Out of service

Today was a vibrant Northern California Spring day. The sky was an eponymous blue and the oversized vegetation preened in the sun. I was taking a brisk walk in the hills, the frisky wind refreshing my skin and my outlook. Suddenly, from a house a half block behind me, I heard an ear-splitting scream. "NOOOOOOO. NO NAP. NOT NAP TIME. NO NAP. NOT NAP. EEEEEEEEEEK! NO NAAAAP!" I sped up, trying to get away from the sound of some unseen, willful, angry little person with a set of pipes made for heavy metal. Alas, the road curved, and the wind was blowing in my direction. The raging child's voice followed me for an astounding three blocks. "NO. NOT NAP. NOOOOOOOO". I wondered if mom's ears were bleeding yet.

Nap time. Finally a reason to be glad I'm not thirty anymore.

Shameless Self-Promotion

On the off-chance that anybody reading this doesn't know me personally, I thought I'd let you know I have another blog.
It's more thoughtful, less snotty and has generally longer entries, on topics ranging from family issues, to politics, to life in Berkeley, California. If you'd like to check it out, simply go to http://eucalyptusway.blogspot.com/

lip-sinking to new depths

The above online campaign been stalking me for weeks. Somehow, I doubt the advertisers got Angelina's buy-in, and I really hope she sues.

Angelina Jolie has lovely lips, of course. They are large. They also have a distinct contour, a line that you can draw, because she comes by them honestly. Artifically plumped lips lose that shape and can look a lot like earthworms mating.



But this is the part that gets me. "Thin lips are ugly on anyone." Talk about tapping into young women's physical insecurities. Ugly like who? Kate Hepburn? Vivienne Leigh? Courtney Cox? Erin Burnett? All beautiful, all thin-lipped, all unimaginable with an outsized tumescent mouth.

When I was a girl, society gave Black women the message that their full lips were unattractive - which is racist and sick. I guess we have evolved a tad, since this ad isn't racist. Just sick. There are many ways to be beautiful. Black women generally have big lips, like the ravishing Beyonce, but that doesn't make sloe-eyed, slim-smiled Thandie Newton a dog. Angelina and Scarlett are pretty and pouty, but Gwyneth shouldn't have to wear a bag over her head.

This revolting ad is just another manifestation of our bigger is better culture - a culture that appears to be in its death throes as the economy snaps to like a pulled-taut rubber band. McMansions. SUVs. Bagels and muffins bigger than your head. Huge cocks and gigantic boobs and lips big enough to keep your nose warm.

The entertainment, advertising and fashion industries keep telling young women "You can't be thin enough". Unless, of course, the thinnest part of you happens to be your lips.

On G.E. stock breaking the $10 mark

Insight from my hubby, the stock trader.
"If you had asked people six months ago which was most likely to occur first, General Electric dipping below $10 a share or the rapture, most would have guessed the rapture."

At least we have more time to repent.

Puff Piece

The Michael-Phelps-caught-smoking-pot-story is a tempest in a bong. By now, most Americans understand that pot isn't any worse for you than booze. Personally, I'd rather have a stoned driver coming towards me at 40 miles an hour than a drunk one going twice as fast, hurtling across the median line. So what are we to make of this good old boy sheriff down in South Carolina, who had his men burst into a frat house, guns drawn, in search of an incriminating bong that might have Michael Phelps' DNA on it? It's a frat house, for heaven's sake. The surprising thing is that they DIDN'T find a bong. Michael Phelps had the discipline, character and athleticism to win 14 gold medals. I'd say he's earned the right to unwind and smoke a little dope.

It's time this country got over its hypocrisy and legalized pot. After all, it's a lot less dangerous than the grotesque binge drinking that kills a dozen or so college students each year. Most intriguingly, legalization could be a huge boost to our flailing economy by creating thousands of employment opportunities, including:

• Agricultural jobs for farmers and farm workers

• Retail jobs for dispensaries and eventually cannabis cafes, the smoker's equivalent of a bar

• Trucking and distribution jobs

• Opportunities for entrepreneurs who want to sell pre-rolled or packaged pot, or pre-fab brownies and other treats

• Refining, processing and packaging jobs for factory workers

• Research positions for scientists who would finally be allowed to investigate THC's pharmaceutical properties

• Marketing, advertising and design jobs to market the pot to adults, just as hard liquor is marketed today

Then, there are the fringe benefits:

• More time for the cops to go after bad guys

• More room in the jails for actual hardened criminals, who we could put away for a longer time

• Fewer lives ruined by incarceration for a victimless "crime"

• Less congestion in the courts from trials for pot-related offenses

• Less business for murderous Mexican drug cartels

• Less hypocrisy in society in general

• Less fodder for sleeze ball "journalists" who spend their times trying to embarrass people like Michael Phelps

Live long enough and you'll prosper. Maybe. If we ever get out of this hole.

Those long, elfin ears! Those diagonal brows! There is no doubt in my mind: Timothy Geithner is a Vulcan.

Eight Is Too Many.

"...I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgement, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous..." Excerpt from the Hippocratic Oath

Stand back. I'm gonna spew. I'm gonna be venomous and judgemental and not nice. Because Nadya Suleyman, the psycho woman who just had the octuplets, makes me sick.

For starters, there's the pathological Angelina Jolie fixation. Mom's had a nose job, cheek implants and lip plumping to make her look like the fourth runner-up in an Angie look-alike contest. She's trying so hard, I wouldn't be surprised if she had a crossed-out Billy Bob tatoo on her ass. And despite the lack of a Brad clone to mate with, Nadya's apparently determined to out-baby Brangelina. Except rather than pick a poor nation to adopt from, she's just given birth to her own third world country.

No one can accuse the Jolie-Pitts of not having the resources to raise their children. This bimbo, on the other hand, is divorced, with no apparent source of income and 6 other kids at home. Suleyman claims she'll be able to support everyody after she finishes "her classes". Until then, she'll be giving them "love". Which better be caloric, 'cause she sure ain't breast-feeding eight kids. And what classes, pray tell? Because flower-arranging isn't gonna keep 8 babies in huggies and onesies. As for love, does this cow have any idea what an ordeal the NICU is for a preemie? The needles, the blindfolds, the lack of physical contact and nurturing? The estimated tab of $400,000 per child by the time they're discharged? Does she realize premature babies are likely to have digestive issues that could require surgery? Or severe vision problems? Or under-developed lungs susceptible to respiratory distress, asthma and life-threatening infections? She's looking at six or eight thousand dollars per kid just for RSV shots, which preemies need to get through the cold and flu season - not to mention the cost of treating the inevitable developmental delays and possibly life-long learning disabilities. But who cares when "all you ever wanted to be was a mom"? You just have to share that love because it's all about you. If it wasn't about you, you wouldn't be getting interviewed on TV: you'd be in the NICU with your babies.

Nadya Suleyman intentionally conceived eight children with ongoing medical problems that will cause them pain and suffering and cost society millions. She has demonstrated that she is unintelligent, irresponsible and selfish - all terrific reasons to replicate one's DNA. Just what our overpopulated world needs - more stupid, self absorbed people, consuming and polluting. Most disturbing of all, this case almost has me agreeing with the pope. In vitro, in this instance, really IS unethical. The so-called doctor who agreed to implant the embryos could have refused on the grounds that it was medically dangerous. Instead, he took the money and created eight children with compromised futures to accommodate a crazy woman's identity issues. The doctor should lose his license. As for Pseudo-Angie, I hope her uterus falls out.

The Impersonal Trainer

"I am searching for on-line personal training clients."
My company, NAME WITHHELD, offers a very personalized on-line personal training service. ...

Believe it. This was posted on one of my linked in groups. The ultimate can't-be-done online business is now being conducted, on line. The trainer can't see your bad form, or take note of your problem areas. You can't be shamed, goaded or inspired into just five more reps. It defies the whole raison d'etre for personal training! What's next? www.facelift.com?

Bite me, Sweetness.

My women's networking group has a massive off-topic email list which we use to post requests for referrals for everything from advertising writers (like me) to housepainters. So this member sends an email asking the group if they have tried to find work through online bidding sites. This process was described by many respondents as a "race to the bottom." Whoever sells herself the cheapest, wins, so to speak. I wrote back of my experience with a paying site where I have gotten exactly zero responses, and recommend against it. And then I impulsively typed the following: OBAMA BETTER HURRY UP AND GET TO WORK! THIS ECONOMY SUCKS! :-(

OK, I admit it. All caps, tacky, wrong forum, I got carried away. So this woman writes in to ream me, in a kind, nurturing and ickily self-righteous way, in front of some 300 women, reminding me that more millionaires were made during the depression than any other time. (No idea if it's true, but my husband suggested that might have helped make up for all the millionaires who jumped to their deaths). The lady gently chides me for sending out my bad thoughts about the economy to all the women in the group. It's this negativity that's causing all our problems, and making the bad economy a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sorry, Precious. I don't agree. Between real estate tanking, and credit hard to come by, and layoffs all over the place, and people's savings or retirements evaporating, anyone with half a brain would hold a sober view of this time in our nation's economic history. None of this is caused by a sudden consumer reticence to hit the mall. This is no time to up your discretionary spending, and folks are wisely keeping their wallets in their pants or purses.

The stories keep getting closer to home. The foreclosures, layoffs, part-timing for partial wages, the insurance crises, heck, I'm just two degrees of separation from an 83 year old Bernie Madoff victim. This stuff is happening to people I know, and people my friends know. I'm not sure where the optimistic lady lives: a high end neighborhood, or her own personal bubble?

People who call a spade a spade are not pessimistic, or negative, or witless participants in a mass hysterical denial of how great the economy really is. They are realists. And if there's one thing a realist can't stand in a crisis, it's some damn Pollyanna telling you to get happy. You need to be grounded in reality, and you need to be able to indulge in occasional dark humor to let off steam.

Betrayal

Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve.

No great irony or significance there - the man was a secular Jew - but, considering he was also a nobel laureate, legion d'honneur recipient, Tony award winner and Oscar nominee, his passing is definitely newsworthy. In fact, since the guy was 82 and battling cancer, you'd expect a major news network like NBC to have a slickly produced obit on file. But Nooooooooh. It appears they got some intern to google the guy.

So what did they list as his most important credits? A few of his 29 plays,such as The Birthday Party, Betrayal, and The Homecoming?

Nope. His screenplay adaptation of John Fowles' novel, The French Lieutenant's Woman. Probably the only Pinter piece the intern had ever heard of.

NBC wants us to remember one of the twentieth century's most important playwrights for his screenplay adaptation of someone else's work.

No twit I.

They say the birds descend from the dinosaurs. Call me brontosaurus, stuck in the twentieth century where I was born. I may be addicted to google, but I continue to use my computer as a glorified typewriter. Don't expect me to don my reading glasses just so I can watch your podcast on that itty-bitty screen. I'd have to locate the ipod I got three Christmases ago and actually figure out how to use it. Don't invite me to join your new social networking site. Linked In will do me just fine for the rest of my natural life. And for God's Sake, don't look for me on twitter. Because any forum that requires me to limit my blathering to 140 characters is strictly for the birds.

Play it again, George.

Excuse me while I go on you tube yet again and play the video of the Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at Bush. What a pitching arm! What an aim! And how can I curb my compulsion to play the clip over and over? Hit play! See Dubya duck! Hit play! See Dubya duck again! I feel like one of those coke-addicted lab rats, compelled to push the lever over and over for just one more hit.