Thursday, November 28, 2013

Surviving Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thought we could all use a few pointers on getting through the holiday meal with our more difficult relatives, so I have put together this handy dandy list of...Topics to avoid over turkey with your dysfunctional family:
Whether brandied sweet potatoes count as a serving of alcohol.
BPD vs. BPD (Bipolar personality disorder vs. borderline and which one is Uncle Charlie).
Why Cousin Isabelle keeps getting up to go to the bathroom in the middle of dinner. (Especially tempting because you can get back on topic any time she leaves the room).
Whose pumpkin pie is better, Mom's or Aunt Lily's?
The fact that you're all eating in the living room because the dining room is piled high with twelve years worth of newspapers.
The latest changes in the DSM.
Is Great Aunt Ginevra senile or just a passive aggressive old bitch?
Look! Great Aunt Gretchen is slipping rolls into her purse again.
When is artistic Uncle Albert finally gonna come out.
Whether Cousin Damon will show, and if so, where to hide the carving knives.
Should you hide the butter knife too?
Does our yearly national mass turkey slaughter count as genocide under the Geneva convention?
Who really has celiac disease and who just wants to ruin dinner for the rest of us.
How come Dad always gets to eat the pope's nose. 
Why is grandma's frozen green bean and stale fried onions casserole a family tradition when nobody eats it?
Why is your sister dating yet another asshole and doesn't he have his own damn family to visit?
Is Uncle Ron off his meds again?
How many artificial ingredients are in cool whip? 
Did the pilgrims really drink straight vodka at the first Thanksgiving?
Could your brother's kids possibly be more obnoxious? (Wait, that's a rhetorical question). 
Can we please just get through grace without Cousin Barney going all militant atheist on us?
Can we please just get through grace without Cousin Sylvia trying to rebirth the skeptics? 
Was that weird striped pink thing in the bathroom a pregnancy test?
Since when does Cousin Alicia have double D's?
Does your parents' weird neighbor have a facial tic or has he just been winking at you for the past two hours?
Has carving a giant block of seitan into a turkey shape ever really fooled anyone?
If you're going to carve things into turkey shapes, wouldn't chocolate be a better choice?
How come movies about dysfunctional family Thanksgivings are so much funnier than the real deal?
And... the last two topics you should avoid at all costs discussing over the family feast:

Last Thanksgiving.

Next Thanksgiving.






Wednesday, September 11, 2013

I Swear I'm Not a Pervert.


Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here goes.

I don't follow Kim and Kanye and the rest of the Kreepy Kardashian Kapitalist Klan. But these folks are in my face every time I hit a newsstand and I have to wonder why. I know Kanye is a musical talent who was rude to Taylor Swift and stomped around the VMA awards swigging a bottle of the hard stuff while swinging his metaphorical dick. But what exactly has Kim has done to be famous and have a TV show?  It seems she f*@ked somebody named Ray J. Easily the most lucrative f*@k in all of video-recorded history. Even my husband, whose pop culture references are about 30 years behind the times, knows about her "accidentally" leaked sex tape.

Anyway, I am a huge believer in consenting adults - straight, gay, plural, what'ev. I don't judge, I don't care.  Just please, close the bedroom door and leave me out of it. So I've managed to ignore the Kim and Ray J. sex tape, the Paris Hilton sex tape, the John Edwards sex tape, the Antonin Scalia sex tape,  you name 'em, I've skipped 'em. If Anthony Wiener ever makes one, I will make sure to avoid it like the plague. Or herpes. But now the Kim and Ray J. show is back in the news because Kanye and Ray J. are having a feud over Ray J.'s "kiss" and tell song, I hit it first. It being, presumably, Ms. Kardashian. So I decided, nice, intellectually curious middle-aged lady that I am, to watch IT, as in the tape.

It starts out with Kim wriggling on the bed like she can't get over her own boobs. She spends a fair amount of time wiggling – writhing would require more enthusiasm – while Ray J plays with his camera and who knows what else. My favorite part is when Kim's then paramour asks her to show him her ladybits and she demurs, whispering "I'm shy" in a Little Bo Peep voice. Now this, Alanis, truly is ironic. And then they have some incredibly dispassionate sex during which they appear to be voguing the entire time. Well, OK, the whole 90 seconds that I could watch it before getting too embarrassed and returning to my PG writing project. Anyway, I can testify that Ray J can vogue with a hard on.

I am not a porn connaisseur, but I've seen it a couple of times. Romance, grand passion and true or desperate love are not in the mix, but you do see people having, or at least pretending to have, a good time. The chemistry- challenged Kim and Ray J., on the other hand, didn't look like they were having much fun. When Ray J.  asked if he could please see Kim's hoo ha, he might as well have been checking an item off his shot list. You couldn't tell whether these people actually liked each other, they were that opaque. I'm not convinced they were even getting off on being exhibitionistic.  It was a performance, weirdly cold and not in the least bit romantic. Oh Brave New World, where you can get rich and famous for having bad sex.

I hope Kanye's having a better time than Ray J.


Monday, June 10, 2013

Untruths and Consequences


"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

When Jonathan Swift wrote "A Modest Proposal", there was no missing his satirical intent.  He was, after all, suggesting that the British prepare, cook and consume fattened up Irish babies to help alleviate poverty and hunger on the Emerald Isle. As Swift was an Irishman living in London,  it wasn't hard to determine where his sympathies lay. There was no way a sane adult could take that modest proposal literally. But we live in a time when readers are not quite as swift. And satire has taken a troubling turn, as stories like this turn up in social media:

11 Year Old Boy Scout Defeats Santorum in Supermarket Debate.

Scalia Says Marriage Views Not Affected by Lifelong Fear of Gays.

Republicans Introduce Bill to Abolish FEMA.

Usually, these links are followed up by a half dozen comments, all expressing righteous indignation. And then comes comment #7. "Isn't that satire?"

It's gotten really hard to tell. It's seems like today's satirists get their kicks out of punking people, as opposed to making them think. Meanwhile, we're becoming distressingly naive. In Colbert's early days, I worked with a woman who refused to watch Steve's show because he was just "too right wing". This was right after his brilliant and ballsy Bush roast at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. So, I made the nice lady watch Colbert's unforgettable shiska-bobbing of W, and she figured it out. Now, I realize my friend sets a high bar for gullibility. But then, look at some of the things people in this country fervently believe:

• Bush and Cheney intentionally ignored 9/11 intelligence and 'let' it happen.

• Obama, aka the Anti Christ, was born in Kenya and has a fake birth certificate.

• Obama wants to take people's guns away and establish a Marxist State.

• The Illuminati, wherever-they-at-ti, (they're everywhere) are secretly running the world.

People are less educated, more polarized and extremely anxious about the future. That makes them more willing to believe rumors about the evil other side, especially when the yarn has a ring of truthiness and is passed on by a friend. It doesn't help that attention spans keep shrinking and investigative journalism is devolving into a quaint artifact of the newspaper age. We're getting our news in TV sound bites and short, typo-ridden mashups. The cyber stew swims with rumors, spin and gotcha-satire, all of which can be propagated on the Internet at the speed of light. Naturally, political social media specialists are learning to milk the conspiracy theories while keeping their hands clean.

Stealth satire. Unscrupulous political operatives. An emasculated media. A gullible, apathetic, disillusioned and bitterly divided public. It's a dangerous, disharmonic convergence.

I recently read a story in Daily Kos called The Onion Calls It Quits. Here's how Will Tracy, the Onion's Editor-In-Chief explains it:
"It used to be that political satire was easy. All one had to do was find the absurd buried beneath the surface of a given story and employ satire to highlight that absurdity. To shine a light on it. Now? Now you have headlines showing up in mainstream publications like "Kansas Republican Actually Opposes the Poor Buying More Food" and "Conservatives Less Likely to Buy Energy Efficient Bulbs if Labeled as Environmentally Friendly." The absurdity of conservatives in this country has completely destroyed our business."

Perhaps Mr. Tracy is right. Perhaps truth has become so strange that it's put satire out of business. Unless, of course, the Daily Kos article was supposed to be satire. Guess I better read the comments.



Saturday, March 2, 2013

O is for Old: An Abecedary of Middle Age




A is for Aches and pains. At least that's what you think – at first. You must have slept funny, thrown something out, overdone your workout. Eventually it hits you that when the yoga teacher asks about everybody's 'tweakies' at the beginning of class, you always have something to report. Because A, as it turns out, is for arthritis.

B is for Belly. There's a reason they call it 'middle' age. The same reason you can't see your toes in the shower. And it's not just a matter of going up a size. You need to worry about things like your BMI, the color of your fat deposits and whether you're an apple or a pear. If you're a woman, you may dimly remember a time when b was for bikini. Fortunately, it still stands for bakery.

C is for Crankiness. C is also for crow's feet, cellulite, cholesterol and colonoscopies, all of which can lead to more crankiness. Even if you're a disgustingly healthy bike-riding vegan, you're not immune. (If I had to eat faux cheese and drink nut milk, I'd be hella cranky).  In order to minimize symptoms of crankiness, try to avoid air travel, phone-bots, the Apple store and remote controls with 67 buttons.

D is for Diet. If you know what's good for you, you're eating a mediterranean diet – grains, olive oil, fish... It's easy. Just eat like a pre-fiscal crisis Greek peasant. You can go Greek or you can go the way of the twinky.

E is for Erectile dysfunction. That's medi-speak for impotence and pharma-speak for rising profits. Physicians refer to ED as a canary in a coal mine because that dysfunctional dirty birdie is often the first sign of heart disease and diabetes.

F is for for Feet. And you thought you could walk all over them for years without suffering any consequences. Get ready for fallen arches, neuromas, plantar fasciitis and the dreaded hammer toe, proof that even if your toes are permanently crossed, there's no guarantee luck will come your way. (Ladies, toe cleavage is only sexy to a foot fetishist: No one wants to see your gnarly piggies. Just be happy you never had to wear the kind of fuck-me shoes young women favor today. By the time they're your age, their feet will be a freak show.)

G is for Gut feelings. Not the figurative kind you get when your old boss is replaced by a 25 year old or your daughter brings home a guy with neck tattoos. The literal kind you get from eating fried foods, pizza, Chinese takeout, barbecue, and pretty much anything else that tastes even remotely good. (If you've never heard of GERD, there's still time to order the large fries.)

H is for Hypertension (also known as high blood pressure). Risk factors include age, family history, certain chronic conditions, lack of exercise, obesity, teenagers and waiting for the COMCAST man.

I is for Invisibility. If you are a 45+,  female and not Oprah, you might as well be wearing Harry Potter's magic cloak. The only people who can see you are your kids when they want money, your husband when he wants food and your boss when he suddenly realizes he could hire two kids for what he's paying little old you. Otherwise, you're invisible, so feel free to have another cupcake, wrap yourself up in a cozy mint green snuggy and catch up on the latest episode of GLEE.

J is for Joints. Not the fun kind from the old days. The kind you have to replace after fifty some years of arduous activities like walking from the couch to the refrigerator. Orthopedists can now fit you with a prosthetic hip, knee, shoulder, ankle, wrist, finger or toe. Me, I'm holding out for the full body replacement. Just hope my hot new bod will work with my tired old mug.

K is for Knees. (See Joints) Be knice to your knees if you know what's good for you. All those step classes you took in the knineties come back to haunt you in your fifties.

L is for 'Letting Yourself Go". Sadly, you're not going anywhere good like Paris or Ipanema. You're going, colloquially speaking, to Hell. Too much gin, not enough gym, life with a capital L. (Maybe L should be for Life.)

M is for Menopause. I am not gonna talk about it because everyone else is. A quarter century after becoming the first generation to give birth, Boomerettes are now the first generation to go through menopause. Or at least to write about it ad-nauseum. I prefer how they dealt with 'the change' in my mother's generation. Grin, bear it, and carry a fan.

N is for Nose hairs, a mostly male concern. Ditto, ear hair, which grows in inverse proportion to the hair on your head.  Ladies, stop gloating and go take a close look at your chin.

O is for Osteoporosis, revenge of the solidly built woman. Fine boned skinny ladies tend to be at risk, especially if they are Asian or Caucasian, like Sally Field. Poor Sally. Those bird bones may have kept her aloft as a flying nun, but now she has to take Boniva so her skeleton won't snap.

P is for Prostate and Prolapse. Don't ask or I'll have to tell you about Pessaries and Penile Prostheses.

Q is for questions to ask your doctor. Here's why the doc's always running late: Doctor Discussion Guides. Pharmaceutical companies love them. Making sure people 'talk to their doctor' helps them stay on the FDA's good side while nudging folks into asking their physicians if Doznothingatol XR could be right for them. So keep leafing through that 6 month old issue of People, because the guy ahead of you needs to ask the doc if Lotsasyde FX could be right for him.

R is for Ranting which is comorbid with crankiness. There are so many things to rant about. Bicyclists who ride two or three across so your car can't pass them. Congressional inertia. Back fat. Smartphones. Stupid people.  And of course, medical bills.

S is for Sex. I'm all for it myself. If you're still kicking and still getting your kicks, good for you, however ancient ye may be.

T is for Tinnitus. Yes, Boomer boy, this is what you get for spending your musical youth standing next to the speakers. Who needs more cowbell when your ears ring all the time?

U is for uvula. What could possibly go wrong with my uvula, you ask? Not much. In fact, chances are it's the only part of your body that still looks as good as ever. Probably because all it does is hang out. Cherish your uvula. It won't give you any trouble, no one cares if it sags, and it comes in handy in Words With Friends when you're stuck with a couple of U's.

V is for Vision and I don't mean wisdom, perspective or creativity. Nuh-uh. Bifocals. Trifocals. Complaining about out-of-focus movie subtitles when the real issue is your out-of-focus eyeballs. Dislocating your shoulder trying to read a menu. Realizing that you miss seeing with the naked eye more than you miss looking good naked.

W is for Work, as in getting work done. No, not as in staying late at the office. Work as in face lifts, nasal sculpting, chinplants, dermabrasion, tummy tucks, lip plumping and boob jobs. When you hear someone is "getting some work done" and you don't know for a fact that the recession ate their retirement, it means they're having plastic surgery. Feeling bitter 'cause you can't afford face-freshening? Try this. The first time you see Penny Plastic post-surgery, say nothing. Not "you look great", not "did you do something different to your hair?" Not a word. Just carry on as though your old friend hadn't morphed into Joan Rivers overnight. It will drive her nuts. If she announces that she's had work done, smile and respond "Really? I can't tell." This will send her into a schizophrenic state, bouncing between relief that you can't tell and wondering why she bothered. Karma's a bitch, and apparently, so are you.

X is for Xylophone. It's been that way since before you learned to read.The reason you can remember that is, your long-term memory is still good. It's the short-term memory that's going.

Y is for Yoga. Don't you feel better already? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOmmmmmmmmmm.

Z  is for Z. Maybe you're a man getting up 6 times a night to pee. Or a woman with night sweats. Or a middle aged human of either gender with leg cramps, sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. Regardless, you can forget about zzzzs. Z is about as much sleep as you can count on.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Sorry it's been so long.



I've been dealing with a lot of shit.