Anger Management

So today instead of giving the lady in the red SUV who sped up when I was in the middle of a crosswalk on my evening jog the finger I stuck my tongue out at her.

Just doing my part to put less nastiness in the world.

Testing

I had my ADD visit today. Two solid hours of going over my life. There's a lot I don't like to talk about and, well, we talked about it. I scored pretty high on the attention side of ADHD (now everyone is ADHD but with a tendency towards an attention deficit or else hyperactivity and I have the former) and also have had depression and anxiety issues, but the latter two could also have been caused by what the person I talked to termed "significant childhood trauma."

Anyhoo some components of ADHD include high sensitivity and disorganization. And I am going back to get a brain scan just after my 33rd birthday in October.

In other McPolack news, the place the center is in, Sudbury, is just a gorgeous area, and I went to a wonderful farm stand on my way home that was filled with fresh, beautiful vegetables and angry housewives. It was like Vermont but with bitches. Then I came home and made a homemade pizza that turned out like crap and also ate some Ben and Jerrys which probably won't help my fat ass but at least I didn't pig out.

And tomorrow I am off to the Indian firm!

So many adventures...

Mmm. Fudge.

Well I came into the the living room tonight halfway through a REVOLTING Domino's commercial. It featured this brown square called "Fudgems" who shows up at your house along with your pizza. Fudgeums is supposed to be lovable. But when your daughter hugs him she gets covered in brown slime. And, hello, Fudgems? Bad name. He also leaves brown footprints in his wake, much like the poo smears of Mr. Hankie.

Oh, Domino's, thank you for presenting me with yet another reason to not buy your pizza.

Numbers

Well I realize I've been a bit of a whinocerous as of late so here's a fun post in which you will learn something special:

Dr. Moo was in Hawaii recently with some of her vet school friends, one of whom is a woman who, like a friend of mine, can eat whatever she wants and remain skinny, partly because she gets diarrhea like 3 times a week. To me, the word diarrhea alone is inherently funny. When Dr. Moo and one of my cousins around her age was little, and we were staying as a giant extended Irish Catholic family crammed into a tiny beach house, she and the cousin, J, were using a big stick to poke through a sewer grate and stir this ooky light tan goo while singing:

Diarrhea, uh-uh, Diarrhea
Diarrhea, uh-uh, Diarrhea
Some people think it's gross
But it's good on toast
Diarrhea!

Ahem. Anyhoo, Moo's friend calls the big D number 3. And we all know what numbers one and two are.

Also while in Hawaii this same friend of Dr. Moo's passed gas by an old peron in a wheelchair because she could blame it on the old person and the old person could not get away. When she was accused of specifically targeting this poor senior, she said she was not, but hey wasn't it convenient that the person was there, and that as a rule when she needs to, um, toot, she tends to do so around the elderly.

AAAAAAAAAAAA

Somehow this summer I have managed to gain 10 unholy, icky, revolting pounds and now some of my pants are too tight.

There's nothing I hate more than tight pants. It triggers all my old eating disorder stuff and makes me miserable and cranky and want to EAT.

Which is not helpful. I feel like Fat Bastard, when he talks about the vicious cycle.

So. I'm going to need to eat a little less, is all. I really can't possibly exercise any more. But if I am being realistic, I know that I have been overeating more than usual, and it's because I've been trying to let go of more weird eating patterns.

Of course this is not the end of the world and it is a luxury to live in a country where I can grow a big fat ass. But I would really like to lose it.

Suck it.

So I'm eating my nice Chinese food with my family and I'm thinking everyone is getting along so well and being so friendly. I spent the day hiking Mount Osceola and then helping my sister shop for a baby gift for a friend. Then I crack open my fortune cookie and it reads "You will have true success in whatever you do." I look at my sister. She is shaking. Shaking with laughter. Then I realize my mother is laughing as well.

They are laughing because I in fact if you look at my job history have been successful at, well, NOTHING.

Which they think makes my fortune v. v. funny.

Well I think they are assholes.

So there.

OK, of course they were kidding, but only sort of. We're all about the black, black humor in my family.

Updates

I realized I am acting like the news. I give you a story and then don't give the outcome. But not anymore!

On the do I/don't I wear my glasses to the wedding of my little brother: I will wear them in the ceremony but not for the pics. I told the bride she said she's OK either way so it's possible I was reading the sitch wrong but whatevs, it's all good.

On the new gig: I called my US contact a bit after 8 and he made a call and I heard from someone from India five minutes later and then spoke with an Indian woman in Texas at an outsourcing company that handles contracts and forms for the main company in India. Go, globalization, go! I still have not signed any contracts, though. There was some weirdness around taxes where I was asked if I wanted to go with a 1040 which would require me purchasing a million dollars in coverage in auto, home, health, and some other insurances.

Um, hello? I do not think so. Turns out I can also do a W-2, but this seemed to cause some sort of an issue that is being resolved at the company.

Anyhoo I am not going to wig out. The Indian woman I spoke with in Texas was just delightful. I've also had an offer from a friend who works with some Indian folks and he said they'd be happy to give me advice. I'm off on another adventure!

On the boyfriend front: Still don't have one.
On the kitty front: She's great, thanks for asking.

Feel free to ask for any other updates you might want and I'll do my best to get them to you.

It's a small world after all

So last night when I was on my regular babysitting gig my friend let me know her impression of working with folks from India, namely that it can be maddening. She told me that because they do not want to disappoint (and let me apologize right now for using they. I am a Democrat and a bleeding-heart liberal and I don't want to lump a whole people together) they will typically tell you they will do something although they have no intention of doing it.

I'm worried I may be experiencing that right now. I spoke with someone yesterday and he assured me (after I told him I could be available from 9 am on with no problems) that if I was just by the phone at 7 am, someone would call. At 7? I said. Because I have a lot to do today. Oh, yes, certainly, at 7, no problem.

Well it is almost 8 and nobody has called.

I don't know about this.

My friend said I also need to be very careful how I handle their grasp of the English language, because in their country, to imply in any way that they do not speak/write it excellently is to insult their education level, a no-no. My job is to correct their English! So this should be interesting. My contact yesterday (an Indian) did tell me that they can write English for Europeans perfectly; it is our American grammar rules that are a problem.

After this job I am going to apply for one as a diplomat.

Offshoring

In a rather strange turn of events I find myself doing work that has been outsourced to the U.S. from India. For the next few months, part-time, I'm going to be editing computer screens for a firm that the boyfriend of a friend of mine works for (in one of their U.S. offices).

The people from this firm are a wee bit, um, persistent. When I got back from the transcription agency today I had 10 new calls on my machine, and three messages, one of them garbled, all of them from some very very VERY fast and excitable-sounding thickly Indian-accented talkers.

Looks like I'm in for some culture shock.

Here's my goal for this assignment: Remember that I am smart and capable. Remember that there may be a cultural divide happening. Do my best. Be happy that they took one look at my resume and hired me immediately (although this may be due to a couple of jobs I did for a place that is known throughout the world for its smart people).

But wait! I am one of those smart people.

Editorial Comment

At the transcription office I've been typing up the dictated memoir-in-progress of one of JFK's speechwriters. He sounds about a million years old and he uses a dictaphone, which makes me feel like I should be dressed in a tweed suit with my hair up working in a smoky DC office taking dictation and fetching coffee.

Instead I am dressed in jeans and a t-shirt drinking coffee and dispensing editorial advice in my head to the speechwriter, including:

The spicy baked porcupine you ate in Africa is impressive.

The fried ice cream you ate in Singapore is not.

You're not going to impress the American public, ruler of the free fried food world, with that one. I've eaten fried ice cream before, and it was in a Mexican chain restaurant when I was 17. Singapore doesn't have a monopoly on the stuff.

McPolack, Inc Presents “Your Bovine Veterinary Phrase of the Day”

Three-titter

Meaning: A cow with a non-functioning teat. If there are lots of cows with broken teats on your farm, you're not doing a good job.

Usage: "Wayall, now, I was just at Clarence Brown’s fahm. Ahl his cows ah three-titters.”

ADD

I've been struggling for a long time over whether or not I have ADD and what sort of medication I may or may not need. I haven't gone in to talk to anyone because my big fear is that the doctors will be like, oh, you don't have ADD, you're just lazy.

So I slog through my life having trouble focusing and avoiding things instead. Which is stupid.

Today I discovered that the writers of the book Driven to Distraction have a treatment center within a half hour's drive of my house. I also read this on their site:

"...procrastinating, start concentrating, sit still, finish what they started, get organized. But what appears to be a matter of self-discipline is actually, for many, a more complex challenge of coping with an inborn neurological problem: ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder."

I have HUGE issues with procrastination, concentration, and sitting still. HUGE. I mean to the point where it's like it was when I was drinking -- I promise myself that this time I'm not going to take a nap before I get started, or call someone, or get up from my computer 15 times an hour, only to do it over and over and over again. It's maddening and then I beat myself up for being a lazy sloth.

To top it off, I've had issues with panic disorder and anxiety as well, something else the center treats.

So. I made the phone call just now and left a message. I'm really hoping to learn, honestly, that I do have ADD, and that there's something I can do to fix it, because I'm tired of all this.

And if it turns out I'm just lazy, well I guess I'll have to deal with that, too.

Weekend Updates

So my weekend was, well, ho-hum. Thursday morning I got a very lovely tour of a local radio station and sat in on a talk show I've liked for a long time, and joined their editorial meeting afterward. My father knows the show's executive producer. McMumsy was v.v. excited; she was hoping, first, for a job offer, and second, that the ep would be potential husband material.

I, having been down this road many times before, knew not to expect much, and was therefore pleasantly surprised. First of all, I was amazed to get such access to the show -- it's pretty rare that people let you sit in on their editorial meetings. And with the exception of the host, who may have been wondering WTF I was doing there, everybody was super nice. I liked it. When I mentioned I'd applied for a job there once, the producer told me I could certainly have an internship. In other words, no job for you. Which makes sense when you consider that I have no experience in radio. He did give me contact info for the news director so I can try doing some essays to read on air. On the husband front, I didn't find myself immediately attracted to him, but he really seemed a lovely person.

Dr. Moo's eyeball surgery went fine. I got to watch. It was a tad odd seeing her staring at me from a tv screen, odder still to watch her eyeball get sliced open. Traffic in Montreal was terrible and the concierge sent us to shitty restaurants. Then we went back to Vermont where I saw a house that was built on the sale of one sheep, ate some really excellent food, and watched yet another episode of MacGyver, featuring an el fako Hungarian with a crookedly glued-on beard.

Kicky

From the files of Dr. Moo...

So cows can kick like horses and you probably all knew that. But what you may not know (I didn't) is that when a cow kicks, she does so in sort of a roundhouse fashion, kicking her leg out to the side and swinging it back. So trying to avoid being kicked by not standing behind the cow doesn't really work. Also if you're sitting on a three-legged milking stool, you're not safe.

Recently, Dr. Moo was prepping for a surgery on a particularly surly cow when the farmer who owned the cow asked her if she needed any help. Moo told the vet that unless he was willing to stand in and get kicked for her at a point early on in the surgery, there wasn't much he could do.

Well, the farmer offered to stand in and the cow kicked him in the balls and sent him flying across the barn. He sat there for a minute. Moo didn't really know what to do and she didn't want to make him uncomfortable by calling attention to the ball kicking so she said "Well, I'm going to do the surgery now" and turned her attention back to the cow while the farmer limped away.

UPDATE**UPDATE
So apparently I had my facts wrong. From Dr. Moo:

Also, self proclaimed good listener, the kicking story did not involve a surgery cow. It was a cow with a sore hind foot. I had to hoist it up with some pulleys but I could hardly get near her because she was acting insane. The random guy on the farm I had never seenbefore (field hand maybe?) hoisted it up for me and got kicked in the process. I said "thanks" and then started working on the foot.

She did say I am a good listener when it counts.

McPolack's I hate this tomato sauce tomato sauce

On way home from Vermont stop at barn on side of road and buy from old slow farmer with a ponytail who likes to make penguins out of gourds:

3 big and six small tomatoes
1 good-sized green pepper
1 bright lumpy carrot with dirt on it
1 bulb garlic

Come home and fry six cloves of garlic in oil with 1 large onion plus the carrot and the pepper in the Le Crueset pot you got as part of a set for 15 dollars at a Salvation Army before it was cool to shop at the Salvation Army and you could actually find awesome stuff.

Chop up tomatoes haphazardly and smoosh the seeds out with your fingers. Throw 'em in the pot.

Clean out fridge and discover slightly slimy bunch of basil. Pick out non-slimy pieces, rinse, chop, and add to pot.

Dump in some white wine from the plastic sippy bottle in the fridge.

Add some red pepper and salt.

Let it all cook for a half hour or so. Then get your hand blender and pulverize it all into a thick, good-smelling, goop with flecks of green. Take pride in the fact that you didn't flake out and spray sauce all over the kitchen or burn yourself. Put cover on pot.

Take cover off pot ten minutes later. Sauce is boiling and it bubbles out of pot and sprays walls and a big glop of it burns the piss out of your right ring finger. Rush over to put it under cold water only to discover water is still hot from when you did the dishes. Open freezer and stick burnt finger on a bag of fake chicken pieces while muttering to yourself:

I hate this tomato sauce

Simmer for another 20 minutes or so while holding a plastic bag of ice on your finger and serve with pasta and meat of your choice.

Abbondanza!

Mmm, Macgyver

Quick post here. I'm in VT, heading to Montreal tomorrow and while I could post about the interesting things that have happened to me over the last couple of days I want to hang out with my sister and also make fun of her.

She and I shared that during all those Macgyver episodes we watched in the '80s, we both had a secret crush on him. So she got Season One on DVD for us to watch, on Tuesday, and she's already watched the whole thing.

Goober.

Of course she is making fun of Macgyver, just like we used to do when he was on TV for real, but I know she wants him to be her handy boyfriend.

BTW, I highly recommend the episode where he drives a car out the back of a plane while wearing a dorky-ass Speed Racer helmet but no seatbelt.

Not the answer I was looking for

Tuesday night, 7 p.m.

Brring-Brring
Brring-Brring

PP: Hello!

McP: Hi PolackPappy. How's Babcia?

PP: She's taking a dump.

Cranky.

Ugh. I have the McNasties today. Got up a wee bit late because I babysat last night and called in to find that they don't have any work for me. At least not anything until it is too late in the day for me as I have a prior afternoon commitment which would be yoga. As I am typing this, I realize how fucking retarded it is to have chosen yoga, which costs money, over work, which makes money, and yet there are other things I need to get done as well.

I'm coming to yet another crossroads. I just got off the phone with McMumsy, where she said that I should seriously consider whether going to school to get an MFA in creative writing is going to help me at all career-wise, and that maybe I should just become a receptionist because I could find a job where I did other things along with being a receptionist.

And now I offer my prelimary apologies to anyone who has chosen to be a receptionist for their career because of what I what I said to McMumsy: I am not going to waste my talent on being a receptionist. I'm just not. I'm sorry, but I'm really very, very smart. What came out of my convo with my mother was "I could have gone to Smith!" (I went to a small, perfectly fine libarts college in VT but also got into Hampshire) and that I felt like I was wasting my talent.

The thing is, though, I have, while not zero drive or discipline, I probably fall at around a 23 on a scale of 1 to 100. I just can't make myself do lots of things. OK, yes, I can make myself quit drinking and bingeing and purging and smoking but as we all know those just cover up what your real problems are. Am I just getting to the root of my real problems now?

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I don't know. Maybe I need to get some new, less intelligent and less talented and less successful friends because I keep looking at all they are doing and thinking, hey, I have the potential to do that, too, and a whole lot more, if only I could get up off my big white Polish and Irish ass.

When we were young...

Spent the last social piece of a whirlwind weekend (movie at the Hatch Shell on Friday, tea at the Ritz-Carlton on Saturday, lunch at MacDowell Colony on Sunday) at a party for my dahling friend KaKa who I have known since I was 15. KaKa is a certified smoking hottie with strawberry blonde hair down to her waist and nice ta-tas (although mine are bigger) and she's smart too -- the party was in honor of her getting her Master's.

Anyhoo it had been awhile since I'd sat down and chatted with her parents, at whose home I spent many a night, and around whose table I ate many a dinner. Her parents used to wake us up on Sunday afternoon by vacuuming and then her dad would make us pancakes. We were chatting and her dad was talking to me about what it was like to have children, especially the worry. I shared with him that KaKa and I had mainly innocent fun.

Including the time she and I drove past the exit for the Mall at Rockingham Park in Salem NH where we were SO sick of going. But not to go to Boston, mind you, which was where one of her other brothers was heading (or coming home from) when he flipped his car, oh, no, we weren't doing anything quite so naughty. I was pulling into the passing lane and slowing my car to the same speed as the one in the travel lane. Then Katie would roll down the window, hike her skirt up, and stick her holey-granny-pantied ass out the window while I honked the horn.

"I'm glad I didn't know that was happening," is what I believe KaKa's dad said to me.

I Need Help

I just changed my clothes five times to return books (The Dead Beat and Nature Noir) and movies (The Bourne Supremacy and Murderball) to the library. See, I’m a wee bit hot for one of the librarians. He looks like Matthew McConaughey, if Matthew McConaughey never worked out or ate much or went in the sun and had blonder hair and a beard.

He’s just cute, OK? And I’ve had the natural McPolack reaction: I almost cannot talk to him. Today I looked at him sideways a couple of times and stood sort of near him while perusing the DVD carousel but couldn’t even bring myself to stand in his line of sight. Jesus Christ Almighty, am I shy.

Anyhoo I also am harboring secret fantasies that the older librarian wants to fix us up, because the last time I was there, he went on a break the second I stepped up to the desk, so that the cute one could check my stuff out, and I swear he blushed when I told him I was standing far away from the desk because I’d just come from the gym and didn’t want to be all up his face with my b.o. Which totally means he likes me, right?

Medal Day

I'm heading to the hills of New Hampshire this weekend to go to Medal Day at the MacDowell Colony. Peterborough is the town that Our Town was based on and many a famous artist has stayed in the colony there. I used to see an artist or two, sometimes, passing through the woods on my runs when I lived there. They were shy and quick, like deer.

The last Medal Day I went to featured this redheaded singer lady performing some sort of a tribute to Merce Cunningham. It was a very The Emperor Has No Clothes experience as she sang this weird-ass song that she made up on the spot which basically involved her going "Muhmuhmuhmuherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrcccccccccccuhuhuh" and so on, while everyone appeared to listen in rapt attention and just acted like it was all so wonderful when it fact, well, it was kind of stupid. OK, maybe stupid is a little harsh. But it wasn't all that.

Anyhoo, after the medal is presented you get to walk around and pet the deer (I mean visit the artists) and chat with them and see their wee houses and the wooden boards where talented and fascinating people have signed their names, because they stayed there, too. The whole rest of the year, the public is not allowed on the grounds of the colony, so it's pretty neat to be let in, and also it is free and you get to eat cheese (although this you have to bring in on your own).

Egads.

So the plastinated specimen frenzy has finally reached my little corner of the universe. I don't know how I feel about this. I watched a shudderingly gory video at the NY Times site that featured vats of dead animals and humans with sheets of white skin sloughing off them and a bunch of Chinese men and women working busily away on corpses.

It is all just very weird.

Oddly enough, I actually was onto this whole plastination thing well before the general public, courtesy of Dr. Moo. There's a plastinated specimen lab in the veterinary school at Cornell, and they've got tubs of dog and cat parts (indcluding sawed-in-half ones and some with the spines attached) for study. I picked them up. They feel all waxy and greasy and hard, and the kitties especially look like they've been just soaked in melted candle wax. They also look very, very dead. And creepy. There's also a dead dog in a vat of formaldehyde there and some giant elephant bones.

I'm certainly tougher than the Moo in some ways, but when it comes to the world of dead animals, she wins.

Anniversary

The day after tomorrow will mark 10 years since I stopped drinking, 10 years since I had what I like to call in pleasant company a nervous breakdown, the details of which I'm really not comfortable revealing here. I was just online looking for a meeting to attend, because I feel like that's the right way to mark the day -- I don't think you should necessarily celebrate such an anniversary, because I shouldn't have become an alcoholic in the first place, although, if I'm being honest, I was headed there pretty much from age 2 on.

Anyways. I don't really feel like I need a party. I also don't go to meetings. I haven't in a long time, for a whole host of reasons I, like the details of the aforementioned n.b., am not going to discuss here. I'm a little anxious about whether it's right for me to go to a meeting at all, especially since part of the reason I'm going is because you get a chip for going to meetings, for the first 24 hours, week, month, 3 months, six months, after which it becomes a yearly thing. I have my 24 hour chip on my nightstand. I think I want the 10-year one. But I don't know if I should really get one, seeing as, again, I don't go to meetings. But I don't drink and I do take care of myself spiritually, physically, and mentally. Ah, me. This seems to run deeper than my ability to write it out.

Just as an aside -- people who are alcoholics can't ever drink again. Not one drop, never, never, never. You do not get better. It amazes me how many people in my life don't understand this, and I'm not putting this out there as a judgment but more as a public service announcement: No, I cannot have just a sip of your wine or your beer or your hot toddy or whatever so please don't ask.

Oh, and also, the fact that I don't drink doesn't mean that YOU are an alcoholic for drinking. Trust me on this one when I tell you that when I was drinking it was muuuuuuuuuuuuch different from your drinking.

Pick me!

I’ve let the book-writing fall to the wayside lately and decided to pick it up again today; naturally I am now taking a break because I can’t think of what else to say in an essay I’m trying to write about how much all the McPolack children enjoy exercising and what that all means (is this a more interesting subject than how it looks now that I see it on-screen? Hmmm…) and I got a little stuck after explaining that I was such a non-competitive person when I was younger that I actually lost the treasurer’s position on my high school’s literary magazine by one vote because I, instead of voting for myself, voted for the other guy. I was just trying to be nice and also not act all full of myself. I remember that our faculty advisor was aghast at what I’d done, especially considering that the kid who’d won was the teenage embodiment of a loutish asshole, but what could I do? The vote was cast.

Anyhoo, I all of a sudden have lots to talk about, but as I know this is mainly a way to avoid working on the book, I will leave you with this little gem: my mother wants me to meet some guy who knows my father; her great hope is that he will either, A, get me a job in public radio, or, B, marry me, support me, and knock me up and give her some grandchildren. To further cause “B,” McMumsy helpfully offered this description of his (he is a marathon runner) physical presence: “I think he probably weighs as much as your big toe.”

Don't F*** with the Babysitter

Well, babysitting went OK. I hung out with the girlie for about an hour before putting her down; during that time we danced, hit one of the many buttons on the vast array of toys that she has that make noise and, adorably, sat together on the sofa while she flipped through the IKEA catalogue, pointed at things, and did that preverbal babbling thing while I tried my best to follow along.

Her Mom and Dad told me she'd start bobbing and weaving like a pint-sized drunk when she got tired and I scooped her up once I noticed the behavior and wrangled her into a fresh diaper, no easy task as she was jumping and wriggling and screaming on top of her changing table while I dug wildly for the baby wipes and ended up holding her around her middle with one arm while trying to yank but not yank in any sort of a hurtful way the diaper up between her legs and fasten it.

She screamed all the way upstairs as I tried in vain to comfort her and then, swear to God, the second I plopped her in her crib, she plunked the front part of her little self down, stuck her diapered butt in the air, and fell immediately to sleep. I checked on her a couple of times throughout the night and those blasted baby hormones kicked in and made me want to crawl in the crib and cuddle with her and sniff her wee head and then take her home and raise her as my own.

Baby, baby

I'm leaving in just 10 or so short minutes to watch wee D, the daughter of friends. I haven't done the night babysitting thing since college, when I nannied, and I must say I don't know how I feel. Am I bolder about eating whatever I want from their fridge? Or less so? Should I call up an unsuitable boy and have him come over and make out with me? As I never EVER did this in high school and turned down the one guy who made an offer in college, I guess the answer is no. (Also the couple I am sitting for have done SO much for me that honestly I should be paying them to watch their child and sending them on an all-expenses paid second honeymoon)

One thing that's definitely changed since my babysitting days of yore is my ability to stay up past 10. I'm already weary from being out yesterday and they won't be back until after midnight. Here's to keeping my eyes open until I can get home and go to bed!

Sweaty

Yesterday was a loooooooooooong day. Spent the morning in court, performing my service as a juror, and sweating, because the building is such a piece of shiat that the AC doesn't work well and of course this was the hottest day of the summer.

Luckily nearly all of us were let go early and apologized to by a judge for the crappy courthouse. Then it ws off to the gym then home for lunch then to the transcription office then to Alison's for grilled fish and fruit salad where I saw FancyNancy, who I hadn't seen in awhile.

Anyhoo, I came home tired and the day felt long as opposed to interesting. Listened to more women with fancy educations and a golden ticket in terms of their careers talk with a confidence about themselves I have never had and I wondered -- how will they handle it if their life goes awry? Then I wondered -- at a certain level of finance/education (Brooke Astor aside), is life just that much easier? Or do you have a whole host of other problems and a life spent living inside a pretty bone china box with the lid glued shut?

Bawk-Bawk

Sometimes when I'm walking home from yoga I'm just enjoying feeling all stretched out and centered and sometimes I put the mind to polishing a little nugget of a thought so that I can present it to you here. Like this one: When you go to the grocery store, you can buy a four-pound whole chicken, which is perfectly acceptable and will cook up quite nicely or you can go for the seven-pounder, which is that much plumper (but in a nice, muscley way), juicier, and tastier.

I, dear readers, am like the seven-pound chicken. Except I don't have a pop-up thermometer stuck in my ass and my guts aren't wrapped in wax paper.