Uber-dork

I officially became an uber-dork at 9:03 this evening.

At the end of the season premiere of Alias, after having the beautiful Michael Vartan speaking French (music to my ears) and being all gooey over his pregnant girlfriend (music to my biological clock's ears), they killed him off! Those fuckers.

And I went almost immediately to a chat room to see what was going on.

Enormous. Dork.

I called Dr. Moo up to see what she thought. She doesn't watch Alias and told me to "get a life." Harumph.

The only saving grace is that friend L was with me and so I did not become an uber-dork alone.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

So I've been noticing this trend lately. And the trend is this: I tell folks that my sister is a Dr. (yes, a doctor of moos, but a doctor all the same) and people automatically assume that she is the elder, rather than myself.

Well, I beg to differ! Just because she was graduated from the, okay, the best veterinary school in the entire world, and I am unemployed and sit around thinking up things to write in my blog all day (Well, today I also went to the gym and answered email and did some cleaning and watched Matrix Revolutions.) doesn't mean that I am the younger sister.

I happen to be the oldest one in the family, g-damnit. I've got a younger brother as well. Yes, he drives an Audi and lives in a condo overlooking the water in Portsmouth, and yes, he's held down the same job for several years, but still.

I am the trailblazer! Going boldly where no McPolack sibling has gone before! And I want some g-damn respect.

Babcia Update

So I talked to Mcmumsy today and she said that things are a little up in the air with my fine Polish granny -- her heart is failing, but slowly -- she's probably got a year or so left. Most likely she'll be able to still live independently, at least for awhile; there's talk of oxygen tanks and maybe my parents would then take her in, or she would be part of some sort of hospice -- I'm not sure. My father has spent half his life taking care of her, and of my grandfather when he was still alive, and of the property they once owned, so I don't know that I could fault them putting her in a hospice, but -- after having lived with her for a time, it feels weird to be far away from her, and to think of her slipping the bonds of earth while I'm here in the city trying to have a life.

I'm not sad. Just contemplative. Hopefully, I'll see the Babcia this weekend.

And now is the time on McPolack when we feel guilty

My Babcia (that's Polish for grandma) is in the hospital. Apparently it's not something serious enough to warrant a call to me, although IMHO, when you're 89 and you've got a heart condition, and the reason you're in the hospital is because of your heart, well, call the grandkids, g-damn it, especially the one who lived with her for two and a half years.

Anyhoo, a visiting nurse noticed Babcia's heart was racing and called for an ambulance. She'll be in the hospital overnight and have tests in the morning. It's either a valve problem, which can only be fixed by a surgery she doesn't want, or a muscle problem, which can be fixed with meds.

My mother is with her right now. My dad told me not to be concerned -- he doesn't think it's her time; not yet. He tends to have a feel for these things.

But I do worry about her being all alone in the hospital. I'm afraid of the hospital myself. I really hate it. If I were in the hospital, I would want someone there all night with me. I wouldn't want to wake up alone in the morning. But this is my Dad's job -- it's his mom -- and still part of me thinks, I should go there, I don't do enough for Babcia.

And even though I do more for Babcia than either of my siblings (and for a time, did more for her than my mother), I haven't been good about calling her. I call/see her once a month, when really I should be calling her once a week. She loves it when I call. It makes her so happy. So why don't I do it more? I mean, I'm unemployed, for chrissakes. I've got lots of time.

And lots of excuses: Concord is far away with gas being expensive and I hate driving in nasty traffic and I do have copyediting to do and I do need to find work and etc etc etc.

I think what I'm coming to realize is that I'm more selfish than I thought. Or maybe this is the big Catholic guilt speaking? Ugh, I don't know. I wish that I did. Is it the burden of the darling X-generation to just whine about shit rather than actually act?

Helpful?

So my friend L of the great taste in men grandma sent me an email early this afternoon -- she was bending over picking plum tomatoes in her garden when her back went out. She said it was a frightening experience -- she couldn't stand up for awhile, and was afraid she'd be out in her backyard alone all night. But she managed to get up the stairs and call her doctor.

I did a bit of research on the back going out thing, as L is fit and eats well and takes good care of herself and one would think your back goes out only if you are and do none of these things. Not so. The back is apparently a delicate and sensitive instrument, and anything could set it off. Something more for us all to worry about -- or not.

So L called and asked if I would come over and pick the tomatoes from her garden and the peaches from her peach tree and hang out with her a bit. I left a particularly enthralling Oprah (all about the Kennedys! I seem to have inherited the Kennedy watcher gene, albeit a milder version, from McMumsy.) and headed over with a couple of books she had mentioned she wanted to read, some fresh pesto I had made earlier that day, and a box of spaghetti with lines. I picked the fruits and veggies, made her up some dinner, and hung out with her until she passed out from the muscle relaxants.

Now I would read the paragraph above and think "What a good friend McPolack is." But I feel guilty, and let me tell you why. I could have brought more pesto over but I was planning on making a pesto dish myself. I also could have brought over chicken and broccoli and done up a better dinner but again, had been planning on this dinner myself. Doesn't the really helpful friend not hold anything back? Granted, she didn't ask me to come cook her dinner, and granted, she called me at the last minute to come see her and I didn't have much time for throwing stuff together, but I was still thinking of me even as I was thinking of her.

So this bugs me a bit and I thought I'd throw it out there for all of you to chew on.

You Heard it Here First

So I'm in a big box bookstore today, and I'm checking out Harper's, which is a jaw-dropping six dollars and fifty cents if you were to buy it but free if you read it standing up in the bookstore. Imagine my surprise and pleasure when I discover one of their main articles in the October issue is one comparing FoodTV to porn. Hmmmmm....I seem to recall saying something similar not too long ago.

The article, eerily enough, echoes some of what I said in my post.

That's right, McPolack, Inc not only brings you the trends, we bring you the super-refined elitist smart people trends. Finger on the pulse, folks, finger on the pulse. If only I could get paid for this. I'm going to try and scoop Granta and The Atlantic Monthly next.

Great Taste in Men

Went hiking yesterday with L & O. L is Chinese but came to the states via a boat from Vietnam as her family fled there first from China and then had to flee Vietnam for here. Her grandmother is 92 years old and doesn't speak English.

L had brought a new boyfriend home and she asked her grandma what she thought of him. Grandma told L she liked the old one better. When L asked grandma why, grandma said it was because the old boyfriend looked like Mr. Rogers, a man she found especially fetching.

She also loved Michael Landon, and that love was born by watching him as Pa Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie. "He's a good man," she told L. "A fine man."

Fine, indeed.

Dirty Birdie

So tomorrow I'm going on a "young members" AMC hike in Amherst, MA. OSB said she hoped I would get to hook up with one of these "young members" and then said it sounded vaguely dirty. Hey! They describe "young members" as being in their twenties and thirties.

Ah, but that dirtiness reminds me of a tale from my past...

doodleloodledoo....doodleloodeldoo...doodleloodeldoo...doodleloodeldoo...doodleloodeldoo...

...It is my thirtieth birthday. I am working as a temp doing data entry for ten bucks an hour. I am crammed in to 2 cubes that have been split in half with four other people. To my left is a scary-ass boy who plays online role-playing games all day long and really likes knives and guns. Behind me is a muchos trashias lady who has already turned thirty. She was in charge of buying my gift and she bought me scratch tickets. She lives with her boyfriend but recently some skeevy guy in a pickup truck hollered something dirty out the window at her and she actually went and had sex with him! Aaaaaaaa! She is letting me know with relish what it will be like in my thirties: "They're your dahty thahties, hahahaha! You're going to wanta do it a lot more! And your crotch is gonna staht tah smell too, hahahaha. It's not all sweet like it was in your twenties."

Um, gross.

Neatarific

Had lunch at Charlie's Kitchen with a friend and then went to see the glass flowers at Hahhhhvahhhhhhhd's Natural History museum. They are super-duper neat-o amazing. Sorry for the dorky dorktacular description, but the flowers really defy description -- they are perfect, gorgeous, intricate renderings of flowers, from bud to root, done entirely in glass. It's really unbelievable -- the goldenrod specimen perfectly captured its wee yellow flowers and its veined, serrated leaves.

Next I visited the minerals section -- loads of cool lumps of all sorts of funky crystals.

The rest of the Natural History museum smells appropriately of mothballs and there are hundreds of stuffed critters and birds, along with dinosaur fossils. There's an ENORMOUS stuffed giraffe whose legs alone are about a foot and a half taller than me, and a giant sperm whale skeleton. There's also a capybara, world's largest guinea pig, and some pissy-looking woodchucks.

Afterwards I strolled through the yard of Harvard Law School, hoping to catch the eye of some smart rich hottie but alas it was not to be, at least not today.

Still, though, the critters and flowers and rocks and things were grrrrr-eat! I think it would be a good place for a date. Followed by making out, it would make for the perfect afternoon.

Notes from my day

Squeezed myself into my skinny jeans and a cap-sleeved white blouse to walk to the local bookstore and pick up a Chicago Manual of Style. That's writing style for those not in the know, but obviously I was going for the fashion style effect as well, as one never knows what kind of hotties one might run into while buying the CM of S.

Later I locked myself out of my apartment but lo-and-behold my wonderful landlord just happened to be visiting, so he let me right back in. Then I left and went to the farmer's market where a hot, hot farmer boy said he liked my necklace, made of big seeds, from Target. I batted my eyes at him only briefly because he had a wedding ring on. That vegetable man was whoring himself out to me to get me to buy more of his produce, but it didn't work. I spent 80 cents on a couple of sweet dumpling squashes.

I may have full-time work soon at a certain fancy-pantsy school but we'll see what happens. Things are a-brewin.

Ooo -- and tonight is the premiere of Martha Stewart's Apprentice show. As a half-Polack, I must support my fellow meathead. I caught some of her daytime talk show. It's pretty awful. Take this conversation with Diddy, formerly Puff Daddy and P. Diddy, where he's teaching Martha how to rap:

(Martha and Diddy are going through a list of "rapper" words on a blackboard)

Martha: (looking at the first word) "What does 'cheddar' mean?"
Diddy: "'Cheddar' means 'money'."
Martha: (reading a word further down on the list) "Ooo, I know what ballin' means!"

Yipes.

For Paula

I went to a pretty momentous occasion while in Vermont a couple of weekends ago and I didn't blog about it, mainly because it's pretty intensely personal stuff and even though it's been nearly ten years, in some ways it feels like just yesterday.

The occasion was the 10th anniversary of Seven Days, a Burlington, VT-based alternative arts and news weekly. I was the first person editors and co-publishers Pamela and Paula, or the P's, as I liked to call them, hired for their new and special project, and it was my first "real" job out of college. It was thrilling, really thrilling, to be at a start-up, and I did almost everything, from hiring and managing newspaper deliver drivers, to going out on dates and then writing about it to promote the personals section, to watching in horror as Bob Denver sat in front of me and smoked a cigarette, ashing it all over the floor. (Pamela, the office muscle, told him to put it out). And even though I was only there for one year, it's the job nearest and dearest to my heart. It was a family experience, fucked-up though it may have been, in more ways than any job I've had since.

But it was also the worst year in my life. I had problems -- a lot of problems -- with me, problems that had been brewing since my twelfth birthday. Ten years ago was the beginning of that year -- the slow yet ohsofast descent into pretty serious depression, alchoholism, and bulimia. I went pretty far into the woods in my teens and early twenties, and in some ways I am still working my way out.

But time does heal things -- one thing I've learned, as an addict, is that if you just hold on and do your best, a day at a time, choose not to do the thing that is destructive, well, pretty soon you have a lot of days behind you.

I've got almost ten years of days behind me now.

It was wonderful to go back and see everyone -- Pamela, Paula, Rick, Matt -- they all loved me in spite of myself. The difference now is that I love me in spite of myself, too.

Happy birthday, 7D.

xoxoxo,
me

Ode to a mellowcreme pumpkin

You are orange and green
You taste like a dream
And you are manufactured in a facility that processes peanuts, tree nuts, sunflower seeds, milk, soy, and wheat

You herald the fall
From the special Halloween candy aisle I hear your call
You contain Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and/or Soybean Oil, which adds a dietarily insignificant amount of fat

Oh, sweet, sweet mellowcreme pumpkin...let's get together tonight in front of the Gilmore Girls
Where I will feast upon you until I very nearly hurl
They don't put nearly enough of you in the Brach's Autumn Mix.

Amen

Highlights...

...from my weekend in Rotter-Damn!

1. Tasty treats, part I: JoyceFrances, OSB and I ate a pile of the best g-d french fries I have ever eaten, ever, and I will be 32 in less than a month and I'm half-Irish so I've eaten a lot of potatoes. We ate them at this farm called Indian Ladder. They do berry picking, apple picking, they sell tchotkes, and they have a teeny restaurant in a cordoned-off section of the store. The fries were local potatoes. They were thick-cut, deep-fried, perfectly cooked, and covered with melted local cheddar cheese. And also possibly some melted lumps of crack cocaine.
2. Millipedes: These are interesting, prehistoric-looking, creepy bugs, and we saw a big one crawling along a limestone path at the Helderberg Escarpment, a great place to find fossils.
3. Crazy bird guy: He's in his early sixties. He's on the small side. He's got a short white beard. He's wearing a bird shirt. We're looking at a view when all of a sudden he's at our side and talking: "It was supposed to be the annual hawk migration and they were supposed to fly by the hundreds right through the Escarpment but there weren't any save 2 this year because there weren't any thermals and the band of roving turkey vultures wasn't even around and hey does one of you have a cat does any of you have a cat what you have a cat well you'd better keep her inside or she might get eaten by this bird right hear, that's right, the great horned, well we had a lot of missing cats awhile back and hey you can keep those pamphlets they're the best we've got." Aaaaaaaaaand breathe. Once we had moved on he pressed play on his internal tape recorder and gave the same speech to someone else.
4. Tasty treats, part II: Sugar-coated gummy pumpkins. I love pumpkin-shaped candy items. The mellowcreme version are my favorite and I think I might have to write a tribute to them. These were tender and sweet, with a hint of orange flavor. They especially did it for the pregnant member of our trio. She kept offering them to the group to try and assuage her guilt over the fact that she was scarfing down an entire bag all on her own. Good try, OSB.
5. Shopping: I found a fab antique (or you could also describe it as old and smelly) needlepoint pillow with a fat raccoon on it, for five bucks, in a fun store run by a wackadoo lady with a giant baby in Bennington, VT. Further down the road in Brattleboro were similar needlepoint pillows, only these were new and they were 85 dollars.

Don't Touch That Belly

Spent much of the weekend (save for an hourlong run through the backroads of Dublin, NH late on Sunday afternoon) in Rotterdam, or as I like to call it, Rotter-Damn! NY, visiting my pal and former yankme coworker JoyceFrances. OSB, who is pregnanter by the minute, was the driver for the trip, and I enjoyed seeing the sights from the passenger seat of her posh Audi. I also enjoyed the fine culinary stylings of JoyceFrances, who is not only a tough hot mamma but also a gourmet chef. She made me ravioli! I love her.

OSB loves JoyceFrances as well. But not enough to allow her unlimited -- or even limited -- access to her big preggo belly. While OSB was sitting down at dinner, JoyceFrances went in for the kill. She was pressing and rubbing all over OSB's tummy, trying to figure out where the baby's head was. OSB quietly said that the placenta was in the front of her belly and so you couldn't really feel the baby. And OSB also made a face. A face that is exclusive to OSB. JoyceFrances noticed it and said "Oh, no, OSB, don't tell me you don't want me touching your belly. Come on!"

Now I know full well of OSB's reticence to physicalness. Christmas rolled around about 5 months into my yankme career. OSB got me a small gift. I gave OSB a hug. She looked really freaked out. I realized she is like how my mom was for many, many years: a no touchy-touchy person. I remember trying to give my mom a hug while she was resting on the sofa one day. She shrieked and told me to go away. While OSB didn't shriek, I didn't try to hug her again for a good long while.

OSB took a fair amount of time to get close to, but it was worth the wait. She's a good friend now, and I get a hug from her unsolicited each time we say hello and goodbye. But I know better than to touch the belly. Nobody touches the belly.

At least until JoyceFrances came along. She broke the ice. We spent the rest of the weekend trying to steal furtive gentle pokes at her tummy, but she was always on the ready, sliding her hand calmly over just the spot we were trying to touch like some strange lady buddha. I even offered to let OSB rub my belly in return for a rub of hers, but she was having none of it. I suppose I'll have to wait until I'm pregnant myself before I can get a really good poke at a pregnant belly.

Mmm, Frappe

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this...which, BTW is disgusting, so stop reading now if you have a weak stomach...

So I'm hanging out with Dr. Moo in her splendid apartment. After she accidentally shows me the pictures she took of the slimy calf fetus that she had to take out of a mumma cow to save her life, she tells me this:

One of her fellow vets came in with a ziploc baggie filled with chunks of something. Dr. Moo asked him what they were. They were warts he had chopped off of cows. Mmm. Wart baggie.

But wait! It gets even MORE disgusting!

Why would this man be saving a baggie of warts, the thinking person might ask. Well, I am glad you did. He was going to...wait for it...wait for it...

...put them in a blender and puree them and then inject them into other cows!

I know, I know, YIKES! SOOOOO gross! But this is apparently great for the moos because it inoculates all of the cows in the herd against getting further warts. It's an autogenous something or other -- like a flu shot, where you get a bit of the virus to stop you from getting it full-blown -- but for warts!

Neat, huh?

A Tale of Terror

My dear friend cuarentayuno was put in what may well be the most uncomfortable work situation ever. He was on the Vineyard with his boss recently, working on a shoot. As the ferry back to the mainland wasn't until 6, cuarentayuno decided to have his boyfriend spend the day with him. Their plans were to go to a nude beach. The boss knew this. And the boss tagged along. And the wee hairy, scary, bare-ass naked boss asked cuarentayuno to put lotion on his back. Then, on the ferry ride into the sunset, furboss sat between c and his bf.

Poor, poor cuarentayuno. BTW, boss is married with two kids.

Also, this is a tad mean, but kudos to OSB for saying to c when she heard his story "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."

tee hee hee

(sorry, c)

Food TV

So I'm watching my favorite hour of food porn...Everyday Italian followed by the Barefoot Contessa. I was unemployed one year ago as I am now, and the tv was the same then. They play this "bow chicka bow bow" music while these 2 women, Giada DeLaurentis and Ina Garten, chop and smash various foodstuffs. Everything is very well lit. It's sexy.

Today Giada making a bread salad with olive oil all over it. Have you ever seen her? She's whippet-thin. No fucking way is this woman eating a salad made out of bread.

Now Ina, she's hefty. Actually a bit bigger than is probably healthy for her. But at least she eats, you know?

Dr. Moo thinks I have a thing against the skinnies, and maybe I do. I'd love to be able to cook and eat tons of food and yet remain thin. Alas, this has as of yet evaded me.

Poka poka poke it with a stick

I've always been a curious girl. I'm positively filthy in most of my childhood pictures. When I accused my parents of not bathing me properly they told me it was impossible to keep up with my penchant for crawling through underbrush, in drainpipes, and up trees.

I'm a bit big for those activities now but my interest in the world remains. Now I like to poke stuff with sticks. It's a good way to learn more about whatever weird thing you might happen to be looking at, without getting your hands dirty. Recently I have poked:

1. Bear scat. It's black and sticky and has lots of berries in it.
2. Gull pellets. They're sort of like owl pellets -- made up of bits of undigested coughed up things. These pellets were made up of crayfish parts. Lots of little pincers.
3. Corn smut. Corn smut looks like this and when poked the stick goes in easily and black sooty stuff falls out.

I also examined some deer bones while on a walk with Dr. Moo. These I picked up with my bare hands. And I ate some corn and wild grapes and smooshed some soybeans.

Good times, good times.

Holy Cow

Visited with Dr. Moo this weekend. She was on call and on Sunday morning I went to observe her doing surgery. The cow had a displaced abomasum. The abomasum is the fourth stomach of the cow; sometimes it gets filled with gas and it moves and requires surgery to correct it.

The following description is not for the faint of heart, so if you tend to get grossed out, I'd stop reading...

...okay. First of all, when a cow has surgery it does not happen in the emergency room of the cow hospital. It happens in the barn. In this case, it was an UNBELIEVABLY smelly barn because the manure lagoon (yes, a large pit of doody) was being drained that day, and for some strange reason, god only knows why, to drain the manure lagoon the manure shoots up in a fountain not unlike something you see in front of an office building only this one's brown and it reeks. The air, which normally smelled of fresh cow poo, now smelled of really really old cow poo that had been stagnating in a large pool for a long, hot summer. Ohmygod, the smell. Luckily, though, my sniffer was trained for disgusting smells by spending a long hot summer in my own personal stink factory, the city of Boston, so I was able to breath through my mouth for the most part.

The other thing that's interesting about a barn surgery is that all the other cows crowd around and watch. Some of them chew their cuds; some of them moo. The cows in this barn were coming back in a line from the milking parlor and the line kept getting held up as one cow after another stopped to stare. They also crap, like, constantly, and stand so close that they occasionally poop on eachother's heads. It's delightful.

Anyhoo, we're not even to the really gory stuff yet. My sister stood next to the cow, who was tied in a separate stall with her head in this cow headlock thingy. There was hay for her to eat. Dr. Moo first shaved a large spot on the side of the cow; maybe a couple of square feet, with a Bic razor. Then she squirted various and sundry antibacterial and antimicrobial (are these the same things? I don't know) on the cow and on herself. She scrubbed her arms with some stuff and put on a glove -- a rectal sleeve, which goes all the way up to her shoulder. But she wasn't going in near the rectum, so I was confused.

Have I mentioned that it is impossible not to get sprayed with cow poo when you're in a cow barn? Well, it is. But back to the surgery!

Dr. Moo shot the side of the cow full of anesthetic, which was the one thing that would hurt the cow, and she did moo. Then Dr. Moo got out her scalpel. I asked her how big she was going to make the hole. "Umm, big enough to fit my arm in" was the answer.

Oh.

This I was not expecting. I turned my head away.

When I turned back my sister had her ENTIRE ARM (right up to shoulder) INSIDE the cow. Yes, that's right, she cut a big hold in the side of the cow who was standing there not really protesting and she stuck her arm in there. Then she grabbed this rubber tubing with a big sharp wide metal hole-pokey thing on the end of it and poked a hole throught the cow's stomach (this I couldn't see as the stomach was inside of the cow at the time.) All this gas escaped -- you could see it making bubbles out of the antiseptic that the tubing and hole-pokey thing had been in. She stood there for a little while, making conversation with me and talking to the other cows whilst this thing bubbled away like a happy little science experiment and little rivulets of blood ran from the hole in the side of the cow and puddled (only a small puddle!) in the bedding on the floor.

It probably took just a couple of minutes for the gas to escape.

Then, my sister took the tubing and hole-pokey thingy out of the cow and stuck her arm waaaaaaaaay back in there and rooted around. Then she planted her feet and started yanking.
And she yanked some yellow pinky stuff right out the hole she'd cut in the cow!

This was fat. This cow had a fair amount of it. She was trying to reach this specific part of the cow's stomach and she needed to move the fat out of the way.

It is VERY BIZARRE to watch this sort of thing, folks. But also really really REALLY fascinating. The cow didn't mind much at all. She looked a tad upset but apparently (according to the farmer who stood around and watched part of the surgery), she's a tad off and is noisy all the time.

Let me just say here to any animal rights folks who may be reading that this is perfectly normal surgery and my sister is a vegetarian and animal lover and would never do anything to hurt a cow.

Okay. So she locates the part of the stomach she's looking for and she sews it to the side of the cow, inside the cow. Then she sews up the hold she made in the stomach to let the gas out, and sews 2 walls of muscle (this would be the short loin and sirloin area for all you steak lovers) and the skin back together. Then she sprays the outside of the cow with this bandage that looks like silver spray paint. And that's it; we're done. Miss moo cow went back into the general population and we went to lunch.

Where, BTW, I ate egg salad. I don't think I'll be having a roast beef sandwich anytime soon.

As of publication, both patient and Dr. are doing just fine.

51:04

Was my time for the latest road race...ran the family one this weekend: the Union Leader Classic. One of my cousins ran as well and saw my uncle at the finish line. Told him I was glad to discover he was finally beginning to see the light on W, as the paper has finally begun running editorials critical of him, thank god.

51:04 is the fastest I've run yet...think it may have had to do with the fact that some crapass woman kept trying to pass me. I wasn't about to let her feel good to my detriment. I didn't let her by. I could hear her coughing behind me. It made me happy to beat her. And I say I'm not competitive.

Am going to hold off on the personal trainer for now but AM going to eat less and exercise more.

Oh, godDAMNit!

Reality bites. Turns out I weigh 10 pounds more than I thought (I am 173 pounds at 5'6" tall, which makes me a wee bit overweight, although a lot of that IS muscle) and on the "very high" slot in the body fat percentage chart, which means I have more body fat than is healthy -- which sucks. But which I think I kind of expected. I am a little jigglier than usual, although my pants still fit.

Anyhoo, a lovely young lady named Pella kicked my ass today and offered to kick it 16 more times for 800 bucks, helping me to get stronger and less fat in the process. And I am seriously considering doing it, as an early birthday present to myself, because I want to be healthy and I would love to be fit.

This unfortunately would mean giving up pasta after 5 pm. Those who know me know my favorite dinner is a monstrous bowl of cheese ravioli with pesto at 8 sharp.

Boo!

Realities

In ten minutes I leave to go to my free appointment with a personal trainer. At this appointment I will discover:

1. How much I weigh
2. How much of me is fat vs. muscle
3. My metabolic rate
4. How "in shape" I actually am

Mind you, I don't really want to know any of these things. I'm fit enough to run 6 or 7 miles at a clip and I have a big fat ass too, thank you very much. But I tend to enjoy living in a dream world rather than reality and it's good practice to recognize the latter.

The other reality I face today is a hair appointment. Two haircuts ago I spent ten bucks at Wal-mart to get my hair cut while my Babcia was in the next chair over getting her wash and set. I hid my hair under a hat for more than a week. My mother took me to the beach and bought me lobster salad at Ray's to coax me out from beneath my headwear, and then laughed so hard when she saw my haircut that she spit food out of her mouth. She told me I looked like I escaped from Bellevue.

The next time around I spent 150 bucks on cut, color, and highlights. It looked mildly better but not 15o bucks better. At least it did not look like the hair of a friend of mine, who described the el-cheapo Supercuts cut he got as looking like he fell asleep and a horse nibbled on his hair.

So it's a day for facing reality for moi. And face it I will.

Tagged

1.) 10 years ago...I was starting my first "real" job, as the very first employee of an arts and news independent weekly paper in Vermont that celebrates its tenth anniversary this coming Saturday night. I was living on School Street in Burlington with a couple of rich faux-hippy bitches from upstate NY in a teeny bedroom with my own teeny balcony. My bike had been stolen and I had no car and so I walked everywhere.

2.) 5 years ago...I was working with Contagious at a wacky book publishing house in Maine. I had just begun my relationship with los chickenfucker, a relationship which would end badly, and thank god it did end. I was living with my octogenarian grandmother in an unheated bedroom in a drafty house in a chichi town near the NH coast. I was still smoking, a pack and a half a day, and many of my mornings began with 3 cigarettes and a big cup of coffee, after which I would go for a six mile run.

3.) 1 year ago...Having finally left the chickenfucker, my kitty and I were living with my parents. I had no job and no money to speak of whatsoever. I had one of the most awkward conversations of my life with Polackpappy, which went something like this:

"Dad, may I have fifty dollars?"
"What do you need fifty dollars for?"
"I need to get a refill of my birth control pills."
"Are you......ummmmmmmm....active?"

4.)Yesterday…I woke at around 7:30, farted around a bit, went for a jog. Called someone about a job -- no work, yet. Answered some emails. Had coffee and cobbler with cuarentayuno and then went walking with him and his hot new opera singer bf. Watched a chick flick when I got home and ate chicken pot pie.

5.) Today...It's 8:38 in the morning. I just took a shower and had a massive bowl of cereal and watched GMA. I need to get my hair cut, go to the gym, return some phone calls, clean my apartment, find a job. My kitty is asleep on the futon I got for free from a couple I met at a party in Cambridge. I have a big bag of peaches and tomatoes in the kitchen from a friend's garden and I'm going to make some peach galettes and a pot of tomato sauce soon.

6.) Tomorrow…I've got an appointment with a personal trainer in the morning...and need to decide if I'm going to Vermont. I'm running in a road race in NH on Saturday morning so would already be partway to the Green Mountain state, but Dr. Moo is on call all weekend so she and I wouldn't be able to hang out.

7.) 5 snacks I enjoy…candy (yesterday I bought some harvest mix. I love love love the mellowcreme pumpkins), lemon sorbet, crunchy cheese doodles, fresh pineapple, and cheeses, both stinky and not.

8.) 5 bands that I know lyrics to…Ummm, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, Simon & Garfunkel, Beck, Aimee Mann, and Neil Diamond. Yeah, cause money talks but it can't sing and dance and it can't walk.

9.)5 things I'd do with a $100,000,000...Pay off bills of friends and family and myself, buy houses -- in woods, by sea. – to live in. Send Polackpappy to Peru, where he was in the sixties and would like to return. Invest -- what can I say; I'm practical. Give some of it away to deserving strangers.

10.) 5 locations I'd like to runaway to – Since I've never been anywhere, save PEI, FLA, and Nebraska, this is an easy one: New Zealand, where it's green and there are lots of sheep. Alaska, because it's so unspoiled and remote. Iceland, because it's so geologically different from here. Ireland and Poland so that I can meet others who are Mc and who are Polack.

11.) 5 bad habits I have…The most terrible and freakish would be the continual picking of the man-hairs that sprout from my chin area. It seems like there are more every day. I also overeat with some frequency but at the same time let a lot of food go to waste. I am a terrible procrastinator and can put off doing just about anything. Also I gossip. And when I pass gas, regardless of the end it comes out of, I like to do so loudly and with gusto, after which I snicker.

12.) 5 Things I like doing…Hiking and then eating lots of cheese at the top of the mountain...walking and talking, for hours...running...being by the sea...shopping.

13.) 5 things I would never wear… sweatpants (and NOBODY should EVER wear them, IMHO. They are hideous.) Tapered-leg acid-washed jeans. Pleated pants. Track suits. Low-riders because what ends up happening with my fine Polish fanny is a v.v. bad case of Crack is Wack.

14.) 5 shows I like… Buffy The Vampire Slayer (no longer on but has not been matched by anything I've seen since), Gilmore Girls, Frontline, Alias, although mainly for the Michael Vartan, and yes, on occasion I still watch the General Hospital.

15.) 5 movies I like… Godfathers I & II, Heat, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, The Mosquito Coast, Fearless.

16.) 5 famous people I'd like to meet…MV, of course, so I can hump his leg. Madeleine L'Engle, Paul Simon, Jon Stewart (I'd hump his leg too only he's a bit short so maybe I'll hump his arm instead), W.

17.) 5 biggest joys at the moment...Family, friends, kitty, writing, feeling confident, finally.

18.) 5 favorite toys...from when I was younger...I actually didn't play with toys as a kid, so much so that my mother thought I was a little weird. I played in the backyard, by the stream, on the dirt road, and in the woods, instead, and I read a lot of books. But I did have a love affair with Bug World, a kickass playset that I check E-Bay for on occasion because I would buy it in a heartbeat. I don't play with toys anymore but I DO play with myself. Sorry, I just couldn't resist throwing that one in there.

19.) I'll tag amy and cuarentayuno. Let's see if they bite!

For Headline, See Below

I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with a witty headline to go along with what I am about to write but couldn't figure out a good way to shorten the fact that anyone behind the video counter at Hollywood Express can so tell I am single by what I rented this evening, on two for one Tuesday:

Mean Girls
sylvia
Under the Tuscan Sun
Frida

It's a good mix of tortured artsy women and Lindsay Lohan.

City Bumpkin

Took a boat out to Bumpkin Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands. It was gahgeous! The only natural mammals there are the vole and the park ranger, one of whom was hot but unfortunately also California mellow bad (thanks to amy for introducing me to this term, which means you are from CA, move just a little too slowly smoke a wee bit too much pot and have essentially no personality) and clearly looked upset when I recommended he get a rifle to keep those pesky littering Masshole pigs at bay. I was just kidding though!

My friend K and I ate cheese and fruit. I mucked about in the water and peed in the bushes. We skipped stones and looked at big crab claws and tasted rose hips and picked a pear each from a tree growing on the center of the island. Then each flung giant rocks into the sea to say bye-bye to summer, and took the boat back, motoring slowly by Logan whilst planes giant and wee took off and landed right over our heads! We ended the day with iced coffees at a fancy hotel. All in all, a fine Labor Day. Except that I went for a run when I got home and then ate too much pasta and now I'm gassy. But, hey, good with the bad, right?

I See Famous People

Specifically, Michael and Kitty Dukakis. They were ahead of my parents and I in line to buy tickets for the Ansel Adams exhibit at the MFA this afternoon, and I swear Michael was tailing me. Every time I turned around, there he was. Wearing the little headphones that he paid extra for.

He looks very much like a caricature of himself -- big nose, big, bushy eyebrows, exaggerated wrinkles. He's pretty short, as is mew-mew Kitty. And they are both pants-challenged. Kitty had on a hideous hippie-print purple cotton pair and Michael was wearing high-waters belted somewhere up under his neck. Yikes! His outfit was very, very silly and quite un-politician like.

Nobody talked to the Dukaki, and I couldn't really tell if anyone else noticed them. I might not have noticed them myself, save for the astute eye of the news and politics hound that is my dear McMumsy.

Good Stuff

Go, Anderson Cooper, Go!

Why must I only love the crackers?

Seven out of the ten times I am hit on it is by either a Latino or African American man. (the other 3 out of ten tend to be guys over 65 or rednecks) I have a, how shall I say it, juicy butt that I inherited from a long line of big-assed peasant women. When I was visiting Baltimore, MD, a man stopped me in the street and said "You are a beautiful goddess," and some guys pulled up next to me in a truck and craned their heads around to get a look at my rump.

Then today I decided to sign up at a gym near my house because I like to intersperse the running with other physical activities, and wouldn't you know it, the guy behind the desk hit on me. He kept smiling and smiling and tried to sign up to be my trainer for my introductory session but I had requested a woman. Ha ha!

The thing is, I don't find myself feeling attracted to the Latino or African American men, which digs at my very liberal soul. I tend to lust after pale ass g-d crackahs, and the whiter the better. I find the occasional tan Greek man sexy, but mostly it's pale pale pale with dark hair. I think I'm starting to get a thing for Jewish men as well. Nebbishy, mmmmmmmmm, yeah.

Unfortunately in the past I have also only been attracted to assholes.