Do you Twitter?

This is a test. All questions will be graded and put into a saucer of milk for the cat.

If you Twitter, why do you Twitter? Hear this in a plaintive tone first--and then in a WTF demand. Both plaint and WTF are heartfelt.

I have been Twittering for a donkey's age, it seems, but now that EVERYONE is Twittering--I'm kinda meh about it. No, I'm not just meh-ish, I'm downright antipathetic. And dumbfounded that anyone would friend Oprah or Demi Moore. To what end? As in, what's the point? Do you really care what bon mots those two women are flinging through the airwaves?

And all this excitement about BUILDING COMMUNITIES ON TWITTER. Again, to what end? Like I don't know enough people from the blogs that I read? I should gather arbitrary individuals to my Twitter bosom so that I can say, "Lo! I am this popular." Well, lo, I have better things to do. Like file my nails. And wash the dog.

Why not just join the Rotary if you're into building communities? Or Kiwanis? Hey! What about Toastmasters?

And while I'm on subject--not to mention a tear and a rant--what is with Social Media going up close and personal? Isn't the point of the internet to be that we don't have suck in our stomachs and wear mascara? Or comb our hair, for that matter. Or wash it? But now these Social Media groups are MEETING. In public. For chrissake. I don't have the wardrobe for this. My Spanx are getting stretched out and my cute little shoes are wearing down at the heel.

Didn't I write this post already? And post it some time back? Is this Early Onset? Or am I just a tad forgetful?

Why I Will Never Weigh Less

This should be subtitled: Ya Want Me Thin or Ya Want Me Happy?

I have just come back from a Sugar Run. This is when I get in my car and go! anywhere! there's! sweetstuff! I knew I had to do this when I read an email about MidLifeBloggers and didn't give a shit that I didn't care at all to find out what the sender was talking about. "Hold all discussion about logo colors. I have to get a cupcake."

But first, Molly and I had to get her some food. That dog is going to eat me out of house and home, as my mother used to say (and I didn't understand what it meant then either, hello Chris Martin).

But first I had to go to Michael's to get me a gem or two to fiddle with. And in Michael's, I met with a Very Large Woman who was insidiously insistent on jumping the queue. When I called her on it the first time, she got all humble "Sorry sorry sorry..." she said in what I think was a West Indian accent. And then she preceded to sprint for the next open cash register. Do I have to describe to you my wrath and chagrin and how I arrived at the cash register just a beat after she did and waved my goods over her head for the clerk to take. But the clerk was cowering and yelling for help and obviously wasn't going to Do The Right Thing And Instill Public Decorum. So I flung myself over to the next cash register and stopped myself from hissing a multitude of Ugly American comments.

Still seething, I got into my car, turned the key in the ignition, and--nada. So I jumped out, put Molly on a leash and we walked WALKED all the way down to the pet store. She was hyper as hell which manifests itself as Whirling Dervish act. This, as you might imagine, did not help my mood. I dragged her around the store--actually, she dragged me, more or less--and finally we WALKED all the way back to where the car was parked.

And it still wouldn't start.

So I called D, because when my car won't start I like to remind him that it's his fault I bought it. He told me to call AAA. I called AAA and the operator was just tellling me that there were no tow trucks available but he'd put an order in--. And my car started. Just like that. Obviously some sympatico thing between the AAA vibes and--whatever.

I drove straight to Starbucks because I was lusting after a cupcake. But when I got there, they had those Almond Pecan Cookie things that I'm addicted to. What To Do? What To Do? What To Do?

It was a tough afternoon, guys, so I bought both cupcake and cookie.

There is now a smile on my face (and a crumb on my chest...).

Wordy Wednesday

What is it with this Wordless Wednesday business? Does anyone not get that it's a con. Shove a picture up on your blog and you've done your Wednesday duty? I don't think so. Be that as it may, I'm willing to go along to get along (ha!). So here's my offering for Wordless Wednesday. Except, of course, it has words. Because, people, this is a BLOG! Not a photo album.
This is a photo of my lunch. It is, some of you might recognize, a concoction from WeightWatchers frozen meals. When I was on Weight Watchers oh those many years ago, I lived on this stuff. And it wasn't bad. Either I've changed or they've changed, because this Chicken Mirabella was Mirabad. For one, the pasta, which was about ten stages past al dente, was coated in a gelatinous, yet incredibly taste-free sauce that had an odd shine to it. Almost a glow, in fact. And see that piece of chicken in the upper right corner of the dish? That was one of two--count 'em two--chunks of chicken in the dish. Since the box cover showed FIVE chunks of chicken, I believe I have the makings of a truth in advertising claim on Weight Watchers. Of course, if I won, they'd probably award me a lifetime supply of the stuff.

Fashion is the topic again on MidLifeBloggers. This time it's about the dreaded trip to buy bluejeans. Go have a look.

The Third Rail

For me, that third rail is proving to be the 2008 Election. I cannot read or hear or watch a piece of coverage without shorting out. Smoke comes out of my ears; my hair stands on end; and I'm sure my blood pressure must soar to the Jackpot mark. And that's a shame, because this was supposed to be the election cycle where I finally got my oar in. I covered politics in the past, but with the end of my journalism career, I've had no viable outlet. Until ByJane, that is, and the legitimization of political bloggers. At the beginning of the primary season, I was set to go. I had my credentials from the Huffington Post and I planned a season of thoughtful, considered impartial posts which would focus on a meta-analysis of political coverage. By so doing, I thought, I would enable people to make those Informed Decisions that are supposed to guide us, rather than the ones solely derived from Emotional Appeals. A worthy cause, don't you think?

Well, ha! And ha! again.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because from the gitgo, I was overwhelmed by the overwhelming amount of opinion that was passing for news. I was overwhelmed by the myriad of ways in which different reporters would by virtue of an introductory statement or a closing one signal their emotional attachment to That Which Is Supposed To Be Unsaid, their preference for one candidate or another. Staci Schoff of A Mommy With An Attitude talks of that in her post today, and I'm going to quote a good bit of it just because, because I want to:

All of that is to say nothing of how irritating it is that every time the media's beloved Obama eeeks out a win in a state, the media cheers at the top of its lungs that he's pretty much won the nomination nee the election in November. And every time Clinton takes a state by a landslide the media headlines say, "Clinton wins -- why won't she just quit?" And if that doesn't work they just ignore the fact that it's fine to point out that the demographic group we refer to as "black" is overwhelmingly supporting Obama (and certainly it doesn't make them "racist"), but if the (much larger) demographic group we refer to as "white working class" is supporting Clinton then that's racist. I like it even better when journalists go out of their way to point out that those people didn't have the privilege of going to college, as if democracy should only be for the people who are smart enough and rich enough to not have to flip our burgers and pump our gas.

And yes, I realize that Staci's own political preference is obvious here, but then, she's not passing herself off as a journalist, is she?

So I've managed to avoid another aneurysm by just not paying too close attention--when I could avoid it. I managed to ignore the so-called legitimate press, but I couldn't really forego BlogHer for the entire primary season. And BlogHer has its own punditry, doesn't it? I'm proud that our coverage was so, so fulsome. Way to go, everyone, for making BlogHer's political coverage viable. But did it have to be so, so pundit-ridden? My sense on reading the coverage on the site is that if I'm not for Obama, then I'm a blithering idiot who should turn in my Girl Credentials.

And now that Mr. Obama is the presumptive Democratic candidate, this tone continues. Two posts from yesterday snared me and I couldn't resist touching that Third Rail. Catherine Morgan wrote a post stating that given John McCain's positions, no woman could possibly find a reason to vote for him. Go read it, as well as the on-going comments (including the lone guy who so eloquently advised Clinton supporters considering voting for McCain, that "if you cut off your nose to spite your face, it makes it easier to stick your head up your butt." Nice going, James. I always love when the men add their little soupcon of wisdom and wit to BlogHer.)

The other post that got me was from our very own Pundit Mom, who actually wrote a rather, sort of, lovely essay about Hillary leaving the race. She raises the dreaded spectre of sexist coverage which I then countered with my theory of the Death Kill of Pundits. She agreed with me (lovely lovely Pundit Mom) and then she asked, "Do you think pundits pushing their own agenda was because more were men trying to view Clinton through a male lens?" To which I answered all that you have read above as well as this:

No, I don't think the problem was a preponderance of male pundits viewing Clinton through a male lens. The problem was gender-neutral; it came from the women as well as the men. I think the problem is rather more complicated. Let me see if I can boil it down a bit:

• We are in an age where everyone can and does have their fifteen minutes of fame. Thus, those who are already legitimate must outdo the hoi polloi in order to get attention.
  
• We seem to have recovered from the so-called civilizing effects of the Enlightenment. We're now just as nasty, just as vile, just as insulting as The Tatler, et al.

These two things (and some others that are tangential) combine to create SuperPundit: he or she who is clever and educated and thus has the background (or at least the research skills) to come up with The Perfect Putdown or The Especially Effective Encomium. Such remarks are money in the self-esteem bank for SuperPundit; they are, in fact, the Supreme Validation. And given the breadth of the social network these days, SuperPundit has an audience that is limitless (not to mention always up for a chuckle or a fight).

So here I am, lolling about on the Third Rail. I'm considering closing the comments because, well because this is my blog. I get to say whatever I want and you don't. That begs the question of why, after all this time, I'm throwing myself back on the Third Rail. Because, of course, I'm a former SuperPundit myself--and therefore, I know of what I speak.

WTF???!!!

In my trip round about the blogosphere today, I came across a number of posts in which the blogger was taking to task other unnamed bloggers for being critical of another unnamed blogger because she--I dunno, there was so much not naming that I couldn't really tell, but it seemed to have something to do with success, or some such thing. From all of this, which I won't link to because, well because you can easily find these posts yourself, I gather that there is a small swell,if not a tidal wave of miseryguts aimed at Heather Armstrong YET AGAIN.

There have been several well-reasoned posts written about the sin of envy and there being room at the Inn for all of us. Mine is not of the well-reasoned ilk. Mine is the fucking pissed off and disgusted genre.

Dislike someone for better reasons than that they are succeeding at something that you wish you were doing. Don't you realize how small that makes you seem, those of you who say, Oh, I just can't stand Dooce; she's so, so, whatever. I remember at Blogher'o6 after Heather's session listening to several women bitching about the fact that she had copped to feeling real anxiety that her family's well-being was a function of her being able to come up with a short essay every couple of days that would keep people entertained. God, they said, she's complaining about being successful. Give me a break. What she was doing, assholes (see I told you I was pissed off), was sharing herself with you. That's what she does in the blog. That's why so many people are regular readers. And if you're going to dislike someone simply because they're better than you, at least have the balls to admit it.

Frustration!!!!

I'm running in place, or so it feels, on so many things in my life. That sounds direr than I mean it (btw, is there such a word as 'direr'? there is now!), but of the things I've tried to accomplish this week, a big zippo is happening. To wit:
1. Wednesday Night Knitting at Knitique: I decided to bite the bullet and FINISH THE GODDAMN SOCK THAT I STARTED OH, ABOUT NINE MONTHS AGO. We all know, since I have whined continuously, that I hate knitting socks. I do not knit socks. I love sock yarn. I buy lots of sock yarn. This is a joke among those who knit with me and, goshdarnit, I've decided to change and amend my ways. I WILL master that freakin' sock, or, or,--whatever. So I took said freakin' sock to work on last night and after I had done eight rows turning the heel, I decided it was all wrong and I frogged it. Then I went, crumpled instructions in hand to Danielle, who cheerfully told me I had done it right the first time. So I knit and I ripped and now I have to knit again. FRUSTRATION.
2. I am trying to get MidLifeBloggers.com up and running. By myself. Because I am, wouldn't you know it, a "Mother I'd Rather Do It Myself" kind of person. But myself doesn't know diddlysquat about building websites. So I'm sitting at my computer with OMSH's Wordpress Wednesdays handouts on one side, Wordpress's Codex on the other, and Wordpress for Dummies on my lap. I know just how I want the site to look and to work, but, but, but--. I wish I could just stick my hands into the computer and make it do what I want it to. I wish I knew what I was doing. I wish I wasn't so fucking independent!

The Check Arrived Today

...from the Superior Courts of California, the lofty sum of $23.50, of which a goodly sum was for mileage--and that should tell you something about distances in our great state. However, I didn't announce this so that you could feel cheered for me, having that extra money in my pocket, but because I now feel absolutely free to tell you exactly what I think of jury duty.

Don't, under any circumstances, commit a crime, because the last thing you want is for your fate to be in the hands of a "jury of your peers." I realized this the first time I sat on a jury. It was a relatively simple case: a homeless man was thrown out of McDonald's by Downtown L.A.'s Security Forces, known to all as "The Pink Police," so-named for the color of their uniform shirts. The homeless man, let's call him Mr. X, was an older fellow with an abundance of white hair and a cane. That last is important, because--clue coming--it figures in the case. Mr. X objected to being routed from his warm seat at the back of McDonald's where he was simply resting his eyes, and when the Pink Police suggested he had to leave, with some physical maneuvering on their part, Mr. X may have reached for his cane. To rise...or to strike, that is the question upon which The People vs. Mr. X rested. This case, which required the services of both an Assistant D.A. and a Public Defender (both being paid for by The People), lasted a good two or three days. Mostly it was taken up with the Assistant D.A. being taken to task by the Judge (also an employee of The People) for a multitude of mistakes, all of which were due to the fact that this was the very first case he had ever tried. That this was just a bogus charge, without merit, blah blah blah, was obvious to anyone who had a brain. I knew that and figured, we the People, would take care of the bullshit is short order. I was wrong. My fellow jury members willingly sat for another three days--oh, and did I mention that this took place the week before Christmas?--arguing about when a cane was a weapon or a prop for a handicapped man and who said what when why or not. There certainly was a lot of blah blah blah, as this one and then that one on the jury wanted to be heard, to be agreed with, to be right. As you might imagine, I had little patience with this, and I wasn't the light of the deliberation room. But no matter--eventually, we agreed to disagree (it was December 23rd by now) and the jury was officially hung. Mr. X presumably went free, which maybe wasn't the best thing for him over the Christmas holiday.

I will not go into the same detail about the second case I was on the jury, except to say it was a civil case involving a van carrying about seven people, several of whom were pregnant, none of whom had seatbelts. Said van went over a metal sheet in the road and so jarred the passengers that they suffered all manner of whiplash, not to mention prepartum depression and scabies. Thus, they were suing the large construction company who had placed the metal in the road to cover a trench they were digging, all of which was, as you might imagine, well-marked but missed by the driver of the van. Again, the jury was a mess of warring egos, but this time, I was the Foreperson and I wrestled them to the ground. We found for the construction company, even the most bleeding-heart, anti-Capitalist of us.

And this case, the one for which I was paid that princely sum, this was a real horror involving some Really Bad Stuff. Such that one of their questions during voir dire was to ask of if we knew of this case from Oprah or America's Most Wanted. Of course, none of the fortyeight of us in the panel watched either program. Ever. We were untainted. We were also all perfectly comfortable with talk of vaginas and such. All of us. Including the man who twitched every time the judge said the word. I could see that this case would push the buttons of the good people who were eventually chosen and they would, some of them, turn into seething masses of neurotic needs, which would be unleashed in the jury room. Think Snakepit. I didn't want to be there.

As you know, I was saved by the numbers. One other man and I walked away of the original forty-eight. But if I had been called into the box, I felt sure that my answers to a couple of the voir dire questions would have gotten me thanked and dismissed:

"What's your attitude toward the presumption of innocence?" I think it's great as a concept but it doesn't work so well in real life these days. In fact, it barely works at all. We're so juiced up on who's right and who's not, who's good and who's bad that we make up our minds before the case has even gotten to court.
Do you have any special knowledge of child molestation? Yes, courses on child abuse were a part of the curriculum during my MA degree in psychology. And in my work with children as a marriage and family therapist intern, I was a mandated reporter. I had to know both the law and the implications of evidence.
Can you base your decisions entirely on the evidence and the law? No. To ignore what I know from my experience and my education about child molestation would immoral.
Do you believe a false accusation is possible? Likely? Are you kidding? It happens all the time; just read the newspapers.

I once met a big time defense attorney from New York and he told me I would be the last person he would sit on a jury because I'm smart and I have a strong sense of right and wrong. And that, folks, is our justice system. It stinks.

The Martian Has Landed: A Post About Nothing & Everything

...earth to Jane, earth to Jane....

I must confess that I have been a less than constant blogpal lately. I went away and then I came back and somehow I just couldn't work up that much interest. And looking at my stats, the feeling must be mutual. Is it me? Is it thee? I dunno. My SOM* is OK, better 'n OK I'd say--and certainly my alliterative, not to mention rhyming powers are intact. So what gives?

For one, there seems to be an awful lot of babble on the net these days. Blog babble is one thing, but Twitter babble--that's just plumb ugly annoying. You know, we have monkey minds, as the Buddhists say. Thoughts, large and small, important and inane, are forever to-ing and fro-ing through the jungle in our heads, leaping and swinging and making incessant noise. Those who practice Mindfulness (hear monks chanting; smell incense burning) work to quiet that Monkey Mind. So what's with the Twitterers who are gleefully sharing each and every leap and swing, burble and belch with those of us who for whatever reason are their Followers (you asked me; you like me; you really like me). They must be practicing Unmindfulness.

I could work myself into a whole rant about this, but then I'd probably insult people, and, jeeze, that's not something I ever want to do. At least not on purpose. Unless one (the ubiquitous One) has pissed me off. Nah, not even then. I have a sharp tongue, but a soft heart. So, I've turned my Twitter phone messages off. That's what we call "taking care of oneself."

It is also called "taking care of oneself" to only read people and posts that interest me. This is a new tack: formerly I read just about everybody I had ever met or wanted to or thought I should. But it was taking me ages every day to work my way through this one and that one's whatever. In fact, some days it became the One Thing I Did: read every blog on my Google Reader. Good girl. Well done. Go fetch. What I'm finding with my new discernment (is there such a word? there is now) is that the blogs I am really attracted to are those where the writing (a) is really really good, and (b) the writer lets me in to their life. Right now these are the blogs I don't like to miss: Thursday Drive, Mad Marriage, A Walkabout's Weblog. Is it any coincidence that they're all writers? Hmmmmmmmmm? I think not.

*state of mind

Sprint Sucks

Is there a website for that? Because if so, I want to sign up immediately. And if not, hey someone, SprintSucks.com is so incredibly alliterative, how could it miss?

I have--ahem!--just come from paying my Sprint bill. I am not a happy cellphone user. I would not mind pay the bill if I could use the phone. But I can't. Because, according to all that I've spoken to about this on-line, in-person, and on-phone (landline), I live in what they call a "hole." That is, a place where service ranges from non-existent to spotty because...because...because Sprint sucks and they can't get their signals to my house. All that talk about how many bars one gets on one's cell phone? I get one. And then mid-conversation that one cuts out and I get "Lost Signal." The consequence of this is that I cannot and do not use my cell phone in my house. Which means that I am forced to use my landline and the consequence of that is my long distance phone calls from home are billed. So my landline phone is expensive and my Sprint phone is expensive--and I'm just bleeding money to all these carriers.

Sprint was never my carrier of choice. When I got this account, I was a Nextel user. I deliberately chose them because Nextel seemed to market to adults, who were interested more in service than the sound of their ring tone. But Nextel sold out to Sprint and my contract was such that I had no choice but to go along. However, said contract is up next month and--I'm outta here, guys. Screw you...toodleloo...and fuck off. I wish you had spent more money on improving service and less on advertising, but that would have un-American, wouldn't it.

Am I mad? You bet. So I'm joining SprintSucks.com. Wanna come along?

Real Brits and Fake Brits

When I drive back from the parent-teen group I do on Tuesday nights, I listen to NPR. When I drive anywhere, I listen to NPR, actually, but the Tuesday night thing is what I'm on about now. Linda Hunt moderates an Arts Something or Other program. You know, Linda Hunt, the wee American actress who so wonderfully played a guy in that movie with Mel Gibson. (I saw her once in the produce section at my local supermarket--and she was sorta wonderfully playing a guy there too.) I don't know why Linda Hunt is moderating this arts program, but she clearly intends her accent to show how artsy she is. She speaks the Queen's English thicker than a Buckingham Palace valet--except when she doesn't, when she forgets or gets excited or somehow slips right back into an American twang. It annoys me. Phoniness annoys me. Bad phoniness in particular annoys me. Because I am such a straight shooter myself.

G is for Gratitude...

...as in, thank you for whatever shit you're giving me.

Gratitude is a culturally-specific expression. Here in America, we used to say "you're welcome," in response to someone's thanks. I'm not sure what that means, the etymology as it were. It just is. Or was.

Now, when someone says 'thank you', people say 'no problem.' Huh?

Thanks for the memories. No problem.
Thanks for nuthin'. No problem.
Thanks a bunch. No problem.

Unless you're affected with Spanglish, in which case you would say, "no problemo."

In Britain, they don't say you're welcome or no problem. They say, 'thank you' back again. Sometimes this results in a kind of parody.
Brit 1: Ta ever so for that whatever it was.
Brit 2: Thank you.
Brit 1: Thank you.
Brit 2: No, thank you.
Yank: No problem.

I can see using No Problem if someone is thanking you for bringing in the mail. Or taking out the garbage. Then you really do mean "it was no problem for me to do this small (or large) act of kindness for you." But when the guy on NPR is thanking the Minister of Diddlysquat for appearing on the show, especially at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m., the correct response is not No Problem.

No problem is not a gracious way of acknowledging that a fellow human has marked some action of yours as positive. No problem is just another way of saying, what the fuck, and as we learned from yesterday's post, dropping the F bomb ain't cool.

I Like To Watch

Really, this is a post about what I don't like to watch. Or what I don't watch any more. I've been thinking about the shows that have started without me this news season, like Grey's Anatomy. Haven't seen it once. Don't intend to. Why, you might ask. Let me tell you (sit down, get a beer, draw nigh to the fire and stay a spell).

I seem to have a three season tolerance for TV dramas. The first season I'm in love, I palpitate to find out what's happening to my new friends. I groan and cheer right along with them because they are, absolutely, real to me. I mean, I know they're not really real; I know it's just acting. But I get so into the program that I might as well be part of the mise-en-scene. That's the first year. The second year, I'm still hot and heavy with my favorites. I still care, really, really care. But maybe a shade, a mere tinge of ennui has entered. By the third year--well, by the third year, I could probably be submitting spec scripts for the show, that's how well I know it. And, consequently, the fourth wall has been lowered and I'm not so much in the scene as hovering over it. When I start knowing who's going to do what when because that's what they did the last time or it's the opposite of what they did--then, the show is on life support for me.

Grey's Anatomy died a bit early for me. I suppose I could have taken another season of the pushme-pullme Meredith and Derek arc. I'm marginally curious about the Alex character, although I think they've dragged his mystery out far too long with far too few clues. I like Callie, although what she sees in that weenie George is beyond me. And I'm peeved that Addison has move to LA, but still I can watch her there if I want to. But Sandra Oh--please note that she's the only one whose name I actually remember--she I am missing, badly. But not badly enough to watch the show.

Basically I'm having a one-person boycott of Grey's Anatomy and ABC for firing Isaiah Washington. And I loathe, loathe, loathe Katherine Heigl, who I see as the major irritant urging his firing. I don't think Washington calling George a faggot was cool or right, but hey, in the scheme of things going wrong with our world at the time, was that the best people could focus on? How about Iraq? How about Darfur? How about Health Care and poverty and hungry kids here in the U.S.? Wasn't it interesting--or perhaps not uncoincidental--that Katherine Heigl's constant blathering on camera about how no one could get away with insulting her friend, etc. etc. came at the same time that she was getting a major PR push. Not a bad day when you can get a double whammy of free press coverage to go along with your paid press coverage.

Katherine Heigl is, as we used to say in high school, a bit too full of herself. She should look up the word hubris and write it out a thousand times in purple ink, dotting each i with a little heart, because her day, I'm sure, is coming. However, I won't be there to see it, because I'm not watching Grey's Anatomy this year. Not only because Washington isn't on it, but because Heigl is.

Thinking Pink and Thinking Green...

Here's a new why-I-haven't-blogged-recently excuse: the dog ate my homework...no, the dog ate my laptop...no, I can't decide which and what to write about so I just won't write anything. But this could go on for a very long time, so I'm grabbing the proverbial bull by the horns (as if) and writing Two Blog Posts In One....!

Post, The First: a disclaimer is required. I am very pro women, breasts, healthy women, healthy women with breasts and all that is required to keep them that way. I also, as you may recall, lost my best friend to breast cancer. Just saying that makes it sound like she went out in the cancer woods one day and never came home. Which isn't the case at all. She died, people, she died. Ten years after they cut off both her breasts. Okay, have I disclaimed enough to not infuriate all tender souls when I say:

I hate this bullshitty Pink for Breast Cancer month.

It has become a huge marketing ploy. Every company out there has done a pink something or other, which is now being advertised as the Must Have and by-the-way, we are giving .001 percent of our profit on each item to breast cancer research. And the magazines have jumped on the bandwagon. Pages and pages of glossy pink this and pink that. If we can make it in pink, hey, do it and jam it on the suckers in October, which is National Breast Cancer month. Just in time for the lead up to orange and black for National Halloween Month. And green and brown and orange for National Thanksgiving Month. And the all-time favorite, red and green for National Christmas Month. With a soupcon of blue and white for Chanukah and red, green andyellow for Kwanza Months.

Part of my anger is that I hate pink. I hate that pink is supposed to be so girly. I hate that I'm supposed to want everything in pink. I hate that young girls in my family are brainwashed into loveloveloving pink. Even Kayla, whose favorite color has always been black, lives in a Pepto Bismal colored room. Pink is insipid. Pink is but a pale washed out form of red. I hate that when men want to humiliate other men, they put them in pink. Pink is--hey, did you know that in former times pink was the boy's color; it was considered, as a derivative of red, too 'Hot' a color for girls. But I digress...

I am all in favor of corporations major and minor giving large chunks of change to breast cancer research. And I can understand their desire to have people know and appreciate their good works. But wouldn't a simple line of print on the label do? I can't stand they they're making money not only from our pain, but from our good nature and need to fit in (see me! I'm wearing a pink whatever. I'm in favor of women keeping their breasts!)

Pink camo T-shirts? I ask you--what jungle war would they be worn in? Or should they be given to our female soldiers, just to kinda mark 'em in the field? And pink soup cans--I see all those rows of washed out Campbell's soup and all I can think is, "blech! how long have they been sitting in the barn?"

I have quite worn myself out with that rant. I shall save Post, the Second for tomorrow...you lucky people.

Foreclosures, Pot Houses & Bad Architecture

Yeah, I know: this is not the sort of topic you expect from me. But here's the thing. If you've been listening to the news or even reading the headlines, you know that the real estate market is wallowing on the beach. My area of Northern California is particularly hard hit. Elk Grove was, two years ago, touted as the fasting growing city in the US. Hey, I was excited too. I may have given up LA, but I was getting a Happening place in return. And I was getting a brand-spanking new house, where I got to pick each and every piece of tile and trim on woodwork (well, sorta, within the confines of the builder's specs, that is).

I've written before of my shock when I moved here and discovered that my house was one of literally thousands, all painted varying shades of brown. But I've adapted. I love the inside of my house. And I'm one of the lucky ones; I don't have an adjustable rate mortgage that is eating up my income and threatening to bankrupt me. So I'm just an observer in the process which real estate expert Norm Schriever outlines in his blog today.

Norm is writing about the Franklin East Reserve area of Elk Grove. That's my area. I think you'll be reading about us soon, because we're going to become, I would bet, the poster child for the ills, varied as they are, of the US new housing market bust. Several weeks ago, The Sacramento Bee did a feature in the their Business section on just one of our problems: vacant houses, absentee landlords, lawns gone to seed. What follows this in any neighborhood, as the police will tell you, is the Broken Window Syndrome: crime, gang activity, further falling property values. The Wall Street Journal picked up the story, and their version is supposed to run on Friday.

I would say the lawns have gone to pot, but that's another problem that's put us in the news. Those absentee landlords? Some of them bought their houses to grow marijuana in. The newly-formed Elk Grove Police Department has gotten more press than it ever expected for their pot busts. Today's headline, above the fold in The Sacramento Bee: "Big pot operation busted in Elk Grove." The major busts several months ago were of houses totally dedicated to growing plants. This time, the growers got smart; they avoided neighbor's suspicions by keeping their lawns mowed, the first floor occupied and only growing the plants on the second floor.

And this is where the third part of my title comes in: Bad Architecture. Our homes were all built so that the living in them takes place in the back. You drive into your garage, and for the period of time that you're at home, you are never seen again. Nothing, I repeat, nothing happens out front. Neighbors? Huh, what are they? Come to think of it, who are they? The days of the front porch, of families watching out for each other, of the village raising the child--these are all non-existent, impossible even, in our area, thanks to the design of our houses.

For the two years that I've lived here, I've wailed about this. The [former] cultural critic in me has tried to deconstruct what it was about society that led to an entire generation of houses where no one was ever home. I know as a [former] cultural critic that the impact on society of culture is in some ways symbiotic. That is, it works both ways: a particular aspect of culture both reflects and refracts the society from which it comes. So these houses where the front yards were manicured, where the garages had trimmed windows that faced the street aping what should be a living room, where the living quarters were all in the far back of the house--these houses gave the appearance of perfect suburbia. But in fact, what they nourished was the underbelly of society: drugs, crime, and a host of social ills.

The Woes of Being a Woman...

...or, Have I Whined About My Hair Lately?

Seems to me that I did an entire blog post on my hair stylist/cutter/whatever they're calling themselves these days. But on checking back, I may have only done half a rant and then ran out of steam. Lucky you.

I will try to keep this terse and pithy.

Finding someone to cut one's hair is, as most women (and men too, if they're honest) will tell you a trauma fraught with wild hopes, much head nodding, followed by some head shaking, followed, at times, by the pitiful thought that It'll grow. Such has been my state over the last two years when I've lived away from LA, mecca of hair people who know what they're doing. I have traipsed from pillar to post, and now from long to short, trying to find a decent hair cutter. I have been to the Alpha and the Omega of Sacramento County hairdressers. The Alpha is not much, if any, better than the Omega. The Alpha, on the other hand, charges by the follicle.

Today I made my third trip to the Omega, SuperCuts. I had the same person as last time. We had a similar conversation, which has devolved to that same pitiful thought.

I would post a photo, but I'm too embarrassed. Let's put it this way: I look like a gym teacher. A transgendered gym teacher. Which, come to think of it, may be because my Omega hair cutter is a person of indeterminate gender.

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

Goodbye Delta, Farewell Dawn

I live, oh, about a mile from the river where the two humpback whales, now named (thank God, at last) Delta and Dawn, decided to swim to Sacramento, instead of San Francisco. I could have gone to see them any time of the day or night. I could have made three trips a day, with breaks to brush my teeth and get a little shut-eye.

I didn't. And I avoided all reporting on them, save the 30 second headline that told me where they were. This meant, of course, that I have not seen a newspaper or watched TV in the week or so that the whales have been in the Delta. Every once in a while, I'd catch a glimpse of one or the other breeching. Or hear one or the other of the reporters waxing eloquent on how majestic these creatures of God are. (Truly. That's how the TV reporters talk here. Especially the ones from the CBS affiliate.)

I would have like to see them, but I cannot bear the hoohah and hooplah that has surrounded these poor fish swimming in the wrong direction. It seems to me that it's more of a modern day public hanging or bear baiting.

Come one! come all! Step right up and see how even the most gigantic of beings is nothing before Mother Nature. Here you go, get your bottled water here and your whale T-shirt over there, sorry but I only have XLs left. Look at little Johnny over there, such an mini entrepreneur: he's selling lemonade. And over there, under the trees, big Johnny is selling dope.

Never mind that the levees aren't made to withstand the weight of ten thousand tourists tromping through. Never mind the expense to the county of crowd control and keeping ski-jets and speed boats from within 100 yards of the whales so as not to--ooops--frighten them even more. Scare them into beaching themselves--but, hey, Bubba, then we'd really get to see the whales up close. Behold the porcine mamas with tattoos on their asses, which I know about because their tank tops don't meet their short shorts, and there's a gap at the waist which exposes several spare tires and their butt cracks. Let's not forget the hairy daddys, who are either fifteen months pregnant or are in the final stages of liver disease, so enormously huge, so whale-like are their guts. And they too are wearing shorts shorts and tank tops that expose the full glory of their man-titties and underarm hair. And crosses. Why do such men always wear the full Jesus-on-the-crucifix around their necks? Goes so well with their Eat Me tattoos.

But why am I being so hard on these people? This is America, after all. Land of the free, etc. etc. What are our soldiers in Iraq fighting for if not the opportunity we all have to make asses of ourselves. To gawk. To make a buck off of anything one can. To do what we want to right now, when we want it, willy nilly of whether it's right or good or creates a danger for others. Because we're Americans, goddamit, and rampant self-interest is our birthright.

Cringe: May 17, 2007

Dear Diary,

It is now 2:30, 2:31, 2:32 p.m. and I have spent the better part of today doing sweet fuck-all.

Last night I went to a neighborhood meeting about a shopping mall that They want to build in Elk Grove. I should not have gone. First, because I don't intend to be here long enough to see the damn thing built. But second, and most important, because I HATE GROUP GROPES. I am allergic to them. I get internal hives that make me (a) twitch, and (b) say rude things in just a loud enough voice to annoy (or in some cases amuse) those sitting near me.

Last night's meeting was an exercise in oligarchy. Ostensibly we met to view our concerns about the shopping center. Actually, we were enticed (with promises of individually-wrapped cookies and Macy's gift certificates) to listen to a promotional presentation by GGP, the corporation that is hoping to get their plans for this whizz-bang mall okayed.

It was incredibly boring and incredibly disinformational (is that a word?) and, for me, incredibly maddening. I spent most of the morning trying to write about it in a reasonable manner. Report on the matter, as it were. If I tell you that that post was titled, Democracy Devolves to Dog and Pony Show, you'll get a whiff of why I'm struggling with this.

I hate stupidity. I loathe even more when those in charge assume those not in charge are too stupid to know when they're having a fast one pulled. Rather than an open airing of citizens' thoughts, we had to endure a host of woefully inadequate generalizations. We were told several times that GGP is a "high end mall developer" and is not in the business of building strip malls. I thought I saw Lady Macbeth wafting through the chamber at that one. The presentation was so short of specifics that I thought perhaps Louis, GGP's main guy, was more than a tad unprepared. In fact, were I to grade him, he would have gotten a C in presentation. He waxed eloquent on the "beautiful water features" whatever they might be and assured us more than once how excited GGP is about the project (well, yes, I guess so, since it's a profitable business for them). But his only response to the various issues we had about the project was, "that's what the retailers tell us they want." As in, go ask your mother. No, go ask your father. No, just do as I damn well tell you.

Instead of a democratic give and take, question and answer, We, the People were made to write our questions on a form and hand them in. Then They, the Oligarchs got to cherry-pick and edit, revise and summarize so that the builders could do their own cherry-picking of questions they would answer. That resulted in some breathtaking exchanges, like the response to the question about security. Seeing as we are perched on the edge of the Sacramento's gangland, what considerations have the builders given to mall security. Answer: Security is very important to us. We will hire our security from LA. Oh, good, because LA has such incredible security that they have had no problems with security at their malls. Hell, no. Well, maybe a little. Maybe a lot.

There was also a concern that the retail businesses would post objectionable material on their billboards. Oh, no, we won't allow that. We're very concerned about family values. Here's where my mumble turned to a hiss, "You're going to control Abercombie & Fitch?! Purveyors of the most sexualized and/or controversial ads in the marketplace. Good luck."

My question concerned who did their demographic research that resulted in only second tier retailers like Macy's being willing to come in. Answer: We hired a market research firm in Sacramento. They set up four focus groups, two of those who have lived in EG for over five years and two of those who have lived here for five years and under. Sounds fair enough, doesn't it. Until you consider that the vast majority of those living in Elk Grove fall into the second group. Was that inequity of demographic taken into consideration? Can't answer that one, because the oligarchs chose to edit it out.

I didn't mean to get into this rant. I meant to write a Cringe worthy diatribe against myself at public meetings. But that's not what came out, is it.

I flew out of the meeting to get home in time to see Melinda bounced from AI and my favorite blonde not even make it to the finals of America's Next Top Model. T'was not a good night for me....

In Search of a Title which expresses the meaning of t his post...

...which is actually a compendium of topics, or--as I prefer to think of it--a bunch of shit that has occurred to me which I am sure you need to know.

• Award for the Dumbest Name of A Business: a local massage/spa type business called Massage Envy. This is not a massage parlor in some seedy backwater stripmall whose offerings are euphemisms for blow jobs and the like. Which is definitely what the name references for anyone in the Western world who has heard of penis envy. But maybe that's the problem. Maybe the owners are not of the Western world. A lot of the businesses in our area are small operations run by Asian immigrants grabbing onto the American dream, and that, at times, has led to some strange names for businesses. Like ChopSuey ChopSuey Bar. Or Get Your Hair Cut Beauty Shop. I imagine, when I come across such names, that the owners have translated from their own language to English and aren't comfortable enough (a euphemism of my own) with American vernacular to know that their well-thought-out business name is just, well, dumb. Or, as in the case of Massage Envy, is a really loaded piece of language, a word bomb of sorts.

• AP reported today that the CBS Evening News last week had its lowest audience since at least 1987. ABC's World News is, as Nielson likes to put it, the ratings winner. The AP report that the numbers "add to the sense that Charles Gibson is eclipsing Brian Williams as the nation's favorite network news anchor." My kneejerk construction of the results was--and listen to all of the pundits who fling their legs in the air with me--that Americans prefer an older male giving them their news. But then I thought of what Evening News I watch and why: ABC, because (and I'm about to shout now) I CANNOT STAND the local news leadins on my NBC and CBS affiliates. The NBC affiliate in Sacramento has a news reporter who has clearly gone to the Geraldo Rivera School of Journalism, and this would seem to be the same place that spawned the entire news-team of the CBS affiliate in Sacramento. They so offend me that I want to throw sharp objects at my flat screen television, and that has only ever happened before when Cheney is on the tube. I can't afford to kill my TV, so I simple refuse to watch these two local news programs. And I'm wondering if there are others in other cities who feel the same about their local news? Is there a Sense of The News vibe that is ordained by the networks? Is the local CBS news so inane because it is following in the Katie Couric happy news programming?

In the past I have called these kinds of posts "Potpourri", but really, that's pretty lame, not to mention dumb and etc. Some people call them "This and That", which is equally ditto, IMHO. I tag these posts as Yadayada, which really says it to me--but what about you? Can you come up with a snappy title for posts of this ilk? There is a prize in it for the best entry....

How To Make Me Mad...

I guess I don’t need any help in getting mad after all. This article in the Sacramento Bee did it for me. The subhead says it all, as far as I’m concerned. “Elk Grove officials aren’t enthused by Target, JCPenny at Promenade.” Neither are Elk Grove citizens, particularly this one.

The back story is this: Elk Grove has been dithering over a huge mall for some time now—probably since we started our surge to become the fastest growing city in the United States. The mall, to be over a million square feet, is sited at the east end of the city, where a nifty little exit to Highway 99 would enable the masses for miles around to visit.

The purpose, according to the city fathers (and mothers one would assume) is to put Elk Grove on the map, mall-wise. Right now, we have, it would seem, more than enough stores. In fact, one might say, I will say that Elk Grove is nothing but new houses and chain stores. However, a Real Mall with Real Stores is what is wanted. In other words, Nordstrom’s and Macy’s and, one would hope, Restoration Hardware and Williams Sonoma. Like they have in Arden or Roseville. And West Hollywood or Century City. Or Short Hills. Or Manhasset. (I’m not sure about those last two, but you get my point.) A Real Mall confers status and tax dollars. Right now, all of Elk Grove’s Real Mall tax dollars are going to Arden and Roseville—or internet shopping.

So the powers that be have broken ground, dug some trenches, and put in some re-bar. But they still haven’t decided (1) what the mall will look like, and (2) which will be the anchor stores. The argument re design devolves to Indoor or Outdoor. The absolutely latest, oh-my-gosh-we-gotta-have-it in mall design is Outdoor. As in LA’s The Grove, about which I have written lovingly in the past. Indoor is so, so Yesterday. I don’t have a hard and fast opinion on this one. I see the points of both sides—bad weather versus community gathering. It is the anchor stores issue that has me seeing red.

According to the Bee article, the developers of the mall, a Chicago-based (read, carpetbagger) company, are close to a deal on the two anchor stores. Not Nordstom’s. Not Macy’s. Target. And JC Penney.

Well, big whoop. And gee whiz. And close your ears if you don’t want to hear me spew a blue streak. !@#$%^&*()_!@#$%^&*()_!@#$%^&*()!

Now I bow to no one in my appreciation of Target. In fact, I would be sans wardrobe if it weren’t for Target, even now, as I write this. But—hear me—ELK GROVE ALREADY HAS A TARGET. In fact, we have two. And Penney’s? When we already have Kohl’s and Mervyns? How many low end department stores does one city need?????
According to the Bee article, a retail “consultant” from the Bay Area who “scouted” the Sacramento region thinks these stores are just fine for Elk Grove, and really we couldn’t handle more. “It’s a fairly moderate market, not the kind of place that, say Nordstrom would come into,” opined the scout, one Jeff Green of Mill Valley. “You have a lot of younger families who move there to get a little more house for their money, so there’s not a lot of disposable income compared to areas north and east.”

I don’t know where Mr. Green did his scouting (I suspect he included very moderate Galt and Lodi in the mix), but he certainly hasn’t gotten our demographics down. I don’t at the moment have the actual data to spew out, but these young families only account for one portion of Elk Grove residents. Some of us live in million dollar homes. Some of us have gardeners and swimming pools. Some of us, goddammit, have charge accounts at Nordstom!

My journalist’s nose is twitching: I wonder who pays Mr. Green’s bills. The Chicago developers? Penney’s? Fortunately for us, thus far, not the mayor of Elk Grove or one of the city councilmembers. They are reportedly “not happy” and they are saying that the anchor tenant issue could “hang the project up.”

I hope so. And meanwhile, I will continue to send the bulk of my tax dollars outside of Elk Grove.

In Which I Try To Regain My Rantedness...

I used to be a lot funnier, and I think I'm losing my edge. I'm thinking it's Big Pharma that's done this to me. They're making me nicer, more thoughtful, more what-the-fuckish. Things and people that used to bother me, to get me fired up for a rant worth reading--now, I'm all "eh, aren't people interesting...." So I'm going to cut back on the dosage and see what happens. And practice being mean again.

As in:

I went to a meeting the other day --okay, it was yesterday, but I'm trying to disguise the facts so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. Ooops, scratch that. I went to a meeting yesterday, a meeting of people who live in my area of Elk Grove. We meet regularly because it's the only way we can get to know each other since our houses are constructed so that once we glide into our garages and push the down button on the door, we are hidden from the world. One might, if one were of a philosophical bent, say we stop existing. This in itself is worthy of a rant, but I'll save that for another time.

My topic today is: the meeting. We go around the room and introduce ourselves and say what our street is so that we can at least nod knowingly--oh, yeah, I remember that street...where is it again? I go first because I'm in the first seat, first row where us good girls always sit. I say my name, and then blank on my street. Which doesn't suprise me because it's such a dumb name for a street! And it has an apostrophe in it! Whatever. My point here--and yes, schmuck, I do have one--is the way in which every couple in that room introduced himself. Indeed, you read that pronoun right. "I'm Joe Blow, and this is my wife Wilma." Then Wilma would smile slightly or nod and the next Joe Blow would stand up. I was, to say the least, appalled. Is this not 2007? (I was going to write 1990, but--gee, how time passes when you're having fun.) Are these wives not entities of their own? Do they not speak? And if not, why not? This wasn't just an isolated incident; every couple in the room did this. And IT PISSED ME OFF....!

Topic number two: The cops came to the meeting. Yes, they were invited, and they drank our water and ate our cookies and one even brought her not-very-well-behaved child. The girl cops were in uniform, which fit quite stylishly and made me want to go right out and take the Civil Service exam. The boy cop--well, he was wearing a T shirt that had the name of his department, a kind of generic thing that they probably give out to the SWAT teams to wear under their armor. And he had a black leather belt to which was affixed his badge (which is VERY large). It wasn't a Sam Browne belt, I don't think. Maybe it was his Saturday meeting belt. In addition to his badge, it had his gun. A little snub-nosed something or other. And a little leather pocket in front of it that looked like it might be a good place to keep postage stamps. And on his other hip, he had--his phone. Well, duh. Of course. My point here--and yes, asshole, I do have one is this. After he introduced himself, with name and rank (and the serial number remember was on his badge), he told us he was undercover. So if we saw him on the street, we shouldn't greet him by name, rank and serial number. Or be hurt if he didn't say hi back. We should just walk on by.... Well, this perturbs me. I mean, doesn't under cover mean you're incognito? Hasn't he, by telling us this, just blown his cover?

And finally: a private, personal rant to you, over there, that neighbor who I have met on several occasions and who even when sitting across from me at a table, acts as if I'm not visible. I don't want to see you either. And get a better bra. Your nipples are pointing southward.