainstream media.

msm took a flying pass on so many recent stories: the entire bush presidency and its ham-handed forcing of itself into power,the bulldozer rush to an unjustifiable war, the tyranny of the patriot act, the non-existence of the wmd's, abu ghraib only got to light when soldiers themselves posted the photos, the bush regime killing science and medical research in favor of stone-age religious principles; the national enquirer, a paper thought one greasy rung up from those that run "bat-boy returns" and "aliens lunch with limbaugh" howlers, broke and carried the john edwards baby-daddy saga, etc. etc., to a sickening etc. msm, both print and network, squandered its credibility for investigative journalism, in exchange for sound-bites and chasing its own tail, happy to be spoon-fed misinformation or gobble ratings and kill minds with maniacs like glenn beck.

this week, feeling like a straying, but conflicted, spouse, i tried to go back to the grey lady. (please note, links to nyt articles go dead in a short span, so it's pointless to paste them. sorry.) science? few papers have much of it, other than an occasional piece about nuts or bolts flying off a shuttle. an article on new studies about pig cognition. okey-dokey. i thoroughly enjoy info that knits humans even more deeply into the fabric of the animal kingdom and all creatures that roam or wriggle the earth. the article begins with a 3 little pigs analogy and then, after citing a study where the subjects passed the "mirror cognition test" (which dolphins and elephants also do well with and thought to be a high-sign of innate intelligence) had this to say:

To which I say, big squeal. Why should the pigs waste precious mirror time inspecting their teeth or straightening the hairs on their chinny-chin-chins, when they could be using the mirror as a tool to find a far prettier sight, the pig heaven that comes in a bowl?

is this story-time for 3rd-graders?

a british prof, dr. byrnes, attributes pig smarts to the same evolutionary pressures that prompted cleverness in primates: social life and food. wild pigs live in long-term social groups, keeping track of one another as individuals, the better to protect against predation. they also root around for difficult food sources, requiring a dexterity of the snout not unlike the handiness of a monkey. that brain power remains, even though pigs have been domesticated for many 1000s of years.

there was, i think, 1 sentence about the evolutionary big picture, and how, although we diverged millions of years ago, we share huge chunks of genetic codes.

i wanted to punch the chick who wrote it and her editor who either allowed or forced an article so twee.

food.

not heavy news, but a long-time go-to for me. my first wednesday section to read. this week, it was some sort of thanksgiving sides death match between two female food writers. i couldn't get through it. "stuffing muffins"? is craig clairborne weeping into his claret? many years ago, amanda hesser began chronicling her relationship with a certain mr. latte through her sunday magazine food page. it was so suffocatingly protestant and upright, yet filled with skinny girl angst, i stopped reading until i heard she had at last married him and given up her regular gig. phew.

now? back to cutsie-pie. the guy who now has that page is inspired, and aided at the stove, by his pre-school son dexter. he wrote of the challenge of the THIRTY-TWO DOLLAR farmer's market chicken and $5 quarts of fresh milk his kids consumed by the gallons. are you fucking kidding me? what was your salary before the cuts, mr. wells? i gave it up.

this week, it's about making caramel popcorn. caramel popcorn. i couldn't get through it, but this line leapt out:

I am probably overselling the sophistication of Dexter, who, after all, is only 5.

spoken only like a parent who likely lives in park slope. gag.

there was a homes article about a woman whose marriage collapsed while she and her 2nd husband were renovating their $3 million dream loft. the reno went $500,000 over projection. sure, divorce is painful, but please let me wipe my tears with my unemployment check stub, ok? nice to know not just the poors get divorced and have to downsize, although the end i took away was sad middle-aged rich white lady now alone will make a tidy profit on house in shit economy while 1000s of regular people can't sell homes they can no longer afford because they cannot find work.

a culture writer this week has a LONG story about how "douche" has become an acceptable zing on tv. this is "news"? maybe a few years ago, whenever the first show got by the censors with it, but if it's on that julia louis-dreyfuss piece of drek, or "gray's anatomy", it has already jumped the shark, ok?

today may spell the end for me. meghan fox is on the cover of the magazine. she of "transformers" fame. one movie, which was all cgi and maybe her screaming? (dunno, didn't see it.) a cosmetically-enhanced high school drop-out with freak thumbs, no discernible acting chops, a giant marilyn tattoo on her forearm and a knack for saying inane shit:

"I resent having to prove that I'm not a retard." - Esquire, June 2009

"If you eat Chinese food, your farts come out like Chinese food. If you eat Mexican food, your farts come out like Mexican food. And milk, it's like-you can smell the warmth in the fart. My wardrobe on Transformers always smells like farts, and I have no idea why." -GQ, October 2008

on the cover of elle or self, maybe but, honestly?

did contemporaries moan the end of the horse and buggy as cars began roaming city streets? did housewives beg to keep the wringer washer when hubby brought home the electric drum version?

this will happen in my lifetime and i feel sooner rather than later. i don't have a crystal ball, nor am i that net savvy. i DO know very few readers will begin to pay for content that had been free which seems to be the stone-age model most paper honchos want to pursue. (by all means, full-steam ahead -- your other economic strategies have proven excellent!) sorry, sulzberger. if this is the best you have now? i'm certainly not going to pay for something so crappy. the times is now like bad chinese: it's kind of ok if you can't find anything else nearby and cheap, but you're starving not long after.

lazy is as lazy does

2009-11-08T10:11:00.005-05:00

for many years, i resisted getting tivo. the first person i knew who had one was dumb as a box of hammers and i couldn't take seriously anything that came out of his empty head. he also couldn't articulate how it worked. moreso, after a career of working nights, i'd simply lost the habit of prime-time tv. like i missed the entire seinfeld era. (no loss, that kind of new yorky navel-gazing doesn't amuse here, but lots of episodes became familiar cultural references. as a restaurant person, how i envied the soup nazi! but when customers would make a crack, assuming i simply MUST have seen such-and-such an episode, my lack of recognition registered like i was some sort of bone-in-the-nose savage reshly emerged from the amazon rainforest.)

fast-forward and the owner is adamant tivo will change my world, and there will be no getting around ordering the box.

my concern that i'd start watching too much mindless tv was unfounded, because the only stuff on there was what i had asked it to store. no time wasted surfing channels looking for a show of interest. brilliant! (except early in its personal learning curve. the owner had included lots of soccer in the to-do list, so tivo helpfully picked up lots of telemundo soaps, thinking i was latin.)

much like tv was going to kill radio, and vcrs kill the movies, network honchos gnashed their teeth that dvrs would spell certain boob-tube doom.

with everything based on ad dollars and that coveted demographic of 18-49 year olds, the suits decided on what, even to me, seemed a flawed model of counting eyeballs. they only tracked same day views and yeah, it didn't look great. don't know who had a light-bulb moment, but two years ago nielsen switched to a plus-3 method. same day, plus the 3 days after for ad views. personally, i nearly never watch programs on the same day, and neither does anybody i know. duh. this has dramatically increased ratings from some shows thought to be laggards, some clicking up more than 20%, so there is now a little more sunshine in hollywood.

the biggest surprise? from today's ny times:

"According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year. Why would people pass on the opportunity to skip through to the next chunk of program content? The most basic reason, according to Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media, a media buying firm, is that the behavior that has underpinned television since its invention still persists to a larger degree than expected.

“It’s still a passive activity,” he said."

even with remote controls and only a simple button push to avoid the chevy tahoe/bud light-lime nonsense, most people are simply too lazy to bother, lol.

real amurricanz

2009-11-06T10:55:00.013-05:00

let's do some catching up on a few of our favorites from the heartland, shall we? the internetz were chock-full of homey apple pie and gingham apron goodness today.

my favorite beauty pageant not-winner, and stalwart public defender of opposite-marriage, carrie prejean, was pressing hard on her crown-stealers for a settlement. like over a million bucks hard. but whoops! miss not-california walked out of the talks red-faced and empty-handed when lawyers showed her a graphic sex tape.
of herself. doing herself. did the wind accidentally turn on the video camera while she was indulging in a wank-fest?

edited to add, she has been dropped from an appearance at a "defending the family" conference this weekend.

raymond jessop, formerly a resident of the yearning for zion ranch, in eldorado texas, was convicted yesterday for sexually assaulting a child. this is one of the guys rounded up after authorities raided the compound belonging to the fundamentalist church of jesus christ of latter day saints and over 400 kids in prairie dresses and braids were taken into protective custody. his victim was 15 at the time and had originally been "assigned" to jessop's brother, but i guess they traded. she eventually got pregnant by him. he had 9 other "spiritual wives," as permitted by the rules of this break-away bunch of mormons. over a dozen other guys are cooling their heels in the pokey awaiting trial on similar charges and jessop isn't finished with his court stuff either, but is now behind bars. i am especially fond of this story because a) regular mormons are whackos, so this nutsiness ups that krazee exponentially b)the guy looks like a ventriloquist dummy in a profoundly creepy way and c) any guy who thinks it's a good idea to have a harem, of teenagers no less, to manage is out of his mind. we'll add a d) to the list because i was floored to discover the age of consent in texas is 17!

lastly, our cute dumb friend levi johnston. our hockey-playing thrilla from wasilla who knocked up palin's daughter bristol. the pit bull pushed him under the kliegs in a suit and holding hands with her pregnant teenager and glossed them over as kids doin' the right thing, cuz they had an oops, but would get married and everything would be great and happy-ever-after, cuz that's what happens to real amurricanz who don't do the chastity thing you, as a mom, just knew they would always do when you let your daughter's boyfriend sleep over in her room. then when the vp office didn't get her name on it, levi was out in the alaskan cold, don't let the igloo door hit you in the ass, and don't try to see your kid. go back and live with you meth-head sister and oxycontin dealing aunt. but levi had gotten a taste of the limelight, ya know? perhaps not as dumb as others thought, cuz he's been stretching his 15 minutes now for over a year. vanity fair profile, red carpet walks with kathy griffin, chats with oprah and larry king -- usual d-list crap. today? he arrives in nyc to shoot a spread for playgirl! this is brilliant in so many ways i can't stand it. he'll be traveling with his posse, tank jones and rex butler. was hiring handlers with porno-sounding names prescient or a delightful serendipity? even the photographer running the shoot is named weiner! the ny post is speculating about the size of his wang (natch) and net geeks are back and forth whether it'll be hard or soft. who even knew playgirl was still published? but we all know only homos buy it, if anyone still does. the money shot is that his issue will be on the stands right before sarah's book. which yes, is actually called "goin' rogue." (ok, the editors didn't drop the g. that's all me.) this book should not be confused with the meanie version, called "going rouge".

once again, i face the fact that i am not a real amurrican, and that thanks to obama, they are perilously endangered

more bewbies, well, less, actually

2009-11-03T20:22:00.003-05:00

last night i heard, then saw, a victoria's secret commercial on tv. in severe non-shopping mode all these months, all the catalogs have gone straight to recycling, so i am out of the lingerie loop.

they have a new "miraculous push-up bra". instantly (well, as soon as you put it on) adds 2 full cup sizes. never having worn a padded bra, i have no idea how much batting that is, but likely enough to make a puppy bed.

please 'splain how this is different than the junior high girl stuffing sweat socks in her training bra? once the guy gets in there, expecting cantaloupes but getting blueberries, then what? yeah, a 13-year-old boy will be thrilled to be copping a feel, but a grown man won't be thinking wtf?

although if a chick isn't getting any a $50 bra is way cheaper than a $5000 boob job and will succeed just as well in getting catcalls and hisses of "mommy" at construction sites.

shrinkage

2009-11-03T19:31:00.006-05:00

it's a word that strikes terror into the limbs and minds of men, because they think hairline or something more, ahem, private that is terrified of icy water. lately, recessionomics has shrunk their portfolios too.

let's begin this by saying i am happy with the way i have been eating since the end of summer. i still feel great, it's getting much easier and i haven't gone off the rails and eaten a pile of mashed potatoes or an entire pizza. or even a slice for that matter. i had a dinner party last week and but for a few spoonsful of flour (divided by 4 of us) everything was allowable. that included the staggering amount of butter and olive oil, lol.

the down- and frustrating bit of this is i have been at the same weight now for over a month. i've been advised to up my calories which i have. it's so counter intuitive i spend a good portion of the day freaking out. ahem. still no loss, but i have not gained any weight in the 2 weeks of uppage, so am being told to EAT STILL MORE. gah. can't do it yet.

but here's the weird thing. i'm shrinking. rings are too big and have moved from the second to the index finger. a blazer that hasn't fastened in forevah now fits closed over a wool twin set with room to spare. all the sleeves on my sweaters and jackets are much looser. freshly dried nighties that needed a pull to relax the lycra and be less tight now fall freely as soon as i put them on. the new delta bras from only a few weeks back went from being hitched on the 1st hook to the 3rd. blouses that strained buttons at the boobs no longer threaten to explode. (sorry, hubert.)

consensus seems to be when you lose 10% of your body weight, everything stalls. your body puts on the brakes to see what's what. once it figures this is for real, it will let go. for some people it took months. i've resolved to up my resistance training, which is the only real change i can make. am back to work finally, so my daily activity will be much greater than it's been too.

as crazy as the numbers are making me, i cannot remember the last time i felt this good and THAT is what keeps me on track. last night at the market i spent a few too many minutes tempting myself with low-carb wraps. "only 7 carbs, noodle... don't you miss bread, noodle?" (calling it bread is kind of a stretch here: flaxseed, oat bran and a tiny bit of whole wheat, but a regular wrap has 25-35 carbs -- more than i eat all day.) then i pictured myself eating the entire package before i went to bed and how puffy and bloated my face would look and my stomach would feel in the morning. i stepped away from the grains, lol.

boyz, girlz and bewbies

2009-11-01T11:51:00.009-05:00

every so often i read of a study done and have that moment of, "somebody got grant money and university time for this shit, yet we don't know how cats purr? wtf?"

because today's' article was in the "london sun" not all basic journalistic principles were followed, so i don't know the number of subjects who participated in this new zealand study.

all the subjects were male. they were shown digitally altered photos of the same woman, variously enhancing or decreasing her breasts. omg! guess what!! 80% of the guys looked first at boobs and midriff region. shocking, eh? gobbledy-gook about hormones and fertility, but women walk around with sex organs bouncing in guys' faces. men are wired as visual (women are audio) and just cannot help themselves.

having been large-chested from an early age, i frequently don't notice people gawking, unless their tongues are lolling out or they crash their car. (yes, that happened, lol.) the owner occasionally comments on guys doing a hooters-check and also has observed the female version. they look at him, then my boobs, then my shoes, then my boobs again. but see that's competitiveness and self-esteem regulation. they don't want to run over and bury their face in my cleavage.

out socializing with less-endowed friends and every so often their egos boiled over because guys were gravitating to me more than they and i had pretty much had my pick of the litter. it always got ugly and they were too crushed to be able to see how superficial all that attention was, nor how little it meant to me. they always came back with, "easy for you to say!" which is true, but god, most guys will fuck most willing females, ok? it's not survival of the biggest cup-size, ok? maybe stop being a resentful bitch about your genetic lottery and smile at somebody you think is cute? instead of fuming over your drink and looking like you'd kill anybody that came near you.

there are days too when i am cranky or lost in my head and frankly the shallowness of the attention makes me angry or resentful. like, leave me the fuck alone and put your eyes back in your head. there are days when they are heavy, swollen and sore and i swear weigh 20 pounds each.

the same paper had another article saying that over the last few years women getting breast augmentations have requested them to be on average 40% bigger. the celebs i see on-line often are rail-thin with porn-star size melons bolted onto their bird-bone frames. they look bizarre. so if this is becoming the visual normal, i guess jane average is using salma hayek as a role-model? careful what you wish for, girlies.

oh, and for those of you in doubt?

in what fun-house mirror does this "after" look good?

wet, then crisp

2009-10-31T12:38:00.002-04:00

just a few days ago i was being drenched and pelted by hard heavy rain. in less than a block, my pants were soaked through and my umbrella threatened numerous times to blow up and away. it sure proved to be a scrappy fighter and it was all i could do to hold on.

today started grey, but the clouds cleared and the sun is favoring us. my deck door is open and i can hear the crisp bits of what had been summer's green skittering across the pavement. i just love that sound. those of you who live without autumn really miss out, and not just about the colors. the sounds and the smells are so different this time of year.

there won't be many more, so i'm off to get some for myself.

how to torture women

2009-10-15T09:00:00.002-04:00

all i have read indicates there were no female prisoners at abu ghraib or guantanamo. they didn't have to endure the naked pyramids or waterboarding, which, no, were not really torture, ok, mr. cheney.

however, yesterday i realized the ideal way to do this. make them try on bras. or bathing suits, but having spent yesterday afternoon doing the former, it was quite horrible, i assure you. frustrating, humiliating, maddening.

why, noodle, why?

about a week ago, i realized my jackets were buttoning and zipping unlike they had in forevers. which prompted me to pull out my measuring tape. surely a man would never do this, he'd just be psyched his clothes were looser and take that as sufficient confirmation he was getting thinner. so anyway, i lost 1.5 inches from my back. my bra cups are just as full, so it was only from my back.

shortly after that 2 of my bras decided to come up with broken underwires. it's near impossible to describe the discomfort of walking around, not supported and yet bound and askew. but bras are crazy expensive and i was hoping to postpone purchasing new ones til i had lost more weight. foiled.

instead of going full-on masochist and having a saleswoman measure me (knowing i am not the same size as those very old bras) i hit the net to learn the proper way. for decades, i have worn basically the same style, which manages to give a decent heave up but doesn't look like a granny sack. so armed with the new digits and in the interest of frugality, as well as considering them temporary, i headed for the deep discounters downtown.

i suppose because the little frillies are pretty, but i am always amazed at the tiny tiny bras and why a woman would even bother wearing one if that small-chested. so i make my way to the boulder-holder rack, which is only the beginning of the slow boil since nothing is hanging in proper order with b's, c's and d's all mixed up and the 34's in with the 40's. grrr.

the web claims i am a cup size smaller than i had thought, but i hold them up and think, "no way will that do the job." i take some anyway, along with an assort of of 4 different cup sizes and 3 different back sizes. 10 bras. 100% fail.

next shop. smaller selection, but i paw through. i realize they are insanely cheap, and take 5 into the dressing room. the woman who gives me the plastic number tag is covered up in a burka, but i realize under there, she too knows my distress.

miracle. one fits. i am not a cup size smaller, lol. non-miracle, there is only one other that is the same style and size and it's leopard print, lol. under my winter wardrobe of browns and blacks, i justify it, and know the owner will laugh when he sees it.

no doubt the egyptians were adept at torture, but they missed a grand possibility with just wrapping the bewbies up tightly in muslin strips, i swear.

women, bodies, hate, again...

2009-10-15T07:25:00.008-04:00

this model was fired by her long-time employer this past april. for 8 years, since the age of 15, she has done print and runway work for ralph lauren. she was fired for being too fat. she is 5'10" and weighs 120 pounds. the termination letter sent to her agent claimed that because she could no longer fit into the sample clothes, size 2, she was being let go.

heartbroken, she kept mum until she saw this photoshopped image of herself on a board in tokyo. her head is bigger than her goddamn hips. it looks horrible. she also kind of looks like a young brooke shields which is weird since she doesn't. this ad caused quite a bit of interwebs kerfuffle so lauren pulled it with awkward non-apologies and is trying to get it erased from the net. haha! good luck with that, ralph. but what kind of disordered group thinking wants to morph a gorgeous model into looking like an auschwitz survivor with a blow-out? it wasn't just one person that got this image and this ad and its distribution all green lighted, but a team working together in a process.there has been buzz lately about the use and abuse of photoshop, with some editors going so far as to say readers don't want to see how women really look, especially models and celebrities. the nanny state of france is trying to pass a law requiring all photoshopped magazine pix to carry a disclaimer. it would be far less ridiculous for untouched pix to carry a tag, since there are none.

lastly, we'll look at lizzi miller. this was in glamour a few months back. she is 5'11" and weighs 180 pounds. from the looks of things, i'm guessing she's perhaps had a baby. she is a successful "plus-size" model and wears either a 12 or 14. there is no arguing she is a big girl, but i'm sure in person she looks great, i mean, she is amazon tall, ya know? modeling agencies consider anyone over a size 6 to be a plus-size model, even though it's 16 and up in shops.fashion has always been about fantasy and that will not change. nor do i think it should, so i'm not advocating to see fiddle-faddle chomping lard-asses in harpers bazaar. unless a woman was raised by wolves, she knows the chicks in the magazines are genetic freaks and/or starving themselves to death. (actually, a girl raised by wolves would be very slim and lean from all that running and subsistence eating, lol, so maybe that's not the best example...) i also find specious the consideration that these models "make" their audience into anorexics. that's craziness in one's own head and isn't about looking like agyness deyn.

supermodels in my youth (when i was in fact torturing myself with badly disordered eating) were cindy crawford and rachel hunter. they looked healthy, athletic, fit. they had hips and breasts and filled out the swimsuit fantasies of the young men i knew. heroin chic was decades ago and still the ideal is considered to be wraith thin and built like a boy.

americans are getting ever fatter and we all agree that's a bad development. even though this is one of the thinner cities, i still see many people that are of a staggering size. only a couple of my female friends are overweight, yet every single one struggles with both the scale and self-image. even as i get slimmer and am fitting into some long unworn clothes, i torment myself with the scale. if the number blips up by even a pound i scan my memory banks and dissect each caloric molecule for the culprit, and see only a bloated pig in the mirror. "did that chicken leg make my ass look fat in these pants?" 2 weeks ago the owner took me clothes shopping. the scale had ticked up that morning, so i could barely look at myself to see if anything fit and simply refused to try on any slacks. of course, this led to madness anyway since a size small dress was too big and a size 14 would not go over my boobs.

last week, i finally made myself stop weighing and tracking all my food on my excel sheets. it was putting my head in a very bad place, reminding me regularly that the only times in my life i have been fully comfortable and confident in my body was when i was anorexic and bulimic. obsessing about not eating or what i might allow myself to eat after feeling insanely hungry for a set amount of time. the scale has held steady, so i haven't sabotaged myself, but each day i am increasingly anxious that i'm not losing. rationally, i know my body is redistributing itself since those size 6 pants now fit, but that doesn't silence the accuser in my head who will always know i eat too much and am too fat.

liars and thieves

2009-10-14T12:25:00.004-04:00

the restaurant industry is rife with both, often combined in the same person. it attracts the unstable, those who struggle with drink, drugs or gambling, so they're often short on dough. there is cash-handling mischief, the potential for credit card fraud and identity theft and simpler stealing of product. this is true on the low end like dishwashers, and also managers.

i know people who have been fired for regularly adjusting their tips upward. i worked in a place where the safe was unbolted from the floor and disappeared, along with over $30k in cash from the weekend's receipts. a 40" plasma tv walked itself down 6 flights of stairs and out the door. large format bottles of expensive wine, like massive 6-liters, went poof. guys i know ran a gift card scam for at least 6 months before getting bounced.

more than once i have been on the short end of a tip pool. one new years' eve, the owner and gm decided to pool all the waitstaff tips and share it with everybody else. including themselves. completely 100% against the law. we knew we would get screwed. we all waited for our envelopes and added up what we had collected. they took 60% of what we made and passed it around. it was 2000, the check averages were staggering, we worked a 12-hour shift and made less than on a dead monday. imagine my joy when that gm's jacket, with his envelope, got stolen in the after-hours party. share my delayed gratification the next year when we all refused to work new years if they pulled the same stunt.

an early, but short, escapade in my career was in a splashy place that turned out to be owned by the mob. guidos in and out, up and down, all day and night. something about the gm rubbed me wrong. besides the capacity my breasts had for hypnotizing him and his staggering misogyny, i mean. one of the soft opening nights a wine salesman pulled his car up front to unload product his company was donating that we were supposed to serve gratis. that gm pulled his car right up behind and loaded all 3 cases right into his own trunk. i was there only a few weeks and this was not the only time i saw him do this.

it's a small town and i have seen this bad penny turn up over and over. servers who have suffered under him and salespeople who have had to deal all know he is a thief. like the sky is blue kind of general consensus.

a few weeks back, i nearly spat my tea reading he is now the OWNER of his own place. which means he has investors. some rich dudes wrote checks to a guy who rarely stayed anywhere more than a few months. in the short bit in the globe, 1/4 of a column, maybe, he said, "it's a scene, man," three times.

he appropriated an iconic name, will have live music every night (a dearth here, admittedly) and hired a chef from a place famous for sticky sweet cocktails and hook-ups -- not food.

because i am not a nice person, imagine my glee at the craptastic reviews this place is getting. the food, the drinks, the service all suck. i am happy he is unlikely to succeed. however, i feel a bit badly for his dupes. then again offering start-up cash to a restaurant is only done with money you plan never to see again. this guy is such a small-time sleaze and yet people were amazed at a silky-smooth op like bernie madoff.

barnum was right.

women hating their bodies, redux

2009-10-12T13:11:00.010-04:00

these ladies are british celebrities. one is a former spice girl and the other is that peculiar english phenom of "glamour model".

today's on-line version of the rag, "the daily mail", featured these pix.

commentary? spice girl on the far left is lauded as healthy and curvy (although slammed for wearing a dress she wore to an event 7 years ago), and oh-so-much finer than in her bulimia phase in the other pic. hard to tell with the camera, certainly, but is there maybe a 10-pound difference? at most? even "curvy" you can still clearly see her pelvic bones through her dress.

the other was on a british version of "big brother" and gained some weight on a crap diet of chips and such during filming. paper says she's "fat" now, and not worried about losing the stone she gained. in that yellow dress her fake boobs look big enough to topple that tiny body. i can only think that in-person she must have looked like a stick with basketballs implanted under her pecs. (or over, can't tell from the shot.) she looks curvy and healthy to me, what do i know.

this was the same issue where karl lagerfeld, formerly very fat, decreed nobody wants to see models with curves. that it is "only fat mothers in front of the tv stuffing themselves with chips complaining" the skeletor cat walkers are ugly.

not just kids

2009-10-10T10:57:00.003-04:00

a few weeks ago, i discussed a poll of high school kids and my subsequent disgust at their ignorance of basic american history. "no child left behind", indeed.

around that same time, i just couldn't bring myself to write about the whole "birther" nonsense that was swirling around the blogosphere and from the shouting heads on fox news. laugh about it with my friends, sure, and take satisfaction in knowing nobody i know is a real amurrican.

today i stumbled belatedly upon this poll of peeps that gave me yet another face-palm moment, tyvm republicans.

24% know he is absolutely is NOT a real amurrican and 14% were unsure.

10% of the country thinks he was born in indonesia, 7% think he was born in kenya, and 1% think he was born in the philippines.

we are left with 20%.

that does include a portion who do know that obama actually was born in hawaii, however 6% of those people think hawaii is not part of the united states and 4% are unsure. yup, 10% of 'em don't know hawaii is "one of us".

and i suppose just to be funny, the pollsters asked the remaining hold-outs if they though obama might be french, lol. 2/3rds of that 20% were "not sure", but he might be.

62% of the birthers identified as republicans
86% are white.

nope. ain't about race, right?

dumb food

2009-10-04T15:23:00.003-04:00

this is an actual product and i saw it for the first time today in a big display cooler at the market. different flavors all filled with buzzy ingredients without which we absolutely will die if we don't get them in a fruity beverage. ginseng, green tea, guarana, pomegranate and acai just to name a few. potassium too so you can skip your steak or your banana.

it's also full of splenda.

now, you're saying, what pisses you off about this, noodle? water is SKINNY. no calories and drinking lots of it keeps you healthy. there is no science supporting ANY of these ingredients, separate or combined, being dissolved in 21st century kool-aid will help you lose weight. however, there is science proving that a diet high in artificial sweeteners does make you crave more sugar. which will make you FAT.

i thought the special k protein water was bad enough (yeah, cuz americans just don'e eat enough meat!) but this is really the shizz. i'm sure there are women who drink it by the gallon. i wonder if they've yet inked a deal for placement in places ladies' gyms like curves?

which is worse? that a product this stoopid is marketed to women or that women are stoopid enough to buy it?

naked at school

2009-10-02T19:13:00.004-04:00

do we ever stop having some version of this nightmare? does lance armstrong wake up in a cold sweat having seen himself up on the podium sans cuissard? does madonna gasp in the deep dark thinking she is just too old and the toy she wants to bang says, "uh, no thanks, k, granny"?

before yesterday's interview i dreamt i was at the place and had gone through the paces, i just needed to take a written and timed test. there was mad activity everywhere, like there always is in a busy restaurant and no place quiet to sit. hordes of people, whom i of course did not know, kept badgering me with questions i couldn't answer. i begged to be left alone -- "the test, the test, i'm trying to finish the test, please" -- and that person would go only to be replaced by another in a few seconds. i didn't finish the exam and was met with an acid glare from my potential boss when i woke up barely breathing. i was drained from my brain being in that chaos.

all morning and all the way there, i was jumpy and weirdly nervous. the woman was very down-to-earth and easy to talk to, with lots of dropped hints that she is much like me being over 40, single, living here over the harbor and being a lifer in the industry. it went very well and i will get a call-back, lol.

i just can't help but wonder if this is more of the "i'm a fucking phony" complex that seeps from my subconscious now and again or if everybody from queen elizabeth to justin timberlake sometimes wakes up all freaked out too.

merry prankster

2009-09-28T13:00:00.002-04:00

new englanders are stereotyped as taciturn, with that laughter-free puritan image just not dying. yet our weather has a sense of "ha-ha" like no place else i know.

many nights last week were down in the 40's and cold raw rain pelted my face just like march or november. october is close. i put away all the summer clothes and started mending the winter garb. "fooled you! haha!!" it's sunny and 80 and i'm about to get a nice big dose of fresh air and sunshine while it's out there.

every year, without fail, that box goes back and forth a few times before it finally rests, lol. every year, no matter how late i wait. maybe it's personal?

well-done

2009-09-27T17:47:00.005-04:00

my italian grandfather taught my irish mother to cook. she was clueless in the kitchen, coming from a mother who was mostly out whoring around at dinner time and a father who, i think, boiled steak. the lessons took well and my mother learned to enjoy it.

except for one thing: meat. no matter what it was, it was well-done. cooked through and then some. beef was grey in the center and as chewy as chaplin's shoe. when it was corned beef brisket for dinner, no prob, but filet mignon made me want to cry. when my stepfather leapt several income ladders in a single bound, we had beef more nights than not. yuk. chicken too was cooked to dust and we were not a gravy house, so abandon hope and look forward to fridays which were catholicly meat-free.

when i left home, i sort of passively decided to "give up meat". more out of overkill and dislike than anything else. besides, freshman year dorm "meat" wasn't exactly julia's bouef bourgignon. over the years, i went through various stages of being "vegetarian", getting anemic, getting "save the world" fever, and finally, well, i'll have fish.

which quickly led to trying 2 new foods. the first was oysters. in nyc on a girls' trip i ordered a dozen and was blown away by the burst of salinity, the fresh icy piece of the sea in those rough grey shells.

shortly after was sushi. a date took me, a slightly older, very wealthy man (who got weirdly instantly stalker-y on me, but not germane here, lol) and i suggested he do the ordering, but to not be afraid for me. the one bite that instantly staggered me and became me favorite food evah in the world always, was sea urchin -- uni. again, it gives that slight resist before you bite down, and it's briny minerality slides down your throat in a cold swallow of ocean velvet.

as i became more adept at cooking, entertaining and eating, i was very aware of the play of not just colors on a plate, but of texture too. if you're having pasta, put something crunchy on, like toasted pine nuts, so you don't get bored to death before you are full.

now a few weeks into my new eating habits, i've been having to tread back out to meaty waters. not long ago, i had my first hamburger in maybe decades. it was sooooooooo incredibly good. granted, from prime beef at a steak house, but still. i've had a few since, and while none were at that pinnacle of beef grade, they all were really good. how had i been denying myself all these years?

so, another food light bulb for noodle. i don't dislike meat. i hate badly cooked meat. bring me medium rare with a nice sear on the outside and a barely warm moist juicy inside. what's not to like? add crispy bacon to kill it, lol.

what kind of eater does that make me? a textural one? is that a thing?

more god gobbledygook

2009-09-27T15:39:00.007-04:00

no secret that the born-again george bush had a penchant for invoking god (who told him personally and specifically) both to run for office and to invade iraq, as well mixing up religion with real stuff, ya know like evolution, or the fierce fundy battle to keep the so-called "morning after pill" off the market.

also no secret my personal impatience with ALL the superstitious nonsense that the world calls religion. reading baboon entrails or telling me that man has only been on the planet 6000 years cuz that's the bible math is all the same mumbo-jumbo to me.

rest assured the face-palm moments will continue even though he's out of office, because some of bush's crankier and disgruntled former staff are putting out books.

here's a snip from a speech writer's forthcoming tome, on why j.k. rowling did not receive the presidential medal of freedom:

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.

just so we're clear: guys like paul bremer and george tenet, who were instrumental in invading iraq and afghanistan, oh yeah, and endorsing torture, got the snazzy medallions but a woman who encouraged a generation of geeky kids to read books and enjoy imagination was too subversive. all that backyard pretend quidditch was a step away from the glamor that is devil-worship fer sure.

i hate women, redux.

2009-09-25T10:03:00.008-04:00

lucky-linky and i found myself reading the sordid saga of a young woman who got involved with an older man. nothing new under the sun, eh?

in the second sentence (!) she admits, "i liked to think i was different." so does every 22-year-old ever, honey. she met him as an intern at the magazine of which he was editor. they stayed in touch, he mentored her with her freelance writing and a few years later, she landed a paid gig at his rag.

things end badly with the editor's long-time g/f, and they start bonking. rebound nookie not in her vocab, i guess?

she is hurt because around the office, he keeps his distance. she is hurt because she does not meet his friends nor his parents. she is hurt because he never introduces her to anyone as his "girlfriend". she is hurt when her mother voices her disapproval of this may-december fling and when girlie tells this to the editor, he freaks out, which makes her feel hurt. they had been fucking for 2 months and she says: "In my mind, we should be openly dating as boyfriend and girlfriend, and we’d marry and have children together."

on the phone, she tells him "she loves him". he admits he does not feel the same and they should end "this". he is seeing somebody else and it looks like it may become serious. someone his own age. she is beside herself that he doesn't feel emotionally the same, even though he gave every indication that was the case, and feels sucker-punched about the "other woman", even though they never discussed being monogamous.

he no longer takes her calls or answers her e-mails. it's OVER.

heartbreak hurts, no matter how young or foolish be the one feeling the pain. yet years later, she continues to blame him. "that he should have known better" than to "allow" someone so young to fall in love with him. um, which part of him coming to her with a broken heart does she refuse to accept? that perhaps he wasn't thinking clearly? that he wasn't in control of his own emotions, so how could he be expected to be responsible for hers too?

a year later, through facebook (oh, the joys made possible by social media!), she discovers he is engaged to *that* woman. she is furious and demands to see him. he accepts. she is hurt he didn't tell her in person. they no longer SPEAK so why does he *owe* her that? because he quickly moved on from a fuck-toy and she had not yet accepted that's all she was?

lastly, what really steamed me about this whole baring of her soul, is she gives enough personal details for anybody who worked at that mag to easily deduce the editor she was banging. nice discretion, lady. it's one thing to write about personal experience, but it's possible to do so without harming others. unless that's your intent.

as seen here

2009-09-25T08:55:00.002-04:00

walking with purpose (which i do, even when i don't have one, and this will show why) yesterday, i was all dressed up for an interview.

giant black man: you an actress?
me: no

i do not break stride and he starts following me. the sidewalk is crowded with people, both walking and sitting at cafés.

gbm: you in one of them movies they makin' round here?
me: no
gbm: you should be
me: thank you
gbm: why you walkin' so fast? you afraid of black men?
me: no, i have someplace to be and my husband is black
gbm: you married to a brother and he lets you out alone and you so fine?
me: yes
gbm: you ax him if you can have a boyfriend -- i keep you safe when he ain't around.
me: please. leave me alone.
gbm: (yelling) i told you, you afraid of black men!

other black man: leave the lady alone.

and just like that, he finally went away.

one way to win an argument

2009-09-22T09:53:00.004-04:00

a kansas couple had been arguing about his cross-dressing. one might likely think not for the first time. he was the father of her two children. the eldest, aged 18, came home to find her mother shot dead on the kitchen floor. her father, dressed in women's' clothing, was also on the floor, with a self-inflicted flesh wound, smoking. i'm guessing a post-murder smoke is even better than a post-coital one.

he appeared in court to plead not guilty, wearing make-up and a baby blue jumpsuit. (hey, we know kansas ain't exactly fashion-forward and even the frugalistas are shopping at the good will these days. just ask the ny times.)
eye bleach is in aisle 5.

good advice

2009-09-21T19:16:00.003-04:00

anna rapaport, who is an actuary out of chicago and leads the society of actuaries' committee on post-retirement needs, was interviewed by "florida today":

reporter: if people can't bolster their savings, what can they do either before or in retirement to better deal with high costs?

rapaport: try to stay healthy.

this is the woman who knows how and when we are all going to die. see, america? health care crisis SOLVED! yo, get barry on the horn!

pray for us

2009-09-21T17:50:00.015-04:00

there are certain republiclowns i am coming to depend upon to bring me the face-palm moments (except they also bring night terrors) and one of those is sen. tom coburn from oklahoma. you remember tom, right? another member of the extreme fundy group "the family", who, as an ob/gyn, claimed doctor/patient privilege in his counseling of slutty sen. ensign who was outted for fucking his not-wife and most definitely does not have a uterus.

this weekend was a "values voter" summit in d.c., with all sorts of loonies to bring the lulz: baby farmer michele bachmann, mike huckabee (i guess god stopped helping sway his voters?), actor stephen baldwin, phyllis schlafly (she's not dead and jello-wrestling with anita bryant in hell? wtf), and windswept former beauty queen carrie prejean. mormon mitt romney was there as a centrist. (and, no lie, a very bright white hope for 2012.)

as a direct paste from their site, here are the titles for the break-out sessions:

SPEECHLESS - SILENCING THE CHRISTIANS
THUGOCRACY - FIGHTING THE VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY
DEFUNDING PLANNED PARENTHOOD
ACTIVISM AND CONSERVATISM: FIT TO A TEA (PARTY)
TRUE TOLERANCE: COUNTERING THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
THE THREAT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
OBAMACARE: RATIONING YOUR LIFE AWAY
MARRIAGE: WHY IT'S WORTH DEFENDING AND HOW REDEFINING IT THREATENS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
THE NEW MASCULINITY
WAIT NO MORE: FINDING FAMILIES FOR WAITING KIDS
TURNING THE TIDE IN YOUR GENERATION
GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA: THE NEW FACE OF THE "PRO-DEATH" AGENDA

and here are some juicy cherry picks from the sessions deets, in order to continue the tide of fear, other-bashing and hysterical lying:

Ultimately, climate change hysteria rests on an unbiblical view of God, mankind, and the environment.

Redefining marriage poses serious threats to the religious liberties of people who continue to believe that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman.

Long lines, refusal of care, months waiting for needed surgeries, rationing of treatments, mandates in support of abortion.

Why did the President's science advisor support coerced abortions to protect the planet?

Americans are at a greater risk of losing their basic freedoms today than ever before in the history of this nation.

Feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new "masculinism" right.

sen. coburn had this lil gem as part of a statement read by his chief of staff:

"praising one's parents in nightly prayers could enforce the notion of marriage, and telling children that "all pornography is homosexual pornography" could prevent them from becoming perverted."

because nothing says "homo" quicker to a horny teenage boy than hustler or estonian internet bukake. um, yeah. and seeing a triple-d blonde get trained by 10 bikers will make him want peen. for realz and forever.

as seen here

2009-09-17T17:33:00.003-04:00

running errands in my hood today i saw that eyebrow waxing only costs 5 dollah. hollah. in all the joints. cheaper than a pack of smokes. this explains why all the boyz have gypsy moths doing cirque de soleil on their foreheads.

real amurricanz

2009-09-16T21:14:00.003-04:00

tomorrow is constitution day, the 222nd anniversary of the completion of the constitutional convention. before y'all run off in your powdered wigs to party consider
this.

an outfit calling itself the oklahoma council of public affairs conducted a survey of 1000 high school students. they asked them 10 questions randomly selected from the current test immigrants take to become citizens. 92% of aspiring americans pass that test on the 1st go. 3% of the students passed. 3%. teens born and bred here, having been taught social studies and history since kindergarten. 75% could not name our first president, and the most commonly given answer to the 10 questions simply was, "i don't know."

oklahoma is not alone in this ignominy. arizona had similarly dismal results.

our founding fathers understood that free public education would be a cornerstone for maintaining the republic. that our citizens would need and have a grasp of civics, history and the ethics required for democracy. thomas jefferson wrote in 1789 that "whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." later still he wrote, "enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

golly, i hope those local school boards ordered enough intelligent design textbooks. i'm sure the kids are much better at (ahem) science.

oh, no, it's not about race

2009-09-16T16:30:00.008-04:00

this was also taken at a 9/12 rally this past weekend, but had so many different kinds of stoopid in it, i felt it deserved its own post.

she seems delighted with her own cleverness, doesn't she? like a toddler who just made a big-girl poo in the potty instead of her pants. if she wasn't receiving medicare benefits for her hormone replacement drugs and high blood pressure meds, would she still be able to afford her fancy-schmancy art supplies?

i'm all for freedom of speech, but this is not dissent, this is hate speech, pure and simple. their white world has been turned upside down and it might as well be satan in the oval office, eating angels for breakfast and sodomizing girl scouts after a big lunch of bbq ribs and watermelon.

scans of the crowds at these rallies show white faces. lots of them. the only browns seem to be carrying press credentials.

freedom of speech

2009-09-16T15:44:00.004-04:00

these were taken at a "9/12" rally, promoted by fox news' glenn beck. i don't think commentary from me is really needed.

now i know

2009-09-16T14:57:00.001-04:00

why some people are afraid of clowns.

more proof men rule the world

2009-09-16T14:02:00.005-04:00

in 8 states, it is legal for insurance companies to refuse coverage to women who have ever been victims of domestic abuse. statistically they are likely to suffer the same again, so ipso facto, are a bad and unacceptable risk.

i stumbled across this doozy today over at huffpo.

in 1994, then-rep. charles schumer (d-ny), now a a senator, had his staff survey 16 insurance companies. eight would not write health, life or disability policies for women who have been abused. in 1995, the boston globe found that nationwide, allstate, state farm, aetna, metropolitan life, the equitable companies, first colony life, the prudential and the principal financial group had all either canceled or denied coverage to women who'd been beaten. "you're in good hands," indeed.

in 2006, democrats tried to end the practice. sen. patty murray (d-wash.), introduced an amendment that split the health education labor & pensions committee 10-10. the measure failed via the tie. all 10 no votes were republicans, including sen. mike enzi (r-wyoming), a member of the "gang of six" on the finance committee who are currently hashing out a bipartisan bill.

at the time, enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "if you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state."

if your husband beats your face in, it will be your fault that granny's lipitor co-pay costs more. if your husband beats your face in, you should know enough to get out beforehand. if your husband beats your face in, you must have deserved it. if not now, for something you'll probably do. eventually.

explain to me, again, slowly, why universal health care is a horrible concept? why private industry should be trusted with the decisions regarding the health and well-being of our most vulnerable citizens? why actuaries and pencil-pushers decide who warrants what treatments?

puts a whole new spin on how to answer that emergency room intake question: "do you live in a safe environment, dear?"

lady business

2009-09-08T14:51:00.004-04:00

women's bodies are solid proof that evolution has a sense of the absurd. so much going on, all the time, and it's all inside. might as well be discussing the humors and the true location of the soul, ffs. (of course, at a certain point in history, men thought women did not have souls. maybe there was no room because of all that lady biz?)

men have that one thing which they discover during infancy, from whence it instantly becomes a source of pleasure and joy. hours, years, of amusement. granted, as they age, and that one thing becomes less cooperative, it may offer a certain level of frustration, but most healthy males can eventually goad it into action, even if that means a little blue pill before you ballroom dance your wife around the kitchen or sit in separate tubs in the sunset. still, it's one thing and you always know what it's doing.

i've kvetched before about my body betraying me. age is a culprit, fer sure. we lose muscle mass each year, and that accelerates after 40. resistance training can be a huge help there. hormonal changes mean fat decides to disperse itself differently than in younger years. decades of what i'm now confident was a very unbalanced diet did extreme damage to my insulin aptitudes. i flipped over my personal food pyramid, weight came off and i have never felt better. after 3 dry weeks, i went off the wagon and my weight loss stalled, but the number remained in a happy zone, and the same for several days.

so, noodle, all these answers, what's the mystery?

last week, i decided to start adding some foods. slowly. not trusting myself around a bounty of berries, i bought pistachios. in-the-shell, so i'd be less likely to hoover them out of the bag. i ate a few ounces. the next day, i weighed 3 pounds more. grrr. impossible to gain 3 pounds of fat overnight, so ok, must be the salt. gallons of water, a good sweat at the gym. next day -- same. 5 days later, the scale has bounced a few ounces either way, but has not descended past that whole and higher number and i want to SCREAM.

the nut explosion was wednesday morning.

friday i started to feel that weird feeling.

by saturday, it was full-blown, with all my lady bits, inside and the ones oh-so visible to men, all swollen, sore and heavy. my abdomen all crampy, bloated and grumpy. wtf? i am on the pill so pms is not really an issue, and this is not *that* time of the month. what is going on in there? why isn't there some kind of diagnostic/prognosticating periscope that i can snake down? with a timeline to let me know, "oh, you will feel absolutely fine in 3 more days and have lost 5 pounds. all is well."

in the meantime i want to stick a whalebone needle in my gut and let out all the ick. the nuts went immediately in the trash. i have eaten nothing new or weird.

i am so pissed.

men wonder why womynz hate their bodies.

shame on who?

2009-09-01T16:41:00.002-04:00

william taylor's wife was snooping into his cell phone and found sexy pix of not her. confronted, he admitted having an affair.

they fought.

as penance she is making him wear a sandwich board that says, "i cheated and this is my punishment", at a busy intersection, by a shopping mall, near their home in virginia. all week.

the story has gone global with video of him and his sign all over the net. over at huffpo an on-line poll has 57% of the readers laughing at the story. really? laughter is your response to this?

when a married person wanders off the one-and-only path, something is not quite right at home. just a guess here, but i'm thinking that he's been waking up to a petty, vindictive bitch who has no qualms airing her dirty laundry in major public oh, just might scratch the surface of what drove this guy away? yes, he did a bad thing. this makes it better? is she 6 years old?

but he wins pussy of the year award for a) wanting back in and b) not telling her to go fuck herself over this horrible scheme.

people suck. ahem.

can't make this stuff up

2009-09-01T14:19:00.005-04:00

actual quote from a parent in sedalia, missouri, who also happens to be a teacher in the district:

"I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.”

the marching band had designed and worn shirts with the slogan "brass evolution" and used a version of this well-known image, but at each stage he is holding an instrument. all those well-versed in "intelligent design" went nuts and the school is banning the shirts. the assistant superintendent of schools defended the action because they must "remain neutral on religion."

a donor had offered to pay half the cost of the shirts, but withdrew support upon seeing the risqué and controversial image. the band parents now have to eat the $700 and pony up again for new shirts.

"it’s not like we are saying god is bad,” sophomore band member denyel luke said. “we aren’t promoting evolution." no, heaven forbid science is taken as true when the mystery and power of god is so much more verifiable and likely.

now let's hope they burn the offensive tees in the town square to ward off the devil who no doubt was licking his lips and twitching his forked tail at the thought of the the town collapsing into a monkey-fucking haven of sodom and gomorrah.

just... yuk

2009-09-01T13:43:00.003-04:00

19.

she is pregnant with her 19th child.

they are conservative christians and all the kids are home-schooled. her last baby was born only 8 months ago. her eldest son, now married, and his wife are expecting a baby too. her grandchild will be older than her own bundle of joy.

she has been pregnant 147 months of her life, with 5 more to go with this latest muffin in the oven. she is only 42, so i'm guessing she still has time and hormones to pop out a couple more? shoot for an even 20 maybe? at the very least?

is her vagina some kind of gaping maw at this point? grand canyon-style echoes when the husband has at her? they don't need a garage for the compact car because they can just parallel park right all up inside her vay-jay?

of course they have a reality show because somehow prolific fertility makes great entertainment.

just... yuk.

dogma-diggity

2009-08-31T14:55:00.002-04:00

a few days ago, i posted about my new eating habits and the success i'm having. i feel better too.

as with most things, there are plenty of on-line resources devoted to this and i've been participating in several fora. it's encouraging to read the success stories of women my age, staggering to see just HOW MUCH weight some people need to lose -- 100's of pounds in some cases -- and informative to get updated on new science. it's also shocking to see how uninformed so many people are about food basics. knowledge is power and it has been very helpful, especially in the first few days before my books had arrived.

like anyplace on-line there are the zealots and they tend to be prolific. there are a few, who have lost almost no weight, or a mere pound or so over many months, and still feel fit to preach. erm, really, lady? i'm empathetic to resistant bodies and hormones and such, especially after years of abuse, but the fatties lose the fastest at first. whatcha doing wrong and why should i heed ANY of your advice? careful that soapbox don't crack under your girth, mmmmkay?

there are the temperance zealots too. clearly over-indulging in alcohol is not a good idea when trying to lose weight. your body will burn that before tackling any other fuel, it's useless calories and often can be an inhibition-buster, leading to eating some junk you shouldn't or wouldn't while sober. yes, all my friends are alcoholics and we drink more than the general population. i know that. bearing that in mind, an occasional couple of drinks is not going to end your world. a woman posted today about a "girls' night out". it's been months since they all saw each other -- you know, blah-blah-blah. she innocently asked what might be the least detrimental thing to consume. here was one of the answers:

Why can't you have a night out and stay cold sober?
Did you know that your body will burn alcohol first and not burn fat? That it might take some time to get back into fat-burning mode?
Would it be worth it?

every party has a pooper, lady. jeebus. if she's asking the question the way she did, she knows it may cause a bump in the weight-loss highway, ok? lighten the hell up.

lastly, there is the data-nazi. i have been tracking my food, just to make sure i'm doing this "right" and remain sensitive to my utter failure at trying nearly everything else, but am beginning to feel secure enough that i might soon let go of that. early on it was very helpful because once i started getting the proper amounts of veggies (hadn't been eating enough), the weight started to drop. knowledge is power. yes.

the data-nazi actually gained weight her first few months on the plan. rather than change what she was doing, she yada-yada-d everybody else. finally, the on-site nutritionist stepped in to suggest some things she might consider tweaking? voila. a wee bit of weight lost. she plans all her meals to the gram and will adjust menus so that every day she eats exactly the same number of calories in exactly the same proportions. she is a screecher about the minimum number of calories people need to consume each day. ya know what? bullshit. a 6-foot woman needs way more calories per day to move herself around than i do at only 5'2". the reason she had gained weight to begin with on this plan? she was eating too fucking much.

she carps on people to eat when they aren't hungry. "to keep up your blood sugar" and "to keep your metabolism burning." a) isn't that how lots of folks got fat to start? and b) your body will burn far more efficiently and less superficially if it has to reach down into its reserves. constantly feeding sends the wrong signals to your brain and it becomes harder to feel sated if your stomach is always working on digestion.

she is a maniac about fiber. i worried about this at first, but there is sufficient fat in my day to keep things moving along nicely. ahem. there is plenty of evidence that contradicts the numbers recommended by the usda. that much of what you consume that way is actually irritating your lower g.i., not helping it. think about it: insoluble fiber passes through your system more or less intact. why give your body all that extra work?

so here's my point (finally, noodle, tyvm!): when researching and then committing to this experiment i was willing to toss out all of the "conventional wisdom" which i had held so dearly for so long. all. of. it. the stuff that made me overweight and feel unwell more often than not. let go of everything, try a thoroughly new approach and see what happened. i'm not saying i did it overnight. i spent a year going through a revolving door of no-results. but making such a dramatic change made me open to just about anything else that didn't sound like a snake oil pitch. i'm happy with that.

no, not everybody

2009-08-30T09:41:00.005-04:00

i do actually know people i like, who don't suck, ok?

this week was the owner's birthday and i was invited up to shangri-lowell to share the festivities. small-world and all, he shares his big day with one of his neighbors, whom we both like quite alot. last year we partied together and this year was to make 2 in a row.

suppressed rebellion was still working its way out of his system in '08, so the owner was determined to "get drunk", lol, which isn't really his thing anymore. this time out a more low-key evening was in the cards. we did have the bonus of a driver happy to be designated, just in case.

not long ago we discovered a little out-of-the-way laotian place, whose proprietors and only staff are a daughter and her f.o.b mother. the former is a pistol and the latter cooks like a tiny southeast asian rockstar. the specialty of the house is meat, all kindsa ways, which, as we all know, thrills the owner. yo, even i liked the tongue there, ok? so we brought the other b-day guys, a cooler and 4 big appetites. it was a blast.

with rain falling and wind acting up as the start of tropical storm danny, we figured that night's park concert had been moved indoors, so indulged ourselves with purple sticky rice pudding topped with a kick-ass coconut custard and another drink.

surprise! w00t! the concert was in full-swing, outside, when we arrived. the weather forecast had skeered away most of the audience so we sauntered right up front and got down. plenty of crapola zydeco bands slide through the lowell music calendar, but these guys were terrific -- even deemed so by the native new orleanian (orleander? wtf are they called?) amongst us. the air was only misty, the grass somehow didn't feel damp and since all the human wet blankets stayed home afraid of meeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllting, many more folks were dancing all around than is usually tolerated by the determined sitters at these things. even the owner had the hip-sway thang!

(it was almost like my birthday too, since the keyboard player was a midget! yes! strangely long fingers like gollum's and all of us agreed we'd never seen a little person in a regular band. that's high confirmation with a professional musician among us, as well as the 10's of 1000's of shows likely under the rest of our blown-out eardrums.)

the show wrapped with an a capella solo by the singer in tribute to ted kennedy. he prefaced by mentioning how much the south loved the kennedy's -- he pointedly referred to the "real south", which was not lost on the crowd -- especially louisiana, a deeply catholic state, home to colorful and corrupt politicos that could rival our own, as well as emk's beloved second wife, vickie. he sang the "star-spangled banner" and it moved me and everybody else like it should have.

that was it.

good food, good music, good friends. a very good time. i'm a lucky lady.

people suck, redux

2009-08-29T11:54:00.004-04:00

tail-end of a tropical storm dampening the city today and hiding anything over 4 stories in fog. nothing worth battening down the hatches, but it's soggy and dreary, the tail-end of summer grasping for autumn.

there seemed a window of climatic decency when i was exiting the commuter station so i hotfooted to haymarket in just a mere drizzle.

lurking in some doorway, a tubby old guy in light blue shorts, oh-so-smartly accessorized with a white belt, whom i would not have noticed except he had this to say: "guess this is a bad hair day, huh?"

what went through my head in a flash, far faster than words aloud ever can travel, was, " well, gee, gramps, i just got my brains fucked out quite well twice in 7 hours, spent some time before that dancing in the rain with good friends and the man of my dreams, and just didn't have time to get cover-shoot primo before catching your eye."

what i said was, " sweet-talk all the ladies like that?"

did he read that idiotic book by that douche that recommends "reverse complimenting" (i.e. insulting) chicks to get their attention? or is he just a complete asshole?

i'm quite sure he gets laid right regular, lmao. :o

on its head

2009-08-27T11:24:00.006-04:00

over the last months i have engaged in what at times felt like an epic battle to lose some weight -- a struggle met only with my body's fiercest refusal. weighing my food, counting calories, exercising up to 2 hours a day, interval training, insane cardio, weight lifting, intermittent fasting, multi-day fasting, gargantuan amounts of fiber. except for a 48-hour fast in early july, (enacted out of terror for an ultimatum) when i was down 2.7 pounds, the scale hasn't budged south at all. it has, however, spiked up. oh, goody. here -- don't have a cookie.

i tried all sorts of food navigating, particularly on work-out days when i had the appetite of goliath once home from the gym. not in the morning, not before, not after, not after 6:00. only complex carbs. only fruit. only salad with cheese. only protein. only carbs plus protein. nothing helped and i was hungry most of the time.

oh, but muscle weighs more than fat, you say? well, no it doesn't. (who the hell got that math so wrong back whenever?) a pound of chicken weighs the same as a pound of pizza. i did not get smaller in inches either, so phooey.

the well-being obtained through regular exercise? did i *feel* better? not significantly, no, although i am not averse to believing that my lack of pay-off hindered my mind-set.

there is much i am willing to attribute to age and my ever increasingly ornery hormones. nothing i can do about any of that. words fail me to express the feeling of utter despair which results only in disgust. compound that personal disappointment with the owner's well-intentioned and repeated message, "you just don't exercise right/hard enough/often enough" and "why should i have a fat girlfriend?" and yeah, it just was never a good day at the noodle farm.

3 weekends ago, the scale was higher than it has been in a year. immediately i dutifully counted my calories and ounces consumed and ate lots of fiber. i was cold-turkey off alcohol.

in 3 days? nothing and i felt just awful. when people i know cut out drinking, pounds melt away like they went for brazilian basement liposuction. a few years back, when i just couldn't kick what felt like avian flu, i also gave up drinking, with the same outcome. my symptoms did not abate and i lost zero weight. the sandman went on vacation because i simply could not get decent rest.

finally, einstein and ben franklin rose up out of the ether and 3-stooged my blockhead. why was i expecting different results when i'd been trying the same thing over and over? dumbass.

most of my adult life i have taken smug satisfaction in "eating well": whole wheat bread, fruits, yogurt, veggies, LOTS of fiber, smatterings of lean protein; no processed foods, no fast foods, cake/candy/ice cream were never a temptation. although very active in my 20s, later on, my weight stayed fairly constant, which i attributed to 90 minutes of brisk daily walking with my big dog and a "healthy diet". i never counted calories and my clothes always fit.

the pound creep began at about 40, which was my mother's exact "danger, will robinson" date of when everything in a woman's body goes to shit. last summer i managed to dump some. i wasn't on mandatory weigh-ins back then, so not sure how truly much, but fit in a few things that hadn't seen my ass in several years. that was great but when that *new* number seemed carved in stone, i was really a mess.

good modern gal that i am, i dove into the internet, with the conviction to put aside conventional wisdom.

i decided to be a lab of one. i had nothing to lose except fat.

some very convincing science looked to answer questions that had nagged me for years. the technique offered was to burn down the food pyramid and turn my diet upside down. instead of 60-70% coming from carbs, that amount is now from fat. ideal protein amount remains about the same at 30-35%, with carbs being a long-distance 3rd. goodbye white starch and hello butter.

i ordered cheap-cheap books and while i waited for the snail mail to arrive, trolled the sites of various scientists and a few wackos. "fat is evil and deadly" ringing in my brain nearly drowned out the new message and it was a tough first few days watching that pool of olive oil heat up before i dumped all those eggs in the pan. kinda like i don't believe in god, but if he came to visit in the flesh, ok? that hard a sell.

the first few days, i was sort of bumbling, not having sufficient info to do it "right". i was convinced my internal system of regulation was very broken, so i wasn't hoping for a magic bullet. just something. anything. the testimonials of so many sounded too good to be true, and i was not in the market for a bridge or florida swampland. granted many of these peeps had over 100 pounds to lose, some 2 or 3 times that, which was at once terrifying and fascinating. however, those with the most girth lose in the beginning most easily, so i noted that too.

what happened? within 24 hours:

i slept like a baby.
i wake up easily and clear-headed.
i no longer got headachy or dizzy from being hungry.
my stomach felt the hunger, not my head.
i felt very full after a meal, and that satisfaction lasted for hours.
i wasn't constantly thinking i needed a "little something" to tide me over til the next meal.
my hair is softer.
my joints are less creaky and way less noisy.
my teeth are cleaner.
my senses of taste and smell are even keener.

i am losing weight.

the holy grail.

since the day of reckoning i have lost 10.5 pounds. in the last 4 days, i have lost 3.5. i haven't gotten the "woosh" that many do, but that just lends further credence to how damaged my switch really is. years of imbalance made it really busted. i didn't gain all these pounds overnight. i had a cautious goal weight for tomorrow. i reached it yesterday! today i was up 2/10ths, but AT the tomorrow weight, so i'm not sobbing in a heap right now.

the owner mentioned this morning how i seem re-energized in something else. it's remarkable how finally achieving a positive result in one arena spills over to others.

i have a long long way still to go and yesterday i thought i might kill a toddler for his peach. i could smell its sweet summer juice many paces away, lol. but things i thought i would crave i don't, which will make this easier. if it takes me longer than some of the miracle kids, i'm ok with that too. it will mean a longer time to discipline myself into new habits.

the owner is thrilled because i no longer frown at his fatty dinner desires and i am enjoying my new normal. and knowing i might someday take the skinny clothes from the bottom back to the top of the pile. :)

it's her own fault

2009-08-19T10:28:00.003-04:00

last friday a guy stabbed his girlfriend numerous times, in the abdomen, apparently during a dispute in which she refused to get an abortion.

the woman remains in hospital in critical condition, 5 days after the attack.

now the police are saying it appears the woman may not have been pregnant.

she is 28, the boyfriend had just turned 18, and according to his mother, was trying to break it off with his mrs. robinson. the mother wonders why a woman 10 years older would want to date her son "anyway".

this would not have been the first time in the history of the world a desperate woman has lied about a bun in the oven to snare a guy through guilt. although in this era of at-home preggers tests, i'm thinking it's not a ruse that can be kept up for long.

but apparently the mom feels the over-the-hill hussy got what she deserved. it's her own fault for messing with somebody "too" young. let's pass out an early "mother of the year" award here to somebody who grew a son who solves a baby dispute with a knife. shall we?

christ on toast.

as seen here

2009-08-14T11:10:00.002-04:00

in a movie yesterday, there was a scene with 2 women friends and one of their husbands enjoying dinner.

j: i hate my friends. is that weird?
c: no. we all hate our friends.
m: men like their friends.
c: who's talking about men? all women hate their friends.

lol, but le sigh, eh?

oh, the irony!

2009-08-13T20:02:00.004-04:00

an article on restaurants being forced to list calorie counts for menu items featured the director of the rudd center for food policy and obesity at yale. each year he teaches a class called "the psychology, biology, and politics of food" which attracts over 200 students. time magazine named dr. brownell one of "the world's 100 most influential people" in 2000.

he looks like this:
he takes credit for coining the term "yo-yo dieting" and i'd wager a big mac or 3 that he's been on that roller coaster a time or 2.

do we really want somebody obviously obese dictating national nutrition policy? (never mind the whole piss-me-off nanny-state meddling issue of posting kcal counts anyway.) is this the lunatics running the asylum, or is it simply a case of "those who can't do, teach?"

bad-ass babes

2009-08-13T09:55:00.008-04:00

through the generosity of others, i was a regular concert machine last week and my final blow-out was with debbie harry and pat benatar.

this was at the pavilion now named and licensed by i'm not sure whom anymore, but it's right on the water and it was a perfect night. it was my 1st visit to this venue and i will bitch: the sight lines are terrible and the not-so-jumbotron pictures were even worse. you're also fenced in like at a super-max and cannot even remotely glimpse the water.

another back in the day, of "i saw blondie at the channel" and they killed it then and now. she was an icon of cool for me from my first listen in junior high and she just played hit after hit saturday. i'd forgotten how creepy "one way or another is," lol. she's clearly had some nipping and tucking, but she looked terrific. never had a huge vocal range, but she sounded the same, and owned the stage in a leather skirt and chuck taylors, lol. i just could not get it out of my head that she is only 2 years younger than my mother -- who is in a wheel chair and mostly out to lunch. wtf.

benatar's anthems were part of my soundtrack too, but she was always a bit too arena rock to get my "cool" label, even while i could admire her pipes. her slicing and dicing wasn't as recent as deb's, but she looked great and could still hit the notes. her sound mix was not primo that night which was disappointing. it was mostly drums drowning her absolutely out for the first 5 or 6 numbers! i had no idea her band had been the same (but for 1) for 30 years! there was a vague awareness on my end that her husband was sort of the maestro and i was totally blown away by his playing. ok, 5 out of the 6 of us were put off by how show-offy he was. yeah, yeah you can strut the stage and wail on your "axe" (must you call it that?) during "love is a battlefield", but shut up with your windy yapping and that schticky mambo-italiano in between songs, ok?

mostly chicks in the audience and i was totally surprised by the broad age range. plenty of women who were too young ever to have heard blondie before the reunion and just as many in stretchy comfort slacks older than deb. did the yhoung ones realize how ground-breaking blondie had been? "rapture"?

as a sidebar, i was the only of my friends not drinking and i think this may have been my only ever totally sober musical experience in my whole life. it was plenty fun. and beers were frigging $11! there was a very tall ostrich-like lady right near me drinking red wine in what looked to be a mouthwash cup. cannot imagine what they served or how much they gouged for it. no, she did not look *classy*, but we all did get to make fun of her.

peta

2009-08-06T14:11:00.004-04:00

"people espousing toddler abuse." just in case you forgot how nutso these guys can be:

Children who buy meals at the McDonald’s at 391 Central Ave. today beginning at noon will encounter PETA staff, headed by an activist in a chicken costume.

The “Unhappy Meal” that PETA will give to children — a spoof of a Happy Meal — will include a “menacing, knife-wielding” Ronald McDonald cutout, a ketchup packet disguised as chicken blood, a plastic chicken covered in “blood” and a “McCruelty” t-shirt.

so yeah, they are totally going to make babies cry and give your kids nightmares if you try to treat the small fry to fast food in albany today. to save the chickens.

people are stoopid -- redux

2009-08-06T11:50:00.004-04:00

this weekend the sales tax here went from 5% to 6.25% and for weeks locals have been bitching and moaning and talking radio heads have been yapping about a 25% hike. they've been warning of the flood of shoppers who will bust new hampshire's gates and instead of bumping our budget, drain it dry. can we just for a second think about this? say you're going to hopeless depot to buy some potted plants and a pink flamingo for your yard and your budget is $100. how much will you spend on gas (never mind the time factor) to save $1.25? ahem.

long ago, the commonwealth was denigrated as "taxachusetts", but that shoe no longer fits (it just costs a bit more.) of the 45 states that have a general sales tax, we rank last in terms of the revenue the sales tax raises as a percentage of personal income.

an intrepid globe reporter went to the mall to talk to shoppers on saturday. just a direct paste, cuz you can't make this stuff up:

Take José Fonts, who complained about the tax boost as he waited for his daughter yesterday at the Natick Collection.

“It’s ridiculous,’’ he said. “I can tell you, I’m going to go to the next state to buy stuff.’’

But wait - what about the additional tax on the plaid Tommy Hilfiger comforter he had just bought, still wrapped in its plastic package?

Fonts lifted his hand to his forehead in surprise.“I didn’t think of it!’’ he said.