Granny Panties

Well apparently I have gone from fresh young thing straight to Grandma. The realization washed over me this morning like tar over a dead dinosaur as I stood in my local coffee shop at exactly 8 AM. Which would be exactly when they open. The place was pretty dead.

My alarm had gone off before 7 and I lay in bed until after 7:30. (Embarrassingly, I fell back asleep for a bit and had a sex dream about the Architect. True to the nature of my relationship with him, the sex was bad, but I stuck with it anyway.)

Then I got up and talked to my cat, thought about how much I loved my cat, put on my elastic waistband pants and sensible shoes, and put away some dishes, killing time until I could get my scone. And my Geritol, walker, and adult diapers.

Interesting Video...

glumbert.com - Effects of Drugs and Alcohol on Spider Webs

Fluffy Hair

Ah, sweet freedom...

I just got my hair cut for the first time in more than a year...am v.v. happy to have gotten it done. I'm also excited because I found a wacky-ass little salon to get my hair done in. It was 60 bucks (mainly contributed by the Easter bunny, aka McMumsy, thank you!), all told (including tip) for a haircut, a chance to sit with a smallish furry doggie in my lap, converse with the apprentice about her "menstrual thing," her acting career, her sweet landlady with the eight feral cats, and her canker sore, meet a swell lady getting married for the first time at 57, and chat with the proprietress, who gave me an "upside down" haircut and complimented me on the upkeep of myself once I told her I was 33.

The apprentice even shampooed my hair the way Sharon, my hairdresser when I was a tween and teen, used to do it, with a nice kneading massage. Only this woman wasn't smoking a cigarette at the same time. Seriously, Sharon was a piece of work. She'd be setting your hair with perm solution with one hand and drawing deep on on a Newport with the other. I was always afraid she was going to accidentally set me on fire.

Man-Catcher

So, so, SO many people have said to me "You will meet the one you love when you least expect it." Well they don't have McMumsy breathing down their necks and asking about EVERY man you mention (like the press secretary to the Maine Speaker of the House who you talked to for a story) "Is he single?"

I just don't know how to stop expecting it. And I mean, I work it. Here is a short list of my man-catching behaviors:

1. When I buy the papers on Sunday I get them before I buy my scone and I carry them rather than putting them in a bag and always make sure the New York Times is on top so as to catch a smart man.

2. On the train I like to do the crossword puzzles in my NY Times crossword puzzle calendar not only in pen, but in the freebie pen I got from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. That's THREE impressive things, people: I do the hardest crossword puzzle IN THE WORLD, in PEN, and that pen is from HARVARD.

3. Before going out for a jog, I brush my teeth and put on lip gloss. Because you never know who's looking. No, I am not kidding. As I type I am enjoying both fresh breath and soft lips...

and now I am off for my jog!

Unholy

Now those skinny-ass angels in the Philly Cream Cheese commercials are shilling tubs of readymade cheesecake filling. I'm sure God wants to make it easy as possible for us all to clog our arteries and die, all the sooner to be with Him (or Her)in eternity...

What to Write...What to Write

...would be what I thought whilst walking the library to return the following:

* One book of essays called Maybe Baby (sucked)
* That book where a blogger cooks all Julia Child's recipes (pretty good)
* A Bill Bryson book on CD, the one where he writes about England (read by the same irritating Brit who narrated a Peter Mayle book on CD I took out for the last time I drove to Vermont. Now I should have known I was going to fucking hate Peter Mayle, but you know what made me fucking hate him more? Hearing him read by a guy with an insipid British accent.) (also, note to my British readers: I don't hate all British accents, just this fellow in particular.)
* Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, on CD (meh)
* Vogue Knitting (decent)

On my way to the library I passed a car accident at the end of my block. It's the first I've seen and honestly I am surprised there haven't been more. People don't notice the stop sign. Everyone seemed OK but one girl had driven her car through a chain link fence.

As I'm in a nature mode and a missing NH mode I took out from the library a series of essays on country living by Maxine Kumin and I also borrowed a Woody Allen movie starring that snot-ass bitch Scarlett Johansson ("I think I look like a boy..." she was recently quoted as saying. Shove it, Scar.) and the v.v.v.V attractive Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.

Coming home today I felt a little panicky on the train and almost had to get off a couple of stops early because it was crowded and I started to feel that sort of vroooom feeling you get when you have panic attacks, where your heart starts racing and you just get all aiyeeeeeeeeeee, but I was able to calm myself down. Really I'm just anxious about the upcoming change in my life, that being really committing to finding a good job, and I have a lot of issues around that. A. Lot.

But in the grand scheme of things everything is really pretty groovy.

Eyeball

Took a brief trip out to a local Cambridge eyeglass store this afternoon to see what-all I could get for $200 without resorting to a big-box-esque location.

Turns out I can't get a full set of glasses with an exam at that price. What I can get however is a chance to paw through the bargain frames (at 99 bucks apiece, they're expensive in my book -- I mean, WTF? They're plastic!) and try them on while the balding middle-aged slighty rotund fellow behind the counter says "They'll all look good on your face" To which say "Oh, right, because I have an oval face." To which he says "No, because you have such a pretty face."

L: the next Avedon

Here are a few swell shots taken by L of our weekend in VT...




First, the photographer






We put a wig on Tess...








Another wig shot...












Where Tess's wig came from...















Acting my age...









Acting my age with my sister...













I love snow...


















Sistahs














The driveway to Moo's

Gap

Sometimes I see parallels in the universe.

Take the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor versus the ever-widening gap between good TV and bad TV.

The first gap has been well-documented by people much more educated on the subject than me. I just assume it's happening. Actually I suppose I feel it happening as, though I do not live at the poverty level, I do not know if I will ever see a house, a new car, retirement savings and cannot imagine how people get there.

Well I guess I can tell you becoming an alcoholic at the age of 22 and then getting fired from lots of jobs due to your undiagnosed and untreated ADD isn't necessarily the best avenue...

But I digress.

I noticed the second gap more recently. This week I enjoyed both a program on Frontline about soldiers suffering PTSD brought on by the war in Iraq (also read a good article on PTSD in women soldiers in Iraq recently in the NY Times Sunday Magazine.) One of those soldiers hung himself and if you were to watch his father tell you about what it was like to find his son hanging there, and to "rub the only warm place on him" even though he knew his son was dead, while calling his name, and remarking how that son finally looked at peace, you would be deeply moved.

You might be moved as well by the other program I watched this week, that being the latest installment of America's Next Top Model, where a bunch of skinny chicks (plus a couple of "plus-sized" ones) "posed" their way through a series of lasers while being judged by a skinny effete African-American man dressed in a yellow catsuit with black man panties.

Brooks Pharmacy

Aunt Flo is coming soon which explains why this is pissing me off more than usual, but Brooks Pharmacy only gave me half the amount of Ritalin they were supposed to and when I went in today to talk to the pharmacy tech she said there was nothing she could do about it. She insisted that "Oh, I know the person who counted those" and basically acted like I was trying to get free narcotics.

And the thing is what can I really do? I am calling the manager of the pharmacy tomorrow. But if I get mad it just looks like I'm a druggie. And let's just add that I once had an eating disorder and these are appetite suppresants AND I'm an admitted alcoholic which means if I call the Hallowell Center and explain it to them they might think I'm displaying drug-seeking behavior.

In the meantime someone at that pharmacy either miscounted or (and I think this is more likely) stole prescription medication from an uninsured woman who makes 10 dollars an hour.

Don't Get Into a Who's Studlier Fight With Dr Moo...

...you will not win.

Case in point: Moo and I are discussing The Departed at her place on Saturday night. I mention how grossed out I was by all the violence. She says she sees worse on a daily basis and that she was reminded, in the scene where Jack Nicholson's character is walking around in a bar on Beacon Hill with blood on his hands, of the many times she's out in public with blood all over her face, from a "bleeder."

Now granted this is a bleeder of the bovine ilk as opposed to some poor dead Irishman but then again it's real blood, not fake.

So an Imam, a Fundamentalist, a UCC minister and a Jewish man walk into an Ivy League university...

I said a few days ago I'd comment on the stem cell forum I attended last week. I was thinking during my run today of all the smart things I could have shared while there. Then I realized that's what the blog is for.

When I was interviewing people for the article update I worked on a couple of weeks ago, I agreed with everyone that embryonic stem cell research was important, that the blastocyst didn't have personhood, that those leftover embryos from IVF treatments shouldn't be tossed but should be used for research.

And I don't know if I still feel that way. Take the whole IVF issue, which I am going to comment on with the caveat that I haven't reached the end of the line with my own fertility; I don't even have a boyfriend. I'm coming from where I'm coming from, and that ain't the place of being someone who desperately wants a baby and can't get pregnant. So please don't take what I am about to say as a personal insult if you are.

I really find IVF to be a wee bit selfish. So you can't have children and you've exhausted all fertility options up to IVF? Adopt them. There are too many people already. Babies die every minute all around the world, horrible deaths. I say this as a person who regularly keeps her head stuck right up her ass for weeks at a time before realizing that it is not all about me. I mean, Jesus, I blab about myself every single day on this very Web site.

The other IVF issue I have is with creating all these embryos and then freezing them and throwing them away. I'm not ready to say, as the fundamentalist who spoke at the forum did, that you could be killing the next Mozart, but at the same time the idea of making all these extra -- what? -- potential babies? -- only to chuck some of them makes me uncomfortable on a deep, almost primal level.

So how does this all relate to my views on stem cell research? I guess it's shown me I feel less pro than I did before I went to the forum, which is odd, because I was guns blazing for research and not for wacky bullshit from the Christian right. And I am still not for wacky BS.

What I am for is checks and balances, and careful consideration of moral, ethical, legal, health and welfare, and safety issues. I want the people doing the research to weigh the benefits and drawbacks. And to keep weighing them. I saw that happening at the forum. Which is great.

I also realize just how uneducated I am on so much of what goes on in the world -- I really believe in having an educated opinion and I would call mine, at best, only very slightly so. I also don't have, as the gentleman in front of me at the forum did, a grown and paralyzed son and a friend who died slowly from MS, people who suffered and are suffering, who could benefit from this research, in my life.

Some days the world seems too big to be known.

McPolack Movie Minute: The Departed

Watched this movie Saturday night with Dr. Moo while L worked on Moo's more, um, toned-down personal ad. It was fantastic. I was practically having heart palpitations watching it. I highly recommend it.

With one caveat: It is just SUPER violent. And by violent I mean that when you watch the Jack Nicholson character plug a young couple in the head in the very beginning and you see their brains spray out and you think, oh, Jesus, Martin, like I did, well, later in the movie, after you've mellowed out a bit and thought "I guess this movie wasn't as violent as I was afraid it would be" it gets more violent than you (or at least I) could have imagined. Honestly the first murder is just a warm-up. If I were you, I'd watch it with your eyes wide open if only to prepare them for the bits you'll see later while peering through your fingers.

OK, also, and I credit Dr. Moo for catching this: Jack Nicholson really hams it up a bit too much. He acts like he did when he was the Joker, or like when he was in The Shining, only not nearly as good as that flick. Ooo, lookout, he's crazzzzzzzzzzzzzzy.

So. To sum up. Save the buckets of blood and brain matter that get sprayed all over the place like green slime on You Can't Do That on Television, and Jack Nicholson's overacting, The Departed is a really good movie and I think you should watch it.

Desperately Seeking...

I’m your average Carhartt-wearing cow-ass-molesting VT twentysomething. I grew up in the woods of NH and was raised by feral chipmunks. Pluses? I can crack walnuts with my teeth and I can hold a LOT in my mouth!!! Minuses? None that I can think of (well unless if you count that if I lose my keys it might be because I hid them in the crotch of a tree three miles out in the woods and can't remember if it was a birch or a maple, LOL)

I own a wonderful dog who is my absolute best friend. Sometimes I even let her put her tongue in my mouth! And yes, it’s before she cleans her butt with it. It’s not like I was raised by wolves! (it was chipmunks)

But enough about me. What I’m looking for: If you’re into plaid, NASCAR, and garlic-ginger stir fry and ESPECIALLY if you’re a heavy breather or you chew with your mouth open, please, give me a call. I’m the girl for you!


(this personal ad was brought to you by L and McPolack and was fully approved by Dr. Moo)

Howdy Peeps!

So the last couple of days I've been getting all kinds of support and I felt really not alone in a way I haven't felt before and I wanted to say thank you for that, to everyone. Today has been a bit of a stinker; I just couldn't get my shit together and accomplish what I wanted and couldn't yesterday either. Just had a lot of ADD-behavior -- zipping around the Internet,up and down in my chair, depressed, cranky, pissed at myself -- trying and failing and trying again to just. be. a grownup.

There's snow a-comin' tomorrow which is part of what threw me off -- L is joining me for a visit to Dr. Moo and in order to miss the storm we need to leave first thing in the a.m. which means I had to reschedule my career counseling to next week. I'm feeling a lot of urgency around figuring that part of my life out and being financially solvent so I didn't really want to do that. Also I need to meditate which I suppose I can go do right now. Keeping up with the spiritual work is sometimes hard for me. I prefer to blather on about it here, not do it enough, and then whine about it afterwards.

Any-HOO, in other McP news, I attended a stem cell forum at Hahhhhhhhhhhvahd last night and damn was the Muslim (there was a Muslim, a conservative christian, a ucc christian, and a conservative Jewish person which sounds like the setup for a bad joke) who spoke f-i-n-e. There was also some hotness up in the back corner of the room. Of course I was not there (solely) to check out men. I was also interested in the issue. And I've got something to say about it but it'll have to wait until later.

Country Livin'

So on Friday L and I are off to Moo's for a weekend visit. Unfortunately Moo has tossed out the weird poo sample but to replace it we shall be heading out to ear tag a swell ox on Saturday morning. I am quite excited about this! Also Moo was compelled to call me last night after seeing what she considered a "sign" that she should do so: a miniature dachshund in the parking lot of Shaws in Montpelier. Well that is a good omen for sure. I myself met a be-neckerchiefed mini dachshund named Jonathan in Cambridge on Sunday afternoon. As my friend nonsequitur has noted that they have swell personalities I do not feel at all embarrassed by the fact that I squeal in delight upon seeing the tiny weiner doggies and can barely contain myself from gobbling them up. Yes, they are that cute. No they do not count as stupid teeny yappy lap dogs. They have a certain je ne sais quoi.

Poor Me

While I fully acknowledge that I really have no right to feel bad about my life in any way given the way that many others, including people quite close to me, are suffering, right at this moment, I just need to whine for a minute. So feel free not to read on. I just need to get this out.

1. I really really need a haircut. My hair is a frizzy awful mess and I can't remember the last time I cut it but it has been more than a year. I can't afford to get a haircut right now however and I don't know when I am going to be able to.

2. I really need a new pair of glasses. The old pair, purchased at Wal-Mart a few years ago, are all scratched, and were purchased for 50 bucks by having the optician look at my old scratched broken lenses to figure out my prescription. I see blurry sometimes because of all the scratches. This sucks. Can't afford to get new ones though.

3. I haven't had time to do laundry this week so I had to use the mostly broken washing machine in the basement which leaves my clothes soaking wet and doesn't really rinse them. There's no dryer. I'm hoping they don't get too mildewy.

4. Mostly I am whining because I am broke. Broke, broke, broke, broke, broke fucking broke. Again. I'm 33. I have nothing to show for it. Or I should say I have a few trappings like a laptop, a wonderful kitty, a bitchin' Honda Civic with no power anything but damn it runs good, but these were obtained, let's be honest here, with help. Did you know that I saved seventeen thousand dollars from my contracting job at the consulting firm and it is gone now because I had to use it all for living expenses? Fuck me. Of course the flipside of this is that I was capable, in ONE YEAR, of saving that much dough. I'm no crazy spender. At the same time I go to Whole Foods every week because they have good coffee but also their edamame is cheaper than at the Basket.

5. Oh and none of my pants fit well and most of them are stained and ripped as are a lot of my tops. I need new clothes but of course I cannot afford these either.

Sigggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Listen, I fully realize how much more my life could be in the shitter than it currently is. I am making progress, going to the career counselor, meditating, taking care of myself (trying not to puke at what an entitled spoiled fucking brat that last sentence makes me sound like...) but I just...I guess I wish I felt more reassured that I wasn't going to end up a childless 35 year old in a dead-end job living with housemates trying to scrape by. Honestly I'm really afraid of ending up poor and alone. Like my parents will die and my brother will be off with his family and good life and home and my sister will be doing her vet thing and I'll just be same old fucking McPolack, forever treading water and not getting anywhere.

Damnit.

Thanks for listening!

Yawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnn

Man I have a wicked case of the sleepies today. Had one yesterday too. It's like my whole body is tired and my eyes are watering from keeping them open. Also I felt a smidge dizzy today and both yesterday and today have had the sligggggggghtest wheeze and/or tightness in my chest.

I also suffer from a touch of hypochondria which led me to Google walking pneumonia. Which of course I don't have. But better safe then sorry, right?

At the moment I am vegetating in front of a "top ten" show that is an homage to what revolting gluttons we Americans are. Let's here it for trying to eat six dozen oysters in five minutes or a pizza that weighs 28 pounds in an hour. In the words of TA, America, fuck yeah!

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

A while back my Quebecois hygienist said to me "If someone really loves you they'll buy you an ionic toothbrush."

Well I haven't gotten one of those yet but Dr. Moo did order me a SheWee. She also ordered one for her vet school friend that was sent to Bagdhad as part of that asshole's deployment of further troops. Moo was surprised I had never heard of the SheWee. I, in turn, could not believe she'd never heard of these. Oh, and when I visit her next weekend she's saved a piece of ecolic (?) feces for me to have a look at. Gee, thanks.

In other McPolack news, I went with L on Friday night to see Music and Lyrics. I was fully prepared for it to suck and was mostly going to see L and keep her company as her British man is in Singapore. But overall the movie was, for a romantic comedy, really pretty funny and sweet. And sometimes it was hilarious.

Aaaaaahhh

I am breathing the sweet sigh of relief that can only come from the completion of a project. Today I not only finished updating a this-and-that project that involved spending eight business days trying to gather information from a few dozen people and institutions of various levels of muckity-muckness, I also finished my first knitted hat! It has a pompon on top of it and it's pink. I think I might give it to McMumsy.

In other news, well, holy hell, I went out with the Architect again last night. He had e-mailed me a few weeks ago apologizing for not being in touch sooner, and when he e-mailed yesterday I, sucker for his hotness that I was, broke the lady dating rules and agreed to go out on a date occurring less than 12 hours from when the invitation for said date was sent.

Or was it a date? We went to see an Australian author of mammoth novels do a reading. Only the author didn't bother to show up. So we were left wandering another independent ciy bookstore. I think at one point the Architect was sniffing me. I did smell pleasant. He on the other hand was a tad odiferous and apparently has not gotten a good night's sleep in three years. After the bookstore we went across the street where he watched me eat a meal I paid for. I asked him out for next week but he has not responded. I do not know what I think of him save that I am curious to get to know him better before making any sort of a decision.

OK honestly mostly what I am is irritated, because come-fucking-on! I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm pretty, I'm unique, and I can balance the entire weight of my extremely fit body on my shoulders. I should be beating the men off with sticks. Or else breaking their arms with my thighs.

oink oink

Took off for a run at 7:15 this morning...when it was 10 below zero with the wind chill...got eyelash ice cubes and my hi-tech racin' gear did nothing to stop the wind from flying up underneath my jacket and sailing through my tights and turning me a delightful shade of piggy pink.

Cat and Mouse

I've been very very busy today and will be much of these week. And my ever thoughtful bunny (she's a kitty but I call her bunny) Daphne-Moon just planted her butthole directly on top of my mouse and is swishing her tail across the keys of my laptop.

I wonder what she is trying to tell me...

The flake strikes again

Well apparently I used up all my powers of organization and non-daftness up trying to juggle transcription, a freelance project that required a lot of juggling, seeing the career counselor, and fitting in meditations and a support group, because after packing up homemade brownies and two different kinds of cookies I realized I couldn't remember the address of where my book club was being held. Although I thought I knew the general area. But after 45 minutes of driving and walking I gave up. And now they are without dessert, whilst I am with dessert, a shitload of it, and alone on a Saturday night.

Hans Bricks

So I just spent the last three hours typing up a panel discussion hosted by a thinkety-think tank in which nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament were discussed by many smart people from here and from foreign lands with long and interesting sounding names followed by even longer and more interesting-sounding titles.

And then there's Hans Blix, chief UN Inspector for Iraq and the Chair of the International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction. Certainly a serious man speaking on a serious topic. Yet all I can think about when I hear him speak is this.

Nervous Nellies, Unite!

Well it makes me feel better to know that historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who lived quite the amazing and productive life before he died yesterday of a heart attack, used to get so nervous before teaching at Hahhhhhhhhhhhhhvahd that he threw up before every class.

Or does it? I get overly nervous too but I didn't write a biography of Andrew Jackson at the age of 27 that won a Pulitzer.

Dang it.