July 2006 Archives

I saw not one, not two, but three movies this weekend. I think that might be a record for me. Friday night John and I saw Clerks 2. If you liked Clerks, you’ll probably like Clerks 2. It wasn’t as funny as the first one, but I think part of the appeal of the first Clerks was that it hadn’t been done before, and obviously, now it has. Still, it was nice to see Dante and Randall and Jay and Silent Bob get a happy ending. And, Rosario Dawson is cute. Plus the movie gets points for having one of the most awkward scenes ever where a girl walks in on her guy doing about 16 things he shouldn’t be, all at the same time.

Saturday night was You, Me and Dupree, which was a disappointment. It just wasn’t funny, the characters weren’t well written, and the story didn’t hang together well. I usually think Owen Wilson is damn funny, but this movie didn’t work. As John put it, it was like they couldn’t decide what movie they were making – a comedy, or a story about friendship and marriage. And I’m so tired of the lame jokes about how one guy is always married to some totally controlling shrew who runs his life like he’s her kid. That was old back when they made City Slickers.

Then tonight I went to see Superman at the IMAX at the Air and Space Museum with my friend Amy and her husband. That was a good time and I’m very glad they invited me, although we experienced some sort of bizarre bug attach in the theater. (And Laila – the woman behind Amy practically had a five course meal with her – I thought of you). The last time I went to see an IMAX movie was probably in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, and it was To Fly, which was pretty much the only IMAX movie for a long time. I don’t know when they started making regular movies to be shown at IMAX, but I highly recommend going if you get the chance. Superman looked very cool up there. I also liked the movie quite a bit. I don’t know why it didn’t get good reviews. I thought it was fine, and the story was interesting. But I’m not a huge Superman fan (really more of a Batman kind of girl), so perhaps there are subtleties that I missed. Oh, and Kate Boswell is way, way too thin. She was really hot in Blue Crush, and now she disappears when she turns sideways. Somebody please feed her something.

Up next, I think I’d like to see A Scanner Darkly. Got any movies to put on my list?

For some reason, my neighbors all seem to be really big on the whole giving home parties to sell stuff thing. There’s one lady who sells Mary Kay who is particularly pushy about it in a kind of puppy dog pathetic way. And then this morning her next door neighbor asked me if I was coming to her Tastefully Simple open house this weekend. Caught like a deer in the headlights, I panicked…and lied. “Oh, I’m not going to be here.” I said. And of course I’m going to be here, which will be blindingly obvious on Saturday or whenever the hell this thing is, which I don’t even know, because I threw the flyer she stuck in the door away.

Here’s the thing. I have nothing against my neighbors. It’s not that I don’t want to get to know them. However, I don’t wear much makeup, so I don’t have much use for Mary Kay. And, I’ll admit it, when I do buy makeup, I generally want something a little nicer than Mary Kay. And something that isn’t tested on animals. My same snobby tendencies are working against me with the Tastefully whatever party. From what I can tell, it’s all frozen, highly processed, preservative-filled foods. If they even have anything vegetarian, it won’t fit my hippie-crunchy organic requirements.

All that aside though, I have a true horror of going to a party where I don’t know anyone, and to top it off in this case, all they really want to do is sell me something. I would like to point out that none of these women ever have anything to say to me when they aren’t having a (selling) party or open house, so I’m fairly certain they don’t really want to get to know me. It’s funny though, the differences between people. I was thinking about my friend Jules and how she’s already made friends with some of her neighbors, and probably would have a great time going to a party where she didn’t know anyone. She’d look at it as an opportunity instead of a nightmare and would probably come out of it with five new friends. I, on the other hand, just can’t make myself even consider going. I’d worry about what to wear… whether or not anyone would talk to me…if I would say something stupid…what sort of excuse I could make if it turned out to be just awful and I had to escape.

But, that’s just the way I am, I guess. Fairly decent one on one, not so good with groups of strangers. If you need me, I’ll be hiding out in the basement pretending I’m not home.

I had a longer post planned, but I’ve got quite a headache, so I think I’ll be brief instead. I don’t allow myself many treats these days, what with the trying to lose weight and the keeping control of the blood sugar (apparently my headache is forcing me to use some sort of pseudo-German syntax, as I originally typed that sentence “…and the keeping of the blood sugar under control”) but lately I’ve been craving sweets. Well, actually sweets and French fries, so if you know of any stores that sell fries and chocolate fudge, please hook me up.

Anyway, there’s a vending machine at work with the usual assortment of chips, cookies, Ho Hos and so on, and I’ve been curiously eyeing this new candy they put in there called Hershey’s Kissables. They are little tiny Hershey’s kisses in a hard candy shell. And today, my curiosity and my craving combined to convince me that I had to buy them. I thought they’d be like M & M’s, but sadly, I was wrong. They are terrible. The coating tastes yucky and it ruined the chocolate. I ate two of them, made a face and put the bag away (put the bag away because throwing out candy, even crappy candy is surely some sort of sin. I’m sure I can find someone who wants to eat them). It was such a letdown that I actually sat at my desk and pouted for a little while. My highly anticipated and rare snack treat turning out to be lame. How could the good folks at Hershey’s disappoint me like this?

Do not worry though – I picked up a chocolate chip cookie in the bakery at Whole Foods tonight to fulfill my craving and console myself over the Great Kissables Fiasco of '06.

▪ Losing weight. When I learned ten minutes before I was supposed to leave for a
party on Saturday that I was supposed to wear more of a cocktail dress than the jeans and tank top I had on, I had options! I was able to go into my closet and pull out a little red number and a pair of slightly trampy black strappy sandals. That would not have been the case a couple of months ago. And while I didn’t look perfect, I didn’t look half bad either.

▪ Aveeno daily radiance lotion with a little bit of self tanner in it. While I don’t have a deep dark tan (or really a tan at all), at least my legs no longer glow brilliantly white like the moon and I was able to go without stockings. And, even better, I had just shaved my legs.

▪ Losing weight part b: John’s enjoyment of the little red dress and slightly trampy black strappy sandals. It is nice to feel sexy again. Not that John has EVER done or said anything to make me feel unattractive. I managed to make myself feel unsexy all on my own.

▪ Caffeine, sweet caffeine. When you don’t have it very often, caffeine can be a huge help the day after you are up WAY past your bedtime [see item # 1, cocktail party and item #3, appreciative husband :)] and need some help to wake the fuck up. (Sorry for the swearing. Bad Santa was on a little while ago, and even though they bleep most of the swearing out, I still know they are saying a swear word every 3.7 seconds, and it is contagious. Kind of like Deadwood.)

▪ Reconnecting with an old friend and discovering you like them as much as you did the last time you saw them, approximately 15 or 16 years ago. Even better, this person is making one of your best friends very happy.

▪ An evening with friends, laughing, talking, retelling old stories and having fun. Explaining to new people all of the connections that tie you together, and realizing just how much you’ve been through with these people and how much they mean to you.

▪ A long, leisurely Sunday with my two favorite people, John and Seamus. What could be better? Even if my little furry con man of a dog tricked me into taking him out tonight when all he wanted to do was smell stuff, not take care of business.

And how was your weekend?

I had a very long, hot, sticky, tiring day today. It started with an hour and a half traffic jam on 270, followed by time spent fighting with the SmartCard machine at the Metro station, trying to convince it to let me add money to it using cash instead of my credit card. Nothing makes you feel more like a rube than not being able to get simple technology to work properly. I stood there all dressed up for the trade show in my little suit, sweating and scanning my card and pushing buttons fruitlessly. Eventually the machine won…or at least, I gave up and used my credit card.

I like going to the trade shows my company participates in. It is fun to talk to our customers, and to interact with co-workers I don’t usually see or talk to on a regular basis. But, oh, is it tiring. You stand, and stand, and stand some more. And this booth has the bonus of being set up in an area with a glass roof, so it was like working in a greenhouse. By four pm, I was worn out, overheated, and my feet really hurt, so I climbed back on the Metro and went back to work. Sitting down, taking my shoes off and cranking the little AC unit in my office has never felt better.

So, I was tired, cranky, and sore footed. But then I went to yoga. I considered skipping it because I was just beat, I think from the heat more than anything, but I didn’t. And I had a great class! I’m still tired, and my feet are still a little on the sore side, but I had forgotten just how energizing and renewing yoga can be. Tonight’s class was hard, but in a good, pushing myself kind of way. It completely defeated the cranky too. Thank goodness for yoga!

P.S. SmarTrip! SmarTrip! Why the hell did I call it a SmartCard? Told you I was tired.

It’s funny. Sometimes when I’m writing a lot at work, it makes it easier to write here. If the ideas are flowing in one place they flow freely in the other. In fact, sometimes it will go the other way too. If I’m having trouble writing a piece of copy at work, I’ll actually write something completely different and blog-like, and that will help kickstart whatever I’m trying to write job-wise.

The last couple of days though, not so much. Perhaps because I’m trying not to obsessively write about diabetes, dieting or exercise. I’m also trying to avoid general whining (although I’m do have quite the hate list going on right now, including such luminaries as the State of Maryland – 2 entries! – Janet Jackson – how the hell did she manage to lose 60 pounds in 4 months – and my car insurance company – and that’s just the start of the list.)

Or maybe it is this free lance art history project I’m working on right now. I bet you didn’t know that there was such a thing as free lance art history, but there is. Yes, back in the golden days of yore, we itinerant art historians used to wander the country, much like Caine from Kung Fu, or Fuller Brush salesmen, dispensing art criticism, discussing composition and symbolism, and speculating as to the artist’s influences. ‘Twas a grander, gentler time. Ok, not really. I happen to know someone who has an actual real art collection – a nice one – and they have hired me to write a brochure about the artists and art in the collection. It’s fun to use the art history part of my brain for something other than Jeopardy. Plus, I enjoy doing research like this and best of all I get to spend some quality time with the art.

I would love to have an art collection of my own someday, no matter how small. And I love most forms of art – painting, sculpture, photography, watercolors, etchings, glass, illustrations – just about everything, so there must be something I’ll like out there that will eventually be in my price range. Someday. But for now, I’ll content myself with enjoying other people’s art.

There, I managed to come up with something to say after all.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
" 'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more."

The other day, John was sitting at the computer in the living room when he heard a strange tap, tap tapping. He couldn’t figure out where it was coming from at first, but the noise persisted, and he tracked it down to this little guy:

He’s decided to sit on the transom window over our front door. Sometimes he taps, sometimes he just sits there, looking like he’s watching us, and every once in a while he flies to perch in the tree in our front yard. We haven’t figured out what he wants, but he’s been back every afternoon since. He’s our new little birdy friend.

Or perhaps it’s just me. I’m willing to admit the possibility that I may be the weirdo here.

Back in March, when the notion that I had diabetes first surfaced, John and I decided that we would take a break from trying to conceive until I lost weight, got my blood sugar under control, and figured out how to handle my new reality. I think it was the right decision to make, and we’re still abiding by it.

In some ways it has been wonderfully freeing. Infertility touches your life in so many ways that someone who has never had to think about being infertile realizes. I don’t worry about my basal body temperature anymore, so if I wake up in the middle of the night and have to pee, I don’t have to squint at the clock and try to figure out whether or not I’ll still have three hours of uninterrupted sleep before I take my temperature in the morning. I’ve been taking Advil and Sudafed with abandon for the excruciating sinus headaches I tend to get in the summer when we have a lot of thunderstorms. When I think about traveling, I don’t have to worry about whether or not John and I will be together when I’m supposed to ovulate. If I wanted to drink, I could (although I’m still figuring out the rules for diabetes and alcohol, so I haven’t been. I’m not much of a drinker now anyway.) I can have caffeine if I feel like it. And sex can be about intimacy and having fun, without any other goals nagging at the back of my mind.

In short, I’ve been able to just enjoy the very good life I have, instead of always yearning for and focusing on our pursuit of pregnancy. It’s been a nice break. I like not having to spend so much time and energy worrying about infertility, wanting to be pregnant, obsessing about timing, and cervical fluid and vitamins and random studies I read about on the Internet. I like being thrilled when other people find out they are pregnant. Although I will say right now that I recently read that Paris Hilton said she wants to have children soon, and if that useless, spoiled rich girl gets to have a baby before I do? I will be bitter. Do you hear me universe? BIT. TER.

And yet…when I’m in my co-worker’s office and see the quiet pride and happiness on his face as he looks at photos someone just emailed him of his baby…when I read a post on someone’s blog where their joy in their child just shines through…as I watch my friends’ (online and off) kids grow and learn and turn into such fascinating little people…the yearning is still there. I want to be a mom. I want to have a family of my own.

This little interlude has shown me that the world won’t end if I never get pregnant. And it has underscored even more how very much I want it to happen.

Everything I have to talk about right now is work related. Unless you’d like to hear some complaining about how there is a dog in heat in my neighborhood, so I have to put up with a horny beagle who fusses to go outside all the time and starts trying to get me up at 5 in the morning. Memo to Seamus: a) have you ever seen me get up at 5 a. m. b) just because you aren’t fixed doesn’t mean you get to have sex (John and I are very responsible that way, and besides, I’d feel like we were letting Bob Barker down. Have you ever seen Happy Gilmore? You don’t cross Bob Barker.) and c) that slutty little miniature Doberman is all wrong for you anyway. First of all, she’s tiny. Too tiny for you. And second of all, she’s already shacked up with a Corgi. I’m pretty sure she’d just break your heart.

So anyway, I was driving home tonight, and there was this commercial for some new McDonalds dessert on the radio. The husband brings the dessert home for his wife, which makes her suspicious. And the husband is offended, and says something along the lines of “What, I can’t bring home a dessert for my wife without another motive? By the way, we’re moving to North Dakota.” And of course, me being me, rather than wanting the dessert, which was what McDonalds was hoping for, I immediately start thinking about how they run that commercial in North Dakota. Who do the North Dakotans pity and joke about? And really, what is the regional cutoff point? Can they run that ad in South Dakota? Do the South Dakotans look down on the residents of North Dakota? And what about Nebraska and Wyoming? Does the joke work in other cold places, like Minnesota and Michigan? Perhaps people in North Dakota make fun of people in the desert or something, so their joke would be “By the way, we’re moving to New Mexico.” What is the philosophical/geographical/climatological U.S. opposite of North Dakota anyway? I suppose it might be Hawaii, but who would joke about not wanting to move to Hawaii? I mean, I’ve never been, but it is a tropical island, so really, unless you’re a vampire (and even then, I’m sure it is extra lovely at night) what problem could you have with moving to Hawaii? Are there people who dream of living someplace really isolated and cold? I bet there are. I am not one of them though. Offer me a choice between North Dakota and Hawaii, and I’ll take Hawaii every time. Sorry, North Dakota.

Suddenly here it is, 11 o’clock on Sunday night, and it feels like it was just five minutes ago that I dragged myself home from work on Friday night. Then again, I didn’t do all that much this weekend, so perhaps that’s why it feels like it shouldn’t really be time to go back to work yet.

Yesterday I felt like crap. I was ready to go back to be about five minutes after I got up. Instead I ran errands, and then came home and sat on the couch, knitting and watching NYPD Blue reruns on Court TV. I don’t know if you’ve spent much time watching Court TV, but as I discovered yesterday, most of the commercials on Court TV are for products not available in stores. And when you’re lounging on the couch not feeling particularly well, these commercials start to exert a strange pull over you. All at once, the solar powered fan that keeps your car cool – a $40 value for only $14.95 – starts looking really good. Why, I bet I would feel better if I just had that fan, you think. I mean, my car was really hot the other day, and now here I am, not feeling well. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

And then there’s the inevitable chopping/slicing/dicing tool. Which, since I didn’t feel well, made me think about how I could use it to make soup. Vegetarian matzoh ball soup, to be precise, which would magically cure all that ailed me. And then there’s the massaging, exfoliating, dermabrading shower loofah thingy. A massage for my achy shoulders would probably solve all my problems.

I didn’t buy any of them, but if there was a way I could have done it without moving off the couch , say psychically or something, it would have been a near thing. I did make myself some soup, which was delicious and may have made me feel marginally better. Either way, I feel fine now, so I’m not going to worry about it. And luckily, I don’t remember the urls for any of those fine products I saw on TV now that I’m feeling more peppy.

Why is it always so very hard to get back to work after a few days off? Probably because you are so busy making up for all the work that didn’t get done while you were out. I didn’t have a bad day at work, just an extremely busy one. Which meant that I worked until 7:23, and then had to go to the grocery store, and then got home at almost 9, and still had to exercise, and then got to eat dinner at 10:15.

And that would all be fine. Is fine, although I’d prefer to eat earlier in the evening. I’m quite pleased with myself for working out after I got home so late. The problem is dinner. I love to cook, so much so that I have an entire (small) bookcase of cookbooks. I’m even pretty good at it, and I’m a great baker. But lately I’m so worried about what I can and can’t eat, what is healthy for me, how much I’ve already eaten for the day and what my blood sugar is going to be, that I just can’t enjoy making dinner. Tonight as I sat at my desk at work thinking about going to the grocery store, the thought of coming up with one more low carb, low fat, low sugar, healthy vegetarian meal had me ready to snap. I just can’t get excited about cooking dinner anymore. I don’t look forward to eating. I’m not interested in making anything.

The rest of the day is fine. I’ve got my breakfast and my allotted snacks all sorted out. I could happily eat oatmeal every day for the rest of my life. Lunch is usually leftovers or something from a salad bar. And my veggies and hummus and string cheese and whole wheat crackers are all tasty and satisfying. Every once in a while I even get to eat fruit, a popsicle or some rice pudding. Dinner, on the other hand, is my new nemesis. My big plan for tonight was to pick up something from the Whole Foods deli, but all their dishes were very meat focused tonight. So I totally lamed out and bought an assortment of frozen dinners, arranged them attractively on the counter and told John to pick whatever he wanted. Classy. So now I feel guilty for not preparing a healthy or yummy dinner, and I’m still left with the same dinner dilemma I had before. Stupid dinner.

Those are the two movies I’ve seen this weekend. The Devil wears Prada and a Strawberry Shortcake movie. Two very different end of the spectrum!

On Saturday I ended up babysitting my friend Jules’s little boy Malcolm and my friends Dave and Valerie’s little girl Katya. I was a little intimidated about going from being in charge of zero children to caring for two of them, but I think it went pretty well. Well, except perhaps for John, who is not used to children at all and ended up spending most of the afternoon and evening hiding out in the basement. But they are both sweet, smart and fun kids and for the most part we had a good time.

I had to laugh at myself while we watched the Strawberry Shortcake movie. I’ve obviously have spent too much time watching gangster movies and cynical shows like Deadwood and Rescue Me. At one point in the story Strawberry Shortcake story they go visit a girl who has a cookie machine. Her machine goes all crazy, but they eventually get it sorted out and she sends the shortcake crew on their way with a cookie jar full of cookies. When Strawberry Shortcake goes to eat one, the baker says “Not before lunch” which is no doubt meant to help parents reinforce the no sweets before meals rule. But what did I think? “She knows her cookies are crap and she wants to make sure they are long gone before they eat any of those cookies!” And then later, when they ran into a boy who made them party hats out of foliage, and my first thought was “I bet he’s making those out of poison ivy or something.” There was nothing wrong with the hats though. Their cart rolled in to a river of fudge after that for some reason, but the party hats were incidental to the story.

Then today I went to see The Devil Wears Prada with my friend Becky. It was a cute movie, and we both thought Meryl Sreep did a great job. They did change the story from the book a bit, but it still worked. And for me, it had the bonus of conforming to my expectations. When I thought someone was going to be bitchy, they generally were, unlike that sneaky Strawberry Shortcake.