I've been exceptionally lazy of late. I guess that's obvious to the tens of people who read my blogs. It's not that I have nothing to say. If anything, there so much stuff running through my head it's impossible to sort it out and settle on one subject. I'm also going through a phase when I think there's nothing I have to say that's so important it needs to be said in public. Better to just talk to the cats.
JP's been saying for years that I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), but I'm skeptical of anything referred to as a disorder, because "disorder" sounds like a minor malady that's been blown out of proportion by spoiled, self-indulgent Americans and the pharmaceutical companies that want to make money off of them. Anyway, I don't think it's SAD as much as it's that I fucking hate winter, even NC winters, because I hate to be cold. This year has felt more like central PA, which is just pissing me off. My energy is low and I don't want to do anything. Even cooking is a chore these days.
Here's what's on my mind, in no particular order of importance, some serious stuff and some not so much:
I'm tired of hearing that Obama's administration is a failure. I'm not happy with everything he's done. I think Bush and Cheney should have been put in handcuffs and hauled away on inauguration day, and Gitmo should be closed immediately. So there is that. But Obama's been in office for...what... six weeks? He can't take on everything at once. Give him time. I still believe in him.
Keeping in mind that it's a reality show, i.e. why do I care?, Hosea didn't deserve to win Top Chef. Also, he's a punk.
Hell's Kitchen is still the best comedy on television.
I've heard that Raleigh wants to ban smoking in its parks. I want to know if there are buildings in these parks so I can go inside to smoke.
I barely drink alcohol anymore. I wouldn't mind that so much if it were because I'm no longer young and my body is telling me to stop it, because that's a self-adjusting thing. I could still drink as much as I'm in the mood for. But I don't drink because of the painkillers I'm on. It's almost impossible for me to have more than one beer without waking up the next day feeling like I've been on a binge. I have no control over my spine. It's only going to get worse. And this awful condition is ruining my life. I'm still in pain, I'm stoned all the time, I can't sleep and I can't even have a frakking beer. And I'm pissed.
I've been living inside my own head for so long I don't know how to get out. I wonder if my life would have been better if I'd never left Harrisburg. There are things that wouldn't be any different. Certainly I'd still be dealing with my stenosis, and you can't beat time, you know. My 53rd birthday is next Friday, and that's something I can't do anything about. But I came down here sure that I could only do better professionally. I had a pretty good resume, and there were tons of jobs here in 2000. Instead it's been what can easily be described as a professional disaster. In the 8 1/2 years I've been here, I've worked a total of 2 1/2 years. I doubt I'll ever have a normal job again, and I readily admit I'm not the kind of person who makes things happen for herself. It's hard for me to cobble together a living by doing a little of this and a little of that. I mean, what the hell would I do? I love to cook, and catering the occasional event is something I can do, but I don't ever want to do it for a living. I've been told I make the best cookies and brownies around, but I'm not aggressive enough to go from one bakery to another, trying to talk them into selling my stuff. I'm afraid of 1) bothering them, and 2) being told I'm not really that good. Like most people, I think I'm a fraud, passing myself off as better than I am.
Many people have said I should be writing. Not just my husband, who, seriously, if he thought I sucked at it, would tell me so and also to stop deluding myself. But, crap, everyone wants to be a writer. Everyone thinks they're good enough, but most of them aren't. And again, I don't have a clue how to start even trying to get paid to write. And maybe I'm not good enough either.
I don't know how I ended up where I am. I don't know who I am. When I left Harrisburg, I was already starting to move away from being the party girl with crazy hair and weird clothes. My friends in Durham barely know that part of me. But what have I become? On a good day, I can bake a pound cake and a loaf of bread, do four load of laundry (that gets hung outside, like in the stone age), and make dinner. On a bad day, I manage to feed the cats and make the coffee. I spend the rest of my time on the couch. Every day, I am housewife and a damned gimp who can't drive anymore and barely leaves the house. And I have no idea how this happened.
You know what I think about writing something like this? I think I sound like a self-involved whiner who wants everyone to pat me on the head and tell me I'm awesome. And I think that opening this vein is not cathartic. And I feel like baking a poundcake.
I'm like those people who watch shows they hate and then bitch about how much the show sucks. I can't stop reading the NY Times. It is, after all, the self-proclaimed Paper of Record, and sometimes I find an article that actually speaks the truth.
For more years than I can remember, I've been saying that a little dirt never hurt anyone. That's not merely a justification for my crappy housekeeping skills. It's based on fact, i.e., my opinion. Anyway, here's a piece that says eating dirt is good for babies.
From the article:
In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma.
These studies, along with epidemiological observations, seem to explain why immune system disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies have risen significantly in the United States and other developed countries.
Scientists and other sane people have been claiming for quite a while now that the more we sanitize our houses and ourselves, the sicker we become. Considering that vaccines are made from weak solutions of the very virus, bacteria or flesh-eating disease the vaccine prevents, it makes sense that a little dirt can protect you from something much worse.
Have you seen the commercials for sanitizing products? Panicked mothers wiping and spraying down everything in sight. "Don't forget to spray the kid while you're at it." Corporations that produce these products love to feed on the fears of parents. "Use our product or your kids will die!" We're cleaning our kids to within an inch of their lives, leaving them with no defenses against the world around them. Maybe we should just lock them in a round room with soft walls. Then they'll never get sick or hurt until they leave home, and we'll end up with generations of adults suffering from allergies, constant, nasty colds and the inability to eat anything more interesting than oatmeal.
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Just for fun, here's the text of one of Julia Sugarbaker's famous Terminator Tirades from Designing Women (and if anyone can find a video of it, please send me the link. I spent an hour looking for it):
Yes, you can give him a message. You do take shorthand, don't you?
Good, we take it in the South too. Anyway, just tell him that I have
been a Southerner all my life, and I can vouche for the fact the we do
eat a lot of things down here........ and we've certainly all had our
share of grits and biscuits and gravy, and I myself have probably eaten
enough fried chicken to feed a third world country ---- not to mention
barbecue, cornbread, watermelon, fried pies, okra, and
...........yes.........if I were being perfectly candid, I would have
to admit we have also eaten our share of crow, and for all I know ---
during the darkest, leanest years of the Civil War, some of us may have
had a Yankee or two for breakfast. But........... speaking for myself
and hundreds of thousands of my Southern ancestors who have evolved
through many decades of poverty, strife, and turmoil, I would like for
Mr. Weaks to know that we have surely eaten many things in the past,
and we will surely eat many things in the future, but --- God as my
witness - -- we have never, I repeat, NEVER EATEN DIRT!!! -- from the episode Getting Married and Eating Dirt
24 is back on, so yay to that. Last season was completely over the top, but that didn't keep me from bouncing up and down on the couch when it returned. Is there a bigger badass on television than Jack Bauer? I say NO. I mean, he's died for real at least twice, and successfully faked his death once. And he killed his own brother. The man is unstoppable.
Over at What's Alan Watching, there's been quite a fuss over the use of torture on 24. Oh, the hand-wringing. What message does it send? How can we say we're against torture and still love this show? Just about the only thing I haven't seen is "shouldn't we think of the children?"
I'm as progressive as one can be without being a full-on socialist, and, yes, the torture kind of freaks me out. It's supposed to. But for real, I just don't care. I mean, it's television. Insane, absurd, mock-worthy-but-still-great-at-tension television. Half the fun is figuring out who the mole is, when Jack will end up A Man Alone, how much time it will take for the hard perimeter to be breached, and just what he has in that manbag of his.
A few of us dissented:
I said (some repeating of what I've said here):
I'm as bleeding heart as they get, but I'm with Shara on this. It's just outrageous, over the top fiction. The torture freaks me out a little, but I don't think it means anything, except that the showrunners want 24 to be as nuts as possible.
I'll be planted in front of the TV on Sunday, and will no doubt watch the entire season. The only thing that's bugging me is that I already know Tony is alive.
Someone responded:
To Maura and Shara,
24 is indeed fiction but there are cites that people in the Bush CIA and Defense department used 24 as justification for things that were done. As cuture it does have an impact. I remember reading that memos had to be cirulated with regard to the show and I think I even recall reading that the producors specifically filmed something for the government basically saying something like, "We're just TV; Don't do what we do!" I like the show but feel it peaked with season 2 but it isn't accurate to just dimiss its impact.
I said:
Oh yes, I'm aware of that. But those people are crazy, and will find any justification they can for their behavior. I can't put the blame on 24 and more than I would blame Dexter if there were a rise in serial killers only murdering bad people.
As Shara said, viewers will accept behavior from television characters that we would never accept in real life. How else can you explain the popularity of Gregory House, Al Swearingen, Tony Soprano or Don Draper? Even Lorelai Gilmore did things that would make me want to smack a real life friend. I wouldn't want showrunners to make every character palatable and bland because of nutjobs who will misinterpret the behavior of fictional characters as proof that such behavior is acceptable.
I hate the idea that characters should be dumbed down because someone might misinterpret their behavior. Showing bad behavior is not the same as condoning it. Amy Sherman-Palladino was not saying "It's OK to run off and have sex with your high school boyfriend/the father of your child because you just had a fight with your fiance", when Lorelai did just that. She was saying "this is what Lorelai Gilmore would do, because she's impulsive and emotionally immature, and Christopher makes her feel better, even though he kind of sucks sometimes." 24 was not saying "How cool. Jack just tore some guy's throat out with his teeth. Oops, he's dead." There was no message. They just wanted to be as insane as possible.
No normal person thinks torture is a good idea. If someone is so horrified by the torture on 24 to the point where they can't watch it, I sure as hell get that. There are no adjectives strong enough to describe how awful real life torture is, and the previous administration's approval of it turns my stomach. If they had to turn to an outrageous, crazy-ass, no-basis-in-reality fictional show to justify their actions, they don't have a leg to stand on. But I refuse to accept that 24 is in any way responsible for their criminal behavior.
If you don't like 24, don't watch it. You can always tune in to Two and a Half Men, starring that pillar of the community, Charlie Sheen.
When I started this blog, I was sure I would be posting about cats on a regular basis. Not so, and I don't know why. They're mandatory for all bloggers, aren't they? I think legislation was passed years ago.
This is one of the funniest cat-related things I've ever seen. I started laughing from the first frame, and it just gets better as it goes along. At one point, it looks like the cat in the middle and the dog have become one entity.
Thanks to Sars for this.
Hmmm. although I'm very anti-torture and highly left-wing, 24 has always been one of my favorite shows. Until last season, anyway, when everything just fell apart. I had gone the entire run of the show without ever missing a SINGLE episode when it aired, and halfway through last season I just stopped watching because it was so painful. But, after several previous seasons that I seriously enjoyed, I'm willing to give it another chance this season.
I find a lot of the criticism of the show in general to be unfair (although bash away at last season). I see it as a show about people in high stakes situations seeking resourceful ways to operate in situations where they have very limited options. In order to maintain the suspense, characters have to be placed in danger; since there are a finite number of characters, they're gonna be put through the ringer (wringer?). I don't mind the torture, because its fictional. With fictional heroes, we get to witness their character development, moral code, and sense of honor - therefore, it is easier to trust a fictional character to make decisions (i.e., when torture is appropriate) that I would never consider trusting a real person to make. I trust Jack Bauer to make the right decisions, to protect us, and to find the real bad guys and stick it to them. Like Batman - I would trust Batman with the cell phone sonar technology thing in Dark Knight, but I would never trust a real person to do that. I guess that's how I can justify watching a show that glorifies something I would never condone (like most action movies, spy movies, and military movies that I also find myself able to enjoy).