I think I am going to play an endless loop of "The Story of O" on streaming Netflix, volume really loud, through my open windows for my neighbors' enjoyment.

I really need to move.

Really.

Also, kudos to Netflix for offering only the dubbed English version of this film.

Here's how it's done

The New York Times has been irritating me since the early 1980's.   It's pandering to "Life Style content - first, with the establishment of a separate stand-alone section, replete with Sally Quinn-type reporting, and then with the osmotic seep of lifestyle coverage throughout most of its sections.  I don't read the Sports section, so I cannot attest to what's happening in Sports, though I do know that the Celtics lost to the Lakers last night; but I can easily imagine something in today's NYT on the house furnishings and lavish existence of Kobe Bryant.

This is not an accident, this osmotic glomming on to all things of the lifestyle angle.  It is purposeful and driven by advertising and desired reader demographics.  But it is not news.  I mean "news" as edifying, substantive, and worthy of conveying.

For instance, here, in yesterday's NYT, is a front page article, which to me is archetypal of its "life style" content: Trophy Hunters: With Their Eye on Interiors.

And this is what is really "news" on the art, skill, and substance of interior furnishing: My friend Lori's blog on decorating on a vapor budget and limitless drive and creativity.

Lesson?  Like my fellow blogger Lori, source it yourself when it comes to life style. Follow not the tastemaker.  Be your own, make your own choices.  Do not be fed fodder of pre-selected items chosen by others.  What is your taste?  That is the fun!

(Can you tell slightly that I am chafing to write about my neighbors some more but am channeling this to another topic of individualism vs. the masses of a@#es?  Then you know me well.  I chafe and yet I refuse to throw the proverbial or literal finger at my neighbors.  No, I disparage them from the safety of the internet shield.  It is my choice. And it is fun.)

Vengeance is mine

8 a.m. walking my 6/7 pound dog on leash.  Round the corner comes a woman with an all-terrain baby stroller, followed by a large un-leashed dog, who sees my dog and comes bounding toward me and my dog.  I pick my dog up in my hands, and say:

ME: Your dog should be on a leash.

HER: (nothing)

ME: It's posted right there (pointing to sign that is eye level, permanent and iterated at both end of the park, which is approximately 18 feet away from her.)  It's the first thing on the sign.

HER: I'm not from around here.  I don't know how to read.

ME:   Don't be facetious.

HER:  I know the law and I'll follow it if I want to.

ME:   Why don't you follow a diet.

HER:  I just had a baby two months ago!

ME:   I hope you had triplets.

(and away she went, traveling West at a somewhat rapid pace.)

(it was a good thing I was wearing slimming navy blue that morning)

(to my amour in Chicago, who has recommended this article this very morning, before I went on my dog's constitutional - and my institutional - and which article I have read perhaps three sentences and seen the accompanying illustration, I thank and now post: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/2010/06/by-leonor-vivanco-redeye-temper.html)

Sampleton

No longer Stapleton.  Now it is Sampleton.

I need say no more than direct you to this wonderful blog by my wonderful friend:
confessionsofastayathomelawyer.

And add that when I hear "Ice Storm", I think this

and not this

Me sitting in Staplegun, with neighbors attending

Yup, if I were to sit on my porch, this would likely happen.  However, my twist on this scenarios is that I am usually standing, having just innocently answered my doorbell.

Remind me to post about the three people who confronted me, all at once, one night, on my porch after I answered the door.  I was physically menaced (I prefer to do the menacing, thank you very much.  I am very good at emotional menacing.  I am going to darken my eyebrows and put in fangs the next time I answer the doorbell.  I wear black pretty often.)  Here is a teaser of that soon-to-be-posted post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdYas_8EDZM.  Wes Craven stole from me.

In the meanwhile, sit back and feel my pain.

Staplegun.  Bringing me one step closer to hermit-hood.

My next house:

Notice no eyes.

On being a snob

The New York Times posted an article today that is about as snooty as it gets.  The article details an auction of household contents of one Patricia Kluge, a woman who - per the Times - married a very wealthy man, spent his money building homes, collected things to put in those homes, climbed up a social ladder, divorced her husband, and then collected a lot of divorce settlement money.  While this sequence is not uncommon and could be considered laudable for the materially acquisitive set, the ex Mrs. Kluge is denigrated in the paper of record for having done all of the building, collecting and climbing in de trop common a fashion.  She is not even given a break for having chosen a wealthy spouse and securing a considerable divorce settlement.  No, she was just too assiduous in her efforts to ascend and, at root, just too common.

Herewith, is a quote from the article, regarding the attendees who have come to preview Mrs. Kluge's household contents to be put up at auction:

Certain of them, like Virginia Donelson, a Charlottesville native and playwright who lives with her husband, the novelist James Collins, on a farm in adjacent Orange County, came to view Mrs. Kluge’s 18th-century drawings and to see whether it was true, as some suggested, that “even if you didn’t know a vulgar person lived in the house, you’d know a vulgar person lived in the house,” once you had visited it.

Is that  not the rudest thing you have ever heard; the anonymous "some" who have "suggested" that you'd know a vulgar person lived in the house?  Excuse me, pardon me, forgive me, if I may: who is vulgar here?

And this leads me to my Etiquette Rule Number One: If you are going to be a snob, do it silently.  Second Rule: Don't be quoted or cited, even anonymously.  Exception to Rule Number One: It's fine to blog about your neighbors.  Exception to Rule Number Two:  blog anonymously about your neighbors.

Here is the entire New York Times article.

I find it ironic that (a) I don't know for sure the meaning of "irony"; and (b) I am a perennial end user of electronics and Mr. Coffee has been around for like 24 years

I bought a Wii last Tuesday and today it stopped working.  I re-plugged in everything.  Note terms of art.  I used lots of swear words, which are not terms of art but are terms of fucking great art, and to no avail.  I berated my children for not presenting me with solutions and merely - and I am speaking of one particular child under the height of 5 feet - helicoptering around a non-Wii containing room with a down turned set of lips and a doleful look of eyeballs and a repeated utterance [sic] ("utterances"?) that "it doesn't work".
And I didn't have the receipt. But I had the credit card (score!) and I knew which day I bought it on [sic] (thank heavens that federal holidays are a point of reference for the memory-challenged but I still have to remember which holiday and whether my home state has receded from the Union.  See immigrants, gay marriage, abortion, states rights, Texas' take on textbooks.)
So I piled both kids, guilty and non-guilty but I am the judge, jury, executioner and chauffeur, into the car [sic] (true) and we went to Costco, which as far as I am concerned is apparently the cradle to grave of bulk purchases and outdoor furniture suites that require a big ass back yard, and I was able to return the Wii, get credit on my card, and purchase another Wii. Took the new Wii back home, put it together and it did not work.
It turns out that the extension cord had blown.  And the irony is that I thought all along that it was the electronics that were faulty.  And I am not sure if the word "irony" is correctly used.  And it's ironic - or is it, cause I don't know - that I don't know if it's ironic that I don't know if "ironic" is correctly applied.
I am a liberal arts major (references to the esteemed Lex Loci Lori) and incapable of remembering the correct usage of words in the English Language when I am, more precisely, an English Literature major, and I am completely reliant upon being reliant upon the infallibility of the electronic world.  It is binary, yes?  Or have we moved on from punch cards and that really really big computer at Penn?  It is intuitive, yes?  It has anticipated our human liabilities and is designed to circumvent our ineptitude and slow learning curves, yes?

And it was always the extension cord.

I think I will exchange "stupid" for "ironic".

on seeing old boyfriends

Best to have a really thick skin when you contemplate "what if" because it's really about "what can I handle and why the hell didn't I assess this earlier."

Other applicable thoughts:
1. it pays to stay in shape and barring that (which is easily barred as it is far far far easier to simply 'stay' vis. 'stay in shape', three quarter length sleeves and bermuda short are a very good and readily accessible (vis. physique from early twenties) proposition.
2. meeting your former boyfriend's child, somewhat north of six feet and yet to graduate from grade school can make you feel (a) matronly; (b) detritus on the roadway of life: (c) both a and b above; and (d) neither if you've taken away all your mirrors and self-reflection.
                                                           3.  A sense of accomplishment, whether passively attained or not.  Cause you can (read: I can) make the right decision for the wrong reason and that ends me up in the same place as if I were seasoned, wise and capable.  And I will take this alternative path if it ends me up in the good result.
4.  A good haircut (his) and an abandonment of Nike short sleeved shirts best to be worn on the mannequins at Sports Authority goes a long way when seeing someone after a long period of time.
5.  Also very strategic to bring your daughter, her boyfriend, your boyfriend and your youngest offspring (read: responsibility) when seeing your old beau again.  Real turn on.
6.  And be happy resolved where you (read: I) are (read: am).

possibly temporary posting and candidate to be removed when I get sufficiently embarassed: Guys like dogs because they don't say anything but they convey their emotions without any bullshit.

Inoffensive positioning of "I am tired, please leave me alone and I will not bite or snap at you should you wake me, but do remember I am a dog."

Old School Parenting

My friend and I were driving home from a PTO meeting (my first, her bazillionth) and we decided to go through the alphabet, listing our preferred approach to parenting.  I don't remember them all and I've added some new ones, even more extreme.  Please feel free to fill in words for letters that stump me.

Assault
Battery
Corporal
Draconian
E
Flogging
Garbage Duty
H
Incarceration
Jail
K
Manacles
No after dinner snacks
Only opinion that matters is mine
Punitive
Questions?  Didn't think so.
Restitution
Slavery
Tether
Unless you'd like  to find out
Veneration [of parent]
Whine free zone
Y
Zen-free zone


And now, excuse me, while I return to my parenting primer authored by one Charles Dickens.