Where in the fresh hell have manners and consideration for one's fellow human gone? When did we start rewarding aberrant behaviour with fame and fortune? I like to think that I still take peoples' feelings into account, when possible, before speaking or acting. While it pains me to say it, I will admit that the thank you note has always been my bête noire. I will also admit that just earlier, this very day, I posted on my facebook page that I thought the GOP should consider moving from the Debate/Town Hall format to Cage Matches of Death. I have properly excoriated myself and mea culpa-ed all about the place and given myself 3 Bloody Marys. What's that you say? Oh no, I'm Irish Catholic - Hail Marys, Bloody Marys - all quite the same, I can assure you.
This, I believe, is the result of the marriage of Reality TV and Mainstream Media. Hey, I'd be lying if I didn't cop to the occasional "Real Housewives" monkey on my back. It's the accident from which one can not turn away. Many is the time I find that I have been dragged into one of these scream-fests during some innocent channel-surfing on my part. I then realize, about 10 minutes in, that the clicker is still in my hand and my jaw is beginning to ache since it has been agape the whole time. Who in their right flipping mind would hang around people who treated each other this way?
Then there is that group of ne'er–do–wells from Jersey Shore. How hideously behaved must one be to have the entire country of Italy say, "Grazie, no" when asked if the show could film there? Remember, this is the same country whose Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, appears to be the love child of Fatty Arbuckle and Larry Flint.
The scariest of all, because they are showing themselves now, in great number, are the people who possess the Lynch Mob mentality. It was indeed at a Republican Debate earlier this month when Rick Perry's record of 234 executions was applauded! WTF?
You know, America, repeating the same mistake over and over again is a sign of insanity. Who decided Governor of Texas is the stepping stone to the Presidency? Look what happened last time we had a Texas Governor as POTUS. Jesus-tap-dancing-Christ - under Perry, Texas was talking about secession just two years ago. So, what we basically have here is a serial killer who doesn't even bloody well want to be part of the United States of America. Delightful.
And so, to the Mainstream Media, both those considered legitimate and credible and well, ya know, FOX - please, please, stop giving notoriety to the poorly behaved. Yes, I understand that Andy Warhol once said that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" but A) y'all are taking this way too literally and 2) Andy Warhol is dead and not the boss of you.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Quit Changing Shit.
I am not so sensitive to smells that I cannot bear any & all scents but I would say that I am a 7 out of 10. It is not out of the realm of possibility that I might have to bathe again upon return from a party before I go to bed. We all have many people in our lives of whom we are most fond but sadly suffer from LSS (Loud Scent Syndrome). I particuarly noticed this when I lived in the West Indies but we are not immune at home. Between the "Hellos" and "Good-byes", by the time I get home I feel as though I have run the gauntlet through the perfume department at Bloomingdale's.
There are also smells which, when found in nature, are a delight to the senses but when made into something artificial are quasi nausea inducing (to me). Roses? In nature, divine! Body Lotion? Gag! The scent of lilacs on an early Montana summer evening is intoxicating. Air "freshener" = "Where the hell is that smell coming from and what is it?".
"That smell" in fact, is what seems to have become the universal scent of so many, many things (irrespective for the most part, of the fruits, flowers and/or herbs listed on the bottle): green goddamn apple. If it's not that, then the smell of whatever it is, is way too much! Who voted on this? The few smells of which I was tolerant have either been discontinued or the scent I loved is now gone and replaced with green flipping apple. Gone is my beloved, dark green, piney Herbal Essence Shampoo. Baby Shampoo is now green mofo apple, which is just simply wrong. I don't know what the scent of Finesse is or I guess was - haven't seen it in a while - just know I liked it and Head & Shoulders, which used to smell like clean laundry now smells vaguely like cedar and makes me think of hamsters.
Did no one learn from the "New Coke" fiasco of the 1980's?
Where in the fresh hell have all the good oxford cloth shirts gone? Now they're all "Easy-care!", "Wrinkle-free!". I hate them. Oh, they say the shirts are 100% cotton but they feel shiny which kinda creeps me out. I've been a loyal cotton wearer for as long as I can remember (perhaps I was recruited and pledged a life-long allegiance to the fabric outside of Best & Company as a small child?) and I want it to look AND feel like cotton, damn it. Cotton wrinkles. Linen wrinkles. I wrinkle.
Do not, however, for one minute think that this means that I wish to actually iron the shirts (or even care enough to bring them to someone else to iron) - but I have developed a brilliant, "oh, it almost looks ironed" technique: first, I've rarely seen the need to un-button my button-downs - waste of time, but I do unroll the sleeves and unbutton the collar before the washer. I let the shirts tumble in the dryer for about 10 minutes and then I pull them out, put them on hangers and kinda tug the rest of the wrinkles out then let dry. I would say that when finished, my shirts and I are about the same amount of wrinkled. More than some, less than others. But WHO decided everyone wants wrinkle resistant shirts? I'm talking to you, Eddie Bauer, BroBro, LL Bean.
Seriously, just who the hell are the THEY that decide things like the green apple conspiracy, or that the word "free" in the National Anthem should now be sung using a vocal run of no less than 37 notes? I know lots of people and none of them are "they" and they don't know anyone who is (are?) "they" so just who then is, "they" anyway and why are they fucking with us?
This morning I awoke to new facebook settings - d'oh! I did then feel the need to point out in a post on facebook that the fastest growing group of people who are using the "internets" and electronics are we - the old, the tired, the loopy. We, the holders of the AARP card. We, the old dogs who are just fine with most of our tricks, thanks and who, as the Baby Boomer Generation, represent an ass-load (standard unit of measurement) of people and really no entity wants to piss us off since we're already cranky. In all honesty though, this is a change that I'll hate until I love it and forget what the last one looked like.
But for the rest of it, I am not a fan of change so please just quit changing shit.
There are also smells which, when found in nature, are a delight to the senses but when made into something artificial are quasi nausea inducing (to me). Roses? In nature, divine! Body Lotion? Gag! The scent of lilacs on an early Montana summer evening is intoxicating. Air "freshener" = "Where the hell is that smell coming from and what is it?".
"That smell" in fact, is what seems to have become the universal scent of so many, many things (irrespective for the most part, of the fruits, flowers and/or herbs listed on the bottle): green goddamn apple. If it's not that, then the smell of whatever it is, is way too much! Who voted on this? The few smells of which I was tolerant have either been discontinued or the scent I loved is now gone and replaced with green flipping apple. Gone is my beloved, dark green, piney Herbal Essence Shampoo. Baby Shampoo is now green mofo apple, which is just simply wrong. I don't know what the scent of Finesse is or I guess was - haven't seen it in a while - just know I liked it and Head & Shoulders, which used to smell like clean laundry now smells vaguely like cedar and makes me think of hamsters.
Did no one learn from the "New Coke" fiasco of the 1980's?
Where in the fresh hell have all the good oxford cloth shirts gone? Now they're all "Easy-care!", "Wrinkle-free!". I hate them. Oh, they say the shirts are 100% cotton but they feel shiny which kinda creeps me out. I've been a loyal cotton wearer for as long as I can remember (perhaps I was recruited and pledged a life-long allegiance to the fabric outside of Best & Company as a small child?) and I want it to look AND feel like cotton, damn it. Cotton wrinkles. Linen wrinkles. I wrinkle.
Do not, however, for one minute think that this means that I wish to actually iron the shirts (or even care enough to bring them to someone else to iron) - but I have developed a brilliant, "oh, it almost looks ironed" technique: first, I've rarely seen the need to un-button my button-downs - waste of time, but I do unroll the sleeves and unbutton the collar before the washer. I let the shirts tumble in the dryer for about 10 minutes and then I pull them out, put them on hangers and kinda tug the rest of the wrinkles out then let dry. I would say that when finished, my shirts and I are about the same amount of wrinkled. More than some, less than others. But WHO decided everyone wants wrinkle resistant shirts? I'm talking to you, Eddie Bauer, BroBro, LL Bean.
Seriously, just who the hell are the THEY that decide things like the green apple conspiracy, or that the word "free" in the National Anthem should now be sung using a vocal run of no less than 37 notes? I know lots of people and none of them are "they" and they don't know anyone who is (are?) "they" so just who then is, "they" anyway and why are they fucking with us?
This morning I awoke to new facebook settings - d'oh! I did then feel the need to point out in a post on facebook that the fastest growing group of people who are using the "internets" and electronics are we - the old, the tired, the loopy. We, the holders of the AARP card. We, the old dogs who are just fine with most of our tricks, thanks and who, as the Baby Boomer Generation, represent an ass-load (standard unit of measurement) of people and really no entity wants to piss us off since we're already cranky. In all honesty though, this is a change that I'll hate until I love it and forget what the last one looked like.
But for the rest of it, I am not a fan of change so please just quit changing shit.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
I Can Scratch Glaucoma Off The List
I believe that I can say with some authority, based on empirical evidence gathered over several decades, that Marijuana is not now, nor has it ever been, a "gateway" drug. I will tell you what is a gateway to a myriad, a panoply, a veritable pu pu platter, if you will, of drugs: aging.
As do many of us of a certain age, after first making sure we have woken up that day, part of my morning ritual is the handful of pills that I apparently now need to continue waking up in the daily fashion of which I have become so fond. First of all, some of the damn pills are so impossibly tiny that I can't believe they are really doing anything anyway and if, God forbid, I drop one, I find myself wondering if that was a really important one. Does the 5 second rule apply to pills or can it wait until the next time I need to bend down? Wait, was that one of the very tiny almost square ones or one of the also very tiny somewhat round ones? Alright, just start again from the beginning - Focus!
At one point, for almost two years, I was on a heart drug that was pretty shockingly expensive (relative to all of the others). I did question the wisdom of prescribing this sort of medication to someone who clearly has some sort of heart issue and then presenting them with the charge slip so that suddenly one becomes Fred Sanford, grabbing at one's chest and yelling, "I'm coming to join you, Elizabeth!". I will accept drug company conspiracy and/or Darwinian theories as the correct response.
Then, there are the colourful warnings on the bottles of the impossibly tiny pills that only bring out the anarchist in me; "Avoid grapefruit", "Do not chew". Well, goddammit, I had no intention of doing either until you mentioned it. Grapefruit had never really been a big part of my life anyway (and only a very small and rare part of my cocktail life) but I occasionally find myself either in the produce section or the juice aisle having to avert my eyes, dramatically, as though I am in my own telenovela, crying out, "¡No, mi pequeño toronjo, nosotros nunca podemos ser juntos!" It's only a problem if I don't use my inside (my head) voice.
I am fortunate enough to live in a state in which I am currently legally allowed to purchase and use marijuana as one of my medications (although Conservatives are trying to muck this up too). I have now used it for more than 35 years for both pain management and yes, recreationally as well. I absolutely believe that cannabis should be legalized and taxed but that would make far too much sense.
Quite frankly, I'd rather stick with an herb than one of those new drugs featured in the oh, so very many advertisements that require 52 of the 60 seconds to list (as read by a world-class speed talker) the side-effects - one of which is often: Death. Maybe it's just me but I believe that Death is rather more than a side effect.
At worst, pot has been responsible for some very unusual food combinations. It has also been responsible for creative epiphanies, a higher love and the reason SNL is still on the air.
While none of us can really tell the future (yes, Miss Cleo, I'm talking to you), I think that I can say with a fair amount of certainty that whatever other health issues may have to be faced in the future, at least I can scratch glaucoma off the list.
As do many of us of a certain age, after first making sure we have woken up that day, part of my morning ritual is the handful of pills that I apparently now need to continue waking up in the daily fashion of which I have become so fond. First of all, some of the damn pills are so impossibly tiny that I can't believe they are really doing anything anyway and if, God forbid, I drop one, I find myself wondering if that was a really important one. Does the 5 second rule apply to pills or can it wait until the next time I need to bend down? Wait, was that one of the very tiny almost square ones or one of the also very tiny somewhat round ones? Alright, just start again from the beginning - Focus!
At one point, for almost two years, I was on a heart drug that was pretty shockingly expensive (relative to all of the others). I did question the wisdom of prescribing this sort of medication to someone who clearly has some sort of heart issue and then presenting them with the charge slip so that suddenly one becomes Fred Sanford, grabbing at one's chest and yelling, "I'm coming to join you, Elizabeth!". I will accept drug company conspiracy and/or Darwinian theories as the correct response.
Then, there are the colourful warnings on the bottles of the impossibly tiny pills that only bring out the anarchist in me; "Avoid grapefruit", "Do not chew". Well, goddammit, I had no intention of doing either until you mentioned it. Grapefruit had never really been a big part of my life anyway (and only a very small and rare part of my cocktail life) but I occasionally find myself either in the produce section or the juice aisle having to avert my eyes, dramatically, as though I am in my own telenovela, crying out, "¡No, mi pequeño toronjo, nosotros nunca podemos ser juntos!" It's only a problem if I don't use my inside (my head) voice.
I am fortunate enough to live in a state in which I am currently legally allowed to purchase and use marijuana as one of my medications (although Conservatives are trying to muck this up too). I have now used it for more than 35 years for both pain management and yes, recreationally as well. I absolutely believe that cannabis should be legalized and taxed but that would make far too much sense.
Quite frankly, I'd rather stick with an herb than one of those new drugs featured in the oh, so very many advertisements that require 52 of the 60 seconds to list (as read by a world-class speed talker) the side-effects - one of which is often: Death. Maybe it's just me but I believe that Death is rather more than a side effect.
At worst, pot has been responsible for some very unusual food combinations. It has also been responsible for creative epiphanies, a higher love and the reason SNL is still on the air.
While none of us can really tell the future (yes, Miss Cleo, I'm talking to you), I think that I can say with a fair amount of certainty that whatever other health issues may have to be faced in the future, at least I can scratch glaucoma off the list.
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