RoaringSheep

Sit and Swivel

I got sucked into watching Bridget Jones's Diary on TV this morning.  I loved the book, and the movie was quite all right as far as chick flicks go, but eventually I realized that the majority of the commercials on during this movie were for weight loss products.  Coincidence?  I think not.

I did learn about a new exercise product that promises a loss of four inches from your waist after 30 days of use.  For the life of me, I can't figure out this Red Exerciser thing.  Basically, you sit on the red disk, which looks a bit like the top of a bar stool suck on the base of a director's chair, and swivel from side to side.  Apparently, there's resistance in the swiveling mechanism, from whence you derive all of the slimming and toning benefits.  I did not rush to the phone with my credit card handy.  I sat on my fat ass and thought of a better way to get this same benefit.  Go to a bar.  Sit at the bar, on a bar stool that swivels.  Drink Diet Coke.  Smoke cigarettes.  Swivel on bar stool.  There you go -- the caffeine and nicotine will keep your metabolism revved up, you'll be swiveling, and you'll be fit and thin in no time.  For the single and flabby, the possibility of meeting a new paramour at the bar also exists.  Perhaps the entire bar could get into the act, and this could be a group exercise event, not unlike a spinning class.

I have to go.  I need to find myself a publisher for my new weight loss book.

American Hardcore: The Movie

I loved the book, I liked the movie soundtrack, and now I've finally seen the movie, American Hardcore.  I've actually had the DVD from its first release date.  I just haven't been able to bring myself to watch it.  I was afraid that I'd be disappointed.  The movie is what it is.  The sound and video aren't great in the live performances from the 80's because they were all amateur in just about every sense of the word.  I wish that they'd shown full songs being performed, though, because the way that little bits of live performances were thrown in here and there only made them all seem the same.  I don't know if that was what we were supposed to think -- that all hardcore sounds the same -- but I don't think so, because the producers of the movie obviously cared enough to make distinctions in the present day interviews.  I guess it's just a matter of what they had to work with in terms of original footage of the bands.

Rather unexpectedly, I found myself feeling rather depressed at the end of the movie.  I wanted it to go on longer and to see more people and bands, but that just left me feeling mildly disappointed.  The depression part was from the sad realization that everyone in the scene has gotten old.  We're all old and grown up.  That's not earth-shattering news to anyone who can do basic math, but it's different to say, "I wonder whatever happened to (insert name of band here)?" versus actually seeing them now.   In my memory, the guys (and it was mostly guys) are all still young, thin, and angry.  In reality, they're old, fat (mostly, with some notable exceptions), and (most) seemed to be somewhat resigned in their attitude toward life in the present.  On the one hand, I'm also old, fat, and too tired to do a lot about the things that I find incredibly disturbing about the world today, so I have no right to complain.  On the other hand, I was somewhat happier thinking that some people who really influenced me with their music had continued to fight the good fight.  It's sad to see that the real world got to them, too.

Although a lot of the people interviewed said that they got into hardcore because they didn't like where the United States was headed during the Reagan years, there was no explanation of why hardcore died out before the end of Reagan's second term (which was, of course, followed by a none too different first Bush presidency).  I'd love to see that question answered.  I'd also love to see a Where Are They Now? type movie which explains what people who were influential in the scene are doing now.  They did allude to that for some people, but they didn't really go into great detail about most interviewees' current lives.  *That* is a movie that I'd love to see.

I guess all this disillusionment will be worth it if, after I wallow in my depression for a bit longer, I get up off my ample ass and doing something about what I think is wrong with the world.

All Tomorrow's Parties

Between working at work and working at home, my life has been dullsville, hence the lack of recent posts.  However, that all changed a couple of weeks ago when a party invitation entered my life.  It was a Care Bears party invitation, no less.  I really dislike the Care Bears, but it was for a little girl's sixth birthday, so I sucked it up.  I'm the adult here, or at least I have to pretend.  I attempted enthusiasm, and it wasn't so bad. . . until I opened the card.

What was written inside the card made me feel uptight.  Most people who know me in real life think of me as being fairly easygoing and having a good sense of humor.  In fact, I've made a career of playing good cop to my boss's bad cop for the past few years.  That said, I do have a serious side, and I can be very tightly wound when provoked.  And the card set off the sirens in my head.  Despite the fact that the birthday girl lives a couple of miles from my house, this party was set at a residential address 15+ miles from our house, with no explanation of whose house it was or why the party was there.  The invitation also listed a starting time for the party but no end time, which had me quivering at the thought of spending hours with my daughter's classmates' parents.  I RSVP'd yes, because DD really wanted to go.  I figured that maybe I'd get some info out of the birthday girl's parents when I called them but I never got a live person and finally just left a message on their machine.

In retrospect, I made a mistake that I have been destined to make over and over in my life until I finally learn from it.  I talked to my father about the party.  It was out of necessity, as I needed to work out the logistics of what to do with my three year old during said party, as it wasn't clear to me whether I was going to have to stay at the party and I think it's incredibly rude to drag along uninvited children to any sort of organized social event.  After talking with my dad, I became convinced that these people were going to tell me to drop my five year old off at this strange house and come back in a few hours, at which point I'd arrive to find the house vacant and later learn that all the children had been herded into a box truck and sold to pedophiles over the internet.  This explains a lot about why I am never, ever get a good night's sleep.  But I worked it through.

On Saturday, I loaded DD into the car.  She was very excited.  I helped her dress herself for the party, and she'd put together an ensemble that screamed that she was excited.  (Think hot pink.)  I, on the other hand, decided to hand my child over to these people in a blase outfit of khakis, a golf sweater (I hate golf, let's get that straight.  I like the sweater.), and trainers (Okay, I don't run, either.).  I thought about wearing the pastel cotton turtleneck sweater, jeans, and chunky heeled boots get up that all the other moms wore at the last party, but I dared to be different and went with the risque selection of khakis.  As we set off on our 15+ mile journey, I felt quite thankful that I'm still married to my children's father, as I needed to cross state lines to get to this party and a restrictive child custody agreement would have presented quite a complication.  I also congratulated myself for not having done anything to cause the criminal justice system to prevent me from ferrying my child to this mysterious party out of state.  I can't imagine having to explain to my child (or to the party givers) that my criminal past or ugly divorce would keep my child from licking the frosting off of a piece of cake in another state.

When we arrived at the party, we were greeted by the tall dad, as mentioned in a previous post.  Yes, he was the birthday girl's dad.  He gave me the scoop on the party, all the details about what the plans were and when it was going to end.  Why this couldn't have been written on the invitation, I don't know.  I imagine this couple must have eloped, because there's no way anyone would go to a wedding with such sketchy info on the invitations.

I had the option of staying or leaving, so I left it up to my daughter, who pretty much immediately wanted me to leave.  So I got to say hello and good bye to all the other parents.  There weren't a lot of parents I knew, as apparently most of the others had some reason (on probation?  custody agreement? a life?) why they didn't want to travel so far for a little kid's party.  But there were a few parents who I trust who were sticking around, so I felt comfortable obeying my child's directive to leave.  And I had two hours to myself.  I ran errands.  When I got back to the house, I caught the end of the entertainment, the pinata, and, mercifully, the goodbyes.  I'm still not clear why we had to travel so far so that my daughter could eat pizza and cake in a garage, but she had a good time and I survived.

The best part of the whole day. . . as I was driving away from the house to run my errands and leave the kids to party with the very tall dad and his wife who is obsessed with how tall he is, I called my husband:

Me:  Hi, I'm leaving the party.  I don't think they're going to sell the kids.

DH:  Well, that's good.

Me:  Yeah, I got the scoop from the dad.  You know, sweetie, he is taller than you.

DH:  Uh-huh

Me:  But you have more teeth.

DH:  (hahahahahaha)

Together We Can

If you don't live in New England, you probably haven't seen those ubiquitous blue and white bumper stickers that say Together We Can.  The man behind the stickers, Deval Patrick, was sworn in today as the first African American governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  It will be interesting to see how his first term goes.  Hell, I think it's going to be interesting, period, to finally see someone who I respect governing Massachusetts finally.

I wasn't always a Deval supporter.  I never disliked him, but the 2006 election season was one where none of the candidates really captured my support until the very end.  I have to admit, I was impressed almost every single Friday this summer, when I passed by people holding Deval Patrick and Together We Can signs -- they stood in rotaries, at intersections, and even on bridges over highways.  Even this summer, I was intrigued about what was so special about Deval Patrick that made people want to give up their Friday afternoons to breathe exhaust fumes and sweat in the heat and humidity.  However, I also worried that this was going to turn into some sort of Howard Dean situation -- huge enthusiasm early on, followed by the candidate's self-destruction later.  It didn't.

Deval Patrick ran a relentlessly positive campaign, and, although he definitely got his back up at times when responding to press inquiries or to other candidates during debates, he didn't sink to the cheap shots and overwhelming negativity that so dominates our political landscape now.  At this point, he seems poised to try to keep his governorship positively focused.  He's been governor for less than 24 hours, so it's hard to tell, but his message so far has been gracious and inclusive, and hopefully the response will be similar.

What do I think will happen?  I don't know.  Massachusetts has a reputation for being very liberal and tolerant.  However, it also has a reputation for being very racist.  Yes, we've elected Deval Patrick and you can be legally married here no matter what the sex of your spouse, but hate crimes and racist attacks still occur.  It's not utopia, but there are some breaths of fresh air, and I think Deval Patrick is one of them.  It's an exciting time to live in this commonwealth and I hope that it stays that way.

Ringing Out December

Last month, I decided to actually do something other than listen to my iPod on shuffle, which has almost exclusively been the way I've used it since day one.  I created a December playlist, with songs that had some connection, even a remote one, to the month or the holidays:

I Useta Love Her -- Saw Doctors

Christmas Vacation -- The Descendents

Orgasm Addict -- The Buzzcocks

Million Miles -- The Shods

Fairytale of New York -- The Pogues

Always Remember -- Blood or Whiskey

Somebody -- Depeche Mode

This playlist worked for me, but the challenge now is to come up with one for January.   I can't decide whether I want some songs that will basically say Get up off your fat arse and get your shit together, for fuck's sake, it's 2007 or whether I want some songs that say You can do it, you're the best.  What do you think?  What do you feel like listening to in January and why?  (And please, don't mention New Year's Day by U2.  Not gonna happen on my iPod, thankyouverymuch.)

Stuck in the Suburbs

I know the title of this post is also the title of a Disney TV movie, but it's the best way to describe how I feel today.  I got to spend two hours today at a birthday party for one of my daughter's friends, and while she had fun, it was excruciating for me.  While I liked the parents of her preschool friends and always had a good time at any parent/child events, I just haven't clicked with the parents of her kindergarten friends (and there's no overlap between her preschool and kindergarten friends).

I guess I'm the one who started with a bad attitude, and it all happened before school started.  We had to spend a morning at school for kindergarten orientation in August, a few days after I hurt my back.  On our way into the school, we encountered a little girl that my daughter knew (but was not friendly with) from preschool and when we got into the classroom, this girl's parents sat down at the same table as we did.  If it wasn't bad enough that my back was killing me and I had to sit in a chair meant for a five year old, this mom made a huge deal about how uncomfortable it was going to be for her husband to sit at the table because he's 6' 2". . . she went on and on about it until I felt like telling her that my husband is only six feet tall, but maybe we could have our husbands whip their penises out to compare length, right there on the low kindergarten table.  I mean, WTF with all the protestations about how tall her husband is, especially since she, in heels, is a good deal shorter than I am in sneakers.  Then, when orientation got underway and she said that she and her (tall) husband had been through it before with their older child, the huge deal she made about her husband sitting at the table made even less sense, as he'd certainly done it before.  So, I didn't make a friend that first day.

That woman actually sat next to me for almost an hour today and we didn't say a word to each other.  I was going to ask her how tall her husband is again, but that seemed snarky so I didn't.  I must have been giving off an evil vibe, though, as every time I glanced in her direction, she picked up her cell phone and ran out of the party room as if she had an important call to make. 

The only parent I had a conversation with during the entire two hours was the birthday girl's mother, who seems nice.  The other parents (moms, mostly) chatted amongst themselves and I kept to myself.  I just couldn't bring myself to make small talk with them.  They don't interest me.  They seemed bland, boring, inocuous, and they seemed to all be wearing some sort of suburban mom uniform -- cotton sweater in a light color, boots with two inch heels, and jeans (which varied only in that some were true Mom Jeans and others were a bit more stylish).  Needless to say, I wasn't wearing the uniform and although I could probably scare up an outfit that looks remotely like it, the chances of my doing that are nil now.

About halfway through the party, I realized that I will likely be running into these pod people for years and years to come, as our town has quite a few elementary schools, so the kids who go to my daughter's school all live within a mile or two of our house.  These are the people in my extended suburban neighborhood. . . and they bore the living crap out of me.  I don't know how to reconcile myself to a future of dealing with these people.  In the short term, the best idea I can come up with is to make my husband ferry my daughter to social events so that she (who is quite gregarious) won't be stigmatized by having a mom who doesn't fit in and doesn't want to be part of the group.  In the long term, I think we have to move.  That will be an interesting conversation with the realtor, once I explain that I want to live in a neighborhood with cool people. . .

So, what happens to all the fun people after they become parents?  I know that, with a job, a long commute, and two little kids, I definitely don't have the time or the opportunity to hang out and have fun like I did before motherhood happened, but I haven't given up the idea of having fun.  I just can't figure out where the fun parents are.  We moved to the suburbs and all hope was apparently lost.  This doesn't bother my husband much because he wasn't a social animal like me, and because he's pretty mainstream so he finds people who like the same things he likes almost everywhere.  For me, living in the suburbs as an adult is pretty much like it was growing up in them as a kid in that I feel contempt for most of my peers, but it's unlike my adolescent experience because at least then I could identify the freaks in the area because we all looked like freaks.  Sadly, that's not the case any more, likely because we all have to keep jobs that prevent us from making any changes to our appearance that can't be hidden during the work week.

What's a suburban mom to do?

Full Release

With a post title like that, can you tell I just saw the movie Happy Endings?  It was a pretty good movie, and I'd recommend it.  And no, it is not p*rn and it is not much about massage.

What I mean by the title of this post is that I have been fully released from physical therapy.  Actually, the orthopedic surgeon, the same one who sent me to physical therapy, specifically said, "Don't waste your time with more physical therapy."  I was going to relay those exact words to PT, but I didn't have to bother because the doctor wrote him a note.  Strangely, in this day of e-mail and faxes, I hand carried a progress report from PT to the doctor, who wrote a note back and had me hand carry it to PT.  I felt a bit like junior high, passing along a note asking if the recipient liked the writer.  I did my share of that in junior high, though I was always the go-between and never the one with the crush or the one who was the object of the crush.  That suited me just fine.

In any case, my life is PT-free now.  We were getting along a lot better during the last few weeks of therapy, although it was not without its rocky moments.  At the end of the day, my back is feeling better and I am incredibly grateful that we were able to make that happen. 

People always say that you take your health for granted until you don't have it any more, and I guess that is really true.  I feel more motivated to take better care of myself now than I ever have, most likely because I know how easy it would be to reinjure myself and go through more months of agony.  I've broken bones before, gotten really sick, and had tendonitis, but none of those situations ever made me think that I needed to get my act together before my physical health really impeded me from living my life.  Perhaps that is just the nature of back injuries, given the way that a back injury can really affect almost everything that you do.  So, I'm going to keep doing my back exercises, and I'm going to try to be more active, even through the upcoming winter.  Once spring rolls around, I plan to hit the road and eventually run a 5K next Thanksgiving.  My parents (one of whom could run a 5K and the other who could not) think that my goal is laughable, as in that I will never do it.  My husband has told me that if I can do it, he will get me a surprise, and he has strongly hinted that it will be some sort of body art. . . I think in his mind this is going to be quite the challenge for me -- first the running and then some sort of piercing or tattooing.  Good grief, I'm married to a sadist!

The sadist and I have recently taken up cigar smoking.  I know, that's Bad for you.  However, a few weeks ago, as I was eagerly anticipating a visit from my brother, who only comes home every two or three years for a few days, I mentioned that I wanted to smoke a cigar with him.  I love the smell of cigars, but I'm not a huge smoker of them because, unlike Bill Clinton, I have a difficult time not inhaling.  Turns out the night I was with my brother it poured out so we couldn't go outside to smoke.  The spouse was more than willing to do that with me last week.  While we were outside smoking our cigars and drinking beer, I saw our two year old downstairs sneaking around the house, hours after his bed time.  I gave my cigar to my husband, put down my beer, and ran inside to chase the kid back to bed, and the little weasel stood his ground and told me he wanted to kiss me.  When I related this story at work, people looked seriously confused that I would smoke a cigar. 

I've indulged in a cigar every now and then since my mid-20's.  I can't figure out whether people are that surprised that I would smoke a cigar or whether there's another reason for their surprise.  It makes me wonder how well people really know me, and whether that's my fault or theirs.  Today at work my boss was quite beside herself that I "got" some things that were related to a specific program area at our company.  She said she wondered if I wasn't turning into one of "them", meaning the people in that program.  She thought it was quite funny, so she wasn't disparaging me.  It did make me think, again, how well she knows me after all these years we've worked together.  In her case, much of that is deliberate on my part because I don't think that a lot of my life is relevant to be shared in a work setting.  For example, the fact that I have a good sized tattoo on my back has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability to do my job.  Therefore, I don't reveal it at work because it's not necessary and appropriate workplace attire covers it.  There is also the fear that once people see it, it will become some sort of barrier or change their perception of my effectiveness at my job when really it has nothing whatsoever to do with my ability to perform.

When I was younger, I used to think that relationships were an all or nothing kind of thing -- either we like everything about each other and are friends or we have differences and are not friends.  With maturity, I have come to realize that friendships can exist on many levels and that having friends who have very different views can deepen my understanding of so many things, even if I don't ultimately agree with my friends' points of view.  Now I find myself in the position of knowing so many people and yet not really knowing them or having them know me because of the guarded nature with which I approach things.  In a world where information is a hot commodity, that's a smart and safe way to go about things, but what about those Aha! moments when you discover some off the wall thing that you have in common with someone else?  Those don't come as easily when your guard is up.

So, to bring this all full circle, back to PT, I think that's what happened.  We moved beyond the surface conversations that you have with people you don't know well and discovered that, for all our differences, we had some things in common and other things that were different but complementary.  We let our guards down and the boundaries got fuzzy.  He messed with my mind (whether intentional, I don't know) and I wondered if I had inadvertently been messing with his.  But we shifted gears (Okay, I admit, I had a little freakout at therapy, but we're not going there.) and reached a happy medium.  In fact, today I dropped by and gifted him a bottle of wine in thanks for everything he did to get me better.  Before you get all freaky about that, let me explain that I had a chance conversation with his boss last week about the work that I do, and I put together a package of information for his boss.  When I was on my way to drop that package off, I impulsively decided to bring a bottle of wine from a case I bought last week for PT, and I brought my kids with me.  So, please, I didn't show up with a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.  The wine was well-received and closure was had, and that's a happy ending.

Winters of My Discontent

What is it with Dean Winters?  He shows up everywhere on TV but never sticks around very long.  This week I watched 30 Rock for the first (and last) time, and there he was as Dennis, the King of Beepers.  30 Rock is the kind of show that looks like it is supposed to be good, but it's so awful that you wonder why so many talented people are involved in it -- how could they churn out such crap?  But, back to Dean.  Despite the overwhelming mediocrity of 30 Rock, they pretty much dumped him this week.  I imagine they would have killed him off but for the fact that the show itself will be killed off before they have a chance to do in Dean in a future episode.

Fast forward to this week's CSI:Miami, another show that I've tried to like but just don't.  I just can't take David Caruso chewing up the scenery, unlike some people I know (Hmmmmm, N.!).  In any event, I ended up watching CSI:Miami this week because DOG The Bounty Hunter (Now that's good stuff!) was a rerun.  I have to admit my interest was piqued as soon as I realized that they were in Brazil looking for Raymond Caine, who happens to be played by, you guessed it, Dean Winters.  Unfortunately, by the time they caught up to Raymond Caine, he was so messed up that he was basically unrecognizable and it wasn't Dean Winters playing Raymond as he died.  Yes, he died.  Now, Raymond Caine has already had one faked death on this show, so it's possible that he will arise from the dead and Dean Winters will give me a reason to endure this show again, but don't bet on it.

Where else have I seen Dean Winters?  Oz, Sex and the City, Rescue Me, and Law & Order: SVU.  The Sex and the City was a one shot deal.  I never saw the whole series of Oz so I don't know what happened to him there.  Dick Wolf and the SVU crowd got him out of there pretty quickly;  I don't think he finished the first season.  He seemed to finally hit a show where he was on almost every episode, season after season, with Rescue Me.  (I know there were a couple of episodes where his character was played by someone else, but he originated and finished the Johnny character.)  And then this past season, they definitely killed him off in Rescue Me.  There's no hope of a CSI-like twist where he'll be back from the dead due to some soap-opera-implausible story.

So, I ask, why?  Why do they always kill Dean Winters off or otherwise get rid of him with some finality?  I know that bringing him back to TV more frequently isn't going to bring peace to the world or do anything important or heavy like that, but, damn, it would make my world just a little bit brighter. 

Hooked!

We actually had an interesting, non-boundary-crossing conversation at physical therapy last night, and it's been something that I've since discussed with other people.  So I thought I'd bring it up here and see what you all have to say.  The topic is what is it about a woman that hooks a man?  I'd love to hear what you think.  For the purposes of this discussion, there are two rules/guidelines.  First, by "hooks" I mean what keeps a person coming back to another person, *not* what initially attracted them in the first place.  Second, in the interest of fairness, this is open to any combination of people -- it can be what about a man hooks a woman, what about a woman hooks a woman, or what about a man hooks a man in addition to the initial example -- all I ask is that you specify which sex is hooked on which sex.  Now that the groundwork has been laid, here goes:

PT's theory is that there are only two things about a woman that hook a man: sex and/or food.  When pushed, he conceded that maybe some aspect of physical attractiveness might work, too.  I think that his view is very limited.  So I asked my husband, a man of few words who becomes a man of even fewer words when asked to discuss his feelings.  While he agreed that sex and food were limiting, he didn't have much to add to the conversation.  He did agree that it might be a physical aspect of a woman that really got a man hooked.  He then jokingly told me that a woman's interest in him would be one thing that might work (Specifically, he told me that I was the only woman who ever stuck around, then he laughed his fool head off.), and, in an even funnier (to him) burst of inspiration, he said a woman's future earning capacity could hook a man.  Interesting. . .

I shouldn't make fun of these two guys.  They at least laid it out as they saw it, even if they were joking.  I found that women were much more difficult to pin down on this issue.  Most women were more than happy to say what attracted them to a man, but they were downright quiet when asked what it was that really hooked them on the man.  I'm not sure why.

For my two cents, it's always been an aha! moment that has hooked me on a guy, and it doesn't have to be the same thing.  I've felt that irresistable desire to stick around when I've seen guys interact with animals (Who doesn't love a dog lover?), when men have risked looking foolish in order to make me laugh, when a guy shares something that he doesn't share with others (a story, and experience, his car, whatever).

That's what I think.  What do you think?

Beating a Dead Horse

Yeah, I'm beating a dead horse.  Again.  It's back to physical therapy and more confusion.  I'm astounded by the fact that PT seems to be having a conversation with me on a whole different level than the one I think I'm on.  Perhaps the most surprising thing about it is that I spend most of my day talking to people and I'm generally very good (at least at work) at figuring out what people are trying to say even when their words aren't exactly clear.  Why is it then, that I always leave physical therapy wondering what was said and whether I accidentally "said" something that I didn't mean to imply or what the hell it was that PT was saying and why.

Today started out normally.  PT gave me some attitude, like he always does, about how I don't work hard enough, and I gave it right back to him while I did my exercises.  He told me I needed to work harder to get better because he couldn't come home with me.  Absolutely not, I said.  After a while he asked if I minded that he got on my case like that, and I said it didn't bother me, and even if it did it's not like I could do anything about it.  He said I could file a complaint against him and he could lose his license.  I asked a rhetorical question about why I would possibly file a complaint about PT giving me crap in order to get me motivated to work.

Then he asked what I was doing for lunch today.  I told him that I had the afternoon to myself and had planned on going to my favorite Mexican restaurant alone and really enjoying my lunch but that I wasn't really feeling like hot spicy food.  He said I could always get my food mild and I told him that Mexican food is best hot and I'd rather not have it at all than have some sissy mild food.  So he said I'd have to change my plans and I said probably, but there are other places downtown where I can grab some lunch so I'd be okay.  So far, this all seems normal to me.  Then he says that he'd love to have lunch with me, that he thinks we'd have a great time talking and I'd be surprised at what a good conversationalist he can be, but that he can't have lunch with me.  WTF?  Where did that come from?  I laughed it off and told him that if he was going to come out for Mexican with me and eat it mild, I'd make him sit at a separate table anyway.

Later I was telling him about something funny that happened at a party some of my work friends attended.  We discussed how I don't socialize with too many people from work because my function and my level in the company tend to make people feel inhibited when I show up at purely social events and I don't like to do that to people.  He agreed and said that he no longer socializes with people from work after having a bad experience years ago.   We talked a bit more, then it was time for me to go.  He left me waiting in the room until a lot of the other clients had left, then he came in to walk me out and he told me that he'd love to go to lunch with me but that he couldn't.  I was puzzled, but I just said okay.  And I left feeling like some sort of dejected loser when I hadn't asked him to have lunch with me in the first place -- how can I feel rejected like that when I never put myself out there to be rejected?

In my mind, I hadn't asked him to have lunch and hadn't hinted that I wanted him to come out for lunch with me.  Good grief, it was just lunch.  I find that when I talk to people about lunch, it is because I am talking about lunch, period.  It is not because I am trying to invite them to lunch.  If that is the case, then I usually make a statement or ask a question that overtly indicates that I want to eat lunch with that person -- I'll take you there some time, we should go there, do you want to come with me, do you want me to pick something up for you -- all these are ways I would indicate that lunching together is an option.  And, lest it not be obvious, I find myself very capable of having lunch with people, regardless of their sex or sexual orientation, and having it be just lunch rather than some sort of date type event.  If lunch with someone constituted a date, then my husband would go out of his mind at what a slut I am, eating lunch with lots of people who aren't him.  Hell, I even eat lunch with multiple people at the same time. . . is that an orgy now?

I feel out of touch, as though there's some way of having conversations that I don't understand.  At the same time, I feel as though it can't possibly be me because I can manage to have conversations that appear to be normal exchanges with other people.  It's just PT who leaves me feeling as though I missed part of the conversation or as though I said something innocuously that was interpreted as meaning other than what I meant.

I'm also feeling that I'm starting to understand a little about what is going on with PT, although at this point it's intuition rather than anything easily demonstrable.  I'm really starting to wonder if he had an issue with a female client in the past and is behaving so oddly with me because he doesn't want it to happen again.  It sounds like he's worked at bigger and nicer facilities than the one I go to, and I know he was a supervisor/manager in the past, which he definitely isn't now.  He also commutes a good distance from out of state, which makes me wonder if he can't work closer to home because of his past history.   If that's true, it's too bad because he's good at what he does.

I just need to get through my last couple of physical therapy sessions and then I'm all set.  I'm tempted to start wearing my iPod at therapy so that we can't have any more of these conversations that leave me wondering what I said/did to provoke PT's unusual behavior.  I did bring my iPod to therapy with me today, but I didn't have the guts to take it out and use it even when PT started singing (badly) along with a song on the radio.

I guess a bit of my back story is in order here.  I'm feeling a little fragile right now because there are a few things going on that I can't really blog about, and they've all really hit in the past 48 hours.  I've dealt with some death and dying issues (other people's, not my own) and I've observed the anniversary of a friend's brother's death in Iraq.  There are other things going on, too.  My biggest fear about wearing my iPod at therapy is that a song that reminds me of something sad will come on and I will lose it while I'm working out.  I can't be that vulnerable in front of PT.

Thanks for bearing with me over the past few posts. 

Phew!

Just to follow up from my last post, physical therapy went well today.  Of course, I didn't wear a shirt with something emblazoned across my chest, so as not to tempt fate.  We even talked about our spouses and our kids.  It turns out I'm doing so well that PT will probably release me from treatment next week.  So, things seem to be working out just fine and I don't feel nervous.

It wasn't a completely un-wierd situation, though.  He asked me what I was doing after I finished with therapy.  I said I didn't have any plans.  Then he told me he was hungry and asked if I was hungry.  I said yes.  He said he was starving.  I said that I ate a bigger lunch than usual today because I was planning on not getting hungry while at physical therapy, but that it didn't work and I was really hungry.  Then he changed the subject.  In my mind, that was a conversation about possibly grabbing something to eat together after therapy was over, nothing more.  And I would eat with PT.  When he's not busy staring at my boobs, he's quite a fun person to talk with, so that's fine with me. 

So maybe he's just winding me up these last two sessions, bringing me to the edge, making me think that he wants something from me, and then completely changing the subject.  I don't know, but I can play along for another week and then I'm free and healthy.

************************************************

On a related subject, there was a theme in the comments to last post that I completely missed when I was writing the post.  I pretty much danced around it, in fact, which shows how out of touch I can be sometimes.  But the idea was that behavior like staring at a woman can be seen as intimidating, a strategy to make women feel vulnerable.  And in many cases, it's easy to do that because men are generally bigger and stronger than women.

It's been a long time since I felt vulnerable in a scary way.  (That certainly wasn't the case with PT.  I never thought he'd actually hurt me.)  On the other hand, I know that I do things that are designed to not make me feel vulnerable.  I park my car near where I'm going at night, and I try to park in a well lit area, under a light if possible.  I always lock my doors.  When I'm going to my car, day or night, I always have my keys in my hand.  I look in the back seat before I get into the car.  I don't give strangers too much info about myself or my kids, to the point of lying about some things.  I have all sorts of little rituals that make me feel safe.  Do they make me safer?  I don't know.  I do know that lots of men I know don't do any of these things, don't even think about doing them.

What do you do to keep safe or feel safe?

Unspoken

Something unusual happened last week, and it's still bothering me, mostly because it has the potential to turn something that's been really good for me into something really bad.  I've been going to physical therapy for about a month and it's the only thing so far that has really helped me since I hurt my back this summer.  I do my exercises at home and I look forward to my two or three sessions per week with my therapist because I can really feel the benefit.  I like my physical therapist.  We usually have a good time, and I even like it when he lectures me on things I'm doing wrong.

When I went to my last physical therapy session, my therapist (Let's just call him PT.) greeted me, then stared at my t-shirt for a while, slowly reading the words on the front of it aloud.  My shirt is from a nonprofit animal rescue organization that I only know a little bit about, but I'm happy to give people their web address if they ask about the organization after seeing my shirt.  PT didn't ask about it, he just read the name of the organization, then looked up and led me into a therapy room. 

During most of my physical therapy sessions, we shoot the shit, and this one was no exception.  We went from a conversation about men crying (specifically, where/when it's okay for a man to cry) to a conversation about how PT once was fired (and didn't cry, but you knew that, didn't you).  I listened to the story and I did feel bad for PT because it sounded like he worked for a real jerk, and I've had my share of working for horrible people who mistreated their employees and sometimes fired them for no reason at all -- those are bosses you get away from as soon as you can.  But after telling me the whole story, PT asked me if I was going to stop coming to him because he had been fired once.  I was stunned by his insecurity, but I told him the truth.  His being fired from a different job has no impact on my opinion of his ability to assist me.  And I went on my merry way, feeling very, very good physically.

Later that day, I was standing in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I looked in the mirror and saw something horribly disturbing.  The words on my t-shirt were emblazoned right across the widest part of my chest, going around the corners if you catch my drift.  So, while PT was reading my shirt aloud, he was actually getting a good long look at my breasts.  I asked my husband about what he thought about a guy reading my shirt aloud.  The first thing he asked me was what guy.  Then he said, "Not your therapist."  I'm not proud of this (and it further complicates things) but I caved and said, "No, not my therapist.   It was some guy at physical therapy.  I'm not sure if he's a therapist or a client."  (Oh, I can lie to my husband so easily when I am afraid of the consequences.  I don't think he'd do anything bad, but I know I'd be forced to call my orthopedic surgeon to get a referral to another physical therapist and I'd have to think of a reason why.)  My husband's opinion was along the lines of yeah, he was staring at your chest but lots of guys do that, this one just called your attention to it.  Then, in manly man style, my husband told me that it wouldn't bother him if a woman openly stared at his butt or crotch.  Yeah, well, men are pigs sometimes.  The smile on his face told me he agreed. 

It's been almost a week since this incident occurred and it's still bugging me.  I haven't had an appointment in the intervening time.  But I'm still bothered by this and am a little apprehensive about my next appointment.  I'm second guessing everything that happened that day.  PT told me that the guy who had him fired used to "steal" all the pretty female clients from the other therapists.  During most sessions, PT has me facing so that my legs and feet are closest to him, but during this last one, he had my head and chest closest to him.  (Was he looking at me while I was doing my exercises?)  Did something wrong happen or am I just completely out of my fucking mind?

The thing that makes this all so strange is that PT read the writing on my shirt aloud.  If he had read it silently, he could have spent the entire time staring at my chest and I never would have noticed.  I might have thought that I caught him looking at me, but unless he was outright staring at me, I wouldn't have thought twice about it.  As I said to my husband, I can deal with the fact that guys stare at me sometimes because they don't say anything to me.  In those situations we can all pretend that it's not happening.

In a situation where someone is staring at you and calling your attention to it, what do you do?  I stood there while PT said hi, looked down at my chest, and read the shirt aloud.  I expected that the next thing out of his mouth would be about the organization featured on my shirt, but he never mentioned it.  Fortunately, I didn't figure out what he was doing until long after it happened. 

Part of me wants to wear the same shirt to my next appointment.  If he says anything about it, I'd love to just ask him what he wants, if he wants to see my tits, if he wants to touch them, etc. . .  I guess I want some control over the situation, and I want him to know that I am aware of what he's doing.  Of course, another part of me thinks that I'd be asking for trouble if I adopted such a confrontational attitude.

I could be more adult about it.  I could just mention to him that I noticed him staring at my breasts at my last appointment and would like him to know that he cannot continue doing that because it's inappropriate and unprofessional.  Yeah, right, that would work.

On the other hand, if he was so blatant about this, that could mean that he wants me to know that he's looking at me.  I can't figure it out.  For a month, things have been fine and I'm seeing improvement with my back pain, and now I'm trying to figure out why this occurred all of a sudden.  PT is older than me, has been married for a long time, and has kids.  I know that doesn't mean that he can't be lecherous, but it's not what I would expect based on his behavior until this last appointment.

There's always the possibility that what he did means nothing.  If only he had read silently, I'd feel more certain of that.  Those few words he read would have been no big deal if only they were unspoken.

Sunday Morning, Black Leather

This morning I had the opportunity to go out alone and I went to a bookstore.  While I was there I saw a couple who were very much like who I thought I'd be at this age.  They were dressed in black, with black leather jackets, and were perusing books in many different sections of the store.  When I was in college, I truly thought that I'd be part of a union such as this, spending lazy Sunday mornings drinking good tea and engaging in literary pursuits before sitting down with the New York Time crossword puzzle.  Of course, my life isn't like that.

This morning I threw on a voluminous (and 20 year old) handknit sweater over my microbrewery t-shirt and velour warm up pants and threw on some trainers so I could head out on a solo shopping expedition.  It's been years since I last wore my leather jacket and the only black pants I believe I own are yoga pants.  My husband owns almost nothing black and doesn't wear black leather except for at work (Yes, I *did* marry one of the Village People! ;-) )  It's always a special kind of torture for me to bring him to a bookstore.  My kids like bookstores but we have to be on a mission -- in and out very quickly -- in order to bring them into a bookstore.

So, did I envy those people in black, perusing books at their leisure?  Not a bit.  And it's not because I find motherhood or family life so fulfilling.  That's not where I'm going here.  I am surprised at how different my real adult life is from my youthful fantasy of what my adult life would be like, and I'm surprised at how I'm happy about that. 

Lately, everywhere I turn I see articles and books about how to organize your life so that it's more fulfilling.  It's important to have a multi-year plan about how to live your life, they emphasize.  While I won't argue that it's smart to look to the future when making plans for retirement saving or major purchases, I can't imagine why I'd want to map out my next three or five years and work at sticking to the plan.  Whatever happened to spontaneity?  What about trying new things?

I'm not saying I wouldn't have been happy as a black-clad intellectual, but I can't imagine missing out on all the things that I've experienced in order to get where I am now.  Having a specific plan for my life seems limiting to me.  I'm always going to have to say no to some opportunities, whether I choose to not take advantage of them intentionally or whether saying yes to one opportunity forecloses the possibility of another one.

The multi year life plan requires saying no to opportunities that don't fit into the plan without considering that as time passes, people (hopefully) grow and change.  This especially bothers me when I talk to high school or college students who have their lives planned out with exactitude.  It boggles my mind when I hear the specificity that kids have when figuring out their futures.  I had a rough idea of who I wanted to be, with few details, but it seems that there's an enormous amount of pressure today to have education, career, and family choices mapped out for life by the time a child reaches the age of eighteen.  When I was 18, I hadn't heard of an enormous number of careers or opportunities that are available now, and, indeed, many of them didn't exist back then. 

I guess it's obvious that I'm the kind of person who doesn't do well in job interviews when asked where I want to be in three or five years.  The short answer to that is happy.  I'm a bit more sketchy on the details.  When I entered graduate school, I envisioned a career in a totally different field than the one in which I currently work.  If I had stuck to my original vision of my career, I'd be in a special circle of hell right now, doing something that it turns out I don't want to devote my life to doing.

So, what do you think?  Are you the same person you were when you were eighteen?  Are you living the same adult life that you thought you'd be living when you were a kid?  Are you happy about that? 

Music Log

I had a willpower failure recently and bought an iPod.  When I fall, I fall hard, so I got the big one, the one that allegedly holds 20,000 songs.  Can I fill it?  Yes, I can!  Well, I hope so.  Right now it's still sitting in the box because I can't bring myself to start the arduous task of loading music from my cd's, never mind buying mp3's online.  In an effort to push me toward using the iPod as something other than an expensive but fragile paperweight, the universe has twisted itself into a hell where radio sucks.  I drive to and from work switching radio stations so I can listen to commercials back to back for an hour or so, all the while muttering about if I had the iPod loaded I wouldn't be in this situation.  I can only mutter when I'm not singing along with gems like "Carry On My Wayward Son" (by Kansas) -- you know I *need* help!

I am enjoying thinking about where to find mp3's of music that I have only on vinyl or cassette (Yes, cassette, though those don't see the light of day much.), and whenever I can't find something, I take it as a sign that the iPod is not going to change my life.  Today's disappointment was over Forgotten Rebels.  Remember them?  I bought This Ain't Hollywood and was overjoyed to discover that there were people who lived in North America (Canada, to be precise) who felt the same way I did.  Up until then, punk seemed like an English thing to me.  I know, I know, there were other bands around, but the Forgotten Rebels hit me in early 1983 and they'll always have a soft spot in my heart for that reason.  They're actually still around and have a web site.  My favorite song, The Me Generation appears to be lost in vinyl, never to hit the iPod.  I could get Surfin' on Heroin, though. 

How I would love to find This Ain't Hollywood in a format that I could load onto my iPod.  I'd also like to get some The Judy's songs in the same format, but that seems highly unlikely to happen.  You can click on over to the link for The Judy's and listen.  I recommend Washarama and Wonderful World of Appliances.  Ah, the oldies!

Today I had to help my kindergartener with some Homefun.  The teacher can call it Homefun and smile when she says it, but the kid has figured out that it is homeWORK already.  Mostly it's work for me because I'm the one responsible for it getting done, although the child is the one who wields the pencil.  I got a bit silly after today's Homefun celebrating the letter L.  On the last page, there was blank space for drawing pictures of things that begin with the letter L.  One of the items the child chose was a log.  That got me going on that song from The Ren and Stimpy Show (the original episodes -- the ones after that aren't worth watching so I don't).  Remember?

What rolls down stairs alone or in pairs
Rolls over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack and fits on your back?
It's Log, Log, Log!

It's Log, Log, it's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's Log, Log, it's better than bad, it's good!
Everyone wants a log! You're gonna love it, Log!
Come on and get your log! Everyone needs a Log!

Log, from Blammo

It kind of sounds like the Slinky song.  So, I taught it to the kids.  I am expecting a note home from the teacher after the kindergartener gives her rendition of it tomorrow at school.  I haven't looked yet, but I wonder if I can get that on my iPod. . .

Changing Spots

On Friday, I heard the song Achy Breaky Heart for the first time ever.  (Truthfully, I only heard the chorus and it was so bad that I pushed the Scan button on my car radio again so I wouldn't have to listen to any more of it.)  I do know who Billy Ray Cyrus is, as I've got a kid who watches Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel.  For those not in the know, Billy Ray Cyrus and his real life daughter star as father and daughter on the show.  I also remember seeing photos of Billy Ray and his really awful mullet during his heyday as a country star.  And that fits right in to my query about whether a leopard can really change its spots.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Billy Ray Cyrus mullet was one of the ugliest, least flattering, most offensive hairstyles ever.  Almost any other hairstyle would be an improvement for Billy Ray.  And he managed to find himself something that is just about as awful looking.  Now he's got some sort of strange bob-like thing.  He looks a bit like a masculine middle aged woman, which I am pretty sure is not the effect he wanted.  Then again, who knows?  This is clearly a case of the leopard not changing its spots. 

Hairdos aside, can a leopard really change its spots?  I've had several conversations recently about this issue.  I have to say that I come out as a wait-and-see kind of person in this regard.  I've been surprised at the people I've talked to who are absolutely adamant that it can't be done.  We've been talking specifically about whether someone with a criminal record and/or an addiction problem can ever get over it.  I do think it's possible, given the right person in the right circumstances.  However, I've been talking to people who speak about these things as being integral facets of someone's personality, things that cannot be changed.  They believe that the person will always have a propensity toward sliding back into the unwanted behaviors.  Strangely, the people who believe this the most strongly are people who are active Christians.  What ever happened to turning the other cheek?  I know, you can find something in the Bible (or many other religious tracts for many other religions) that can justify almost anything.

I feel odd being the one who seems more optimistic about the chances someone has to change his or her life for the better.  I'm no stranger to cynicism and sarcasm.  I laughed my ass off during the episode of 30 Days where Morgan Spurlock went to jail.  Listening to him talk about how he really thought that some of his fellow inmates were really going to turn their lives around when they were released and not end up back in jail was hysterical.  It was so incredibly clear to me that it wasn't going to happen that way.  It was also surprising that someone like Morgan Spurlock, who seems pretty damn people-savvy to me, was so taken in by these men.  How did that happen?

How do we make decisions in our day to day lives when we're dealing with people who have undesirable behaviors that they say they want to change?  If you work with someone who has admitted to having money problems in the past, whether writing bad checks or stealing or going through personal bankruptcy, what do you then do when there's money missing?  Does the person with the troubled financial past become suspect number one?  In my experience, that person is usually not the one who did the stealing, but sometimes it is that person.  How do people get past that?

I don't have any answers.  It's difficult to find the balance between assuming that the leopard can't changes its spots and being naive enough to take everyone's words as being true.  Remember that story at the end of The Crying Game about the frog giving the scorpion a ride across some water so that the scorpion wouldn't drown and the scorpion rewarding him by fatally stinging the frog, causing them both to drown?  The scorpion said it was because it was in its nature, even though it had promised the frog not to sting it if the frog gave it the ride across the water.  If it's in one's nature to do things that are against one's interest, how can that change?  And how can people make the decision to be neither the frog nor the scorpion?