March 2011
Party's Over, Kids.
I’m officially paying for the New York Times website. I mildly regret that my last “free” article was one of those stupid yuppie kindergarten admissions bitch-fests, but, in a way, it just seems…so New York Times.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, And An...
It’s probably unrealistic to assume that you all read Coates’ stuff in “The Atlantic” as frenetically as I do. I’ll just say that you should, because he’s dynamite. I also have no particular wish for him to take Herbert’s slot on the New York Times op-ed page, because I’d hate to see him struggle with the notorious confines of that kind of space. ...
You Know Who's A Goddamn Genius For Our Time?
Lionel Shriver. I’m just saying. Her books are brilliant, her essays are beyond insightful, and she gives the impression of just being mildly unpleasant as a person, which, generally, the greatest writers are. Shine on, you crazy diamond!
Honestly, if you didn’t read “We Need To Talk About Kevin” because the title is all Jodi Picoult, I feel you, and I want you to get...
No Excuses
I…totally trotted Bella at the end of her training session today. Sometimes it’s too hard to just…watch, you know? And she was super relaxed and loose and it was sunny and gorgeous and it felt soooooooo nice.
Plenty of crazy bitches ride until their baby is crowning, and everything, it’s just that EVERY book is all ‘continue your usual physical activities, EXCEPT...
Top Chef: The Finale
HYSTERICAL hormonal weeping. Floods. of. Tears.
Also, watched it while eating a mediocre granola bar, wanted short ribs. Always want short ribs.
After Reading About Spontaneous Human Combustion...
Let’s update the list of things that the Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviewer believes to be real and not-real:
Real: Spontaneous Human Combustion, The Patriarchy, ghosts, ESP, great cats of Britain, the Loch Ness Monster, aliens of both the grey and little green variety, and that book about your horse’s astrological sign (Bella IS a total Pisces).
Not Real: God, Manic Pixie Dream Girls,...
On Wedding Registries
I’ve given this quite a bit of thought, as I have friends who loathe registries, and friends who loathe having to free-style, and friends from cultures where monetary gifts are the norm, and others who find it crass.
And, honestly, I’ve decided that, when you love the two people who are getting married, you tend to find whatever gift route they’ve elected to go down perfectly...
WatchRory, engaged in her own particular brand of hostile, hypnotic biscuit-makery.
I Was On The Phone With An Old Friend Last Night.
…who, amongst other things, was telling me about her (actually super interesting and awesome) sex life, and I had this MOMENT, you know, where I felt like I was half of the boring Hamptons married couple whom Carrie visits and tells her fabulous single girl anecdotes to, and they get that frisson of delight from it. Minus Industrious Husband exposing himself to my friend, obvi.
And then...
The Lonely Baleen Whale Rejects Any Suggestion... →
Anonymous asked: I know you don't like The Fountain, but you can't deny Hugh Jackman was awesome in that movie. I was seriously blown away.
I Keep Checking
…but apparently it’s still too soon to set my DVR to record the Royal Wedding on BBC America.
I briefly considered rescheduling my first ultrasound to avoid a conflict, but realized that the wedding coverage will begin at about 3:30am Mountain Time.
Shut up, I am an ardent monarchist. Perhaps my baby will grow up and marry the baby that Wills and Kate will no doubt conceive within...
"The Awl" Has Listened To Your Mournful Pleas!
And has pushed “Classic Trash” back to NEXT Friday, so you have time to read “Peyton Place.”
Now you have no excuse.
Can’t wait, lovelies!!!
CLICK ON THIS AND GO LISTEN TO MY COUSIN'S SWEET... →
Right now! Listen to the songs for free and then, maybe, think about paying to download them. No pressure.
(PRESSURE)
Aww, Dude, Farley Granger Is Dead.
The Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviewer loves her some Farley Granger.
Especially “Strangers On A Train,” which is soooo great. You should rent “Strangers On A Train” and “Double Indemnity,” and just rock out all over the place. I mean, Granger isn’t in “Double Indemnity,” but Barbara Stanwyck is, and I have a trashy biography that claims she...
After Years Of Reading 'Savage Love'
It’s super hard to remember that FTM can mean ‘first time mom,’ and not just ‘female-to-male transsexual.’
Makes the pregnancy discussion boards sound a lot more interesting at first glance, though.
“I shall not be the first to break the peace we’ve made here today.”
– Overheard: Industrious Husband to Rory the Cat, after resolving their conflict of the previous afternoon.
National Velvet, Enid Bagnold
You do know it’s a FABULOUS book, right? Fabulous. And, obviously, psycho horsey girls will always feel that way, but do you remember Velvet’s mother? The absurdly strong and complex woman who swam the Channel? And how she’s a very large woman, but it’s clear that what she actually is is MAJESTIC? And she’s just so different from the depictions of mothers...
Anonymous asked: no, Black Swan is not a good film.
Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky
1. FUCKING AWESOME, ALL THE WAY.
2. Instead of being like a Rubik’s cube, it’s like an awesome set of Legos that have been broken in enough to allow the pieces to be easily snapped and unsnapped. And then you can build a little house! Or a lesbian sex scene!
The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky
1. Long. So long. Spaniards? Ziggurat.
2. Why is the tree in a bubble? Instead of eating it, why did he not pack some freeze-dried astronaut food?
3. Rachel Weisz is super pretty.
4. Now she’s bald. But sometimes not!
5. Hugh Jackman is cuter when he has an adamantium skeletal layer.
6. The tree is Rachel Weisz, or the tree is like a memory of Rachel Weisz?
7. The...
Cat Drama, As Though There Is Another Kind.
Rory, like many cats, has no cheerful middle-ground between “I am enjoying you petting me,” and “FUCK YOU, I’M SO OVER THIS.”
So, she was sitting next to Industrious Husband, in “I am enjoying you petting me” mode, until she suddenly switched to “FUCK YOU, I’M SO OVER THIS” and attempted to bite his hand.
So Industrious Husband spoke...
Maybe I'm Just A Philistine.
But whenever I see the trailer for “The Tree of Life,” I pretty much gag. I have developed a severe aversion to almost all high-concept movies, and God-forbid they also star Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. I saw “The Fountain.” How is this not “The Fountain”?
I just…want to watch James Bond shoot people, you know? Or, like, watch X-People discover their...
This Ina Garten Debacle.
I’m glad she’s going to do it (not that I imagine she OR the child will enjoy it, after all this hoopla), but I think the public shellacking has been beyond inappropriate.
All I can think of is: “WHO? WHO DOES NOT WANT TO WEAR THE RIBBON?”
I also think she’s taking more flak because she’s a woman, and that we’d be more likely to assume that, you know,...
I'm Going To Stop Reading The New York Times...
For serious?
I was sitting around with my Dad and his military friends last year. All of them, both retired and active service, said that obesity is more of a threat to national security than terrorism. So think of 9/11, the USS Cole, the bombings of US Embassies in Africa and the continuing threat from Al Qaeda as LESS THREATENING than fat children.
Oh, wow, yeah, no one would be better...
THIS IS NOT A SOLUTION EITHER.
Excerpted from a comment on the WHY WON’T YOU SHUT UP article I just linked:
My mother had the time to serve a hot bowl of cream of wheat for breakfast every single day. My school did not have a lunchroom, so we walked home for a midday meal. (If I didn’t finish it at breakfast, a half-eaten bowl of cream of wheat, now cold, would be presented to me at noon. Ugh.)
Now, THAT’S a...
Oh, War On Obesity, Nice Move.
Did you see this article in the Times?
Tatyana Gray bolted from her house and headed toward her elementary school. But when she reached the corner store where she usually gets her morning snack of chips or a sweet drink, she encountered a protective phalanx of parents with bright-colored safety vests and walkie-talkies.
The scourge the parents were combating was neither the drugs nor the ...
Apropos Of Nothing
In “Beauty and the Beast,” the greatest of all Disney movies (no, seriously, shut up), did anyone else feel that the Beast was actually more attractive than the rando human dude he turned back into?
I mean, I’m not sure if you could actually have sex with him AS the Beast, because, well, parts? but if you could, then Belle got a raw deal.
On Assisted Reproductive Technology
(IVF, IUI, the whole catalog of options.)
I think it’s goddamn amazing and incredible. Adoption is a super-cool thing (crazy expensive, crazy difficult, sometimes impossible, often AWESOME), but it’s not a catch-all cure for infertility, and I think it’s amazing we now live in a world where we can help a lot of infertile people (and gay and lesbian couples!) have biological...
Oh, Right.
Industrious Husband would like me to point out that Toni Weschler was not the one who actually knocked me up practically before my pants came off.
Taking Charge Of Your Fertility, Toni Weschler
Oversharing time!
I’ve already talked about how RIGHTEOUS Toni Weschler is, but now I feel free to point out that that bitch can get you knocked up basically before your pants come off (obviously provided you don’t have issues, but you WILL realize you have issues a lot sooner if you’re reading this fuckin’ book).
We had started trying a couple weeks ahead of schedule,...
Things I Have Cried At Due To Pregnancy Hormones...
The theme song from “Firefly.”
The fact that Jack Donaghy’s baby associates him with a Trinidadian-Creole word meaning “stranger.”
Hercules Poirot discovering his old crush (played by Duckface from “Four Weddings And A Funeral”) is married to his old friend.
Recognizing that said actress was Duckface, and then remembering the Auden poem in “Four...
In Case You Don't Read "The Awl"...
(What’s wrong with you?)
I’m rolling out the first installment of a new feature, “Classic Trash,” this Friday. We will be reading the legendary “Peyton Place.”
You want in. Trust.
RIP, Diana Wynne Jones
I’m taking this really hard. She was an extraordinary writer.
Damning With Faint Praise
Friends describe Witherspoon’s hubby as “a family-oriented grownup” who makes Witherspoon “very giddy.”
Ouch, girls. Ouch.
You know who that sounds like, right?
Glorious Visit Of Industrious Mother
I started out, of course, with three weeks of determined SHALL PREPARE MULTIPART MEALS OF PERFECT FETAL NUTRITION, and drank gallons of kefir with berries and ate mounds of salmon with lentils and kale, and swanned around like Gisele Bundchen.
And then I became sick off my ass, had to start drinking my morning coffee again, could no longer walk into a grocery store or look at a stove or brush my...
Oh, Also From Yesterday's Appointment
The nursing student was about eighty pounds, soaking wet, and prone to sliding back into her native Japanese, so the BMI portion of the conversation was mildly surreal:
‘Now, you look (scans me, head to toe, in the horrible gown, with my Smartwool socks pulled up to my knees)…fine.’
Me: ‘Glurg.’
Her: ‘So you are allowed to gain…SOME weight.’
...
Baby Names
We generally call the alien blob ‘James Tiberius.’ Or, at a friend’s suggestion, ‘Willow Thrace.’
Whether or not we’d have the balls to do it is another matter.
This Is Why, Obviously...
My posts have been more pets-and-television-based recently. Which I got a bitchy email about from some dude, but wasn’t able to say ‘I AM READING BILLIONS OF BOOKS ABOUT BABIEZZ, and the rest of the time I am going ughhhh fuck you evil hormones, don’t you dare eat a Spanish omelette in my presence.’
Mistakes To Pay Attention To
(At the lab, waiting to fill many vials of blood.)
Blood-Lady: ‘I’m…going to check on this one, okay?’
Me: ‘It’s probably the toxo screen, they added it because we lived in France and had kitties.’
Blood-Lady: ‘Probably, but it’s the code for cerebral-spinal puncture.’
Me: ‘Go check! Godspeed!’
Aww, Thank You!
No, seriously, you’re so sweet. Why, like EVERYTHING in the WORLD, it’s making me cry suddenly for no reason!
And now, when things are actually sad (Wash dying in ‘Serenity’), hold onto your fucking hat.
Mom was able to be with us when we heard the heartbeat for the first time yesterday, and it was Crazy. Also because Utah is extremely eugenics-y about their love for...
REALITY SHOCK, PEOPLE.
YOU GUYS, I AM TOTALLY PREGNANT, and it has been IMPOSSIBLE not to tell you!!!!!!
I have SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT IT, like “SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT” and “Do we have to start eating while sitting down at a table now, like GROWN-UPS?” and “WILL THE BABY BE LAZY, OR INDUSTRIOUS??”
Industrious Husband, although slightly bemused at my ability to get pregnant fifteen...
librarianpirate asked: Oh! Oh! And then this one, "expect to be treated with distain by waiters who earn less a year than it costs to stay in the hotel a night!"
That just says it all, doesn't it?
That just says it all, doesn't it?
