The Average Blogger

"What would we talk about? Bunions? You know how I feel about feet."

Last night we finished a start-to-finish viewing of The Sopranos. I think we got the DVD set two years ago, but just got around to sitting through it (no extras, yet.) My observations on the series: It's still very good; we didn't miss as many episodes as I thought we had, and I still hate the sudden-cut-to-black ending. I think it could have achieved the same effect by zooming in on James Gandolfini's face with an inscrutable expression, instead of that "holy fuck, did the cable just go out?" effect.

But the thought that really kept coming home to me? Watching Livia and Junior, I'm suddenly a bit worried about getting old and screwed up.

Not because I'll be old, or screwed up. No. And not even because if I'm senile I'll say hateful and horrible things to my kid, though that does make my heart weep.

I'm selfishly worried because being old and screwed up increases the odds I'll get stuck in a home. And being stuck in a home increases the odds that I'll be required to be nice to stupid people. Administrators who condescend, fellow residents who never read a book, you name it, I'll probably hate it.

Call it only child syndrome, call it an impatient personality, call it snobbery. I told my NYAB when we met that I was a misanthrope, and he laughed at me, saying mine couldn't possibly compare to his. I think he will acknowledge now that we are on equal footing on that turf.Given a choice between driving an hour to hang out with people and staying home grouting my shower, I'll take the latter. And that's for people I DO like. It's worse when it's for some other purpose -- school gatherings or office obligations or whatnot. It takes a huge effort of will to work up the energy to smile and chitchat and engage. Simply put, I don't want to be nice to people I don't like.  I don't have to do it much now, and I certainly consider my home a haven from it. I get invited to parties, and if I don't want to go, I fashion a plausible excuse and stay home. I see my neighbors and I can either stop and chat or I can wave and keep moving. 

There are days I think I'd be a lot happier if the Internet didn't exist, because that would further limit my exposure to the morons and jerks. But then I remember that I have a delete button, and it isn't like I have to engage with them. I can, in fact, DISengage without them ever even realizing I was engaged. The only person I harm by reading Blather and Nonsense is myself.

It's not the same when you have to share sleeping quarters with Blather and Nonsense.

I suppose my last great hope at this point is that if I do wind up in such a place, my mind will go along with my body so I can be as mean as I want and I will neither care (if I even remember,) nor be held accountable. Honestly, I hope to spend my golden years in my own tiny studio condo with a nice, hot, screened-in porch/lanai in some very hot and humid region of the country with a shoulder-high pile of books and movies that I can disappear into. I don't want to do crafts, I don't want to go play bingo or gossip or be One of the Girls. The only person I expect will still be alive that I'll be interested in seeing on any sort of truly frequent basis will be my kid, and god knows if I still want to see him it will mean he got raised right and has his own stuff to deal with so he can't be bustling around me all the damn time.

So, yeah. If any of you have an in with Destiny and want to do me a solid, set me up with that scenario. Kthxbye.

That's What She Said

I have a new Issue Blog, all about management lessons gleaned from TV.

(Most of you already know this, but some of you don't and might find it of interest. Go on, give it a chance. If you like tv and have a job, odds are you'll find something in it for you.)

It's been up a couple weeks, and I feel like it might have some staying power, fingers crossed. Maybe a book! Consulting gigs! The world is  my oyster, except for all those damn royalty fees. Oh, well, cross that lawsuit when I get to it. 

I have a Friday guest blogger on fashion, whom I just heart to pieces for being excited and prolific. Thank you, Lane!!

I dedicate Thursdays to movies instead of TV.

All I need now is feedback and discourse and interactivity. You know ... readers.  :) Working on that now!

Take Off Your Cheaters and Sit Right Down

So, the kid has been complaining intermittently of headaches since around Christmas. Then last week he started rubbing his eyes.

I'm not a big believer in freaking out, as you might guess. Brain tumor? Riiight. Allergies? Well, it is springtime. Seems like a good guess.

But we had a few free hours to kill last week, and I figured we might as well make sure it wasn't anything mid-range and eyeball-related that could be addressed.  So off to the eye doctor we went. 

Except, Lenscrafters was closed for the month because their optometrist quit. Pearle Vision was closed because it was a Thursday. Which left driving another 15 minutes, or wandering into WalMart in the same mall. WalMart won.  

I prepped the YP.  "They are going to make you look at some bright lights. They are going to make you stick your head in a frame and then poof some air in your eye. They'll make you look through a bunch of lenses like the ones we saw on the submarine at Pearl Harbor and ask you which ones make it easier to read."

He was all set, and he was all for it, and he did really well. This is no small feat for a kid who hates people fucking with his face and can barely sit still for a haircut.

And then ... there were eyedrops. Oh, my lord. I either didn't know or had forgotten they put drops in your eyes before they run a bunch of tests.  So this came as a surprise to the YP, and I'm pretty sure even if it hadn't he would have been a holy terror anyway. I don't know that any of that stuff ever went near his eyeball, though he said it did. 

So after all that ... I don't know why, but I really was expecting them to do a bunch of tests and tell me the kid was fine and to get out of their office and stop wasting time.  

Instead, the doc was all, "Well, he's nearsighted in one eye, and farsighted in the other. And he has astigmatism. He needs bifocals."

Whaaa? Bifocals? At 7? Why?

"Well, it would be very low prescriptions, but he needs correction for reading."

And for far away?

"No, not as much. But he'd need split lenses so he can see when he is not reading."

Ummm. Can't he just have reading glasses, then?

"Sure, we can do that instead. It's up to you."

Now, I guess this should make me happy, that a doctor listened and didn't just tell me I was a moron for having an alternate idea. And I guess I'm glad it was up to me. But there's still something a little unnerving about the idea that a doctor would be telling me, "Oh, yeah, that's a better idea. Let's do that."

Thomas was hot for bifocals at first. Then I explained he'd have to wear them at recess, on the bus, at gym ... and he reversed. "Oh. No. They will fall off. Forget it."  Score one for mom.

So we went to pick out frames, and I steered him over to the kid frames, where I was delighted to see him gravitate right toward a pair of $10 frames -- the pair you see in the photo.  Did he choose them because they were cheap and easily replaced when he inevitably squashes them? Of course not. He chose them because they were as close as he could get to this:

(This also explains the stern expression the kid is wearing in the photo above, and why you can't see his eyes very well.The glasses fit correctly, but he wanted a Doctor Photo and wouldn't hold his head in a way I could get everything centered.)

I have a feeling there will be some hardcore distraction going on in reading circle for the next week or so. And all reading aloud will be done with a British accent, puncutated by the occasional "Allonz'y!"

Oy.

Still. At least it's not bifocals. Like his dad. Hahaha.

Feeding the Soul

I was e-mailing a friend yesterday about bad daytime TV and wound up spending about 45 seconds reflecting on my fascination with Joel Osteen.

Mind, I don't think he's my key to salvation, or anything. Quite the opposite. He creeps me right the hell out.  But there is something about his unctious come-across and his ability to go for long periods without blinking and the way his smile looks positively botoxed into place that make it difficult for me to turn the channel when I stumble over his show.

In short, apparently I like evangelical car wrecks.

I think part of this is because evangelism seems sort of naughty to me. I was raised completely sans religion.  We did not attend church, we did not memorize Bible passages at home, none of that. My dad was a staffer in the philosophy and religion department of the Los Angeles library for awhile, so any time I asked any even remotely existential question the answer was, "Hell if I know, but the blablas say ..." followed by several different theoretical answers from various schools of thought depending on what he had been thumbing through recently.

We were rabid secularists. We celebrated Christmas and Easter for the decorations and the presents and the candy and the eggs.

But somewhere in there I somehow grew up entrenched in the notion that prayer for self-gain is bad.  You were supposed to pray for the well-being of those worse off than yourself. It was always my impression that the only thing you were allowed to pray for in a personal sense was strength to believe that whatever bad noise was coming your way really would work out all right cos the big guy knows what he's doing. You were supposed to pray for world peace. You were supposed to pray for the strength to understand why you were flunking chemistry, and perhaps you should pray for God's forgiveness that you were out boozing instead of studying. You were not supposed to pray that you would ace your chem final. 

I don't think this ever stopped anyone, including my agnostic self, from praying to ace a chem final.

As a result, I always thought churches seemed like a bit of a biblical loophole; a social quid pro quo. You can't pray for a cure for your own wasting illness, but you can pray for your neighbor's. So you'd pray for them and then the next time you're dying they'll pray for you.  It always seemed a little strange to me, but there it was.

And then I come to find out there's this whole school of thought that if you just pray hard enough for it, you'll win the lottery! You'll get the best parking spaces! You'll never go hungry again!

It intrigues me, this notion.

I am a big fan of religion, in the abstract. I envy those who derive comfort from it. I see the social benefits and how it can be beneficial when not taken to nutjob extremes. I'm fascinated by people who truly know God and clearly shine with the light of utter inner peace. 

But I definitely do not understand it.

Raphaela and I have had long conversations about this in the past, about this particular strain of religion and how damaging it is to be told that you'll get what you want if you just pray hard enough. Because that means that when your baby is born sickly or you actually DO die of cancer, it's your fault for not praying hard enough. What a dreadful concept. And then what, when you are devastated by what has befallen you and you are overwhelmed by this guilt of not praying hard enough, is that misery because you didn't pray hard enough for understanding and acceptance?

On the other hand, always praying for others drops a pretty big load of guilt on you too, when bad things happen to them.  And praying for internal peace and acceptance, well... good luck with that.

Or maybe you're just supposed to pray to God and give him the thumbs up that no matter what he doles out, it's all good by you, you'll just be riding the train waiting for the whistlestop in Heaven?

Fuck all that. Annie Savoy got it right. I believe in the church of baseball. Hell, I got married in it.  Walt Whitman got it right. It will repair those losses, and be a blessing to us.

Feb. 14, folks. It may be Valentine's Day, but in 2009 it is also the best day of the year for boundless optimism and the sense of infinite possibility.  Spring training is the time of year I miss Florida most.

Amen.

Don't Even Bother to Use My Brain Anymore

                             

I have been thinking a lot about how I was brought up, and it is my considered opinion that in a lot of cases my parents got it right. (I am also pretty sure that in a more than a few cases they got it right because they got lucky, but that is not the point here.) Am I the only person who has this? Please tell me there are other judgy people out there who also occasionally catch their brain saying, “Wow. That would NEVER have flown with MY mom,” in a really arch tone of voice...

I harbor this snotty superiority on more than a few issues, frankly.  I am disdainful of inappropriate behavior regarding one’s one’s family -- completely blowing off out-of-town visitors, only getting in touch with people to make announcements of occasions where giftage is expected, snubbing a relative because they married a shrewish whore, etc. I resent the hell out of brats with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, whether it stems from running around with spoiled rich kids or it comes from actually being a spoiled rich kid. I dislike it when people with problems hold the rest of the world at fault for those problems when in fact it would be quite simple to STFU and redirect all that whining energy into figuring out a way to just fix the damn problem, already.

But here is the weird and self-loathing part: I am not above turning this sneering condescension upon myself and the job I am doing, in many respects.

Most often, this issue surges in my brain regarding television.  See, I was one of those freak children who did not have a TV, for the most part.  We had one until I was about 4 and then it died and we didn't get another one for years. It was one of those giant pieces of furniture, a big heavy wooden cabinet with what seemed like a huge screen that was probably about 18 inches, and I honestly don't remember if it was color or black and white. I also don't know why we had a TV in the first place, given how long it took to get another one. It must have been a gift. I watched Sesame Street and the Electric Company and Zoom.  I watched just enough Mr. Rogers each day to ascertain that, yes, he was still a sap and yes, my mother would still go into hypoglycemic shock if she had to listen to his closing ditty.

But then our TV died. It was quite the dramatic event. I was up early and not in preschool for some reason, and my mom was sleeping late, as was her wont.  I have this strange certainty that I was watching the Wheel of Fortune when this went down, which is possible because it debuted in 1975, but somehow seems unlikely.  In any case, I’m sitting there watching whatever is on, and all of a sudden the screen goes snowy and the volume goes out and is replaced by OH MY EARDRUMS LOUD STATIC. I leap across the room to turn it down (that's right, kids, you had to get off the couch and go to the set to adjust the volume! And to change the channel! And to turn it on and off!) because I know my mother will bolt out of her bedroom to kill me if the TV wakes her up. 

And then I see smoke wafting out of the channel dial.  And then I smell … something.

And I sprint into my parents’ bedroom howling for my mother to get up get up get up the TV is on fire and I don’t know what to doooooooo.

I have a vivid memory of her being instantly awake (unheard of,)  and then a fuzzier memory of her dragging this monster TV carcass away from the wall and that a lot of towels and baking soda was involved.

The TV was dead. Long live (someone else's) TV.  And we didn’t get another one for a very long time.  Until I was 10.

My father, who has a penchant for sticking random symbols in strange places, taped a photo of Howdy Doody to the picture tube. (I did not know who Howdy Doody was. I'm surprised I do now, considering the first time I saw him was after I had any way of seeing him, so to speak. But then, I also did not know until years later that it was a photo of Hitler my father had glued to the center of our rotary phone so that when you spun the dial it looked like he was smiling. I am still trying to figure out the story behind the American Indian sticker that spent so many years on our refrigerator that eventually my mother had to paint over it because she couldn’t scrub it off.  But I did know who it was that stuck Indiana Jones’ face over that of The Young Prince on his Little League refrigerator magnet.)

 It is overstating to say I **NEVER** watched TV. We did not live in a cave in Palau, after all. I had friends with TV sets, and I would burn my retinas at their houses until they got in trouble. All my Brady Bunch viewing occurred at my friend Kristin's house around 4 p.m. on schooldays. My grandparents had a TV that I watched quite a bit when I would go visit them in the summer. And every Christmas my parents would rent one so they could watch college bowl games and I could see the holiday cartoons. I have fond memories of getting up verrrrry early for the week or so that box would be in our house and just soaking in anything that happened to be on, from Romper Room to Hazel. Frightful stuff, really.

And then, when I was 10 or so, in what I have to assume was a massive victory for my father, my parents went out and bought a television. Our very own, full-time, color TV.  WITH CABLE.  So I went from zero to 60 in a day.  HBO! WGN! Plus the networks! Fan-fracking-tastic!  I spent the summer getting up early and watching TV until my mom would roll out of bed around 10 and kick my pasty ass out of the house with an admonishment that I could get some sun or I could learn some algebra. I made up for lost time in very random ways: Bozo. I Dream of Jeannie. Alice. Green Acres. I think if my mom had harbored any suspicion as to what I was watching, she would have chucked the thing right out the window.

There is, however a whole swath of TV viewing that is still sort of mysterious to me. I think I was 21 before I saw an episode of Happy Days.  I was aware of Mork and Mindy as a cultural thing giving rise to Robin Williams and rainbow-striped suspenders, but to this day I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen three episodes and I couldn’t possibly tell you what happened in them.

Given all this, you will understand why I more than occasionally shudder and grimace at How Very Much television gets watched in my house today.  Sports. What feels like lots and lots and LOTS of sports. Baseball, with the cable baseball package so we could watch baseball from noon to 2 a.m. if we were so inclined. College football on Saturdays, again with the cable package so we can start watching at 9 a.m. and quit at 2 a.m. Pro football on Sundays. Golf. Basketball. La la la.  I remember as a small child the soundtrack to my after-school hours was the record player and my father listening to AM radio news while he did the dishes. I am pretty sure my kid is growing up to the dulcet tones of Jerry Remy.  I guess it could be worse. I think I’d have to slit my wrists if it were Joe Morgan every night.

And then, where NYAB has sports, I will be upstairs futzing around with work or books or ironing or whatever, while half-watching cooking shows, or home redecorating shows, or how to make hats from beer cans shows. 

That is, I will be watching if the YP hasn’t already set up camp.  Oh, the YP. All children’s programming, all the time. Disney. Noggin. Sprout. And DVDs up the wazoo, predominantly Star Wars and Indiana Jones.  In fact, we probably spend a lot more time watching DVDs than actual TV.  The only “program” we watch with any sort of regularity is House.  And even that we watched the first 2 seasons on DVD and missed half of the third season before we figured out what time it was on. 

So, yes, I get depressed when I think of how much the TV is on.  And I get more depressed when my kid sees movies of books he is too young to read yet, like the Narnia series and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because it is only cementing an opinion he already seems to have that books are better read after you have seen the movie. I made him wait to see the first Narnia movie until after he had read the book, and I am not sure what I accomplished there as I don’t think he understood much of what was going on in the book and he ate the movie up with a spoon. And yet, I hate this. I want him to read the books and see the action in his head and get very involved in the literary landscape.  And then he can see the movie later and have it not measure up.  I don’t even know why I want this, exactly – it is like I’m all rah-rah about the idea of setting him up for disappointment. What kind of parenting is that?

Further, at this point it’s rather a losing battle to eschew TV. We have three of the bloody things. Granted, one is in the basement and is not hooked up to cable though it is hooked up to a DVD player that is completely defective and skips whole scenes and the room is too cold and there is no furniture down there to snuggle up and watch movies – but that will probably not stop me from popping in DVDs to watch while I space out on the treadmill over this winter once Dawson’s Creek creeps to the top of my Netflix list. 

But still.  I grew up with no TV.  And in some ways it’s a badge of honor. But it does leave me vulnerable to the worry that my kid will grow up to be Martin Tupper.

Why I Don't Watch TV...

Flipping channels after House this week, I landed on Law and Order SVU.  And got sucked in.

Wow. That was a mistake.

See, I don’t watch much TV anyway. Aside from House, a lot of cartoons, and USC football, the only other thing on our TV is baseball. Or pro football, but I’m generally outside working in the yard when that’s on.

So, my first thought on watching Law and Order on Tuesday night was: “Huh? Ice T plays a cop? Is he being ironic? Or is he going to kill himself in a violent shootout? Because that would be pretty cool…”

My second thought was, “Oh, dear. It’s about interrogating terror suspects. I have a feeling I’m going to disagree with a lot of this show.”

My third thought was “I totally want a copy of that ‘Hey Mr. Terrorist’ song. Oh. I’m not supposed to approve. Damn. I hope the YP does something that good someday. If it blows his chances to get into some la-de-da college, I certainly wouldn’t pay for that college anyway.”

My fourth thought was, Wait. Did that woman really just compare an interrogator to Mengele? Really? So, giving an ice bath to a guy suspected of wanting to blow up innocent kids is equivalent to taking innocent kids not suspected of anything aside from being Jewish and injecting them with their twin’s blood just to see what happens. Yeah… No. She loses. And Godwin's Law wins again.”

My fifth thought was, “Ah, hell. NYAB just sat down. He’s really going to hate this and bitch at me for having to watch it.” (He didn’t. He held his tongue til the show ended, then let loose with a burst of expletives.)

My sixth thought was, “Didn’t this show used to be good? Didn’t the legal cases used to be much more believably complex? Who on earth would EVER put this woman on trial? What a ridiculously convoluted bunch of nonsense.”

My seventh thought was, “I guess I’m not supposed to like this lawyer-guy character that Steven Weber plays. That figures. He’s the only one I’ve agreed with.”

My eighth thought was, “Damn. Elizabeth McGovern’s voice sounds a lot like Sherilyn Fenn’s these days.”

My ninth thought was, “Wow. I’m now officially depressed by nighttime TV drama. Is the third season of Hill Street Blues out on DVD yet? Hey, Tamara Tunie: I liked you better when you were mostly  naked and turning into a demon. At least then you were balls-out scary evil and not posing under self-righteous indignation.”

My tenth thought was, “WTF? Did Steven Spielberg direct this? Because that was one effing huge anvil they dropped at the end. DID YOU GET THE MORAL? BECAUSE IF YOU DIDN’T, HERE IT IS, SPELLED OUT FOR YOU, IN SELF-RIGHTEOUS RHETORIC COMPLETE WITH CONDESCENDING CHIN TILT. NOW DO YOU GET IT?? YOU SURE? BECAUSE WE CAN REPEAT IT!!!”

And then the show ended.  Bleah. Regardless of whether you agree with the agenda (and for all the lip service about even-handedness, it sure seemed agenda-driven to me,) it was just a dreadful show. Bad acting, bad writing, plot holes you could steer steamships through... Sigh.

Abu Ghraib: Yes, it was a bad thing. We get it.  The problem is, beating me over the head with Abu Ghraib made this TV show a bad thing. And I definitely don't get it. Can't they go back to prosecuting the guys who rape babies?

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad, You Take Them Both and There You Have...

Riding in to work today, the lads on Mike and Mike were talking about their lists of Best Sitcoms Ever.  Among others, they listed Get Smart, Seinfeld, All in the Family and Mary Tyler Moore. (And may I just say, nary a one of these would EVER make my list.) Needless to say, this led to endless on-air discussion about what was left off their lists, and the fact that there is no “right” answer because such lists are highly subjective.  NYAB and I sat and pondered our own lists, and NYAB came up with the respectable choices of MASH, WKRP in Cincinnati, and Taxi.

(A quick note here: I actually thought about creating links to all these shows, but then decided not to. I'm too lazy, and you guys are well acquainted with Google if something catches your interest.)

I am terrible at these games because the moment anyone puts me on the spot and says “Name a sitcom!” I find myself with brain paralysis to such a degree I’d be lucky to explains what a sitcom is, let alone specify any by name. I’d wind up agonizing over what differentiated a “sitcom” from detective shows I thought were funny (Rockford Files?) or action shows that were cartoonish in nature and had elements of humor (The A Team?)

But I took some time, and came up with a list. One problem I encountered is that some sitcoms that deserve a place in the pantheon for their historical influence are just terribly, awfully bad.  You pretty much have to include I Love Lucy, because it was the first really successful outing. But as noted previously in this space, I find the show unwatchable. Three minutes in all I want to do is slap every single character in the head and sing a rousing chorus of “Damn, Y’all Are Idiots.”  And you’d have to include Happy Days, based on the talent and where the actors wound up going with their careers, but – meh. I don’t remember ever finding Happy Days very funny. That might be because I was 21 before I ever saw an episode, or maybe I just have no sense of humor, but the show just didn’t do it for me.

Another problem is that some shows started out great, but overstayed their welcome. (I used the term “jumped the shark” this morning with NYAB, and he had no idea what that meant so I am trying to be less jargony here.) Shows that I really liked, such as Moonlighting and Mad About You, have to be disqualified if you have to stipulate “but only the first and second season.”  Likewise Designing Women.  I adored that show, but when Delta Burke was replaced by that blonde pinchy-faced woman, I called foul.

I also figured this list had to be American sitcoms – no Monty Python, no Black Adder, no Father Ted, no Young Ones. Much as I love them, that would be a whole other list, and probably one even harder to compile.  Similarly, no cartoons. No Simpsons, no Flintstones, no King of the Hill, no Tick, no Daria. Cartoons, again, are a different category.  Variety shows, (SNL, Fridays, Kids in the Hall,) also out. And while I struggled with this one, I finally chucked premium cable channel sitcoms as well.  I don’t think any of those would have made my list anyway (because yes, I am the one person in America who detests Curb Your Enthusiasm,) but I just figured I’d get that out of the way.

Two more disqualifiers: The show had to last at least three seasons (which leaves out my honey Chris Eigeman’s “It’s Like … You Know” as well as The Monkees and Sledge Hammer! – all of which break my heart,) and I couldn’t have hit the saturation point on it so that now when I see the gazillionth repeat I actually turn it off (Friends, I’m looking at you.)

Finally, I disqualified everything that NYAB had listed, though I am very fond of all three of those.

With my choices thus narrowed down somewhat, I went on to determine what aspects SHOULD be considered. Obviously, quality is in the eye of the beholder, and I will freely admit that the quality of some on my list is – ahem – not in the highest echelon. So what does that leave me in the way of criteria? Well, it had to be a show I liked enough to watch more than once, preferably one that I went out of my way to make sure I watched. I had to like the characters. And, duh, since we are talking situation comedy, laughs had to be elicited.

What that left me with is certainly not a list of my Favorite Shows EVER, but it is a reasonably respectable list that I could stand to sit through if someone forced me at gunpoint to watch sitcoms for hours on end.  Please note, I don’t defend them as being all things to all people – or even anything to anyone else. That’s what makes it my list. 

1. Soap: I loved this show when I discovered it, which was probably when it had been off the air for three years and was airing at 11 p.m. in syndication.  Katherine Helmond is wonderful, Billy Crystal got his first break, and there’s alien abduction! What more could anyone ask?

2. Barney Miller: Does this really bear commentary?  It even won awards. And a lot of what made it great was what made Night Court great later on. Plus, that great 70s thumping bass intro to the theme song. Gotta love that.

3. Spin City: Well written. Makes fun of politicians.  ‘Nuff said.

4. The Cosby Show: Yes, I know this puts me smack-dab in the “square” camp.  And yes, I do hear Jack Black’s character from High Fidelity roaring about a “Cozzzby sweatuh.”  I don’t care. I loved this show when it was on, and I love it even more now that I have a kid.  Claire Huxtable? Totally my role model on dealing with Funny Dads, work vs. family, kids who think they’re grown up, kids who won’t grow up, all of it. I’m lucky in that my life isn’t nearly as over the top as hers (not to mention her having FIVE KIDS! Six, if you count Bill Cosby! What was she thinking?)  And if I’m luckier, I’ll go down in the family annals as having some fraction of the woman’s grace and style.

5. Wings: Yeah, I have no defense. I thought it was funny. That’s all I got.

So after all that.... what's on your list?

Random thoughts:

To the braintrust who handled my company's annual meeting:

Next time, let's not kick it off at 9 a.m. with a rehash of Journalism 101. Ditch the history lesson and start an hour later. And how about we try finding a place with enough chairs for everyone? Just a thought.

To random colleagues (none of whom read this blog):

I need you all to understand that it is an unfortunate accident of geography that my desk is next to the newspaper table and close to the lunchroom. I did not ask for this, I did not strategize to get this prime piece of real estate. It doesn't really make my whole day to smell your microwaved fish 2 hours after you finished eating it, and I don't generally feel the need to get involved with a conversation 12 feet away just because some self-important jackass has decided to hold court next to the coffee maker and pontificate on the merits of the latest season of 24. When I am at my desk, I am almost always working on something. Please consider this the next time you read a headline and feel the need to wax philosophical about it to me. You might also consider that about 600 people have already walked by the same table, seen the same headline and said the same damn thing you just did. And if I don't look up, don't bother repeating yourself. If I don't look up, it's either because I'm trying to concentrate on that whole work thing and didn't hear you, or it's because I did hear you and simply don't care.

To the advertising industry:

Why is the term "zesty" used almost exclusively in connection with Italian food, with the occasional Mexican dish tossed in on occasion? Is this a cultural thing? I assume the implied definition is "agreeably pungent and flavorful," not "full of citrus peel shavings" or "tastes like the soap," and if this is the case, why isn't there, like, zesty ice cream or zesty chicken soup? No, it's always zesty spaghetti sauce or zesty enchiladas or what have you.

(And on that topic, whatever happened to Tang? Did it go off the market when astronauts stopped being celebrities?)

To my friends who keep up with the entertainment industry:

This could probably be a post all on its own, but I'm too lazy to develop it. NYAB and I were talking last night about how women who land extended TV contracts seem to go through a weird sort of thing where they start out sort of normal looking and over time they evolve into stickbugs. Think Terri Hatcher in Lois and Clark vs. Terri Hatcher now. Think Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox in the first season of Friends compared with the last season. NYAB avers that this happens because the chicks get rich and can hire personal trainers and chefs and la-de-da. Fine and dandy, but my questions on this are many:

-- Why is it OK for an actress to drop 20 pounds and look haggy? I think it's safe to say if she gained 20 pounds and looked pudgy she'd probably be fired, so why is it OK to go the other way?

-- Why do we not see this happening with men on sitcoms? Or does this actually happen a lot and I just don't notice? The only time I remember seeing a guy go from average to significantly more in shape was Wesley on Angel.

-- By my extremely unprofessional and not-at-all documented guess, I'd say 85 percent of the people on TV tend to go off the air looking more or less the same as when they started, if somewhat older. And then another 10 percent go the fitnessed-out route, and the last 5 go the other way and bounce between drugged-out-and-puffy and rehabbed-and-normalish-again. Anyone care to counter my approximations?

I'll have a real post one of these days, assuming I ever do something other than work, sleep, and be randomly annoyed by innocuous things.

Roundup

-- On Friday, I caught up with an old non-bloggy friend. It was a lot of fun seeing him again, and I think he had a good time too, despite the Young Prince's incessant demands for attention and interminable viewings of Star Wars and a Chipmunks movie.

-- On Saturday, we took the YP to get his hair cut. We are so used to the kid screaming and having a fit that we just expect to go home covered in lollipop-sticky spit, snot, hair clippings and being asked not to come back.  This time? Not a peep. He had a fantastic time. The woman apparently liked him, too, because there was a snafu with their credit swiper and when I came back with cash to pay her, she told me, "No, no, you ALREADY PAID, REMEMBER??" Too amazing. Of course, this woman ordinarily works 25 miles away. Sigh.

-- Today, riding in to work, I saw a man walking toward the Whitehurst Freeway carrying three watering cans. In the near-rain. Why? I do not know.

-- I have been watching Alias, which I got for Christmas, and I just have one question: If you were an intel agent, would you rather go into a situation with guns or kickboxing skills? I mean, assuming you could only pick one. Personally, I'd go in armed to the teeth and leave a trail of bodies in my wake. I wouldn't waste all my time kicking and punching when they could be dead without me having to get all banged up in the process of escaping. But I guess that would lessen the appeal of the show.

-- I think I've come full circle in my career. Once upon a time, I hate-hate-hated hearing, "We'd love to hire you, but you just don't have the experience yet." It sounds smug and elitist and I always, always answered, "Clearly, you wouldn't LOVE to hire me, or I'd have started by now. And since you are unwilling to let me be here to get this experience I am apparently so in need of, where, exactly, would you recommend I go?"  Only once in the bunches of interviews I had did someone offer any good advice. I took it, and lo! I got experience. So this weekend, I actually disqualified someone in my hiring process for lack of experience. There are some differences, however. First, I didn't use the words "love to hire". Second, the person might have been a good fit with the company, but not for this job, and not solely because of the level of experience, so I didn't feel too hypocritical about the decision.

The interesting thing about this story is that when I talked to the person's current employer and they said they weren't interested in a full-time contract with the candidate because this current employer (who, frankly, embodies all the smugness and elitism I have always hate-hate-hated,) said that although this person was doing a great job as a temp, the employer felt the candidate should go elsewhere to "get more experience." In other words, the employer (a) think this person is perfectly fine to do the work they need done, as long as they don't have to pay a full salary, and so they (b) want some other employer to pay the high cost of training-and-grooming, at which point they'd take the candidate back.  I've got a pretty good grounding in the realities of the free market, and I know that you get what you can afford and pay for, not just in buying handbags but in buying talent, and that you always go with the best you can afford. On the other hand, I'd be really annoyed if I were this job candidate, because basically the rich fucker I'd been getting subpar wages from wants to sell me out for "lack of experience." Seriously, I'd be having the conversation, "So, um, if what I've been doing here hasn't been 'getting experience' what, exactly HAS it been?"  It makes me so glad I'm out of my 20s and over all that insanity.

Sturm und Drang und Angst und Kostspielig

Work: People are all fired up about a change in vacation policy. I understand why, but think they are fools if they really think their argument is valid, especially since it runs directly counter to the policy change's intended effect.

Home: People are all fired up about a proposal to build a big ol' ugly-but-damn-we-could-use-it power line behind our subdivision/tract. I understand why, but I think they are fools if they are really worried that this will significantly damage home values in our area. I also think they are fools if they insist we don't need the power line.

Work: I switch to being a full-time desk jockey in two weeks. NYAB is also considering a change -- there are pros and cons and that's as far as we'll go on that one for now.

Home: We just celebrated Christmas by spending gobs of money on an upgrade to the single toy we use more than just about anything else in the house. We got a 46" Sony Bravia XBR LCD HDTV, which is just way too many acronyms  for an inanimate object that never obtained higher education. Stay tuned to see how much of an education we get when we try to install the mother by ourselves.