no woman, no cry

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!!!!!!

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

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

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

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?