Beauty's ass.

This week's Doonesbury story line got me thinking about this roommate my two bf's had years ago. She was a true beauty even without makeup, a younger Michelle Peiffer. Her her looks were a kind of currency for her and she traded in it. I envied her confidence and asked her once what it was like for her to look in the mirror. Did it feel good or did she just see the single eyebrow hair that was out of place? Although she was from Kansas, she had a southern-ish accent, which made her even cuter, and she said something like, "Golly gee, I just see a big ol' ball of flaws. I have some cellulite on my ass." I asked how she could see the back of her legs in the bathroom mirror. She demonstrated for me by jumping up on and toilet, grabbing a hand mirror and bending over. And she looked really good doing this.

Restless.

I'm feeling a desperate need to move. Addicts have to be careful of these feelings and examine whether they are just us trying to fix things by pulling what is called a "geographic," which is an attempt to run away from our problems, i.e. ourselves. Here is my problem:

My living room. I've rearranged it so many times there are no configurations I haven't tried. It's not working for me anymore. I hate it. I avoid it. (At least I think that's why I'm spending most of my time in bed.) Should I paint the walls? Burn it down?
You know those people who have their house decorated and then it stays that way for 20 years? I don't get them.
On a happier note, here's my niece and her new baby. He's a typical boy: rambunctious and noisy, but oh is he cute. She's not bad, either.

34 worthwhile minutes.

Anna at Door Sixteen turned me on to Kanye West's short film, Runaway. Yes! Anybody who puts ballet to modern music has my vote. Watch it here.

This is really nifty. It's just not the same with rain.

BF is a bear.

Big Guns couldn't be any more different than ex on so many levels.

Ex was like living with a mouse. He tread softly on this here earth, calling as little attention to himself as possible. Big Guns is a noisy, grunting bear. There are medical reasons for some of it.

He had a tracheotomy years ago and has scar tissue in his throat so the slightest tickle sets off some choking PTSD and he must, MUST clear his throat. This is no ordinary throat clearing, but a clear-the-room-I may-bring-up-a-lung. He has a big chest, which I believe magnifies the sound like a well-designed concert hall. This chest has the same effect on the numerous grunts, groans, and oy veys he makes when he moves.

And the gas. It's frightening, horrifying, and amazing. The length of each outburst has to be record-setting. (I assume somebody keeps records of these things.) They sound productive and I worry about the bed sheets; so far, so good, thank god.

It all takes some getting used to.

Why shopping malls are full of addicts.

I had one of those moments yesterday. I spent the afternoon at Mario's school's winter celebration and ex, like he does every year, begged off for work reasons. (For the record, he's a mid-level manager at a software company; not, you know, Obama.)
That evening, Mario has ex on speaker phone as ex is supposedly commuting home from work, but I hear his girlfriend in the car. Mario says they commute together. It doesn't matter. My head begins to inflate like a balloon with anger and jealousy, my two go-to emotions.
This morning, these emotions are still with me and as I was "flipping" through Psych Central, my favorite psychology blog, I clicked on this link addressing a man's desire to rid himself of his anger and jealousy toward his estranged wife.
I ended up relating more to this guy's scandalous wife, who deceived and lied to her trusting husband for years. That was me. I was incapable of being honest that things were not OK in paradise; I didn't want to risk dealing with ex's sadness or anger when I told him I wasn't happy and had started thinking about other men. I deceived my trusting husband.
I no longer felt anger and jealousy; now I had a head full of shame and guilt. This did not feel like progress. What does the addict do with all these feelings swirling in her stinking thinking head? This addict notices a photograph of a woman in the newspaper wearing a frilly scarf and thinks to herself: Oooh, I think a new scarf would make me feel right as rain.

Mad for Mad Men.

In the last four days I have showered, eaten, and watched three seasons of Mad Men -- that's something like 30 hours of television. I haven't seen disc 4 of season three yet. I'm saving it. I do this with books, too. (Not Jodi Picoult, but good books.) I'll read 250 pages in a day and a half then take a week to read the final ten pages. I just don't like to see good things come to an end.

Oh, Don Draper. I think I love you. Any guy who's so gentle and kind with his kids and brings a dog home and drinks whiskey for breakfast and is so solidly good looking but still makes heart-breaking idiot mistakes (don't sleep with your daughter's teacher!) that keep him firmly, flawedly (just made up that word) human...well, he has my heart.

My camera broke. This blog will be image free until a new one is acquired. I wanted the Canon Rebel but it's $700! Who knew? Any suggestions?

Multicultural me.

This year's tree. A vast improvement over last year's. $60 from Home Depot! I went to three fine Xmas tree establishments before I found it.

A pan of stringy, potato-y goodness. I had to beat the boys back with a spoon dripping with hot grease to keep them from eating them all before dinner. Repeat performance on Tuesday.

On Sunday I put up the tree, played a few Xmas carols on the piano, and cooked up a big batch of latkes for the Hannukah gig at Big Gun's dad's house, where dinner was catered by Chili's. Except for the Chili's part, this is how we do it in the SF Bay Area.

Xmas spirit.

I'm sitting in bed, mowing through a bag of mini Reese's peanut butter cups (which have a higher chocolate to peanut-butter ratio and are almost a perfect food) and reading Anne Lamott's book of essays, Plan B: Further Thought on Faith. I'm pissy and brooding because all my people are busy doing other things--working out, playing with their cousins, going to San Francisco to "hang out--and nobody is able to accompany me to get the Christmas tree. I've waited a week. I'm ready. The furniture's moved and the stand is sitting there empty, a big gaping, empty maw. Then I read this passage from Anne, who was talking about George W. but could have been talking about my thoughtless family:

But Jesus kept harping on forgiveness and loving one's enemies, so I decided to try. Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess about everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?

It's almost like an intervention from God, no?

Movie review: Black Swan

I took myself to see this and it wasn't easy, not just because of the difficult subject matter but because it's only playing in San Francisco. There was a big lunchtime crowd in the theatre; Mick LaSalle reviewed it in the Chronicle this AM. He gave it a little man sitting up and laughing -- almost his best. He did say that Natalie's performance was Oscar worthy.

My take: It wasn't the movie I expected or wanted but I enjoyed it. No, enjoy isn't the right word. It worked me; my stomach was in knots. I've taken enough ballet to have flashbacks throughout. Ballet is truly a strange and pathetic world that hasn't changed much. Is it because the dancers look like 12-year-old girls--no curves or breasts and big, hollow, hungry eyes like those paintings from the 70s--that they are treated like little girls pitted against each other, lied to, bribed and manipulated? As much as I hated reliving that, I would have liked more of it and less of the gore, some of it is real and some of it is, apparently, in our deranged heroine's head. I felt the entire audience look away in horror when she picks at her hang nail, pukes or has to pull her deformed toes apart. What bothered me is that her psychotic break has nothing to do with ballet. (We're led to believe that her crazy mother--played y Barbara Hershey--and the stress of ballet exacerbates her fragile mental state, along with, I'm imagining, her severe hunger.) She sees things that aren't there and she'd be seeing these same things if she was an iron worker, I think. I believe the movie would have been stronger if there was less crazy and more ballet. The ballet world is crazy enough. Believe me.

The costumes were designed by those famous, once-local designer sisters, the Mulleavy's of Rodarte. (You know them; they did a line for Target--nearly the apex of success.) The sets were fine--loved Natalie/Nina's apartment. I really like the actress who plays Lily, Mila somebody. She was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I also recommend. She's the dancer I wanted to be; she understands and accepts the insanity and doesn't take it all that seriously. She can be happy for the other dancers and seems to be able to revel in the joy of moving. (In all my years of dancing, I NEVER met a dancer like her, BTW.) She is the ideal.

Go see. Take your man. The gore makes it a movie a dude's dude will sit through.

Pas de Duex

I've wrote this story a couple of years ago and have been re-working it and, in light of Natalie Portman's new movie, Black Swan (which I'm dying to see) I feel the need to inundate the world with more ballet misery. How can such an amazingly beautiful art be so painful? Read on. Movie review tomorrow.

PAS DE DEUX

            Bridget was standing in a Marie Callendar’s trying to decide between Coconut Cream and Key Lime. The young man behind the counter was staring at his fingernails; he could care less which pie she ordered, although he might find it gross that her plan was to eat the whole thing right out of the logo-stamped tin while standing at her kitchen counter. Maybe she would set her purse down before picking up a fork but she wouldn’t take her coat off.

            “I think my son would prefer the Coconut.” She looked at the young man’s nametag. “Thank you, Kyle.” She did not have any children.

            Kyle walked over to a large metal box with a pump. He turned her pie with one hand as he squirted whipped-cream rosettes on top of the custard. The contraption looked sturdy and functional; it reminded her of something German. Kyle finished and she smiled at him. She hadn’t lied completely; she did have a family—a cat and a husband until the divorce papers were signed.

            She felt her trench coat flutter from the suction of the front door and turned to see her former ballet teacher entering. She hadn’t seen Madam in over twenty years. She panicked, sucked in her stomach muscles, straightened her spine then looked for a place to hide. She had imagined running into her someday, but expected it would be in I. Magnin’s or at a museum, not Marie Callenders.

            Madam was holding tightly to the forearm of a young man, obviously a dancer by his turned-out feet and thighs, which were straining against his jeans. The dancer made sure Madam was steady before he let go and spun around to pull the door closed.

            When Madam turned to watch him, her whole body moved. She was as stiff and flat as a cardboard doll. Even still, with her purple coat, matching turban and preternaturally long neck, she was the most elegant thing in the room. Granted, the restaurant had been decorated in the early 80s, all oak, earth tones and calico in an attempt to make it feel homey. Madam didn’t do homey. There was nothing soft or approachable about her.

            The dancer turned back and grabbed Madam’s elbow. Madam always had a young male dancer in tow. The boys were rare and Madam fawned over her small cadre, inviting them to dinner and stuffing them with pierogis and lasagna. They were allowed to pad their bones with meat. Contrary to Tchaikovsky’s ballet, the boys were the swans. The girls were storks--skinny, abundant, pink and disposable. They’d even gossip like birds in the dressing room at the ballet school, talking about food the way men talked about women, alternating between lust and hate. One bragged about a recipe she had for soup that had no calories – that in fact burned calories when eaten -- but she wouldn’t share it.

            The dancer was guiding Madam toward the hostess podium. Madam was ethereally thin -- her wrist a tiny stick, her ankle a bird’s bone. Bridget could have picked up her pie in one hand and Madam in the other and carried them both out of the restaurant. Everything about Bridget felt enormous around Madam, even her own name was round and bulbous, filling the mouth when spoken. That alone should have been her first clue she’d never make it. Who ever heard of a ballerina named Bridget? It was the name of a stripper or a waitress at Marie Callendars.

            She remembered being at the barre for ronds de jambe when Madam lifted the needle off the record, strode over to her and grabbled her buttocks with a claw-like hand.

            “What is this?” she’d asked in her deep, patrician voice. None of them could place her accent, which sounded foreign although there were rumors she was from Brooklyn. “Are you saving for winter?”

            Bridget knew the only thing to do was nod in agreement and so she did.

            By seventh grade, she had stopped eating and dreamt about food, nothing decadent, just buttered toast and soft-boiled eggs.

            Once she was accepted into the corps de ballet, Madam said she’d need to lose ten more pounds. Bridget had curtsied and thanked her.

            Her mother asked her if she might be anorexic. She’d read about it in Time magazine. Actually, what she’d said was, “You’re not one of those anorexic girls, are you?”

            ”I wish,” Bridget whispered.

            “What?”

            “No,” Bridget had yelled. Her mother didn’t understand. She’d been a swimmer and was now a tennis player with the thick legs and massive forearms to prove it. She told Bridget how she used to eat a grilled cheese sandwich and a milk shake after school and still have room for dinner, as if gluttony were something to brag about.

            Another dancer -- not the soup-recipe girl but the one who went on to dance with Joffrey ballet and died of heart failure in her twenties -- shared her secret for weight loss when they were waiting for their turn to do grand jetes. Soon Bridget, too, had peeling, chapped lips and red knuckles from disposing of unwanted calories. She ate and puked until her teeth started rotting and her dentist eyed her suspiciously, but she couldn’t keep those ten pounds off. 

            That was more than fifty pounds ago. Bridget realized that Madam probably wouldn’t recognize her and so she gave up the idea of escape and watched Madam and the boy shuffle along the burnt-orange tiles. Their walk was a macabre pas de deux.

            When Bridget’s purging and dieting program worked, Madam would put her in the front row during the adagio. The rows were supposed to be arranged by height--shortest in front, tallest in the back--but they all knew Madam would place the boys and her favored girls, no matter height, in the front row.

            “You,” she’d say, “here,” and she’d point to a spot on the floor, sealing Bridget’s fate.

            The last year or so of dancing, Bridget was banished to the back row where she watched the buns on the other dancers’ heads bouncing along in their tightly wrapped hairnets. She thought were an awful lot like the dancers themselves--delicate, strong and nearly invisible.

            While she continued to receive minor corrections from Madam, an adjustment to her port de bra or something, the front row eluded her, and she longed to be insulted and humiliated by Madam again. If it was a contest about who hated her more–and she believed it was–then she won. This was the dance.

            Madam and the boy reached the counter at the same time that Kyle set her boxed pie on the counter. Madam had shrunk but her features were still defined.

            Bridget was 22 and had been dancing for 14 years when she quit. One morning while driving to rehearsal she passed the off-ramp that took her to studio. She continued driving until she reached the city where she found a park and sat on a bench. She never called. She just stopped showing up. It wasn’t a choice. Something had just died. She entered a period of mourning during which she ate loaves of buttered toast and dozens of eggs. She cut off her hair and grew a colony of pimples around her mouth. She got rid of her bathroom scale. She stopped listening to classical music and still couldn’t see a ballet.

            She kept her head down as she searched through her purse for her credit card.

            “I’ll be right with you,” Kyle said to Madam as he took Bridget’s card. She could smell Madam’s perfume, L’Air du Temps. Bridget bought a bottle for herself years ago but only to smell, not wear. The bottle had two crystal birds on the lid. They were either kissing or fighting.

            Madam turned her body to say something to the boy and saw Bridget. Her eyes were large and grey, but shrouded in a cloudy film. Bridget wondered if she could even see clearly but Madam smiled, “I know you; you were one of my dancers.”

            “Yes,” Bridget said, “Bridget.” She began to curtsy but Madam stumbled toward her, pushing the boy aside, then put her arms around her in a sort of hug. She was tiny as a child but bonier.

            Madam pulled back and looked at her. “How are you, dear?”

            “I’m fine, thank you,” she lied.

             “You’re married?”

            “Yes.”

            “Children?”

            She looked over to see if Kyle was listening but he was staring at the credit card machine. “No.”

            They stood for a minute looking at each other. Madam smiled dumbly. Bridget thought she might be going senile. She signed her receipt and picked up her pie.

            “It was nice to run into you,” she said to Madam. “Nice?” she thought. She felt her belly jiggle. She prepared herself, that fleeting moment before a difficult lift or jump when the dancer drops her character and you see her fear and determination.

“Actually,” she said to Madam, “I’m not fine.” She was holding her pie in front of her like a shield; it felt huge. She shifted it to a hip, wondering if she could count how many pies she’d eaten since she’d last seen Madam. How many diets she had failed.

            Madam raised one eyebrow. “You look fine to me.”

            “I’m ruined inside. My therapist thinks you gave me PTSD. I’m bulimic. Divorcing for the second time.” There was the humiliation, as comforting as the scent of Madam’s perfume. But Bridget was tired of the familiar. “Why did you hate me?”

            “I didn’t hate you,” Madam said. There was a hint of frustration in her voice.

            “You never invited me to dinner.”

The young dancer moved closer, as if to protect Madam but she held up her hand to hold him off. Her fingers were spread like a dancer’s, her pointer finger straighter than the others, her arm automatically assumed first position. The body never forgets.

            She stared at Madam’s knobby knuckles and yellow nails. “Didn’t I have talent?”

            “Talent is overrated. Hard work is what matters.”

            “It’s all I wanted.”

            “We don’t get something because we want it.” Madam waved her hand toward the glass case of refrigerated desserts. “It’s not like choosing a pie.”            But it was like choosing a pie, Bridget thought. After a certain point, everything was subjective: pumpkin over berry. Rosine over Bridget.

             “It didn’t have to be that way,” Bridget said and she meant it. She realized she probably never would have been a professional ballerina, but she could have enjoyed her small slice.

            Madam lifted her chin slightly. She hadn’t changed. Bridget didn’t know what else to do.

            “Goodbye, sweet pie,” she thought and opened her fingers, releasing her grip on the box. She watched the happy logo as it fell toward the orange tiles. It hit with a splat. The corners Kyle came loose and whipped cream exploded onto Madam’s pumps and her own red loafers.

            “Oh!” Madam said, looking genuinely surprised.

            Bridget stood there trying to figure out if this was progress.

            The young dancer leaped to the counter and grabbed a handful of napkins, then bent over to wipe Madam’s shoes. Watching him, Bridget heard Madam’s commands in her head: “Bend from the hips, imagine there is a metal rod inserted in your spine.”

            Bridget picked up her destroyed pie and set it on the counter.

            Madam looked at her. “I’m only sixty-on but I can’t bend over. This is what the ballet did for me.”

            “Goodbye, Madam,” she said and lifted one arm above her head and executed a beautiful, graceful curtsy, bowing so low that her nose touched her knee.

_________

            Madam was frustrated. Just getting out of the car and walking into the restaurant had been difficult, then a former student at the front counter had dropped the pie she was carrying and now she had to stand her waiting for Luke to finish wiping whipped cream off her shoes.

            “Your booth is ready,” the hostess said.

            “No booth. A table.” She needed a straight-backed chair, not a bench that had been kneaded into mush by a succession of large bottoms. The hostess led her and Luke to a table and set menus on the table.            

            “Enjoy your meal.”

            Luke began to sit down before noticing that Madam was standing by her chair and jumped back up to and help her into her seat. They ordered the grilled chicken. She would take half of hers home for dinner tomorrow but Luke would finish his. She like watching her boys eat. They shoveled food in with gusto, guiltless and childlike. Her girls ate like little birds, picking at their food, chewing every bite, adding up calories as they swallowed. She knew the routine. It bored her.

            That was one of the reasons she never invited the girls to dinner, but there was more to it. All her girls came from money. They lived in large houses with vast lawns and swimming pools that never got used in hamlets called Hillsborough and Atherton. The small house where she and had Lenny lived for the last thirty years would not fit their little girl dreams.

            “What was up with that student?”

            “Bridget.”

            “She seemed upset.”

            “She’s a girl.” She set her napkin in her lap. “They’re always upset.”

            She tried to remember if Lenny ever forgot to pull out her chair. She’d met him when they were both in the corps de ballet with American Ballet Theatre. They traveled with the company and saw the world together, throwing sweats over their leotards and running out between rehearsals to sightsee. They stayed in shabby hotels with communal bathrooms, but they performed in grand theaters in front of invisible audiences whose mélange of expensive perfumes wafted up to the stage.

            They married, then retired and started their own company. In the early days, they lived in the studio’s office with a toaster oven and a sofa that became a bed. She would open all the windows in the morning to air the place out before the dancers started arriving. After they had a full class schedule and staged their first ballet, they had enough money to buy a double-wide trailer which she decorated using her nimble fingers, sewing machine, braided cord and chintz. Nobody had to know that the floors underneath her carpets were scarred linoleum.

            The waitress brought her tea and Luke’s milkshake.

            “I probably shouldn’t have ordered this,” he said as her unwrapped his straw.

            “You worked hard today.”

            “I think I’ve finally nailed the entrechat six.”

            “You are close.” The boy’s accent was atrocious and made her smile. The waitress set their meals in front of them.

            “Close?” Luke spit out his straw. “You hit six or not.”

            “You could jump higher. Eat your chicken.” Nobody would ever mistake her for maternal but she played that role with her boys. He would eat his dinner and work on his jump. He would not go home and cry because she suggested he could improve.

            She and Lenny had talked about having children but it never happened. There were months when she didn’t have her cycle at all. It was hard to plan for a pregnancy when she wasn’t ovulating. Her doctor had asked her if she was eating enough. What did he know of a dancer’s life?

            “When did that woman, Bridget, dance with you?” Luke asked between mouthfuls.

            “Years ago.” She tried to do the math and snorted. “Probably before you were born.”

            “You’d think she would have got over it by now.”

            “Over what?” She stopped separating her meal into two piles.

            “Over you.” Luke blushed then grabbed the passing waitress and asked for a glass of water.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Your high standards. Some people have a hard time with them.”

            “Then they aren’t cut out for this life.” Dancers, even former dancers, could be so dramatic. Bridget was definitely wrong about one thing. She didn’t hate her girls. If anything, she loved them too much. She was trying to protect them. They didn’t understand how difficult it was going to be for them. Girls were a dime a dozen. It took more than talent to stand out in this world. She worked harder than all of them.

            “Aren’t you going to eat?” Luke asked her.

            She looked at her plate. He had finished half his meal and she hadn’t taken a bite. All these years of training had paid off. She had forgotten to eat. She lifted her fork to her mouth. Not all her girls were like Bridget. Certainly there were others who were fine and successful -- the one who danced with the Stuttgart ballet and that other one who was with Joffrey ballet.

            “What was the name of the girl who went to Joffrey?” she asked.

            “The one who died?” Luke asked.

            “Oh.” She’d forgotten that part. It was in all the newspaper, including the name of Madam’s ballet school.

            She shifted in her chair. Her hips ached, but pain wasn’t the problem. She could ignore pain and hunger and had been all her life. Her problem was the lack of flexibility. That felt like a betrayal. She’d had always had supreme control over her body, manipulating her limbs into positions that seemed impossible. Now she couldn’t bend over to cut her own toenails. She was hardening up like a piece of clay left in the sun.

            She swallowed a lump of chicken. “What’s is it like for you?”

            “What’s what like?”

            “Dancing. The ballet. What’s it like for a man?”

            “I don’t know, like flying.”

            “Sometimes I wished I’d been a man.”

            “Why? Except for Baryshnikov, women are the stars.”

            “Men don’t lose their toenails.” Before she met Lenny, a non-dancer had asked her to the beach. She was embarrassed about her feet, especially the fact that she’d lost both her big toe nails from dancing en pointe. The night before, she’d painted the skin where her nails used to be with red polish.

            “True, but there are fewer roles for us; it’s not like the corps is full of men.”

            After they opened the studio, Lenny had quit dancing. He decided to run the business end of the studio and that’s what he did. He just hung up his shoes and never looked back. She couldn’t have done that. Dancing was her life. And yet, dancing was slowly taking her life. She was riddled with osteoporosis and arthritis, bones like balsa wood and joints like rusted steel.

            When Lenny died six years ago his body still looked hale and healthy. He’d taken the garbage out for her an hour before his heart attack. He never even looked sick.

            Luke was staring at her.

            “What?” she asked, annoyed.

             “Are you going to have pie?”

            “No. Go ahead.”

            “What do the girls say about me, Luke?” The boy looked up from his pie. He had whipped cream on his lip.

            “Nothing.”

            “I know they talk. Tell me.”

            He swallowed. “I’m serious; they're too afraid to say anything about you.”

            Lenny was the kind one. She saw him chatting with the girls at the front desk. They brought him cookies. He tap danced for them and made them laugh. She had grown to resent him -- the one true and good thing in her life. That last morning, she had admonished him for not tying the top of the garbage bag properly. She’d seen the bag by the front door; he left it there and went to get his shoes.

            “Lenny!” she’d screamed down the hallway even though the house was small.

            He’d popped his head out of their bedroom door.

            “It looks like a monkey tied this bag. The trash is going to spill into the can and attract flies.”

            He’d just stood there. When she was done, he’d bowed, smiled, said, “Whatever you say, Madam.” It’s like what Bridget had told her, it didn’t have to be that way.

            “Are you all right, Madam?” Luke asked her nervously.

            She looked up and was realized she was crying. She never cried, not even at the funeral; she’d been composed and dignified, Odette in Swan Lake. She greeted people, thanked them for coming, then went home and drank a bottle of scotch.

            “Was it that woman?” Luke looked around for somebody to help him.

            She shifted in her chair--her hips—she should be lying down. “Maybe it’s all this calico.” She smiled at her joke. If it weren’t for these hips, she could float away up into the brass light fixtures and disappear.

            Luke stood. “I’ll take you home.” He came around to her chair and helped her up. She linked her bony arm through his and collapsed into him.

            “Lift me.”

            He cradled her legs with his other arm.

            “Oh Luke,” she said, blowing a wisp of cottony breath toward his cheek, “It is like flying, isn’t it?”

THE END

Odds and ends. Mostly odds.

Have you seen that movie, How to Get a Head in Advertising? Left unchecked, my anger is like a tumor that grows off me and takes on a life of its own. I stop having a say in any matters. It speaks first and loudly. Eventually, it's all people see.

That's where I was on Monday. Then I went to a meeting and the topic was coping with anger. Sometimes you  have to be in a room full of women and hear their same struggles to have the wherewithal to grab hold of your own head and pull it out of your ass.

Just read an essay of Anne Lamott's about her dog dying and cried like a baby. I will never get over the death of my beloved cat, Julian, the great orange lion.

It's my friend D's 70th birthday--Happy Birthday D!--and I feel like a shitty friend having sent no card and not been present in the last three months. (Work is so great for me, like a drug, really. The weeks fly by, nobody asks how I'm feeling, it's an enormous repository for me to place my blame--everything is his/her/the building's fault--then I get a paycheck. Like any drug, it ends and guess what? My life didn't transform into a princess fantasy while I was working. I didn't wake up Monday morning to handmaids and foot soldiers. The same old--dirty guinea pig cages, bills, clogged gutters--was here the whole time waiting for my return.)

I chatted with ex's gf on Thanksgiving. (I stopped by after dinner to say hello to my boys.) In my head, I'd written her to be some combination of Mother Theresa, Tina Fey, and Grace Kelly. In reality, she's just a person. Slightly boring, not very funny, a bit intense--perfect for ex.

Speaking of boring and not very funny, I've been working on my novel. I'm not sure how much more I can look at it. I'm thinking it's time to face the abject terror of the blank page and start something new. Onward.

The grass is always greener in my ex's yard.

I spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. On top of that I have an active imagination and I'm an excellent story teller. For instance, I tell myself this story about how ex and the new gf go out for fancy dinners every night at beautifully decorated restaurants and drink exquisite cocktails out of sparkly glasses and throw back their heads and laugh, laugh, laugh at their luck that when they dumped their alcoholic spouses they found each other. (Ex even has a full head of hair in this story.)

My story makes me feel jealous. Apparently, I like feeling jealous because when I try and rewrite this one they just end up drinking cocktails at the beach, or in Italy, or in a sewer. Sure I hate them but I hate them more that they are normies. (That's what we AAers call people who can have one or two and stop.)  She's me before. A better, normal me. Honestly, when I see them together the first thing that crosses my mind is "Get your hands off my husband."

My contracting gig ends tomorrow and clearly I need to hit up a few meetings. As Zig Zigler (A long time ago I was engaged to a guy who made me read his book, How to win Friends and Influence People) says, "I need a check up from the neck up. I'm suffering from a hardening of the attitudes." Because another story I'm starting to tell myself sometimes is that maybe I misdiagnosed that little drinking problem of mine and that maybe I can have a martini now and then. Maybe I drank too much because I was unhappy and now that I'm so grounded and at peace...I know, even the logic doesn't work. It's all story.

Happy Thanksgiving.

She's prettier, she's a better writer, she's published two

I wrote about Suzanne Finnamore once before. She's prettier. She's a better writer. She's published three books. And now she has succinctly summed up how shitty divorce really is. I could only hate her more if she was marrying my ex. (Yes. She found true love for the second time.)

I save old purse calendars.

This is why I don't have a smart phone. I keep my old pocket calendars to look back on. This day one year ago I had an appointment with ex at the marriage therapist and then hosted the tea for my son's school's book fair. It seemed so unemotional. Where were my messy interiors? I flipped back two months to the time he moved out. That month I had noted his mother's arrival and departure flight times (Yes! The month he decides to leave his marriage of 17 years is also the month he invites his mother to come stay for two weeks!), more therapist appointments, the first day of school, and then, the most telling detail, this is the month I started marking the weekends "NK" for no kids and "K" for kids. In my calendar I appear to move through the grief process and life changes like a German--efficiently and tidily. If only.

Engagement fever!

It's scary what jealousy does for divorced folks. It appears that Jessica Simpson got engaged to her boyfriend just a week after her ex announced his engagement.  Coincidence? This pre-loved woman thinks not.

I know I've said that divorce is about money but it's also about reaching relationship nirvana before that bastard/bitch who left you. I'm told it's normal. A friend who's been divorced for something like 12 years told me she still wants her ex to burn in hell. I wouldn't go that far, but it slays me when ex appears happy with his new girlfriend. Even though I don't want him back, I don't want him to be happy. Ever. And if I happened to be enjoying a Costco-sized bag of Fritos and Diet Coke* and read in US Weekly that ex was getting married I just might go out and drop 100K on an engagement ring, too.

However, I don't think Prince William's engagement has anything to do with Jessica or Nick. I think he's just in love.

*not the actual food Jessica was eating.

Oh Nora, this is just what I need to read today.

You can read the whole thing here if you want (and maybe you should if you're thinking about divorce or thinking about talking to someone who's divorced or thinking about getting married) but this is what sang to me:

But I can't think of anything good about divorce as far as the children are concerned. You can't kid yourself about that, although many people do. They say things like, "It's better for children not to grow up with their parents in an unhappy marriage." But unless the par ents are beating each other up, or abusing the children, kids are better off if their parents are together. Chil dren are much too young to shuttle between houses. They're too young to handle the idea that the two peo ple they love most in the world don't love each other anymore, if they ever did. They're too young to under stand that all the wishful thinking in the world won't bring their parents back together. And the newfangled rigmarole of joint custody doesn't do anything to ease the cold reality: in order to see one parent, the divorced child must walk out on the other.


I can't tell you how many people told me it's better for my children to be with parents who are divorced but happy. Really? This I know: my kids don't give a shit if I'm miserable, suicidal, and their dad dislikes me so much he can't even stand to share a bed with me and sleeps on the couch. No, all they care about is that we all live under the same roof. An intact family. Period. People don't seem to believe me when I say I would have stayed in a much, much worse marriage not to have to split my family apart but it's true. I'm not a martyr --(OK, I am but not in this case)--I just value my children's happiness more than my own marital bliss which, even if I was married to Matt Damon I know would be tested regularly. Matt's got moods and probably misses the toilet bowl occasionally like every other man I've ever lived with.

This would be a fine place to end and I should but I'm feeling pissy this week. Every day at lunch I head off walking toward the bridge thinking it would be a fine day to jump but turn around before I'm halfway there because apparently all I needed was fresh air. Anyway, my mistake was marrying a guy who didn't share this value. Although he told me that Hollywood love was just that--make believe--I think he was projecting, trying to convince himself of this. And you know, I have realized that the other major character flaw he accused me of throughout our marriage--extreme judgment  --was also a projection. I have proof. I went to a therapist and a psychic to work on my judgment issues and they both said I didn't seem to have any. (Of course, there were plenty, back up a dump truck, of other issues to work on but judgment wasn't one of them.) Take that, ex! For twenty years he hid behind this mild, academic demeanor but underneath was judgment dude. Mr. Judgment. His dismissive comments about my choice of television programs, certain family members, even the kind of cheese I bought should have tipped me off but that's the beauty of projection. You keep the people around you off balance, accusing them of things you don't want them to notice about you. Politicians do it all the time. It probably doesn't work on people with strong centers who know who they are. That's not me. Yet. Ex is 50 today. We all get our comeuppances. 

4 PM on November 2...

20 years ago, I was about to get married. At least I think I was; I can't remember what time the actual ceremony took place. Isn't that weird? I could tell you what we served (game hens with dried apricot stuffing), what I wore (Scaasi satin), and probably the names of all the people who attended. There was a lovely band with a red-headed singer who told me I had the most beautiful wedding dress she'd ever seen and she'd seen a lot of them. The caterer sent us back to our hotel with two extra dinners in a basket. I wanted to go down to the bar and continue partying with my friends. Two years ago in therapy Alan admitted that he had grave reservations about the marriage because of my desire to be with my friends and not with him: that for him, that was the sign that he'd made THE MISTAKE. I didn't go downstairs; we stayed in our suite and I accidentally locked the door that connected our two rooms -- me on one side, him on the other -- and had to call housekeeping to help us. Maybe that was the sign I'd made THE MISTAKE? Over the next 18 years, the signs got bigger -- Getting polluted at ex's Xmas party and flirting shamelessly with his boss makes spending part of my wedding night in a bar with my friends seem downright cute -- but we got just better at ignoring them. And that, people, is the true mistake.

Hell is an open pit of sensitive, hormonal women.

Dear Universe,

Thank you for the job. It's been just great, really, and I've learned so much, including the fact that, although being poor and unemployed has its drawbacks, it's not that bad being the only irritable, annoying person in the room. At least as my own co-worker I have enough compassion to suggest a baby Snicker's bar or a nap would be more helpful than telling me to stop fucking touching the things on my desk.

Mostly what I've learned, Universe, is that this job doesn't quite fit me. I'm afraid my life's purpose is not proofing 9 pt. legal lines in Intel's retail advertising. I'm sorry. I hope I don't sound ungrateful. I'm still a big, big fan but maybe you could send me something a touch more meaningful (legal lines for an organic milk producer?) Or possibly a well-placed lightning bolt -- I'll be walking down Market Street around 5:45 tonight. (But you already knew that.)

Smooches,
eileen

There's no vanity in Halloween

The people at my open pit hell had a Halloween party today complete with a costume contest. Halloween is a trigger for me. When I was a vulnerable, tender 23, I got invited to a costume party hosted by some frat pigs I'd gone to college with. I dressed as a hobo, which is what we used to call homeless people. I messed up my hair, rubbed dirt on my face, put on a baggy, old coat of my dad's, and carried a big bag of empty beer cans. (I know it doesn't seem very politically correct -- I was young and it was a LONG time ago, back when being a hobo and riding the rails was kind of romantic.) There were a lot of other girls at the party and not one of them thought to come as a hobo. Whatever they did come dressed as, "sexy" was in front of the title: sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy vampire. I never felt so ugly in my life and, although it took me a while to figure out, I smelled bad, too. Apparently, my dad's old coat hadn't been laundered since he shoveled truckloads of horse manure in it and my cans still had beer in them which hadn't finished fermenting. Ever since then, I've never wanted to be the ugliest, smelliest girl at the party and must dress as something sexy, or at least pretty, for Halloween. And yet, I hate girls like me. (The ones who put on ears and tape a tail to their black bikinis and go as cats. Cats don't wear bikinis.) There's nothing amusing or charming about sexy Halloween costumes. It's just vanity.

Also, I think that the way people dress for Halloween is an expression of their true, inner self. Do I want people to think my real self desires to be a sexy cheerleader/geisha/go go dancer? I don't think so. And yet I absolutely couldn't bring myself, no matter how fabulous the results, to glue on a beard and chest hair and go as a hairy lady which a friend of mine did last  year. Come to think of it, I don't want people to think I even think about any of this. Here's what I'm considering for this year's costume:

sexy sixties Mad Men character
sexy hobo (brown bikini, dirt on body, bag of washed-out empty diet coke cans)
sexy dead poet Sylvia Plath (just have to chip a tooth)

This book review gets personal.

I just finished Franzen's Freedom. It deserves the hype. He has this way of writing about the background hum that drives us humans. His books aren't about actions or fables (and therefore won't translate to the big screen) but about themes (in this case: "freedom") and that is a hard thing to pull off. I'm impressed. (Then again, I'm fascinated by the way people interact and how they can hurt each other.)

I devoured the first 7/8 ths of the book in ten days and dragged the last 30 pages out over a week because I didn't want it to end. I finished the last page at my desk in my big, open-pit of cubes and hid my tears behind my reading glasses.

The story: it's about a family and it's about a marriage that falls apart and so it was poignant to 50% of the rest of the U.S. but especially to me.

SPOILER ALERT:
The characters: The withdrawn, but adoring husband who is overly dedicated to his career and acquiescent to his wife. The morally-wavering wife who never gives her career a chance and stays home to raise her children only to discover a deepening boredom and depression which manifests itself in alcoholism and an affair.  (Um, sound familiar?) It's like watching a train headed for a wreck for twenty five years. But here's the thing. After the inevitable separation which lasts for six silent years, the couple gets back together. That's when I cried. The Berglunds get to spend their retirement years hiking and communally witnessing the continued growth and successes of their adult children. That's what brought the tears.

A part of me still believes/hopes/wants to get back together with ex just for continuity and because we both love our boys equally fiercely. Shamefully, a small part of me hopes for a reunion so I won't have to imagine that -- like when my mother used to warn me that if I crossed my eyes they might get stuck that way -- sitting in this ubiquitous advertising-agency Aeron chair and proofing copyright lines in monitor toppers for Intel might become permanent. And there is also a part of me that will always love ex. He was a good guy and helped make two good kids.

Danger signs your relationship is a risk of affairs. (Or just don't marry a guy who works in Silicon Valley.)

This is from Mira Kirshenbaum, a relationship expert and author of Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay and Women and Love. I'm reposting an excerpt from her blog. She is being interviewed about how to tell if your partner is cheating.

Mira: Here are the three big, real danger signs that your relationship is at risk of one of you having an affair.

1) Things aren’t good between you. The two of you are distant, disconnected, fighting, not making love as often as you used to, and not having fun when you are together.

2) You’re leading very separate lives. You’re not spending much of your free time together.

3) Even if you’re not fighting and even if you are spending time together, if you start having the feeling that your guy just doesn’t care about you that much any more, that there’s a ‘whatever’ quality to how he treats you, then there’s a real risk that he is having an affair. (Note here she uses the masculine assuming the man will be the one out trying new ice cream flavors while the long-suffering woman sits home wondering what's wrong with her. Mira's a bit sexist, no?)

Why was I reading this? Slow morning at work. Ex did not cheat on me with another woman. He's not wired that way. He's too noble, has too much integrity and he's way too shy. However, #3 still rang true for me. Ex cheated on me with his job. (And this socially sanctioned; when I mentioned how much he worked, our marriage therapist said "that's how you get all that nice shit you have" -- or something like that.) He was mute and distracted and up all night in the other room typing away on his hot, little laptop. He claims to have hated it. He hated it so much he couldn't talk about it. I still don't really know what he does. More on this topic tomorrow after my computer gets fixed. Typing without a functioning track pad is painful. It turns out I'm the one without any integrity.

I need a wife.

Somebody to buy cat food and make dinner and put out my recycling. And massage my son's head which I've just had a request for.

Apparently I'm one of those types who needs a lot of down time to stare at things. And putter. I like to putter. Without my putter time, I get pull-out-my-hair irritable and little things --  like the fact my semi-new laptop's trackpad is on the fritz -- make me want to pull out my eyebrows.

DVD review: The Killers

First of all, I do not like Katherine Heigl as an actress. (I don't know her personally but I do think that, given the roles she chooses to play I probably wouldn't like her as a person either.) I saw this movie to keep peace between me, Mario, and Big Guns -- it was the only thing we could agree on. Like most politics, it was a least common denominator choice.
Ashton Kutcher plays a hit man who keeps his career a secret from Katherine, his cautious, conservative love interest. It's the old opposites attract/sparks fly plot. So what happens is she finds out about his line of work and sparks fly. There's a little plot twist that I won't spoil for you in case you need to see it. A still-fine Tom Selleck plays Katherine's dad and, here's why I'm even writing this review, Catherine O'Hara plays her mother, who is obviously an alcoholic and plays it for laughs, dumping half a quart of vodka into a pitcher of tomato juice while breakfasting with Tom and chatting with her daughter on the phone then picking up the pitcher and drinking it. Ha ha. It's a dysfunctional family in extreme; no one seems to even notice her problem or even asks her to leave them some Vodka. It's hard to imagine this happening if she'd been walking around covered in open sores or riddled with cancer. I'm ashamed to admit that I laughed at her a few times but it was really off putting and strange.
There was The Ugly Truth, now this. That's two strikes against you, Katherine.

Marriage is like a tangled ball of thread

My ties to ex are slowly breaking. I see, or feel it, now. Our relationship was like a huge, hopeless ball of tangled thread, the kind you leave in the bottom of the sewing basket thinking that someday you'll tackle it when you have the patience and time and a good magnifying glass so you leave it there where, miraculously unassisted, it continues to grow and gather lint fluff and stray buttons and pins.

I am slowly pulling our tangled nightmare apart. The difficult thing is that I have to examine every knot before I can untangle them: that was my part, that was his part, that was my part, ok, done. Of course, the threads are never the same; they're all wrinkly and twisted and will never wind up smoothly.

After more than a year, I am starting to see us as two separate, messy piles and not one big one. Yes I can imagine living without him for the rest of my life. (Not that it isn't still weird.) But everything I do -- go to reading, visit a museum, buy a pair of shoes -- isn't accompanied with a jealous take that! you bastard. Sometimes I do things and don't even think of him at all. Progress, not perfection.

Odds and ends.

Does anybody else hate the overly sensitive tracking pad on their MacBook so that when you inadvertently brush your hand across it the windows on the screen go large or small and you think that there's something wrong with your eyes? No?

I got my first paycheck from the second agency. They use a service, a sort of temp agency, since they hire so many freelancers and the temp agency takes out all the taxes and what not and over half of my check went to the government. Ex never complained about taxes -- he lived on grants and government loans and assistance for so long -- seriously, he didn't have a real, full-time job until he was in his 30s! -- that he was happy to give back and give more. He was grateful for good roads and stuff like that. I'm trying to channel some of him right now.

One week down.

Seven to go. Everybody in this agency, save for five or so big shots, works in a big, open pen outfitted with long tables, which are like desks for three. There aren't even cubicles. It makes it very difficult to play my Scrabble turn without the whole office seeing they're paying me to beat my friend B with another "QAT" on a triple word score. So. The work. It's just not that interesting -- Sisyphean in fact. I'd open a vein if I thought this is what I'd have to do for the rest of my life but I'm sure all will be forgotten as soon as I get my first paycheck. It'll certainly help pay for the $5 grande latte I have to suck down at 3 every day to make it till quitting time. I try a different flavor everyday! Pumpkin spice lattes are back! It must be fall.

I'd like this to end now.

Maybe an exectomy would help. I did purge my house of all photos of him, us and his family. I put them in a bag for him to deal with or throw away. I don't think I should have to deal with the all the detritus of our past. What to do with this porcelain statue of a wedding couple (a wedding gift from friends of my parents)? What to do with that old wedding dress of mine -- 25 lbs. of Scaasi designed beauty? I'm thinking Ebay.
Things are slightly better now that he's back in the country and I'm not imagining him, or rather his girlfriend, buying Hermes scarves and Prada purses at Italian prices which is just crazy since she doesn't seem the type. And is that truly, shallowly what I had my panties in a wad about? I didn't get to shop in Italy because my husband and I got divorced? I think so. Mario was excited to see ex after two weeks and excited to see what ex brought him. (Apple doesn't fall far from tree, I'm afraid.) Saturday he swung by to pick up a video game and I asked him what his dad got him. "A shirt like this," he points to the shirt on his back that ex brought back for him from ex's "you went to rehab so I get to go to Italy" trip last year, "and a bracelet." "I'm sorry," I said. But inside I was doing a jig because ex screwed up, that he forgot what he bought Mario last year and, apparently, forgot that he's a boy, at least a boy who doesn't have proclivities for jewelry. That's what I'd like to be done with. Taking joy in somebody's failures, at least somebody who hasn't been elected.

Mad men on Sansome Street

I worked three days at an agency in SF this week.

Not much has changed in the advertising world in the last ten years.

The duct work is still exposed:

Caffeine still rules. (Sorry my photo of the pile of twelve packs of soda and cupboard of coffee --Peets, yay! -- in the kitchen didn't turn out.)


Half the employees are still hungover and reliving the experience with the other half. People start drinking at 3 on Friday. That's why I loved this business! Oh, and I sat by the water cooler and was amazed at the effort all the employees made to keep well hydrated until one told me it was because they were all hungover. Good times.

Bad times. There is still this lull in creating and producing. An agency sometimes feels like an office full of people justifying their existence and living in denial. It's too embarrassing to admit that we have spent days -- days!-- finding the right sentence or color to describe a restaurant. There's this joke in advertising -- "Relax, it's not brain surgery" -- and we repeat it but nobody really means it. We care and it's shameful, shameful that we're not in Afghanistan reconstructing bodies blown apart by suicide bombers or feeding the homeless.

I was writing copy to sell newly built Residences -- calling them condos is beneath them -- in L.A. My Creative Director had a really hard time approving copy and I couldn't decide if it was because that meant we'd have to commit to something and that our job would be done and we'd finally realize that we'd become dispensable or if my copy just sucked? So I wrote numerous versions to justify my existence.

It's a beautiful, weird business full of beautiful, weird geeks.

Today's mood: Dark and cloudy. (Again.)

Lately I've been foul quite regularly. Can't blame it on hormones. What gives? I think -- and I'm just guessing -- that it may have something to do with the fact ex is in Italy with gf for two weeks and I have been with our lovely boys full time. Like most kids, they are kind, considerate and selfless, picking up after themselves, offering to make dinner, taking out the recycling without being asked numerous times. Ha ha ha ha ha. I'm laughing so hard I might need a Poise pad.

Here's how it's really going: the other morning I began waking the big one up at 7. When he finally rolled out of bed at 7:10, he yelled at me for not getting him up on time. That same morning, while he was getting his bike out of the garage, I asked for the tenth time if he'd remembered the cookies I baked for him to take to school (I sound like a saint, no?) Him: No. Can you get them for me? Me: I can't believe you... Him: Don't argue with me; just get them. Who is raising this ingrate?

I am planning my own two-week vacation to Bora Bora or New Zealand. Ex can have the boys full time for the first time in year and see how he likes it. I am also working on a bonfire-sized resentment.

Have a full-day freelance gig tomorrow. Get to act like a grown up and stuff. Woo hoo.

Another interview.

I think I want this job, even though it's on Market Street in SF. So inconvenient. Parking nearby would be $450/month. It's been so long since I've driven in -- and not through -- the city I freaked out and made a few faux pas such as hesitating during a lane change, waiting for pedestrians, and using my blinker. It's  showing weakness. Seasoned city drivers hate weakness. I got a lot of looks and head shakes and one honk.

The job? Writing for Poise or Depends, two accounts where my advanced age and female gender are advantages. I imagine it's difficult to find a hip 20-something male creative who'd jump at the chance to write about LBL (that's light bladder leakage in case you're not female). 1 in 3 women have it. I'm not one of them (yet) but the creative director -- a hip 30-something dude with quirky shoes and nonchalant hair -- said that I probably won't get it since I've already had kids. It was a strange interview but things loosen up quickly when you're discussing pee and poo. On a side note, this agency got these accounts because they did such a bang-up job on Kotex. If it comes out of a human, they handle it. They're the effluvia agency. (Not really; they do have other accounts and everybody was really nice, not like city drivers.)

Divorce relapse

I've been weepy and agitated and then I remembered that it's the anniversary of ex leaving. The mind forgets but the body doesn't. It doesn't help that ex is in Italy with his girlfriend for two weeks. All of that is bad enough but then I was looking for my birth photos (don't ask) in an enormous basket of unorganized photos of my entire life with ex and that was like walking through a minefield. Kablooey! Our honeymoon. Bam! Trip to Vegas. Boom! Quinton's fifth birthday party. I spent the rest of the day limbless and shell shocked and fell into what Big Guns and D call my teenage girl role. This is where I'm pissed and whiny that things aren't going my way and on my time. So, in an attempt to put the past behind me and move on I am posting the latest pictures of my almost grown children. Here's the oldest, who looks so much like ex:

Thank goodness I have Mario who looks like my side of the family. He's all wet from a water balloon fight at his cousin's birthday party.

Enjoy your labor day. I washed my kitchen windows!

Government LSD test. Fun with art!

This here reminds me of journals and drawings I used to find after a night of too much red wine, painkillers and "Sex and the City" reruns. (In one I had designed a line of menopause wear for women -- layers of quick-drying clothes. Most contain pages of drawings of my feet and cats.) I feel sorry for the subject matter. The art is good -- I think his tempera painting halfway into his trip is his best yet -- but imagine if somebody recording your wasted ramblings. Yikes.

Liar.

Who am I kidding? I'm not happy for my friend who's moving to London. I'm so jealous I'm actually turning green. And when I think about foggy England, it makes this heat wave we're having feel so much hotter.

Up date.

Before yesterday, I hadn't been on an interview in eight years. They haven't changed much except for length. Mine was two hours. I wrote it off thinking that a scarcity of jobs makes picky people. They can afford to take their time. (BTW it was dropped by two different people interviewing me that the job entailed a lot of project churn -- picture meat grinder -- and some of the projects weren't that creative, i.e. data input. Way to sell! I felt a bit overqualified.) Benefits: the company has nice parties and gives 4 hours a month for family obligations and free snacks! Later that day, my son's friend's dad stopped by and announced that his interview in Finland last week went great and he was starting his new job in London on Monday and moving his family across the pond in January. So much for my slow-hiring theory. His job offer included 11K/month housing allowance and a car. I'm feeling about as big as the period at the end of this sentence. But I am happy for him. Nice, little adventure.

I have an actual, real live interview.

It's this Wednesday. I don't have the job yet but already I'm thinking I will need lots of new workplace shoes and underthings! Also I'm feeling sad that the working from bed phase of my life may be coming to an end. I do all my best writing in bed. I'm wondering if I could put a small mattress, a few pillows and a blanket in my cubicle. And my cat. And a box of cookies. That would be just perfect.

If you have a moment, please send me good interview karma.

I'm grateful. So fucking grateful. Really.

Oh bloggers, what you do to me.

I once heard the author Ethan Canin speak. He said the biggest mistake new writers make is thinking a good character is one who is perfect -- popular, attractive, athletic. Nobody wants to read about people like that he said; they want to read about characters who are flawed. I was a pudgy twenty-year old sitting in the back row. I agreed with him wholeheartedly. (Love me, Ethan, handsome doctor/writer! I'm as flawed as they come.) I still agree and yet, like some form of self flagellation -- an internet hair shirt -- I am drawn to the seemingly impeccable lives of bloggers like Faux Fuschia, The Glamouri, and Da Fashionista.


(Gratuitous photos from aforementioned blogs.)


 
If I'm feeling fat, poorly groomed, unemployed and my house is dirty, I turn to these online "friends" but they are not a salve for my soul; no, they make me feel even worse. They taunt my inadequacies and, like a good codependent, I allow them to. I listen to their tales about the outfits they wore and the parties they went to and the jobs they love and their fab husbands/boyfriends/friends. They appear to be naturally rich and thin. I hate them. And I keep going back for more.


Tiny handful of readers, doesn't my mess of a life make yours seem really good in comparison? Is that not what other people want? Maybe I have the personal blog all wrong. It's not our real lives, it's the lives we aspire to, the ones the photo stylists have already gussied up with fresh flowers and place settings. The dirty socks and cellulite are hidden. I'm afraid the personal blog may go the way of the fashion and home design magazines -- all cheerleader/jock glossy perfection. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed in myself that I lap it up, wishing and wanting something that probably doesn't even exist.


On a super, happy blogger note, I have a phone interview tomorrow!!! OMG! The Universe must have felt sorry for me after that last rant. (Must stop Eileen from spewing any more vitriol publicly. Throw her a bone, fer gawd's sake.)