Friday Flowers, Part II. We only have one white peony bush, but the flowers from it are incredible – opening up to at least 6″ across each bloom! As my mother-in-law declared, they are “Big Ass Peonies!!!!” And gorgeous, and they smell heavenly. 
Month: May 2005 (Page 2 of 4)
If you want a quick snorting honk of a laugh, read this story.
I marvel at how we are all human beings, with blood vessels and muscles and lungs and skin, and yet our reality infrastructures are so wildly different. Now, if something like that happened here in the U.S., you’d be more likely to get a quote about a big mother of an alien ship that caused the destruction, not “Russia finally got to us”. LOL, baby. LOL.
The bag was in my car, it must have fallen out & I didn’t notice it as I headed in to work. The thing is, I feel completely naked without my lipstick – I can skip all the other goop, and granted, when I do, I get a lot of comments like, “You look tired.” “Are you feeling well?” so apparently I look a little more “alive” when I put the ol’ mascara and eyeliner on, but all the same, I can’t function properly without my lipstick, or my lipbalm, for that matter.
We can resume to normal daily life again. Crisis averted. Carry on.
I have misplaced my Hello Kitty pencil case that I use for my daily-wear lipsticks. THIS IS A NATIONAL CRISIS. Please seek shelter and await further instructions.
I’ve been noodling this idea for a while now, to blog about the shows I MUST NOT MISS on TV, but it’s kind of a walk of shame, because there are so many. But the truth is the truth, and I also admit to being the TechnoGadgetFreak of the house, as evidenced by my non-stop lobbying for a large-screen TV. This campaign was not helped when my father supported me, saying, “Do you watch TV?” (I replied, “Yes.) “Well then you should watch it on the best TV possible.” Daddy, this is what got me into financial trouble all those years ago, thinking I should have the best of everything, or at least just everything. So there will be no plasma-screens at our house, but I still drool openly every time I go into CostCo and my heart beats a little faster at the idea of a widescreen digital TV.
JWo & I finally struck a deal that if I clean out the garage (which is filled to the rafters with all MY CRAP that was in storage, the aforementioned “everything”), we can get a big TV. And now that the door is open (and I have done nothing yet to clean out the garage), somebody has decided he needs an X-box 360, which means we’ll have yet another thing to fight over: gaming or television-viewing.
So, I give you the shows I love, with commentary. My excuse at the end of the day? It’s my business, I need to know what’s on TV, and it’s an integral part of conversations with clients and vendors. Plus this is the week all the networks are unveiling their Fall lineups and so it’s really top-of-mind for me!
“The Shield”. Holy crap. This is thug city and I get really stressed and nervous watching it. I’m blown away by the risks they take, by the gut-wrenching ethical dilemnas they put before you, and the acting is awesome. I LOVE THIS SHOW.
“24”. Kiefer is having yet another very bad, no-good, rotten day. I get nervous sometimes. Kiefer is a great action-hero. LIKE, bordering on LOVE.
“Law & Order”, “Law & Order SVU”. I’m a tried-and-true loyal L&O fan. SVU is the better show, if not grittier to boot. I’ve skipped on the other two – they don’t trip my trigger and besides, there is a limit. LIKE: L&O, LOVE: SVU.
“CSI”, “CSI Miami” (or CSI My Jammies, as I like to call it.) JWo prefers Miami, I prefer Vegas. Miami is a little more cheeseball to me, and this is one where the original still sets the standard. I tried to get into CSI: NY – finally had to give it up. It was too dark (from a film standpoint) and the characters too wooden. Again with the only so many hours in a day. LOVE: CSI. LIKE: CSI Miami.
“Without A Trace” – The character development has been great, and it’s still a well-crafted, unique show. LIKE, bordering on LOVE.
“Lost” – am behind on this show. It’s confusing. Great concept, can’t imagine how it’s going to play out for more than a couple of seasons, I want the mysteries resolved. LIKE.
“Desperate Housewives” – hey, it’s a nighttime soap. I enjoy it, and I like all the characters they’ve developed. ABC’s crown jewel, and it’s fluffy fun. LOVE like a friend.
“Alias” – this show has slipped on the Jen Love-O-Meter. I used to really get into it, and now it seems a bit lackluster. I’m taping all the episodes and transferring to VHS to (eventually) watch on the treadmill. If I actually get my butt moving I may have to revise my label, but for now, it’s LIKE from afar much like a friend from high school.
“Survivor”, “Amazing Race” – I lump these together because I love ’em both, I think Amazing Race is one of the best reality shows because it’s great TV, it’s all around the world, and you still get the interpersonal stuff that makes you like (or hate) people. Survivor is still the bomb, though I did dislike the “total tribe domination” that left this season with a lot more “hanger-ons” that didn’t work or do much of anything and would have gotten sent home a lot sooner had both tribes been booting people out regularly. Despite that, still giving them both LOVE.
“As The World Turns” OK, OK ok. I watch a soap. I’ve watched it since college. It’s great knitting TV, I don’t get nervous, and I once quit it (cold turkey) when the writer change resulted in a horrid show. But I’m back and it’s a guilty pleasure. LOVE like a longtime friend.
Now, lest you think my brain has gone to mush, let me follow that one up with the statement that just about everything on HBO is worth watching, even if I don’t watch it regularly. I’m flat-out addicted to “The Sopranos”, “Six Feet Under” and “The Wire”. Greatest shows on TV. LOVE LOVE LOVE like I loved Rick Springfield when I was 16. I hate that “SFU” is going into it’s final season, and the wait until 2006 for both “Sopranos” and “Wire” episodes is gonna kill me.
That’s it for what gets DVR’d in the house; of course, I enjoy the train wreck that is “The Surreal Life”, catching an episode on Saturday of “Best Week Ever” on VH1, even watching the tail end of “American Idol”‘s season this year has been fun. “Simpsons” is still brilliantly written television, and I adore Jon Stewart and his crew on Comedy Central. “South Park” still amuses and reviles, pushing the envelope almost more than any other cable show I’ve seen. This is a lot of television to consume, but I enjoy it – and I knit cool stuff through all of it. As we head into Summer, and all the replacement shows shuffle in next to the re-runs, my tv-viewing will decline a bit, but once duck season returns and JWo is away on the weekends, I sure hope I’ll be curled up on the couch with my remote & knitting projects, clicking away at a BIG SCREEN TV.
So last night, I dreamt I was walking around the Plaza area, which is not an unrealistic concept, but then I saw a raccoon riding a tricycle. And I thought, “Huh. That’s interesting. Wish I had my camera.” The raccoon even looked up at me and made eye contact, and then kept on pedaling.
But then, half an hour later? (in dreamtime) I saw a SKUNK riding a tricycle and it had a piglet on a leash running alongside.
And in my dream, I thought: “I have to blog about this! There are animals that can ride tricycles!”
Happy Tuesday. Would you like the blue pills or the red pills today?
Two years ago today, we stood in that gazebo and said, “I Do.”
I had a first date with the man I would marry.
I thought relationships were like a puzzle, and didn’t realize the pieces change and grow and I laugh now about just how much I had to learn.
Our first date lasted eight hours.
I had no idea we’d get married, but I knew I liked him and he was cute.
We had dinner at a restaurant that no longer exists.
Four years later we stood on blindingly bright Jamaican beach and then in a gazebo as the wind whipped around us and Barry White played on the CD player and we promised to love and support each other for the rest of our lives.
We had no family, friends or guests at the ceremony, and our witnesses were another couple staying at the resort.
Two years later, we’re living in a house and have two dogs and a bountiful garden and wonderful friends in our lives.
It hasn’t always been sunshine and roses, but we’ve worked hard and pushed ourselves to grow up a little bit more each time.
It’s a good life.
I love you, JWo.
Married for One Day.
Not too long ago, this title was bestowed upon me, by my dear friend Kristin, who now gets to carry the title at my former place of employment. The title was her spin on the label, but the real bestower of the title was my former boss, who’s a nutjob, can I just say how nice it is to say that out loud finally?
Anyway, I feel for Miss K, because we’re very close, and we also have a lot of the same fiber content in the proverbial fabric of our lives, one item being, we can’t pretend everything’s ok. (Like Green Day’s singing about right now.) That character “flaw” is what earned me the label of being responsible for all the bad morale in my department. Because, dear blogosphere, I am JUST. THAT. POWERFUL.
In a conversation this week with my new boss, he said, “I just think it would be impossible for someone NOT to like you.” And I said, “Oh, don’t kid yourself, they’re out there.”
I spent most of my youth basically begging for the world to like me. All those silly kids at school, my teachers, various boys, my parents – I defined everything in my life as others defined it for me, and their approval was necessary for me to function, as much as one can when you’re expending all that energy into attaining everyone’s approval. As you may know from your own experience, or can even imagine, by the time you hit your teen years, this sort of behavior hits a manic level – and suffering from depression and a deep desire to end it all, the only solution I could find was to pretend. I pretended everything was ok, and (I think this is the part that means the most) I pretended I didn’t CARE. Maybe it was my own version of fake-it-til-ya-make-it, and then the weirdest thing happened: I became more popular. Now, you’d think that would teach me to not care, or perfect the art of going through life with blinders on. But the flip side was that I’d come home from a passable day and spend my evening trying to determine just how much damage I could do to myself if I flung myself out of my bedroom window. So, I’ve concluded that denial isn’t really a good coping tool.
In order to preserve some semblance of peace at my last job, I did live in a pretend world. I hunkered down and collected my check and did a shitload of mind-numbing work. I could have hunkered down and done it for ten years, except my hair started falling out, and eventually, the real person inside me, who shouts for a living and would have no problem singing loudly in a restaurant if it made you laugh, couldn’t take it anymore. It was like I was getting suffocated in the layers of crap and lies and the same daily gruel that we were supposed to fawn over and declare tasty. As I said many times in my last months there, “It sucks if the only thing you have to look forward to is lunch.” So I started letting my voice speak again, because there are more of the unhappy than the soma-pill eaters, and I always think that perhaps just once, the little people can rise up and tear down the ivory towers. My swan song was at a goodbye lunch, where I bellowed about the Machine and Their Stupidity and traced the history back to when everything went south, and how I’d been telling them this for over a year, and in their slothlike managerial style, they’d rather shout “Off with her head!” than get up off the raised daias and do something.
And the very next week is when I got called in and was accused of contributing to the low morale. Damn! We had a mole at that lunch! Ahhh, Sidney Bristow would have spotted that spy and taken her out with a swift chop to the jugular.
But the next Monday after that, I quit. And I love my new job. I’m still working to shed the shreds of mummification I feel I had on me from the last job. And there’s crazy stuff at the new job, sure, and there’s loads to get straightened out and loads of plain ol’ work to do, but nobody’s telling me to silence my voice. The thing is, I don’t speak from a place of making it all about me. I joke about it being all about me, all the time, but I can’t shake off twenty-plus years of wanting to make other people happy. I am really good at making things better, and seeing things from multiple perspectives. I’m a problem solver and a general peace-maker, but bitch, if you wanna go toe-to-toe, bring it on, I’m not afraid to fight. But I’d rather make you laugh. As I was told at the last place, I have tremendous influence, and can have a great impact on how people react and respond to things. (Then why wouldn’t you want me, the Great Influencer, to be happy? AH GRASSHOPPAH, still so much to learn.)
My joke a year ago was that I was in the Gift Shop of Vietnam. I wasn’t going to get fired, and I wasn’t on the front lines anymore, but I was stuck in the gift shop, would you like to buy a postcard while I waste my talents? I can give you updates on the front line action, it’s horrible, but I can’t do anything, I’m stuck in the fuckin’ gift shop. And then I got airlifted out, and I have survivor’s guilt. I love my friends and when you share a common experience, you can’t turn it off and pretend it doesn’t still exist, even though it’s not happening to you anymore. (Well, some people can. Not me.)
And so, when I popped in on (another) goodbye lunch yesterday, I felt guilty.
Because I’m really happy. I want everyone to be happy, and I know, I can’t make it so. But I’ll never, EVER, stop trying. The leopard can only change so many spots, and those are stuck on me for good.