yoga, books, movies, tv & too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
I love Heidi Klum. I would normally not go out on that particular limb, but the fact that she comes from a naked family AND TALKS ABOUT IT is amazing. My parents, also not hippies, had no shame about their bodies and it’s nice to know that I’m not the only freakshow out there.
Dear Russell Crowe, Please learn the meaning of “metaphor” before talking about it. You’ll sound less dumb, I promise. For example, Gladiator wasn’t a “metaphor for death, and possibly vengeance.” It was a movie that was LITERALLY ABOUT VENGEANCE AND DEATH. Your mole freaks me out sometimes, you seem a little crazy, but I usually like your movies. Quit TALKING about them and trying to RUIN it for me. Love, Yg
Anna Paquin comes out as bisexual in defense of GLBT rights and CRASHES the website. LOVE HER. We should all be for equality anyhow but I’m sick of hearing straights (AND GAYS) claim that bisexuality doesn’t exist. It’s especially great that she’s in a committed relationship with someone because being engaged/married/committed doesn’t mean you’re LESS bisexual, it just means you’ve chosen to have a relationship with the luckiest person EVAR.
Sherlock Holmes. You have no idea how close this entry came to being called “No shit, Sherlock.” I loved it. Funniest fight scenes ever, while still being great fight scenes. Possibly the best role Jude Law has ever played. Irene Adler still kicks the most ass. All that and they managed to honor the tradition of Holmes not filling you in until the end of the book without making the film suck. I REALLY want to see Iron Man 2.
We rented Precious and Sorority Row. I’m not sure which we should watch first, though we probably won’t play Shane’s (awesome) drinking game. I maintain the only thing WRONG with his drinking game is that people haven’t reached the level of cynicism and/or pessimism about child abuse as they have with international natural disasters. Therefore Haiti Telethon drinking game = funny with a side of going to hell, Precious drinking game = OUCH, OUCH, THE FLAMES THEY BURN.
Jennifer’s Body was pretty fantastic. I love that it’s a girl movie – like Whip It but if your best friend wanted to kill/torture you instead of covering for you at the Oink Joint. Amanda Seyfried is GREAT.
The Princess and the Frog is growing on me. I love the soundtrack and I’ve watched the movie twice. It will probably never have the nostalgia of The Little Mermaid for me (I can probably recite the film BY HEART despite it being my favorite AND most hated Disney film) but it’s really good.
My rant about The Little Mermaid can take on its own entry. Seriously.
Surrogates was SURPRISINGLY good. I’m always willing to give Bruce a little leeway since I’m his number one fan (in a non-creepy, NON-MISERY, not even sending fan-tweets kind of way) but it managed to be a seriously decent murder mystery/action flick with some social commentary. Possibly my favorite kind of film.
I’m WAY over hearing about the sex lives of Tiger Woods and Jesse James. I think it’s a terrible thing to have attained enough fame to lose your privacy and have all of the details of your private life to become public fodder. If you like reading about the destruction of someone’s personal life, I’d argue that you’re not all that happy with your OWN life. Find something besides other people’s self-destruction to make you feel better.
In celebration of our Zombie Lord, we’ll be watching Sorority Row and eating steak and twice baked potatoes. I’m also going to make Deviled Eggs (which may seem appropriate – heh) for the Spouse even though I can’t stand them.
1. I wear size 27 jeans. I discovered this while trying some on at a store in the outlet mall (which normally charges enough for their jeans that I wouldn’t even walk PAST the place) along with the PERFECT skinny jeans. Until today I believed flattering skinny jeans were akin to Bigfoot, Moby Dick and the Easter Bunny – oft spoken of but rarely seen. Now I’m a believer. Buying these jeans made me think of Petrona, who once said something about finding the right fit making the expenditure less relevant. These were 50% off but still more than I’d like to pay for denim. On the other hand, ATTRACTIVE SKINNY JEANS to go with my AWESOME PIRATE BOOTS.
2. The Sony earbuds currently on sale at Target kick ass. That is, if you don’t like the noise-canceling flavor which I don’t because I like to hear a motherfucker sneak up on me. So yeah. Inexpensive but NOT cheap. Great sound, great looking, long enough cord that the Zune can sit on my treadmill or in my cargo pants pocket and not cause any drag. PERFECT.
3. Foursquare is surprisingly interesting. I’m intrigued by what others find relevant in terms of creating a venue or leaving a tip. I am STOKED about using this in Seattle.
4. I miss my Doc Martens. I saw some of the not-fake-but-not-real zip up the side variety and it made me want some lace ups. Alas there seem to be none in this area.
5. Email on the phone is made of win, especially when you get to use the coupon that got EMAILED to you without PRINTING IT. LOVE.
6. I really, really, really want this health care bill to pass and be overwith. Because honestly, the reform CANNOT be worse than the current system. Absolutely cannot. And as the BBC pointed out: the Tea Party movement believes that making insurance companies ACTUALLY PAY for sick people is UNAMERICAN. All emphasis theirs, not mine. Ironically.
7. My Twilight drinking game is kind of spectacular.
8. I’m starting the Serious Wardrobe Culling this week.
9. The Tudors sheds more like on torture methodology than I ever needed depicted.
10. Spring, according to retail, must occur only in the first two weeks of February as I searched HIGH AND LOW today for a raincoat and found NOTHING. WTF.
Apple iPad – TERRIBLE name and a surprisingly disappointing device. It’ll prompt Amazon to send out more Kindle updates though, so I’m not complaining.
State of the Union. Yeah, I played WET on my Xbox instead of watching. Frankly, I think the whole point of the internet is to keep me from having to watch the news. I’m largely disappointed that everyone in Washington is too busy trying to keep their jobs to actually DO their jobs. I’m tired of them bitching about something being wrong when THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH THE POWER TO CHANGE IT. That’s not to say that’s what I think Obama was doing but I couldn’t stand to watch all the bi-partisan asshattery.
As an aside, every time I see John Boehner I think “John Boner” and then wonder how someone named “Boner” got elected in Ohio. And then I go OH YEAH.
Listening to MoZella’s album and I LOVE IT. It’s like a cross between Feist and Maroon 5. Also the Glee soundtracks and am continuously creeped out by She’s Having My Baby – to the point where I may need to delete it from my entire collection. P.S. How did we get THAT but not Single Ladies?
Whip It came out in DVD. I was VERY EXCITED. I watched it three times. It will get its own entire post.
Indulged a little today by getting a manicure. I’ve been working with cardboard pretty much nonstop for the last month and have an event Monday and Tuesday. The back room project is over at work (at least this stage) and my hands can (hopefully) return to normal. At the very least, the mani will make me presentable for the event and then I can hopefully maintain.
Sometimes when my husband is looking for something and can’t find it, I want to hit him with a hammer.
Dead writers. I can’t be arsed to care, really.
Haiti. Well, the only time we care about poor countries are when there are natural disasters, not things like DICTATORS AND GENOCIDE. SIGH.
Booked my flight for the Seattle trip. Next up- hotel rooms.
We’re watching Public Enemies right now. I’m currently unimpressed. I did watch I’ve Loved You So Long on Netflix and I thought it was fantastic. The Edge of Love was passable but not great.
Listening to Middlemarch on my afternoon commute. The audiobook is DEFINITELY better than reading the damn thing myself – especially since it’s a practical use of the drive time. Eliot is droll but somewhat heavyhanded in the use of narrator commentary. I am reminded (as with East of Eden) that some topics are just as relevant now as they were in other centuries.
I still love work. I’m enjoying it immensely and have fun with my coworkers. Hard to beat that!
I feel like I actually have three jobs. After work today, I stopped at the grocery on the way home. Once home, I made chili (for dinner tonight), beef tikka masala (for this weekend) and blueberry muffins (for breakfast). Things not to do after cutting up your hands all day working with cardboard: cut jalepenos. Yeah. Awesome. I ALSO managed to get the kitchen cleaned. I am Supergirl.
The muffins allowed me to test my new silicone muffin pans and they are FANTASTIC. I love them. If I could, I’d replace most of my bakeware with silicone. On the current wishlist: those measuring cups/spoons that flatten, as well as a colander.
My Xbox is wending its way to the house as we speak. I’m very excited about it and picked up some used games from GameStop. Fatima promised we could conference and watch bad movies on Netflix, so I’m looking forward to that.
My hands ARE pretty thrashed from work. I’ve been having issues for the last year/year and a half with dry nails that peel (rather than split or break) and recently discovered that a fix seems to include 1. No nail polish and 2. Lots of lotion. I trimmed my nails tonight and there wasn’t a single peeler. The hands ARE hella dry from all the cardboard though. I might actually have to get out my lotion gloves overnight.
New current playlist is an autolist with Lily Allen, Kelly Clarkson, Britney, Gaga and Katy Perry. I’m REALLY enjoying it.
Other random news. Brit Hume- WTF? Because Christians, especially FAMOUS Christians, NEVER have extramarital affairs? WTF *SouthCarolinaGovernor* cough. I think Brit’s a first class idiot. See also: not everyone subscribes to your idea or need for forgiveness. Jackass.
Tomorrow’s post-work excitement will consist of seeing Avatar again and/or cleaning the basement. Piper was mad that we left today and got into the coffee grounds in the laundry room garbage. Mmmm. Coffee grounds. This would likely be less annoying if I 1. drank coffee and 2. thought coffee smelled good. Damn dog.
I might do some more reading before bed tonight- Middlemarch is even more effective than Ambien.
It gives me an incentive to cook. Otherwise, there’s about a 99% likelihood that I would subsist on a rotation of Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Mini Wheats and Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.
My new laptop continues to be amazing. Tomorrow I’m supposed to get the hard drive case that will allow me to transfer files from the old computer to the new. I’m kind of stoked about being able to dismantle the old laptop at work (when it’s slow) and Frankenstein it back to life.
Speaking of new things- I got some coupons in the mail this week so I picked up some Febreeze air fresheners. The reed diffuser (I got Willow Bloom or something like that) is pretty fantastic. Immediately effective and not overpowering. We’ll see if it actually lasts 60 days. The shaded luminaries are only supposed to be good for a week and – surprisingly – it’s the SHADE that is scented! I wasn’t expecting that.
I’ve found some great pictures of Italy that I’m going to print and hang around the house. There are some especially great ones around Macerata, where I spent a semester in college, that highlight pretty much everything I love about Italy- rolling hills, lush green acreage, amazing sunlight. The beauty there is second (I think) only to here. I haven’t seen a photo yet that adequately captures the quality of light up here. I’m not sure if it’s the altitude or lack of atmospheric interference but midnight here isn’t black and when the moon and stars are bright (almost always) the snow reflects the light back and makes the deepest part of night a kind of magical neither-here-nor-there color. In the daylight, the mountains are soft or sharp and when I drove down the hill the other day a very faint snowstorm made it all look like an impressionist work. Probably someday I will stop marveling at the beauty of this place with every turn, but not in the foreseeable future.
Last but not least, in the dooce community someone asked a question about ‘designer babies’ – the idea that you can choose genetic aspects of your offspring (lack of illnesses or specific traits). It takes almost no time at all for Godwin’s Law to come into play and then it’s all “Eugenics! Hitler!” Ironically, those were the exact same arguments that opponents used regarding In Vitro Fertilization – a practice now so commonplace that it is covered by some insurance companies.
While IVF was scandalous and groundbreaking and ultimately helpful to millions of people wanting to conceive, it opened the rabbit’s hole of the human genome. One of my professors was a part of the Human Genome Project, which we discussed in my medical ethics course. One of the most challenging things about medical science is the questions that it raises. IVF is a perfect example- a practice that many called an abomination which has since been accepted by society. We don’t know which answers will be socially palatable or which arms of research will be most successful. Doesn’t that mean we’ve got an obligation to at least put concerted thought and effort into the pros and cons of each before passing judgment?
One of the questions that we discusses was, provided that the government subsidizes genetic testing for all children and provides the option to eliminate birth defects or disease-causing genetic expression, if parents decide to have a child that has a disability – who bears the cost? After all, you’ve been given every opportunity to give your child the “best” (and the determination of ‘best’ in these circumstances was hotly debated) opportunities. If you deny that to your child, should the government be culpable for your choices and potentially having to provide treatment for preventable conditions?
You can’t use the “against nature” or “against God’s will” in these arguments because as statements they have been made irrelevant by the other medical advances our society embraces (caveat to Christian Scientists and others who opt out of any/all medical treatment). IVF, according to those “arguments” is against nature and god’s will. It’s an artificial process to achieve fertilization for people who are biologically incapable of doing so on their own. One could argue then that god provided these medical advances and therefore it is NOT in conflict with its “design”.
That’s not to say we don’t need oversight. We do. Lots of it. But more importantly we, as a society, need to talk about these issues in terms of pros and cons, actions and consequences, rather than “right” and “wrong.” The beauty of the United States is that everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of right and wrong. BELIEVING something is either right or wrong does nothing to convince – or create common ground for a dialogue – with someone who doesn’t believe the same way. Beliefs can’t be debated- outcomes can.
Med ethics was one of my favorite classes mostly because it was impossible for ANYONE to come to easy answers. We all know what WE think is right or wrong, but for each of those scenarios ANOTHER can be posed to put those same convictions in doubt. The best part of the class is that we weren’t allowed to cop out- you had to provide logic for your conclusions and beliefs didn’t count. Unfortunately those kinds of conversations – DEBATES – don’t lend themselves to soundbites or firestorm ratings, so we don’t see them on television (where they are arguably needed most). Hopefully as a culture we aren’t losing the ability to converse without condemnation. Problems don’t get solved by pointing fingers and calling names.
