Why I Love My Job, Item #398*

Overheard in the van:

Guy 1: Hey, Guy 2, you got any of that gum left?

Guy 2: Nope. I chewed it all. Didn't you see me blowing bubbles while Random Stranger was speaking?

Guy 3: Who's Bubbles?

*This number is completely fabricated and not in any way meant to indicate that there are actually almost four hundred things I love about my job.

Riding It Out: Stronger Bacteria and Weaker People

I have a cold. I've had it for three days. Many people I've come into contact with in the past two to three weeks have also had this cold and recovered within four or five days. The symptoms are mostly manageable, though I have only worked half days all week, mostly because I can.

I have lost track of the number people who've asked me if I've gone to the doctor yet.

I have not lost track of how annoying it is to explain that there's really not a lot a doctor can or should do for a cold--that going to a doctor before ten days or so are up is really an exercise in futility and just a way of contributing to the overprescription of antibiotics.

In my humble, and partially educated, opinion, overprescription of antibiotics as well as overuse of antibacterial products has helped to create stronger bacteria and weaker people.

So, I will be over here, bundled in my blankie, snuffling and sneezing, content* with helping to build my immune system and doing my part to deny bacteria one tiny opportunity to do the same.

*Content may be too strong a word...

The N-Word

It's time to roll out the N-word again: NaBloPoMo. Thirty posts, thirty days. I'm in, for the sixth consecutive year.

Let's start small and, with luck, work our way up.

That Voodoo You Do...In Your Sleep

Texts between me and a friend* I haven't talked to in a few weeks:

Masked Mom: Had a weird dream last night. In it, you had hurt your wrist. I'm a little bit of a freak so I just had to check on you.

Friend(ish): That explains the pain. Now put down the doll u evil bitch.

*With friends like these, who needs any other entertainment?

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Charlie's Angels

Let's begin with two concepts that I hold dear: One is that the problem with trying too hard is that when you fail, you fail spectacularly. The other is a saying from the recovery community: an expectation is just a premeditated resentment. I think both of these observations apply to my experience with the first (and what will be, for me at least, the only) episode of the new Charlie's Angels.

I was a huge fan of the '70s show--of course, I was eight years old when the original show premiered so it's entirely possible that my standards weren't terribly high and, for that matter, that nostalgia has clouded my judgment about the "quality" of the origial show. Nevertheless, I admit up front that my fond memories of the original show may have influenced my impressions of the rebooted version.

I had a gigantic girl crush on Farrah Fawcett (yes, I even had the poster--the swimsuit from which, by the way, was donated to The Smithsonian), which expressed itself primarily in lingering fantasies that I was the long-lost daughter she had given up for adoption and she would be coming any day to rescue me from the dreary life she had doomed me to in a moment of impulsive selfishness*. When my friends and I played Charlie's Angels on the playground, though, I was always Sabrina, the smart, but comparatively "plain" Angel, played by Kate Jackson.

And we played Angels obsessively in fourth and fifth grade, solving complex mysteries in the time allotted for recess, and occasionally having to say, "To be continued." when Miss Lazorchak called us back to class.  I was always trying to up the realism of our play and I remember covering my fingertips in ink and then pressing them to a piece of Scotch tape, leaving fairly credible fingerprints on the sticky side of the tape. I would then place these strips of tape at the scenes of various imaginary crimes around the playground for the other Angels to find.

Watching the new Charlie's Angels was not significantly different from how I imagine watching a bunch of nine- and ten-year-old girls playing Angels on the playground would be: lots of action, not so much character development, juvenile dialogue**, and acting so self-conscious and overthought that you can practically see the thought bubbles above the actor's heads: hit this mark, now make this expression, pause... 

The issues for me began in the opening sequence when the middle Angel, "Gloria," was a woman not featured in any of the promos for the show. Conspicuously absent from that sequence was the actress Minka Kelly who was heavily featured in the promos. (Minka, by the way, is the only reason, aside from a warped nostalgic curiosity, that I decided to even try to watch the show. She is a passable actress and unspeakably gorgeous into the bargain. She has the kind of face it's actually almost painful to look at.) I don't think I will be spoiling anything for anyone who has not already seen the show (and who has an IQ above room temperature) when I say, "Disposable character alert!"

I thought killing off one of the "original" main characters was a cheap stunt--maybe an attempt to get us to bond with the remaining characters when we saw them suffering and pulling together to avenge their friend's death. Problem being, we never had time to get emotionally invested in Gloria or the other two Angels and the scene immediately following Gloria's predictably explosive death, does nothing to increase our investment. The Blonde One (I did not learn either the character's or the actor's name) makes all the right facial expressions and has tears dripping off her face, but when she says the ridiculously overwrought line "I never though my heart could hurt this much," it is in a tone so completely soulless and shallow, you can be forgiven for thinking you've accidentally wandered into a retelling of The Stepford Wives. Even the intake of breath mid-sentence seems a calculated attempt at imitating real human emotion.

I watched another ten minutes of the episode, long enough to see the introduction of Minka, before I gave up. The only real mystery about this show is how anyone made it to the end.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Ugh.


*Never mind the fact that I bore zero resemblance to Ms. Fawcett or the other fact that my parents were TEENAGERS when I was born and, therefore, unlikely to have been on the prospective parents list of any adoption agency.

**Sample conversation:
Angel: How's Charlie?
Bosley: Devastated. Losing an angel's his worst nightmare. It's mine, too.
Angel: We're going to find out who did this if it's the last thing we do.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

As a mostly unrepentant tomboy and the mother of three boys, I was acutely aware of issues of feminine identity from the moment late in my pregnancy with Daughter-Only when the ultrasound technician told me she was a girl. On the one hand, I was afraid I wasn't qualified to raise a girl because there was so much about being "feminine" that I didn't understand or felt I fell short of. On the other hand, because physical appearance--and all the girly stuff that came with it--had been not merely a secondary consideration for me, but barely any consideration at all, I felt I had a better than average chance of raising a daughter whose focus was more internal than external.

I remember when Daughter-Only was weeks or maybe even only days old, she was sitting in her carrier in the middle of the dining room table when I walked by and cooed to her, "Oh, look at the pretty baby." I immediately caught myself and launched into a diatribe to Hubby about how easy it is to fall into focusing on the "wrong" things and that we needed to make sure when we leaned over her, we cooed just as often about her intelligence or her kindness or her sense of humor.

Of course, that was only the beginning of the back-and-forth issues with femininity and the ways societal expectations shape our own visions of ourselves. While we missed the Disney Princess onslaught by a few years, for which I'm grateful, we haven't escaped questions and issues with gender roles. There were many times when I could've used the wise and witty observations from Peggy Orenstein's Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the New Girly Girl Culture.

The book focuses on the effect of corporatized "pink and pretty" culture, with its focus on external appearances rather than internal resources, on the psyches of the young girls it is marketed to and how much parents can or even should do to minimize or offset those effects. It is bits of investigative reporting--Orenstein at toy fairs, television networks, beauty pageants--interwoven with scenes from field research (a.k.a. actual parenting) with her own daughter and the daughters of friends.

Though Orenstein clearly has strong opinions, there is nothing preachy about her tone and, instead, we are given the opportunity to see a real mom struggle with issues she feels deeply about and come to some of the same compromises we all find ourselves making. It is one of those rare books that is both heartwarming and thought-provoking, written in an easy conversational style that makes considering an issue of real substance not only painless, but a real pleasure.

Masked Mom's One-Word Review: Insightful.

Time Is a Four-Letter Word

What I've been doing while I've been away from the blog:

1. Strengthening my never-weak grasp of the obvious (as evidenced by this post's title). 

2. Honing my already sharp skills of procrastination (about which, more later).

3. Reminding myself to keep track of all the stuff I keep forgetting.

4. Mastering the fine art of cutting off my nose to spite my face. (After futilely fighting the impulse for decades, I've decided to embrace it wholeheartedly. The good news: all that energy I'd been wasting on resisting the urge is free to be channeled into other pursuits. The bad news: those pursuits turn out to be primarily nose-cutting-off related.)

5. Wasting a lot of time worrying and complaining about how little time I have to do any of the things I actually think I should be doing--writing, for example, on the blog and elsewhere.

Masked Mom's Media Monday: 3-Line Review of the 4 Minutes of Resident Evil: Afterlife I Could Stand To Watch*

Upon catching a scrap of dialogue as I passed through the room: "Did she just call her Kmart?!"

Upon watching Milla Jovovich strut through a field full of abandoned vintage aircraft wearing a bomber jacket and what appeared to be leggings: "Any resemblance to a latter-day, vaguely pornographic Amelia Earhart is purely coincidental."

In response to Hubby's assertion that Milla gets better looking in each movie: "This is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland and the bitch is still wearing perfectly applied lipstick."

*Alternative title: Why Masked Mom Shouldn't Watch Hubby-Selected Movies While Under The Influence of Severe Sleep Deprivation.

Not-So-Subtle Signs The Universe Is Mocking You

You are navigating slush-covered streets in 20-degree weather, driving what is called (by the clients themselves) the "druggy buggy"--a vehicle used to transport recovering addicts and, significantly, alcoholics, when you punch one of the radio presets (in an attempt to escape the latest from Taylor Swift*) and "Margaritaville" blares from the speakers.

*Truthfully, I cannot be sure that it was Taylor Swift's latest as I am unable to distinguish one Taylor Swift song from another, which I guess is as it should be for people over the age of say, 25.

Sigh...

...of relief. Another NaBlo down.

The bad news is that there was a higher than average number of whiny cop-out posts.

The good news is that with NaBlo it's quantity and not quality that counts.

The even better news is that there are still three or four drafts from November posts I didn't finish which means I stand a better than average chance of posting in December. Yay me?

How's It Hangin'

During the insanity of a NaBloPoMo past, I blogged about Daughter-Only's uvula being stuck to her tonsil while she was sick. In the years (FOUR!) since, "uvula stuck to tonsil" has consistently been one of the top search terms that have brought people to my blog.

Judging from the frequency (sometimes as many as ten or fifteen people a day show up here trying to figure out what exactly it means that their uvulas are stuck to their tonsils) and the widespread geographic area (Britain, Japan, Singapore, India and all across these United States), adhered uvulas are a freakin' epidemic.

To those who are looking for actual medical information, I can only share that Daughter-Only's nurse practitioner said that the most common cause of uvula stuckage is dehydration. So, drink up!

How To Have A Good Day On Less Than Four Hours Sleep

I have no idea...but I'm giving it a shot.

Work 8 a.m. to noon (sneaking this post in from there now).

Driving Son-Two back to college at 1.

Followed by a Barenaked Ladies concert with Baby Brother's Wife and her sister. I figure if I'm so exhausted I start hallucinating it can only enhance the experience, right?

UPDATED POST-CONCERT: Turns out that the way to have a good day on four hours sleep is to attend a concert in a small venue with good company and to have the first song in the set be "Who Needs Sleep" and the last to be "Tonight I Fell Asleep At The Wheel*." HILARIOUS!!! Added bonus: At the attached casino, first timers get $10 in slot machine credits. A free ten dollars in credit with which I won $15 in actual cash.

*Even more entertaining and appropriate in light of the fact that I, sleep-deprived fool that I am, was driving us home.

Another One For The What The Hell Was I Thinking File

I signed on for NaBloPoMo not only after having struggled with it greatly in the past but in the middle of one of the funkiest Funks I've been in in a long time. (Maybe funkiest Funk ever...)

What the hell was I thinking?

More to the point, why don't I just stop? (Stop NaBlowing, not stop thinking, although, now that I think of it, a good portion of my Funk is probably tied directly into all the things I can't quit thinking about.)

Going For The Guinness Record...

...but will be content to beat my own personal high for cop-out posts. How am I doin' so far?

(More) Signs of Aging

As we inch our way ever further into our forties, Hubby and I have gotten into the habit of pointing out signs of our mutual aging to each other.

When I cut Hubby's hair, I can't resist pointing out how the gray has taken over. I'll say, "Baby, you're old."

When I fall asleep four minutes into a TV show I couldn't wait to see and Hubby wakes me up at the end, he will say, "Baby, you're old."

It's a little sad what passes for entertainment around here...

Today, we mark another "because we're old" milestone as Son-One and his longtime girlfriend (three years next month) are hosting Thanksgiving. All we have to do is show up with the sweet potatoes, the cranberries and five extra mouths to feed.

We have a child old enough (and mature enough!) to host Thanksgiving.

Baby, we are soooooo old.

Tomorrow's Turkey Day*...

Maybe that's why I'm feeling so fowl foul.


*Part of my foul mood--I am disproportionately annoyed by the increasingly frequent use of "Turkey Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Not, apparently, annoyed enough to not use it myself in the service of a lame pun.

Maybe Tomorrow...

I will have time and energy to finish one of the several posts I have saved in drafts...

Badass

I found this video over at Miles, etc., a blog I discovered through the NaBloPoMo Randomizer. (This is not the first moving or thought-provoking video or post I've found over at Miles, etc. so check her out if you get a chance.)

As soon as I watched this, I snagged Daughter-Only who was wandering the house rambling on the phone to one friend or another, and had her watch it as well.

She watched and listened in silence and then at the end, proclaimed, "This woman is a total badass." Don't know that I would've put it quite that way, but now that she mentions it...

Sunday Is The New Monday

Due to my work schedule, Sunday has been Monday for about a year.

Monday is as good an excuse as any for a cop-out post, right?

Don't Tell Him I Said So

I spent the morning fetching Son-Two from college, where he is a third-year physics major and currently in the midst of No-Shave November so sporting a sprinkling of facial hair. He was up until four a.m. for some last minute before break bonding with his friends where he lost his last ten dollars in a poker game. He is 6'2" and a month and half away from his 21st birthday, full of a not entirely unwarranted cynicism about the state of the world, but this morning when he climbed into the van, for just a split second, I flashed on him at four.

He was breathlessly enthusiastic about a wide variety of things--sometimes he talked so loud and so fast at that age that I had to translate for other family members who couldn't keep up. He loved mazes and puzzles and anything that challenged his brain, but also ran through life as though in his own action movie or video game, sometimes literally bouncing off walls. He's the only one of my children who's broken a bone--and he'd broken two by his sixth birthday. (Thankfully and a little miraculously none since then.)

Once, when he was four, he and I had a rare moment alone on a moonlit night walking along the creek that ran behind our house . He was holding my hand, looking up at the night sky and he said, "I wish I had a magic pencil so I could play dot-to-dot with the stars."

It was one of those moments a mom holds in her heart forever.