tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67969964706352882692024-02-19T00:31:37.351-05:00Another FiftyIt's the <i> third </i> fifty I'm worried about.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-27511258214883334492009-04-13T15:50:00.002-04:002009-04-13T16:01:43.078-04:00"Cholesterol is at 172, good," the doctor says. <br />"And your HDL is 85, great," the doctor says. <br />"But your liver enzymes are ten times normal, bad," the doctor says. "What kind of medications are you on?" Apparently the anti-liver ones. This means I'm either an alcoholic or I have hepatitis, neither of which seems very likely since I don't mingle blood much and drink less now than ever. In fact, as my cholesterol count is so much better than four years ago, I think the one-a-day wine has been helpful. <br /><br />"We're cutting you off of all wine and all ibuprofen until we figure this out," doc says. I'm going to get so crabby. <br /><br />Oddly, all this follows on starting with a wholistic practitioner. And I know it isn't her treatment that is driving this. All the bloodwork was taken before then. I already wasn't sure I was believing in this new approach to living, but I thought I would close my eyes and trust in the East. Now the Western MD's are going to step in and get aggressive. Maybe the best rule is to simply avoid the doctors. Any kind.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-15539376488262587242009-04-08T16:15:00.000-04:002009-04-13T16:23:48.693-04:00I went to see my new age doctor. She has studied six different medical systems, including Western. I figured there were, at most, two. They hooked me up to two electrodes that in the span of 4 seconds reported that at a rest, my body burns 1600 calories a day. Pretty good, the doc says to me. I would have been happier with 3000. I told her that I have been fatigued and angry a lot, but when I mentioned menopause to my girlfriend, she told me to shut my face and get on a fast track to this doctor, that it was probably some other gland or body process that was beating me down. "You know, life isn't always our ovaries," my BFF insisted. <br /><br />"It's your adrenal glands, I suspect," the doctor said to me at the end of a two hour session. I thought she was going to pin it on my thyroid, a popular diagnosis here where thyroids wear out faster than winter tires. So I was pleased she had something unique for me. What's an adrenal I wanted to know. But instead of a lot of info she gave me a laundry list of supplements, including licorice for the adrenal gland. I tried to look up information about faulty adrenal glands. I was three quarters down my first hit read before noticing the term "Veterinarian."Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-60986986187637667422009-03-30T11:48:00.002-04:002009-03-30T12:00:09.800-04:00Kevin W. Sharer became the CEO of Amgen in 2000. He was featured in yesterday's Times, explaining that when he came on board, he spent 150 hours with the top 150 people of the company, interviewing them, getting to know them, doing what sounds like a real Six Sigma, touchy feely series of individual feedback sessions. <br /><br />And then he fired most of them. <br /><br />Lesson learned? I don't know. Never let down your guard?Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-61550628112993932532009-03-30T09:49:00.002-04:002009-03-30T10:00:54.036-04:00Cleaning CrewI sat around last Saturday night with a handful of women of substantial means. When the conversation turned to notifying other parents of children and potential internet abuse, the women focused on an acquaintance who refused to believe her children could ever do anything wrong (unlike the rest of us, uh hunh) and that her control freak ways had spilled over to an insistence that she clean her own home. "She has money," the group said. "And a full time job. Why not get some help?" <br /><br />"Oh," I understand that, maybe. "I feel awkward not cleaning up after myself, myself. It's not like I do it - I don't have the time and the house shows it, but there is something inside me that prefers mess, I guess, to having someone come in and mop up around my feet. Or else I'm just too cheap."<br /><br />The ladies stared at me with that look of processing information. I had no idea what they were all thinking, except that I could tell they were all thinking something, like never eat anything she brings to a gathering. So I decided to give in, to cave, to hire a semi-monthly cleaning team and try to gain back at least one day a weekend for writing, photography, or maybe the kids. It started this morning. The two women came in, gave a treat to the family pet, and then split up rooms between them. As I was gathering my things to get to the office, one of the women asked, "Do you rent?"<br /><br />I have no idea what that means. What is it about my house that suggests I rent?Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-22600327464913660592009-03-30T00:50:00.002-04:002009-03-30T01:00:24.227-04:00Working on a piece on prom dresses, I found a Faviana long gown in a print that reminded me of Midsummer Night's Dream, with spirits of yellow and celedon, and hints of blue and orange, whisping about against a white background. I loved it. The other adults - male and female - in the office thought it was lovely. The 19 year old who was helping me with the image layout labeled the dress image "crazyassdress".Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-63589139328154970202009-03-24T12:16:00.001-04:002009-03-30T12:31:42.062-04:00I may be the only person to distrust antioxidants. I read <a href="http://www.news-medical.net/?id=22280">this</a> article, figured that everybody else was marketing anti-oxidants for the fear factor that opens pocketbooks, and simply stayed off the band wagon. The Science Times today didn't report any benefit in the heart or cancer arena. I'm more curious to see if it is actually dangerous to load up.<br /><br />Edit has taken to pomegranate juice and seeds, but I don't know why. Some other influential 8 year old must have convinced her because that it was for her own good because I don't think she likes it. She drinks the juice with the same reservation that one drinks wine. She doesn't guzzle.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-66977263616519231012009-01-29T17:14:00.000-05:002009-03-29T18:10:38.033-04:00Spanx MeI've avoided the Spanx line. I have a problem with girdles and other binding and life cinching things outside an S&M fantasy. Either be comfortable with your shape, or get in shape. Constricting wear is as 21st Century woman as button boots and pre-suffrage. But out looking for a black bra one day, some store woman insisted I try a Spanx Bra. I did, and it was great. Its big promo is that it helps avoid back fat marks, but honestly, if I can't see it, then it is a problem that I don't know I have. If I don't know I have a problem, then there is no problem. But still, the bra felt great on, more gentle actually than most other bras, and certainly less involved than anything Victoria Secrets. I recommend that every woman, large or small, try one. It's less a fix it piece than a tremendously comfortable piece. <br /><br />Go figure.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-75502510896298605482008-12-10T23:04:00.012-05:002008-12-11T08:17:27.011-05:00Naughty and Nice and GooEdit made out a naughty and nice list. Her oldest sister, Mona, and Mona's guy got posted to the bad side. The three had spent days bellylaughing together during Mona's Thanksgiving visit, so I asked Edit to explain. Edit looked at me and uttered only, "Piercings." "But Mona was nice too," Edit added later. "I overheard Mona say to Lex, 'You ask Mom about getting our nails done. Mom just spoiled me at the store and I don't want to ask for more.'" I'm not sure Edit has a handle on how "not asking for more" is supposed to work. Maybe people like me is why religion was invented. Some of us need more than the Annual Santa to help lay the ground work for a functioning morality in our offspring.<br /><br />When asked by her music teacher whether any of her big sisters had special talents, Edit answered, "Well, yes. Mona has her piercing and Lex likes to listen to music." There are days you cannot crawl deep enough to escape. <br /><br />Tired of thinking about Mona's viper piercing ("It's for lesbians," a pierced and tattooed bartender told me the other night as I was practicing my routine), I pulled a switch. "What did you think of her wig?" I asked Edit and Lex, refering to the hairpiece that Mona bought after getting a Rhianna cut that made her call me from outside the salon and cry. "Goo," said Lex, using a soundbyte for "ick" that has that idiot "Word" expression beat to hell. "A WIG? SHE HAS A WIG?" Edit said, with an intensity consistent with finding a polar bear in the kitchen. Edit went on, but not by asking "Why?", or "What did her hair look like and how long before it grows out?", or "How does one make a wig, exactly, Mother?" No, Edit continued with, "Why didn't you tell me? I could have teased her about it!" "It's hard to tease her about it," I said, finally smartening up and keeping to myself my spiel on what Mona had said of the wig in defense: "It's <span style="font-style: italic;">human</span> hair." Oh, right. Like a <span style="font-style: italic;">human</span> skin suit. Or a scab jacket. Goo, goo, goo. Ick, ick, ick.<br /><br />Except that except for the free association issues I have with the "human" part, I think that wearing a wig is kind of neat and Mona is easy with it. When she scratches her head, if she catches me staring, she wiggles the wig and winks. And you might not be able to tell it's a wig unless your eyes are used to the concept of hairline and scalp and both staying in place. Or it gets tossed on Cher. "Save that for me," I say to her, repeating the phrase she used as a little girl whenever she liked what I was wearing and wanted me to keep it for her to grow into. "I'm gonna need it when cancer strikes, " I start to say, but manage to garble into obscurity.<br /><br />See what I mean? Good moms don't instigate, no matter the material. They don't stir things up for a reaction. That's what clever aunts and uncles are for. Good moms are equipped with vocal filters designed to encourage sibling peace and respect. On the other hand, I <span style="font-style: italic;">am</span> always listed on the Nice side.<br /><br />Goo. Pass it on.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-87343259966630203992008-12-07T19:19:00.003-05:002008-12-09T09:32:31.682-05:00Push Button Emotional RegulationNYTimes reporter Kate Zernike tells me I can cultivate a calm temperament.<br /><br />I experienced it once. Someone was yelling at me. Then I realized that someone was having a fit directed at the world and only consequently directed at me, and for once in my life I did not take it personally. Instead of spending most of his tirade preparing my yell-back, I stopped myself, dropped my shoulders, and relaxed my face to watchful. As my face went, so did my insides. I was inspired. It was like a drug. I'm going to try to do this for a week, starting now. I'm tired of worshiping at the altar of free assocation and whippity swift. As much as I admire rapid fire, it should not have full control over me. For help, Zernike directs us to Professor Gross's five methods of emotional regulation: situation avoidance; situation modification; attention deployment; and repression. All of these seems strange, kind of chicken. But if I employ #1 and don't get out of bed for a week, I'll have this licked. Except for the hiding under the sheets part.<br /><br />As if a prequel, two weeks ago while traveling about in the car, I suggested to Edit that I needed a button. That if Edit could buzz me when I talked too much or to myself, then I could get conditioned to be more retrospective. Twenty minutes later, at the conclusion of some chatter of mine, Edit said simply, "I wish I had that buzzer now."<br />...<br />"Why don't you color your hair, Mom," Lex asked. "In fact, you can use my box of L'Oreal. Really. <span style="font-style: italic;">You</span> use it." Another walk by shooting.<br />"I'm okay with my hair," I say. "I hate the bleached out blond frizz mid-life look."<br />"You've succeeded. It's green," she said.<br />...<br />As I worked the automatic checkout line at Ikea, a man came up to the woman who was helping me at self-serve and asked, "I'm getting a Christmas tree from the front lot. Where do I pay?" "You can pay here," the Ikea Elf replied. "How many trees do you want?"<br />...<br />From RS 1067:<br />Hirsute: shaggy, course, bristly. mnemomic: Her course suit should have felt better for something bespoke.<br />Is it just me, or does Rivers Cuomo singing "Don't Worry Baby" sound like someone's playing Brian Wilson on warped vinyl, but so yes to Lily Allen. Oh, gosh. <span style="font-style: italic;">Rolling Stone</span> magazine. I have avoided it as if it were cocaine. I was the worst disc jockey of all times, and had the shortest career track. Worth every second of hell.<br />...<br />VF<br />It's a shame one has to travel across so many pages of CN advertising to get to the Editor's Letter. I almost didn't make it. I got to the Carlisle collection ads and began to think about the economic impact on suit lines - how hardly out of the depression early 40's they looked, followed by an ad for another crappy age defying hahaha cream foundation that made me wonder if I was reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Allure</span>. Then Rolex. Then Revlon. Then Ford. Yikes. (Can't. Whatever. Won't.) Distracted as I get, I could barely refocus on font size 10, but I did.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"So here we are in the waning days of his [Bush's] presidency, and he's still at it. Bush and Cheny have been working feverishly to write as many as, by one count, 130 new regulations undermining federal laws protection not just our environment but also our civil liberties and personal safety. And with the nation's attention ping-ponging between Obama-mania and Dow-phobia, the White House is hoping we won't notice. It's the environmental equivalent of stuffing the china and silverware intor your suitcase before clearing out of the guest room. The New York Times and The Washington Post have been particularly diligent in shedding light on these final, grapsing acts of an administration[.]" </span>Graydon Carter<br /><br />So I guess what the Chicago Tribune needed was more Rolex and Louis Vitton ads, or maybe what it lacked was enough of a backbone to do actual investigative reporting to earn the circulation numbers to get those accounts. Wish I knew - but I hate that it filed.<br />...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />...Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-50986413137512617082008-12-05T22:35:00.004-05:002008-12-05T23:38:25.745-05:00Just Shoot Me. No, Really."Edit is taking after you," Lex said in reference to Edit's habit of leaving things where they fall from attention span. This from a girl who throws Q-Tips on the floor if the wastebasket is full and then blames me for buying such a small receptacle. "She takes after the three of us," I said, menacingly. Lex opened her mouth to say something then changed her mind. She's growing up, I thought. But not fast enough. "Why do you care what you look like anymore," she shot at me the other day, as I sat innocently at my computer completely unprepared for a roaming age attack.<br /><br />Tonight I walked the dog through the center of the Ring Road golf course, away from the traffic and the lights. "I should take a flashlight and keep an eye out for stranger danger," I joked to Lex. "Don't do that. You'll draw attention to yourself," she replied, concerned for my safety. "White dog, white parka; I'm not thinking we're so discreet," I said. Still, I left the flashlight at home. Halfway through the park I figured I was worth more dead than alive and made a note to stuff my parka with flares and party laterns the next time I go out. I have to fund their college eduation somehow. Except maybe not so much with Mona. I'm not so focused on continuing her educational experiience. I got a series of texts from her yesterday and today, including a phone call at ten last night as I stood at the local printer shop runniing proofs on a print job. Life was good in the City, it seemed. This afternoon I got, "Let me know when you can schedule me in for extensions" quickly followed by a "Oops. I didn't mean to send that to you!" This isn't starving-student in NYC language. This is different language, the kind where somebody erroneously believes that I'm earning Penthouse wages. Either kind. I haven't made the call yet. I can already hear myself and I hate the sound and I shouldn't have to make the call.<br /><br />I'm going back out to the park. It's almost midnight.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-21551504586887233292008-11-25T20:41:00.004-05:002008-12-04T12:01:52.114-05:00Only a Dog WalkerI fell in love with Joan Baez in 2008. It was a two-step process, actually, with the spill-over occurring recently, as Robin Young interviewed her on <span style="font-style: italic;">Here and Now</span>. After Baez described how a hawk from the 60's stopped her on the street to say how much he hated her back then, and how now he realized how wrong he had been, Young launched into a "my marine dad apologized to me about Nixon!" story that made Baez's eyes tear up. Young announced Baez's reaction with a version of <span style="font-style: italic;">OMG! Are you - Joan Baez - crying because of something I said?</span> Getting the interview back on track, Baez offered simply, "I live my life like this. I think it's better to just go ahead and let the tears pour than try and stop them all the time."<br /><br />Her comment connected with me, then shot me back to a time during the summer when I was stuck in a traffic jam on a highway. Just before dawn, a driver had tried to commit suicide by slamming the front of his car into the overpass wall. The only thing the driver succeeded in doing was driving fast enough to catapult his car over the embankment wall and down onto the multi-lane thoroughfare. The driver lived and no one else was struck by the plummeting car, but crews kept all oncoming cars at rest that morning. The delay gave me a chance to hear Bob Edwards interview Camile Paglia over <span style="font-style: italic;">Break, Blow, Burn,</span> Paglia's collection of 43 poems that she considered the world's best. Paglia read the beginning from "Woodstock." Without the familiar music noise about it, the lyrics hit my ears and created a vivid image flow as if I heard it for the first time and it was on beyond powerful. When, several months later, I heard Baez accept an overactive emotional state that I was beginning to suspect most women have, I thought, this is why she is an icon and I was an idiot for not picking up on this sooner. Of course, Baez did not write "Woodstock." Paglia had spoken a truth that I did not remember: Joni Mitchell authored that poem, a factoid that must have gotten lost on me as I stared at all the radiator fluid and crankcase oil darkening a section of the white stone highway wall. But rather than allow this correction to diminish Baez's status, it brought both Mitchell and she up to sainthood, and I thought it was a such a shame that I spent most of the late 60's wondering why God made striped pants for my thick legs, and fighting with my brothers over wanting to be Davy, not Peter, of the Monkees in our basement band of cue stick guitars and tupperware drum sets.<br /><br />I can't say now why we had those guitars. We didn't even have a pool table. <br /><br />On the way home from an art opening, my eight year old, Edit, and I were talking about traffic pattern issues and how if I wasn't careful in getting out of a parked car onto a busy Elmwood strip, I could get killed. "You can't die," she responded instantly. "Who would walk the dog?"<br /><br />There are women who have taken enough chances and sacrificed freedom and love in the name of truth and art and clarity. Then there are the rest of us: the table clearers and the dog walkers. In my next life, I'm coming back as a poet.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-44640466560288833382008-11-22T23:09:00.000-05:002008-11-22T23:10:06.676-05:00Jackass, The MovieWas there a series?Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-64069505420725827002008-11-13T09:07:00.003-05:002008-11-13T09:45:32.377-05:00Congratulations, Now Quit Goofing Off"My whole body is sore," the eight year old said the morning after a swim meet. She is swimming 100's without flinching, winning 50's against any age at the Jewish Community Center inter-club meets. It was her only complaint. I wanted to write a note to her teacher, telling her that she might be more in her own zone today than usual - and ask her for help on how to improve her reading comprehension skills. I had reviewed her papers the day before: a stack of 90's and 100's on all subjects except for reading comprehension. Those were always in the 60's. "Look at this," I said to my husband. "Less television, more reading and talking about what we are reading."<br /><br />He reviewed. "These quizzes are only three questions long. If she misses one it's automatically a 66," he said, defending her somehow. I thought that if the quizzes were six questions long, it was not so off base to assume she would get two answers wrong, but I said nothing. "And look at the question," he continued. "'What was the point of the story?' it asks and she always answered 'to entertain.' That's what she thinks books are, wonderful entertainment. That is not such a bad thing." Lex laughed at how he mocked the test and how he presented Edit's frame of mind, and maybe a little because someone was giving me a challenge to my grade grief. He laughed too. He thought testing and grading at elementary levels to be ridiculous, and all this was further proof. There was nothing only 2/3s right with his daughter. I was the sole sourpuss in the room. "Everything is about entertainment, all that Disney and Nick TV, and Club Penguin on the computer. That's this generation's mindset."<br /><br />It's hard to get severe when I see my children do some things - most things - so beyond expectations. But I do. It's not that I expect people to be perfect. But at the same time, I see their respective failings as being so out of sync with the order of their natural selves, that they must be my fault - my refusal to take the time to observe and correct early on. Winter's night darkness is here. I woke up this morning thinking we should get back to meals at the table, more games in the evening, and trips to the library. It's easy and cozy, as long as I'm willing to give up the computer, too, while they are awake.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-62069604145931597502008-11-09T10:36:00.006-05:002008-11-09T12:08:53.819-05:00Nurse Ratchet It UpHow Emo am I? I don't have to take the quiz. Less than zero. I'd put a barrette in my hair after three seconds of an angle bang hanging in my face. I like to laugh. Rripped jeans and shrunken sweaters is so the clothing of the Depression that it doesn't belong on people who have options. It is poser-wear. I hate poser-wear. There. I've learned a new word and over-used it.<br /><br />Two bedridden people in the house for four days now. I'm a bad nurse. One needs ice, the other needs blankets. One is to eat, the other can't. Each is on a different medicine and has a unique sleep clock. One is to get up as much as possible, the other needs to be tied down. Keeping all this straight might be an issue if I remembered to check on them. <span style="font-style: italic;">Four</span> days. Last night I went to a high school musical. It wasn't in my school district. I didn't know a soul in the play. It was a musical put on by high school students and high school musicians. Remember those? That's how much I needed to get out.<br /><br />Actually, it was pheonomenal. The musical director at this school gets vocal chords in ninth grade and bends them to his will. He is crazy demanding, and three of the twelfth graders on stage last night sang better Idol contestants. The girl could be performing on Broadway. The two boys could be in time. And all this from those who sign up for chorus from the district's few hundred nothing special, second-ring outlying suburban whatevers. He presses their bland carbon into dazzle. It's a phenom. Gossip has it that he was a piano genius as a kid, but then choked or suffered performance anxiety and now survives by confining himself to this tiny segment of the world. Or so the story goes. Yesterday we passed one of Lex's teachers walking one of our city streets. "There he goes," she said. "He walkds everywhere. He never had a phone until the school made him get one so they could reach him. He doesn't have a television or radio. I guess he reads all the time. I wonder if he has lights for night. They say he got left at the alter." I looked at this older, slightly bent, somewhat bohemian gentleman moving with enough determination to signify sanity, thought of the alter and reading by candlelight and heating the end of the bed with bricks, and began contemplating whether the fleeing woman had a hand in creating his current ways or if she decided that there was nothing fundamentally evil about an occasional TV dinner. "But I suppose it could be a myth," Lex added. "One of my other professors said that to was a waste to have graduated from high school without taking one of his classes." <br /><br />I had to approve the senior year book layout design ordered by Lex and her friend. I traveled to a photography studio and stared at walls full of poster size family portraits set in groomed back yards or beach fronts. Every family had a color theme: either light blue or white. The family dog would be well groomed. Everyone looked well groomed. And pretty. Everyone was so pretty. There were pet portraits, too. They were mostly of dogs, but my favorite was one of a three black dogs on a white ground, hanging out beneath a black cat atop a white pedestal. The cat was looking down on the dogs, as cats do. That one I liked. I liked it because it may have actually been tough to time. And there was sarcasm in it. None of the other images had sarcasm or irony, except for maybe the one of the pretty Mom in white. She was surrounded by six perfectly coifed boys between the ages of two and nine, all in matching light blue polo shirts. The photo was perfect. Everyone was perfect, except that the man responsible for all this Y chromosome damage was missing. It would have been more fun to see the boys appearing as themselves in that photo, with the mom up on a pedestal, holding a cell phone that never seems to connect to the father.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-45931033221709365842008-11-04T17:15:00.002-05:002008-11-04T19:54:43.736-05:00Can You Spare a DimeWe walked hand in hand up the walkway to the polling center, Edit and I. We passed one soul on the way in, and another at the front landing. He looked about 60 and this side of desperate - maybe more wearing with rumply hair. He stood in our way.<br /><br />"Do me a favor, hon. Vote for McCain."<br /><br />It was the saddest polling experience ever. How could anyone not driving a Bentley be that destroyed over this election?Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-34628265232306764772008-11-04T03:58:00.000-05:002008-11-04T08:50:33.216-05:00Exit Strategy"The 737 charged across the taxiway at high speed. 'I stupidly unfastened my seat belt,' Koch recalls. He was hoping he could run to the exit and be the first in line to get out." "The Price of Immortality," by Gary Weiss, <span style="font-style: italic;">Portfolio</span>, Nov. 2008.<br /><br />I keep skimming newspapers and magazines, thinking that if only I could stick with an article long enough and retain the information for more than 1.5 seconds, I could understand the true nature of our economic crises. I think that Weiss' article on David Koch's (pronounced <span style="font-style: italic;">coke's</span>) survival of a deadly airplane collision, is all I - and perhaps Greenspan - need to read. Then, in a <span style="font-style: italic;">Portfolio</span> article on Dov Charney, the founder of American Apparel, Claire Hoffman writes about an incident involving Dov and a female reporter: "The reporter [Dov claims] took the masturbation out of context."<br /><br />That's what I'm missing. I am incapable of reading financial reports with the same eye for a jolly "puh-<span style="font-style: italic;">lease</span>."Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-69542969327375633522008-11-02T20:11:00.005-05:002008-11-02T20:58:08.225-05:00EvidenceAnd then the dog shat an orange balloon.<br /><br />I can always tell when Lex is up to something.<br /><br />She moves.<br /><br />Then at some point, she asks if she can do anything to help me. She calls me, "Mommy!" with the exclamation point. She might offer to go grocery shopping, and she will have vacuumed before I come home from work. She suspected I would be at a late party on the 31st, so she began decorating the house for Halloween. Each day she brought home a different drug store abomination, like the electric pumpkin and the lime green glow-in-the-dark skulls. She found bags of cobwebs and carried in sixteen pounds of candy corn.<br /><br />"Having a party?" I ask.<br />"Just getting in the spirit, you know? I love Halloween. Don't you love Halloween?" she answers.<br /><br />"I'll end up in jail. You'll get in trouble and your permanent record will keep you from going to college. If a big group starts dancing in the foyer, the wooden floors will collapse into the basement. Someone will get hurt. I'm not kidding. No party," I unleash one morning, truly nervous over and quite tired of high schoolers..<br /><br />"Don't worry. You know me," she says, as if the two statements were compatible. "And I'll take care of the dog while you are gone."<br /><br />I put protective measures into play, then left. I had business to attend to as Marie Antoinette, at a costume party where for the first time that I could remember, people disagreed over politics and nobody got upset. When I came home early the next morning the place was spotless. All the beds were made, better. Garbage bags were lined up in neat rows in the garbage bin, as only a angle-advantaged basketball or volleyball player could arrange. Everything was perfect. It hardly looked like there had been a party at my house the night before.<br /><br />But then this morning, I took the dog for a walk.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-75758081957331715022008-10-31T11:18:00.004-04:002008-10-31T12:03:23.658-04:00Picture Books<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pTWsSJW2gFt77zOVLFzgq8aARPACzhPcCTAuE9T2pUx0AuTre5tWx6Q3_U6dMgu-gbo6vLd7OxvTIpqPfo1-MM5pN87Ny61Xj-uLnQftl5HKU529LBiVRB6Iu6eNKJtw9nmGNAcfMSs/s1600-h/Noir.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8pTWsSJW2gFt77zOVLFzgq8aARPACzhPcCTAuE9T2pUx0AuTre5tWx6Q3_U6dMgu-gbo6vLd7OxvTIpqPfo1-MM5pN87Ny61Xj-uLnQftl5HKU529LBiVRB6Iu6eNKJtw9nmGNAcfMSs/s400/Noir.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263346663575526418" border="0" /></a><br />The Neiman Marcus Christmas Book arrived today. It's a picture book, and I sat down ready to make jokes about anything St. John, white dresses with black hose, and old lady suits on young models, but those items were pushed aside by costumes that reminded me too much of art, too much of needing to be touched, to poke fun. <a href="http://www.noir-illuminati2.com/noir.php#/157329/">NOIR</a> designer, Peter Ingwersen, said that the purpose of clothing is for sex. When I look at a slim silk chiffon Marhesa dress in cream with tiny fur cuffs adorned with chrystals, my mind turns to everything tactile - harsh and soft and simple. The same with a DvF tank dress in black velvet with a low, low cut. It's hardly naked; maybe a better invitation. Or the Prada or McQueen offerings in black, which, although always unaffordable, can still service an imagination. How have they learned to style so much material, so much shine and zipper and fluff and collar to conjur up dominatrix? The tops are marmish, the coats too often a joke, but the dresses are probably worth every penny in an Ingwersen sort of way. If I could only think of a way to make animal print go away forever. NOIR is not in the NM catalog. It should be.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-77520472398337124422008-10-30T13:22:00.005-04:002008-11-01T14:26:52.617-04:00Eyebrow StyleHot topics for 2009 are earrings, eyebrows, and hands. The best thing about eyebrows is that with rare exception, they don’t age so much. Jaw line sagging? Direct attention up to the eyebrow. Bags under the eyes? Tweak the arch and extend the line towards the temple. That’ll get people’s attention. I’ve always had a c<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyG68ShvQaW1kHsF_uyK2ibGLdrAabWX0X2GxaqRVzF0BooLMaTp9waeCt7NSYeFZ45rdYX_yYL8hY05Q3lLjgMeV-3RORvajKRNBpkzKtl_mZf8hvleiD_sA365FFFpvzHlJmCP3Z8Pk/s1600-h/eyebrows.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 91px; height: 512px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyG68ShvQaW1kHsF_uyK2ibGLdrAabWX0X2GxaqRVzF0BooLMaTp9waeCt7NSYeFZ45rdYX_yYL8hY05Q3lLjgMeV-3RORvajKRNBpkzKtl_mZf8hvleiD_sA365FFFpvzHlJmCP3Z8Pk/s400/eyebrows.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263752008207559650" border="0" /></a>rush on eyebrows. I love to look at a well-groomed pair, to see in which direction the hairs grow – whether they fan or river or both – and examine which sections are full and which are thin. On the face, only the iris contains as much pattern and intricacy, but inspecting people’s eyeballs that up-close is can send the wrong signal.<span style=""> </span>I'm interested in patterns, not a life commitment. Yes, a cool eyebrow is hard to beat. From their high perch, they speak volumes about the person whose forehead they adorn. For example, you know that woman standing next to you at the deli counter, the one shaped like a tiny snowman with the red rinse in her beauty parlor perm and a set of thin, drawn-ons that no one’s been able to get away with since Claudette Colbert? She got into her own groove in 1962 and nothing is ever going to disrupt her lifestyle choices. Her now equally diminutive husband has been feigning hearing loss for at least two decades. I can tell. Who needs Lillydale? It’s all in the eyebrows.<span style=""> </span> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yes, eyebrows speak volumes. A former sister-in-law plucked most of hers out in high school, and they didn’t dare come back. That’s all you need to about her. (That and when she thinks you have visited long enough, she’ll start vacuuming under your bed at six in the morning.) Then there was the time my twelve year old noticed that her eyebrows were growing in so much darker than her long locks, and I insisted on experimenting a la L’Oreal. She wore orange eyebrows for several weeks, eyebrows that told everyone the truth: she is a sweet, trusting child and her mother doesn’t know her limits. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My fascination began in high school, after a gym class when I was privileged enough to watch the prettiest girl in the school put on her make-up. She grabbed a tool I’m not sure I had ever seen before, an eyebrow pencil, and extended an already beautiful brow one half inch further out. For reasons probably known only to street corner characterature artists, that tiny extension seemed to create her face – without it, she would have been stuck scrapping it out for the Miss Cong<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSmSbmgnMmXknWgRHBiCOHGIEsIG0mIXydSrNUSe3CvBX0kpJ5g6xCxrLs05hJRyKoW3G6uI5ORJUAGRWlHwtiUsY0pgNVmRcriZWSqNQfs2RNBXvhnKie8OdwBiSYxKDBUw2Jay5EUU/s1600-h/Wooly-Willy.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 82px; height: 103px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSmSbmgnMmXknWgRHBiCOHGIEsIG0mIXydSrNUSe3CvBX0kpJ5g6xCxrLs05hJRyKoW3G6uI5ORJUAGRWlHwtiUsY0pgNVmRcriZWSqNQfs2RNBXvhnKie8OdwBiSYxKDBUw2Jay5EUU/s400/Wooly-Willy.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263754418561547394" border="0" /></a>eniality award. It was also traumatic because then, of course, like any insecure teen, I had to inspect my own. Yep, there they were. Plastered across my forehead as if dragged there one car trip by the magnet in a Wooly Willy face game. The hairs didn’t follow any particular growth pattern, except to be mashed there in a shape my brother called the Lake Superior look. Widely dispersed and caret shape to boot, I was lucky he didn’t conjure up the Wicked Witch of the West moniker. I was afraid to pluck them, actually, out of fear that a thinner shape would make the caret more pronounced and turn me into Julie Newmar. Having Catwoman’s forehead while under the roof of a mother who would never let me wear a catsuit didn’t seem worth the effort. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But after about two decades, I began to notice. Eyebrows were all over Hollywood. Pixie-featured with man brows, Winona Ryder stole the stage with her Tayloresque ridge runners. And I never once over-estimated Julia Roberts big grin, understanding that her brow power deserved almost equal credit. Now, you can spot one Olsen twin sporting a set of brows thicker than her forearm, and as a second to putting meat on her bones, it works. Frido Kahlo’s unibrow was so intense she had to balance her canvas with images of black cats and monkeys, while Pam Anderson channels Jean Harlow by shaving off and starting over. She doesn’t count, though. As a man in my office said, “Who knew she had eyes?”<span style=""> </span>All I needed was something in-between to give me a little drama, a look that said, “Pay attention to me,” instead of “I’m distracted and unkempt.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I started considering my options. A pair of tweezers and a DIY mentality resulted in a McDonaldsy arch and a look my girls called my “Happy Eyes” period. But more sophisticated grooming tools, from razors and shears, to threads and hot wax, sounded more like yard equipment and cult accoutrements. I found a brow shaping kit at Sephora, but as I read about the shaping guide, all I could imagine was an architect’s template. I would pop $80 for the kit and end up with a half of a handlebar mustache over each eye. I purchased a clear mascara wand to give my eyebrows lift and direction. All I got was a desk full of schmutz. I tried pencils, hoping to recreate that high school magic. But I’m here to tell you, if you rub your temples after the sixth time your kid has called you at the office, your eyebrow extension looks like a stock market chart.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I did the only sensible thing. I walked into a make-up store, found the lone attendant, and cornered him. “I’m here for my brows. Is there any hope?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">He studied my face in that disconcerting way that wanted me to add, “No, just the brows. I’ll dea<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJ2IkVRoc13c7S_Ppe0Fgzt1xhI0zvJ0sosrqmjtlfPtm1JCxNzXZDrKD9O2vNC_Z2yVb5IUpaUidngJ1gKesteTz5wkJ1MmmC0UR5llu7RSV-FpCMXBAE0IAJTWPKt_5xyncNakQMTA/s1600-h/facestockholm.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 147px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWJ2IkVRoc13c7S_Ppe0Fgzt1xhI0zvJ0sosrqmjtlfPtm1JCxNzXZDrKD9O2vNC_Z2yVb5IUpaUidngJ1gKesteTz5wkJ1MmmC0UR5llu7RSV-FpCMXBAE0IAJTWPKt_5xyncNakQMTA/s400/facestockholm.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263756892951362162" border="0" /></a>l with the rest later.” Then he grabbed my jaw with his hand and said, “I can fix this.” And he did. He plucked under. Of course. Then he plucked over to lose the witch’s peak. Aha! Then he worked up and down, over and above until I felt that by now, my brother would be rendered blissfully speechless. Then he pulled out a little pot of brow shadow and a delicate little brush that I knew I would lose within the week, and said, “Use this, only this.” And apparently because he thought perhaps my make-up bag bore enough sparkle and blue eyeshadow for all the world’s Olympic gymnastics teams, he added, “And don’t be sharing this brush with anything else.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Although I finally found a fix, the good news for cosmetics companies is that my bad brow legacy continues. “Mom!” my daughter laments. “Whenever I go in to get my nails done, the Vietnamese ladies always ask the same thing, ‘You get eyebrows done? You here for eyebrows, too?<span style=""> </span>No? You sure? I’ll do for free.’ It’s not fair, Mom. I’m getting a complex!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <span style="">Maybe I can help her better this time.</span>Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-64868436161971623582008-10-29T15:01:00.001-04:002008-10-30T07:06:10.516-04:00When the TV is OffOn Grade 13 Exam:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">How did George Washington get from place to place?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">a. a dogsled</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">b. raindeer</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">c. old fashion car</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">d. walking</span><br /><br />The correct answer, according to teacher Ms. Edit, is C.<br /><br />There were other questions, such as why is a paper bag in the shape of a rectangle, and what type of pets do you have. Edit used the piano bench as her desk, and from there taught three students: a webkinz chipmunk, a webkinz cat, and our dog. Edit claimed that the dog was fairly good at answering questions, but became too much of a disturbance for the chipmunk and cat and had to be demoted from student to class pet.<br /><br />Edit tells me that she is voting for O'Rock Obama, no matter what anyone else does. He can't lose with a name like that, I tell her. "Are you voting for that lady?" she asks. "That lady," I tell her, "thinks Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a Dinosaur." As Edit is less than fully versed in the meaning of the J-nouns in my response, I can only imaging that as she stares at me, she sees Palin on a sauropod. It's a payback. I'm stuck picturing George in a Model T.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-50874447850122393332008-10-27T12:05:00.000-04:002008-11-01T13:22:20.345-04:00A Rose is Nothing New Under the SunI came across a <span style="font-style: italic;">NY Times</span> article for Likemind, which is networking for creative professionals who gag at the word "networking." <a href="http://likemind.us/">Likemind</a> was created by two guys - Noah is the head of strategic planning at an internet marketing company and Piers runs a trend consulting business. Both career paths are heavily dependent on introductions. If Noah were <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgavGP0AiATf2iO6eMHbxaZEQd83zZE47tqXEGEvWYi8X1OalxLinchzpcwcKHaukYhT_szL1nxH45uOwmdTtXjC1nuyhsB0pBUt1WiMMS4xx0Q8H8JSH4SJjeLVfcZK0ct_vMzZt9jAzs/s1600-h/Beatles-Jacket.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 137px; height: 169px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgavGP0AiATf2iO6eMHbxaZEQd83zZE47tqXEGEvWYi8X1OalxLinchzpcwcKHaukYhT_szL1nxH45uOwmdTtXjC1nuyhsB0pBUt1WiMMS4xx0Q8H8JSH4SJjeLVfcZK0ct_vMzZt9jAzs/s400/Beatles-Jacket.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263730982217146978" border="0" /></a>on the line at an assembly plant and Piers a registered nurse, I might<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_n7TxHwHzkxdNVFyCDY_7TXcdnADsf8YVZUKgXOFXV4KtbIBupFxbwa602rQwZQJHa9V0ed9230ZqPdZCS3Vr_EOO4Hsred9fRaTl2MP1_Dx4WxzU6MOlnOz5eRXomOvH7f2l-J6rvsA/s1600-h/UO-Composite.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_n7TxHwHzkxdNVFyCDY_7TXcdnADsf8YVZUKgXOFXV4KtbIBupFxbwa602rQwZQJHa9V0ed9230ZqPdZCS3Vr_EOO4Hsred9fRaTl2MP1_Dx4WxzU6MOlnOz5eRXomOvH7f2l-J6rvsA/s400/UO-Composite.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263730332646646786" border="0" /></a> trust the "just a gathering" label, but I can't. The people who go to the coffee-infused social gatherings abhor the suity, stuffy concept of networking, except that seems to be exactly what they are doing. Networking while acting too pretentious to be network makes me want to, well, like gag. Saying one thing while doing the opposite wasn't invented during the last eight years, but has it always been so prevalent? Forget technology, our best export product during the next decade should be our marketing skills. Who needs math when we can relabel, repurpose, reexist, respin anything, as is evident from the new Urban Outfitters catalog. I'd take the Silence & Noise band jacket any day because who wouldn't want to be visually connected with George Harrison (except for, maybe, his ex-wife), but the rest of the catalog is so my high school it is scary. It is all the same dusty browns, blues, and greys, the same shapeless plaids, only cut a little shorter and a little lower and worn by lithe, pouty teens instead of the wholesome Sears book models. But, again, the result is transparent, and not in a good way. We suffered in that stuff thirty years ago, and if the shopper would think long enough before getting sucked into the <span style="font-style: italic;">Midsummer Nights Dream</span> escapism of the spreads, you see that it doesn't do much for these models, either. Throw a t-shirt or turtle over that bare breast, and it's still a big 'ol sweater from 1974 (that has most of the white across the tummy and hips, please). Even the furniture is a redo by any other name.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-7096515433713923712008-10-26T23:43:00.009-04:002008-10-28T22:47:51.628-04:00Bare City"<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">C'mon</span></span>. You need a break. You sneaked away on your birthday, but now you're back. Let's go to <a href="http://www.greatwolflodge.com/Locations/Niagara/">Great Wolf Lodge</a> Spa," my girlfriend said. It's an indoor water park loaded with life-sized mechanical moose and bears. "There isn't enough wine in the world," I said to my friend. "There's always enough wine," she replied, and booked space for us, and our girls.<br /><br />Towns that house Great Attractions always seem stuck in 1963, except for the occasional almost-goth, not quite punk gang roaming about with one skateboard to share. Every house looks like it could use a bath, every yard a lawn service. (One front yard might have been decorated for Halloween, but we couldn't tell.) All the incoming money gets poured into and just as quickly out of the Great Attractions and the people that live around the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">GAs</span></span> work these establishments at service industry pay scale. As my father used to say about the ghostly New York side of Niagara Falls, it had had a carnival atmosphere, a fun fair mostly about illegal fun. Once the prostitution and gambling got shut down, the carnival closed. Even when the GAs are legal, however, there is no escaping the carnival atmosphere. It shows up in lawn decorations, window treatments, and pastel pallets.<br /><br />As Lexi, Edit, and I drove towards the lodge, we passed a huge, aluminum industrial complex. "This must be it," I said, not expecting much and thinking that all the inside waterworks would require such a structure. But as I drove on, looking for an entrance, I spotted the over-sized Yellowstone ranger lodge around the corner. This was more like it. At least we weren't getting tetanus just walking through the front door, I thought. Nope, we were getting mechanical howling wolves, talking moose, and one neurotic tree.<br /><br />"Wait," my friend said. "I'll get us a bottle."<br /><br />Everyone needs a friend like her. Everybody should be tight with someone who can come up with "I tried <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Rogaine</span> on my eyebrows, and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">nothin</span>'." Or "I just polished off a whole bag of goldfish in the bathroom, gross," with her disgust aimed at the fact that she ate the big lot of it, not the location of the consumption. When I think I am in the middle of something outrageous or stupid or both, she has already been there. Exponentially. She makes me feel as close to normal as is possible, but I'm not sure what role I play for her: an apprentice? Perhaps an Ethel or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">girly</span> Poncho <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Sanza</span>, except she is no <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">screwbally</span> redhead or Don Quixote. She lives quite rooted in reality, albeit a reality that requires a staff.<br /><br />"Oh, do you have an organizer, too?" she asked in all seriousness, when I told her I was working hard to get my house in shape. I meant garbage bags, Ikea boxes, and a mop. She meant someone with a notepad.<br /><br />After we spent hours standing in stairway lines mostly naked, waiting for a chance to ride each water slide, she uttered, "Slim balls. It's like a gastric bypass in a pill. You swallow one and it fills up your stomach. Fifteen pounds the first week." Then she laughed at herself for buying into what is most certainly a scam. I could barely get past envisioning what happened to these balls after they deflated, but I was so impressed that I managed to form the phrase, "Me want some." But there wasn't even time to dream about being the Olsen Twins. We had to find a place inside that would serve martinis. "Wait," I said, as the group was about to head out of the hotel suite. "I have to put on mascara." "What for?" she replied, forcing me to look up and about at the collection of wet heads and unadorned and consider our manless circumstances.But what she really meant was, "Hurry up already," because my friend was on more than a martini and dinner mission. The next night she and her husband were going to a Halloween party as Eliot <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Spitzer</span> and escort, and she was facing a terrible wardrobe malfunction. A CO2 laser treatment to her chest gave her a sunburned <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">decollete</span> and white cleavage line of demarcation. She figured a tattoo of flowers or thorns along the line would soften the difference. We had to stand in line with the six and seven-year-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">olds</span>, waiting her turn to ask the young spray paint artist to fix her breasts.<br /><br />The kid, dressed in a pirate's costume, never broke a sweat. A true professional. And you knew he still lived at home with his mom, in one of the cottages we passed by on the way to the water park.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-11199014328993265172008-10-25T14:37:00.000-04:002008-11-02T20:09:58.485-05:00Hear, Hear<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVS9g20aK7KvCy7smH9z9rtvYaIz21F7ya4BefEjUG2-2mdVFUq715NMn28nH6cKkFLrFPsK8ZqqJrNo9QTjW-i8GWz6fbIKpf0E2ofBT0zAJhm59z7z9vojV4SSTByCq6A1dyTRQGlE/s1600-h/earrings.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 62px; height: 376px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOVS9g20aK7KvCy7smH9z9rtvYaIz21F7ya4BefEjUG2-2mdVFUq715NMn28nH6cKkFLrFPsK8ZqqJrNo9QTjW-i8GWz6fbIKpf0E2ofBT0zAJhm59z7z9vojV4SSTByCq6A1dyTRQGlE/s400/earrings.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264218887010834738" border="0" /></a>A beautiful earring compliments the side of the face and does wonderful service to hair. A big gold hoop is an invitation to mate; all that sparkles and dangles is an offer to say hey. We haven't seen much earring flash in the past few years, what with all the bangle bracelet noise and Flintstone-esque necklaces. This year's look mirrors the bracelet trends of last year, in mostly lightweight, delicate, and dangling styles, or anything bauble or rope. Just about the only look I dislike is the simple geometric shape, usually a circle or small rectangle, with the designers' names or initials etched in. Yawn to me, but guaranteed to be top sellers.<br /><br />No matter the style, I can't wear them. My ears fight to heal; my lobes prove a painful battleground between the metal and the flesh, and the flesh never caves. So in the time it takes me to take out a stud and say, "Damn you, ears," the wound has healed. If I want to put the earring back in, I have to use the stud as a needle.<br /><br />"I want these," I said to my husband, looking at an <a href="http://www.annieadams.com/JEWELRYHOME.html">Annie Adams</a> simple long raindrop loop in sterling with a tiny purple stone. "You can't wear them," he said. "It doesn't matter. I still want them." He walked away.<br /><br />Earrings, from top: Gucci, Cohen, Gucci, Nak, YurmanCatehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-51248310638757819192008-10-23T10:27:00.006-04:002008-10-23T12:37:43.823-04:00Drug TherapySome drugs help you gain a different perspective on life. LSD, for example, can give you a six hour escape into the mind of a kitty cat, if you should ever care to go there. And Topomax, a drug for epilepsy sufferers, offers insight into what it feels like to be Kurt Cobain. And Dan Quayle. I had received a prescription of it for migraine relief last year and quite quickly said, "Stop that" to my doctors. I had never before experienced such overwhelming sadness, along with a complete emptying of the brain. After three solid weeks of pounders, however, I recently thought I'd give it another go with the leftovers, and boom, within hours of a single dose I was crying for the last goose in the V-formation and forgetting what street I lived on. I walked into my office after the morning field walk with the dog (after I <span style="font-style: italic;">found</span> the office) and said, "Who comes up with this shit and does anybody want to try it?"<br /><br />Maybe it would be good relationship therapy for those who have to live with those who are chronically depressed. Have them dose up so they can feel it, and understand that depression can be something on beyond what most of us would feel on the worst of days. But it is also scarier than we appreciate. It is heavy, but light at the same time. "Everything is incredibly horrible and insurmountable, but nothing really matters because I'm over hear sideways on another plane," a splitting sensation that explains suicide in a way that may help us learn to prevent it.<br /><br />I went back to the doctors. I asked for something that would make me feel like a serial killer, or maybe a politician. But instead they shot up my shoulder with steroids. Too much typing, they think, that's why my head hurts. I'll go with that 'til my brain returns. Now, where's the dog ...Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6796996470635288269.post-25518390644642977442008-10-22T02:05:00.000-04:002008-11-04T02:26:26.736-05:00Carrie Griffin"You're like Carrie," my daughter Lex would say.<br /><br />"That's nice, honey. Who's Carrie?"<br /><br />Lex will grow up to be a comedy writer. She wants to be a doctor, she says, a plastic surgeon, even, sucking up to me. But I am afraid I can sense that she is born to suffer a different life. When she was five and six, when she was fearless and full of herself, she didn't mesmerize people with her uncanny recall or philosophical ponderings, no. She would say things that would make adults turn and look at her, then start to belly laugh. Ten years later she got hooked on <span style="font-style: italic;">Family Guy</span>. I had never heard of it. I would see the animation and say, "Hey, that little guy is a creep. Why is his head like that. And are people hearing what he is saying or is he using baby speak and it is translated for us for the humor value? This is annoying. That baby is annoying. Why are you watching this?"<br /><br />"Shhhhh," she would respond.<br /><br />Two years later, I get it. I'm in awe. It's sideways thinking and free association comedy, and I don't hate Stewie. As much. So she knows comedy. She has a gift. And when she is done with this teenage stuff, when she can write about me without the fear of instant and proximate reprisal, she will be set for life.<br /><br />None of this was my point.<br /><br />My point was that she watched two series when at 14 years she had to go to a new school and hated everything and mostly me: <span style="font-style: italic;">Family Guy</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Sex and the City</span>. I let her. We have a rule in the house. Sex? Okay. Violence? No. Violent Sex? Really no. Animated crudeness and nudeness? I guess. The only thing she would ask for for a holiday gift would be a season box set of one or the other. No music. No clothes. It was all very sad.<br /><br />But I wasn't following any of these programs, so when she would make remarks like the Carrie one above, it meant nothing to me. Now that I know who Carrie Bradshaw is, I think back and ask, "Why?" No, "How? How can I remind you of Carrie." She has great clothes, a fabulous career, and racehorse pony legs. She'll drop hundreds on a pair of shoes. If I even think of spending more than $79.99 on a new pair, I start to hyperventilate.<br /><br />Maybe she thinks I'm Carrie because I sit in front of the computer too much. Or complain.Or sit in front of the computer too much and complain.<br /><br />But anyway, one cold winter weekend, as Lexi rested completely withdrawn and wrapped to the max in my king size duvet, she said, "Come and watch with me. You'll like it." And because I sensed that finally a bigger thaw was appearing on the horizon, I did - an entire year's worth of episodes in one long overnight. That's how I learned of the series and of the fact that I'm not a Carrie. Two years later when the movie came out, Lex, who had seen the show the night before said, "C'mon mom. We're seeing the movie tonight. "You're gonna love it. <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> cried. Oh, and if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. No bad mouthing. No criticism. You <span style="font-style: italic;">will</span> love it." So we went. I ate popcorn and held my tongue. She, after making sure I got out of the house, sat by my side and texted her friends.<br /><br />She's the Carrie of the family.Catehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05051016027964679556noreply@blogger.com0