Ordinary Extraordinary

The Empress Needs New Clothes

After a week of comparatively serious posts, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about clothes.

Specifically, the fact that I need some.

For some reason it didn't really occur to me that training for a marathon might have some impact on the shape of my body. I knew that I'd be getting fitter and therefore would probably be losing weight, but I didn't follow that thought process all the way through. As it turns out, clothes do not shrink in relation to your body. Who knew?

It is really disheartening to get out of bed feeling better about your body than you have in years only to get dressed and realize that nothing you own is flattering to your new shape. Even my favorite go-to outfits, the ones I could always count on to look great no matter how I was feeling, no longer fit properly. My slam dunk first-date sweater, the one that was tight enough to be titillating (pardon the pun) but not so tight as to be obscene, is too big. Now what am I to wear to bring the boys to the yard?

Oh, right, at the moment I can't get a date in this town to save my life. No need to really panic about the date wardrobe then. Ahem.

I know, this is what my father would call "a high class problem," don't cry for me too much. But the fact remains that I need new clothes and I am in no position to purchase any.

*sigh*

I need a Fairy Godfather.

Still looking for something serious? Fine: Oliver stone blasts Bush and points out that fanaticism is the result of our overreaction to 9/11.

Privacy

I have a relatively unpopular view of privacy where celebrities are concerned; I believe that they should have some.

Celebrities become famous through the love and support of their fans so yes, they do have an obligation to be gracious and thankful. When they walk the red carpet at awards shows or embark on press junkets to promote new projects, absolutely they should be smiling, waving, glad handing, and signing autographs. All of that is part of their chosen profession; those things count as being "at work."

That does not mean that we, the general public, are entitled to know every single detail of their lives outside of work. Would you want your co-workers knowing the minutia of what you and your boyfriend did on vacation, or how awful you looked when you ran out to get coffee in your pajamas Sunday morning? Would you want them to approach you at a restaurant and ask you to "just look over this file real quick" while you're eating with your family?

No, of course you wouldn't. You enjoy your privacy.

It is a celebrity's responsibility to be aware of their behavior whenever they are in public, that is the cost of fame. You want to get busted for driving drunk then scream racial epithets at the arresting officers? Well, that's pretty much on you.  Want to reveal the intimacies of your relationship on national television? You don't get to cry about the public mocking you with the information you've willingly provided. And if you are ever stupid enough to let someone record you having sex? I will personally slap you for being shocked and hurt when those tapes inevitably make their way to the internet. These are all issues of common sense (and common decency, for that matter).

But the paparazzi have become ruthless in their pursuit of celebrities who are just going about their daily lives. Hiding in the bushes outside a daycare to snap photos of Maddox Jolie-Pitt, pursuing cars driven by celebrities and causing accidents, egging on stalkers to confront their famous prey in a public forum, all of it makes me angry.

It's the interest in celebrities' very personal affairs, though, that makes me furious - the attitude that the public is somehow entitled to know intensely private information.

This morning's coverage of T.O.'s "suicide attempt" made my blood boil. Most specifically, these two sentences:

Watson and fire department spokesman Joel Lavender cited privacy laws for the lack of information they could provide. Lavender said more details could come from the 911 call. The Associated Press filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to get the contents of the call.

and

At the police news conference, Watson released a version of the police narrative with certain sections blacked out. The full report was obtained by several news outlets and reported first by WFAA. The AP received the full version from WFAA.

The Freedom of Information Act applies explicitly and solely to federal government agencies. Unless the F.B.I. was the first agency to respond (doubtful), the police report & 911 call transcript are not federal documents and are therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I wish I could say this was the first time that a media outlet has invoked the FOIA in order to get more celebrity "dirt," but it's not. This happens all the time.

Lyndon Johnson signed the FOIA into law as a means of enforcing government's (now, largely theoretical) subservience to the people; it is not supposed to be a tool with which the media strips away an individual's right to privacy. As a patriot, I deeply resent it being used as such.

To the Associated Press and WFAA: Fuck you. You are nothing more than vulgar ambulance chasers. How could you possibly believe yourselves entitled to such information? A man may have just tried to kill himself and you'd like to smear the details of it all over the evening news?

Seriously, fuck you.

Publicist Wanted

I'll let y'all in on a little secret:

I'm rooting for Britney Spears.

Yes, she's young. Yes, she's made some mistakes. Yes, she's country. Yes, she has questionable taste in men. But you know what? I've met Britney and she's really not a bad sort. She's kind, and friendly, with a good head on her shoulders underneath all that bleached hair. The paparazzi have pursued her mercilessly and exposed every single stumble as evidence that she is the worst person/mother/wife/hick ever. They've succeeded admirably in painting (and maintaining) an extremely unflattering picture of her.

But who among us hasn't gone to Vegas and done something colossally stupid? Who hasn't dated their share of "winners"? What new mother hasn't done something that, when frozen in time, would make her appear to be completely unfit for the job?

Most of us have the luxury of making our mistakes and then slinking away to mull them over / eat our weight in Ben & Jerry's in privacy. Not so for Britney who was flung into the spotlight with little or no preparation and who continues to live there, under the strongest of magnifying glasses.

Besides, I love to root for the underdog. It would give me great pleasure to see news coverage of the blow-out party that's thrown to celebrate her twenty-fifth anniversary with Mr. Popozao.

After watching her interview with Matt Lauer tonight, I can safely say that I have identified the root of ALL Britney's problems: her publicist needs to be shot fired.

If Britney's whole point in doing this interview was to prove (among other things) that she's not a redneck, who in the holy hell let 6-months-pregnant Britney get on national television wearing a short denim skirt with a sheer low-cut tank top and chunky heeled flip-flops? With hair & make-up by Noxzema Jackson? Chewing GUM no less? I was so distracted by the clevage and the gum smacking that I could barely pay attention to what she was saying and I'm on her side.

Nothing proves the case for a good publicist more than Tom Cruise. He may have been the most powerful celebrity in Hollywood last year, but that was before he fired Pat Kingsley and started all the TomKat / couch jumping / imaginary baby nonsense that has made his stock plummet. Clearly he's been insane all along, but under Kingsley's watchful eye the public never knew. It's possible that she may actually be a magician... who else could keep that much crazy out of the tabloids for so long?

Seriously Brit Brit, fire your publicist and call Pat. Tomorrow.

Ready or Not

When there are two things on the table, it's easy to make a choice. When there are thirty? The whole decision becomes much more complicated.

So said my neighbor, F, on Sunday as we were standing outside chatting.

F & his finacee are expecting another child. After he shared this news with me and I'd offered my best wishes, we got to talking about why people our age (25-35, for the purposes of this exercise) are so consumed with the idea of being ready for everything.

We spend our college years trying to get ready for the outside world and our careers trying to be ready for advancement. We won't enter relationships unless we're ready, or contemplate getting married, buying a house, or starting a family unless both people feel ready for the challenge. Most days we won't even leave the house or return a phone call until we feel ready to do so.

While I certainly advocate being prepared for things (or at least aware of what you're getting into), we as a generation seem to be wasting years of our life pursuing this false sense of foundation... missing opportunities that don't wait for us to feel ready to take them.

Are we ever really ready? And what happens if we're not? Time doesn't stop and wait for us to catch up; the world, as we well know, moves heedlessly on. Why do we cling so desperately to this all-consuming need for preparedness?

F's first child was a surprise to say the least; he and G were only 23 and had barely admitted to being ready for a relationship - parenthood was at the end of several as-yet uncompleted checklists. But there it was, staring them in the face, whether they were ready or not.

Five years later the two of them are still happy together and they are raising a bright, happy, well-adjusted daughter whose laugh carries for a block and whose smile should probably be classified as a deadly weapon. F assures me that, though the experience has not always been easy, it has been rewarding and it's given him a unique perspective on the nature of self-imposed timelines and the need for readiness:

You can't think in timelines when it comes to relationships, just throw them out completely. She and I would never have met had we not both happened to be in the same place at the same time and we definitely wouldn't have had our daughter when we did if we'd waited until we were "ready." You can't plan that stuff and you can't ever be ready for it. All you can do is pay attention and hope that you can see, and rise to, the opportunities when they present themselves.

I think that's true of all areas of our life, not just relationships. We are blessed in that we have so many more choices available to us than previous generations did, but we are also crippled by the overwhelming number of those choices. Somewhere along with the limitless possibilities and big dreams, we also picked up this paralyzing fear of making the wrong choice - that one false move could somehow doom the rest of our lives.

And so, we plan. Endlessly. In fact we are so mired in planning, and timelines, and in the need to "sort ourselves out" that our lives are flying right past us and we are missing them.

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.
-John Lennon

Life is capricious, and savage, and serendipitous. You meet people with whom a relationship seems both impossible and inevitable. You stumble across a job that makes your heart sing, even though you have no formal training for it. A tragedy changes your life in just a few seconds. Things happen every day, regardless of whether or not you're ready for them.

And you know what? We will never be ready for those things. Ever. But isn't that the feral beauty of Life? That even if something seems ill-advised, or poorly timed, or not at all what you were expecting, you've no choice but to buck everything, cross your fingers, and dive right in?

Instead we hang back, preparing endlessly, and those opportunities pass us by.

What are we waiting for?

Ready or not, here I come.

There is No Bumper Sticker Solution

One of the advantages to my new dear-god-that's-early work schedule is that I get to watch the good half of the Today show... the actual news stories and interviews with political figures, rather than the cooking segments and fashion shows.

Yesterday, Katie interviewed Bill Frist (Senate Majority Leader) and today, Matt interviewed Rex Tillerson (CEO, ExxonMobil) about gas prices. Though both interviews were interesting, Katie & Matt kept probing the two men for short, quick answers and then later replayed sound bites out of context to make their answers seem to be something they weren't (shocking, I know).

People, there is no bumper sticker solution.

Yes, Sentaor Frist sounded like a wind-up parrot as he repeated "supply and demand Katie, supply and demand" ad nauseam, and yes, his $100 rebate is so ridiculous as to be laughable. But this is an exceedigly complex issue and everyone is too busy clamoring for a quick fix to understand the breadth and depth of it.

I have to applaud Rex Tillerson for having the courage to be interviewed on the Today Show, though I'm sure he knew what he was in for. (10 minutes of brilliant interview and the only sound bite that NBC replays is the one in which Tillerson says that his company is in the business of making money. Well, duh! Hello, free market economy) He brought up several important points:

Although oil companies are reporting record profits, only 30% of their profits come from U.S. sales. The rest are from international sales. These days? That's largely China.

Of those U.S. profits, only a small fraction are from gasoline sales; they make most of their money on the upstream, not from the pump.

Even after the merger, ExxonMobil controls only 8% of the gasoline market - a market in which competition is rapidly increasing.

After adjusting for inflation, gasoline is less expensive today than it was during the gas crisis in the 70s

Clearly the issue is not as simple as "record profits = price gouging and monopoly."

If prices at the pump rose in direct proportion to the price of crude oil, we'd all be paying $14 a gallon for gasoline.

Matt was skeptical when Tillerson said that the major oil companies are not getting together and fixing fuel prices, but ExxonMobil's CEO is absolutely correct. The Federal Trade Commission has an entire panel devoted to ferreting out price collusion in the oil industry and they have never ONCE found an instance of it. Ever.

I am tired of hearing about the people who have to hock their jewelry, or re-arrange their carpools, or take the desperate measure du jour to put gas in their cars. The fact is that in the American free market economy there will always be people on the margins. There will always be a segment of the population that is in debt to the last possible penny, who live at the absolute limit of their means. For them, a fifty cent raise in gas prices or a half percent raise in taxes, will upset their entire budget because they have left such a narrow margin for error.

We cannot regulate the economy based on that small percentage of the population. Besides, to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, there are some positives to our rapidly rising gas prices...

Environmentalists should be jumping for joy that fuel has gotten so expensive: cost is the only effective motivator in curbing consumption. People won't start carpooling because it's "bad" to waste gasoline; but they'll sure as hell do it if commuting solo starts to constrict their wallets.

Likewise anyone who has a mutual fund (if you have a 401K, you are invested in a mutual fund) should be thrilled with oil companies' rising profits: almost all of them involve an oil company.

That being said, you know what? There are two things that the federal government could do right now to lower gas prices but nobody is talking about them.

Grassroots Effort

On April 10th, my blog will be hijacked by a historical figure.

Yours should be too.

(Also? Sorry about Tuesday & Wednesday's entries going up today... I accidentally published them to "draft" when I wrote them. Oops!)

A Word About Wedding Registries

Today's post boys and girls is about wedding gifts. I've reached that time in my life when I find myself purchasing lots of nuptial presents (5 weddings between now and June - whee!) and I would like to make an announcement:

People, your registires are getting out of hand*.

Silk bathrobes? Cosmetics? Pet items? $2500 leather couches? Picture frames?  Tealights?

Come on.

Weddings are joyous, glorious occasions wherein a couple's friends and family gather together to celebrate their union and wish them well for the future. They are not all-expenses-paid shopping sprees at Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, and Macy's.

I love you people, but I am increasingly tempted to adopt stars in your names or ship you lumps of coal wrapped in dove-embossed paper.

Let's go over some basic etiquette/ground rules, shall we?

• These are gifts, not the cover charge for your exclusive party. Guests are not obligated to do anything other than show up and behave themselves once they've RSVP'd.
• Including a "registry card" with your invitation is vulgar in the extreme. Blame it on my WASPishness, but for some reason this particular gaffe drives me insane. Registry information should only be given at a guest's request or included with shower invitations sent by someone other than the engaged couple.
• Unless you are asking your guests to donate to a specific cause (your "Downpayment for a House Fund" or your favorite charitable organization), requesting money in lieu of gifts is tacky.
• Exercise some common sense. Registries should be a tool for you to subtlely express your tastes (preferred china pattern and flatware style, for example) and your need for "big ticket" household items ($300 mixer - good. $1700 sleigh bed - bad). They should not be detailed shopping lists for your home makeover.
• Allow your guests some margin for creativity and personal expression in their gift giving. Making it known that you will be unhappy receiving a gift not found on the registry is tasteless, rude, and virtually guarantees you the aforementioned dove-wrapped coal.
• Send a Thank You note. Seriously. After your guests have been gracious enough to jump through your registry hoop, the least you can do is acknowledge their effort and expense.
• Before you send that note, though? Make sure you are absolutely certain you know what the gift is. I will never forget the day my parents got a note thanking them for the lovely linen napkins when my parents had, in fact, given the couple embroidered linen placemats.

___
*No, of course I'm not talking about you *g*

What This Girl Wants

The ever fabulous chowyunsmut recently blogged about what she's looking for in a mate* and that got me thinking.

It's often been said that the older we get, the less likely we are to find a long term relationship - not because there are suddenly less people in the world, but because we get "too picky" as we get older.

I prefer to think of it as having a more refined dating palette.

Other tastes mature (Remember all that Boone's Farm you drank in college thinking it was high-quality wine?), why shouldn't our taste in partners do the same? I've written before about what a girl wants and I still stand by these words: If you want to kiss me, fucking kiss me. But that's not really everything, is it?

pages 11 and 12

I went on a cleaning spree this weekend and re-organized most of my drawers and closets.

(I know, I know... I'm a wild woman. Living life at this speed is bound to kill me eventually. It's a risk I'm willing to take.)

Tucked into the very back of a top shelf, abandoned with a few stray puzzle pieces and two bottle caps, were pages 11 and 12 of a letter from a prisoner at the Los Angeles County jail to a woman named Michelle.

I've no idea how old this letter is, who Michelle is, how she knows this unnamed prisoner, or what the other ten pages of the letter contained, but I was intrigued by the carefully penciled pages.

All capitalizations, emphases, punctuations, and grammatical oddities are the work of the author:

Eyes Wide Open

The essay below has been circling around my little corner of the intarweb lately. It moved me, so I wanted to re-post it here.

The Awakening
Author Unknown

A time comes in your life when you finally get it... When in the midst of all your fears and insanity you stop dead in your tracks, and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out - ENOUGH!

Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears, and through a mantle of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize that it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over the next horizon. You come to terms with the fact that he is not Prince Charming and you are not Cinderella and that in the real world there aren't always fairy tale endings (or beginnings for that matter), and that any guarantee of "happily ever after" must begin with you; and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are...and that's OK. (They are entitled to their own views and opinions.) And you learn the importance of loving and championing yourself; and in the process a sense of newfound confidence is born of self-approval.

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you (or didn't do for you) and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected. You learn that people don't always say what they mean or mean what they say, and that not everyone will always be there for you; and that it's not always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own, and to take care of yourself; and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers... and you begin to accept people as they are, and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties; and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You realize that much of the way you view yourself and the world around you is as a result of all the messages and opinions that have been ingrained into your psyche. And you begin to sift through all that you've been fed about how you should behave, how you should look, and how much you should weigh; what you should wear and where you should shop, and what you should drive; how and where you should live, and what you should do for a living; who you should sleep with, who you should marry, and what you should expect of a marriage; the importance of having and raising children, or what you owe your parents.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And you begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for. You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you've outgrown, or should never have bought into, to begin with; and in the process you learn to go with your instincts.

You learn that it is truly in giving that we receive. And that there is power and glory in creating and contributing; and you stop maneuvering through life merely as a "consumer" looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life. You learn that you don't know everything, it's not your job to save the world ... and that you can't teach a pig to sing. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility, and the importance of setting boundaries, and learning to say NO.

You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry, and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. Romantic love and familial love. How to love, how much to give in love, when to stop giving, and when to walk away.

You learn not to project your needs or your feelings onto a relationship. You learn that you will not be more beautiful, more intelligent, more lovable or important because of the man on your arm or the child that bears your name. (If there were a way to bold this even more, I would.)

You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn that just as people grow and change, so it is with love...and you learn that you don't have the right to demand love on your terms ... just to make you happy.

And, you learn that alone does not mean lonely. And you look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact that you will never be a size 5 or a perfect 10, and you stop trying to compete with the image inside your head and agonizing over how you "stack up."

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs. You learn that feelings of entitlement are perfectly OK.... And that it is your right to want things and to ask for the things that you want...and that sometimes it is necessary to make demands.

You come to the realization that you deserve to be treated with love, kindness, sensitivity and respect; and you won't settle for less. And, you allow only the hands of a lover who cherishes you to glorify you with his/her touch ... and in the process you internalize the meaning of self-respect.

And you learn that your body really is your temple, and you begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin eating a balanced diet, drinking more water and taking more time to exercise. You learn that fatigue diminishes the spirit and can create doubt and fear. So you take more time to rest.

And, just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play. You learn, that for the most part, in life you get what you believe you deserve... and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for, and that wishing for something to happen is different from working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You also learn that no one can do it all alone and that it's OK to risk asking for help.

You learn that the only thing you must truly fear is the great robber baron of all time. FEAR itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it, and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your terms.

And you learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom. You learn that life isn't always fair, you don't always get what you think you deserve; and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people. On these occasions you learn not to personalize things.

You learn that God isn't punishing you or failing to answer your prayers. It's just life happening. And you learn to deal with evil in its most primal state-the ego.

You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you, and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to admit when you are wrong and to building bridges instead of walls. You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Slowly, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself; and you to make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever, settle for less than your heart's desire. And you hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind. And you make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

Finally, with courage in your heart you take a stand; you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.