Jenna declined to give me a pep talk this morning when I got all gripey in her direction and I appreciate that. The trouble with the sort of irrational and nonspecific funk that descended on me last week and continues today is that there is no effective pep talk. I’m not discouraged. I’m just cranky.

Life is just fine. And by that I mean, I have a swell husband and a great house. I have plenty of work. Jack is behaving. My social is chugging along nicely. (Almost too nicely. I’m nearly out of pleasantries.) Tom’s business is a little slow at the moment and that’s worrisome but that will pass. It always does. It’s even been raining the past couple of days, which is a very good thing. And the temperature is in the 80s, which is a very very good thing, after weeks and weeks of 100-plus.

So why do I feel all kvetchy and dissatisfied? Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe it’s a change in the barometric pressure. Maybe I’m not happy unless I’m unhappy.

Maybe it’s all the socializing. Socializing does provide me with the opportunity to compare myself with other people and I rarely allow myself to come out the “winner.”

I had a drink yesterday with a friend who is The Dallas Gal in Demand. She has people running after her waving juicy job offers whether she’s looking for a job or not. Envy, envy, envy.

I don’t want a job but I do want jobs to want me.

Hm. Actually, I think that about sums up my attitude towards everything. I don’t want the hassle of writing for the big fancy magazines, but I want them to want me. I don’t want to do a lot of socializing but I want everyone to crave my company. I don’t want a job but I want employers to pursue me. I don’t want to go to parties but I want to be invited.

Wow. How stupid is that? What kind of pep talk could possibly be effective to dispel that kind of stinkin’ thinkin’?

Is admitting the problem the first step in recovery?

Do I feel better just saying it?

(Pause to think.)

Nah.

Labels: griping, personal growth

You know, Dillard's does have some OK clothes in their ads sometimes. But never, never on this poor woman. This model must be toting some pretty terrible karma because she is only photographed in the most unfortunate outfits. What did you do to Dillards, poor MILF-lady?

Labels: advertising, dillard's, fashion

I'm in kind of a shitty mood this weekend for no reason I can pinpoint. Even an evening of Fred and Ginger movies last night didn't help dissipate my funk.

Then I read this story in my paper today, about a guy who is being told he can't park his new truck in his own driveway, and it just makes me want to go to Frisco and kick some suburban idiot ass. It makes me want to park my crappy old Honda on the streets of this gated community and leave it there. Or better yet, Tom's tired old Ford F-150, just to make the point. I suppose if you choose to live in a gated community with a homeowners association you are agreeing to abide by the rules ... but that doesn't make people suck any less.

Speaking of you are what you drive, I did enjoy Terry Box's column today, about driving a muscle car.

More buyouts coming at the Dallas Morning News. Wednesday is the deadline for decisions. Then the layoffs start again. Woe is us.

Labels: dallas, news, newspapers

I rarely agree with conservative groups agitating over our degrading morals, but this bunch bitching about how marital sex doesn’t get nearly the bump adultery does on TV strikes a chord. Because it’s not just the sex that’s portrayed as dismal—it’s marriage itself.

To quote myself:

…long-term relationships are most often portrayed as stultifying, tainted by seething resentments and unspoken disappointments.

Granted, there is some truth to the challenges of keeping marriage fresh, but long-term does have rewards. They're rarely explicitly portrayed in pop culture, though. Instead, we get Frank and Marie Barone, lobbing insults at each other. Or, more currently, Don and Betty Draper, going through the motions while Don gets his kicks in the big city and Betty gets hers on a horse.

Where are my role models, please?

***

This USA Today story addresses what women already know—the dressing room is a terrible, terrible place. I was kind of relieved to read that I’m not the only woman who has ever cried in a dressing room. It happened at The Gap, where I discovered that I am grossly deformed according to the standards of their designers.

How ‘bout bathing suit shopping? Most bathing suit makers seem to have no idea at all how women are put together.

Once, after a particularly demoralizing 30 minutes trying on bathing suits in Dillard’s, a saleswoman noticed how depressed I looked when I stepped out.

“It’s not you,” she said. “It’s the clothes.”

I will love that woman forever.

***
I haven’t mocked press releases for a while so here are some excerpts that made me slump.

This one arrived today:

Holiday shopping, a busy travel schedule and dry winter weather. Feeling overwhelmed yet? Recharge and get in the spirit with the enticing scent of cranberries in XXXXXXX wash and lotion.

This refreshing duo provides the perfect pick-me-up for tired hands and feet. Integrate them into your daily beauty regime to soothe seasonal stress. Festive XXX puts the “happy” back in front of holidays.


I understand that they’re pitching in time to make it into magazine holiday round-ups, but no, I’m not feeling overwhelmed yet and I don’t want to get into the spirit. I want to make it through the last of summer.

I am of the opinion that press releases should never ask questions because when they do, my answer is almost always, "No."

How about:

2008 is a year all about POWER, the struggle for it (politically), the display of it (athletically), and the conservation of it (economically and environmentally). This fall, XXX launches its olfactive answer to the question of what is power and how is it being redefined by modernity.

In an unprecedented partnership with prolific Japanese designer and art director of XXX proposes a powerful new identity for masculinity, one centered on simplicity, honesty, and an imaginary flower.

I don’t know which I like better, the “olfactive answer to the question of what is power” or “simplicity, honesty, and an imaginary flower.” Actually, this release is so ludicrous, it’s compelling.

I have to leave the product name in here because it’s part of the joke. The lame joke:

If you have commitment phobias, Sircuit has a product that will make you say Eye Dew!

This also arrived today:

With the winter months beating down upon us, it’s crucial that we prepare, protect and hydrate to keep our skin healthy all year round.

I just realized that they probably meant bearing down not beating down. At least I hope so.

Nothing wrong with this pitch, it just gets a shout-out for the unnecessary quotation marks:

As you are probably are aware, one of the "hottest" topics in the health, family, youth and beauty arenas right now is the safety and performance of sun block products.

And here’s one working much too hard:

Whether you are climbing the side of a mountain, kayaking through a canyon, or snorkeling off the coast, outdoor adventures render picturesque moments that deserve to be displayed and remembered. Present the moments you capture along the journey in a XXX.

XXX has just recently announced the XXX, a premium, hard-bound digital photo book. By simply uploading digital photos, XXX technology allows users to organize photos and preserve memories—like the time the canoe flipped— in the form of professional-looking photo book.

If the canoe flipped, would you really have photos? Or would you have a ruined digital camera? OK, presumably someone else’s canoe flipped … I’ll allow it. But it seems such a non sequitur…

***

Thanks to FrontBurner for finding this video, of a drunk and giddy Kelly Clarkson at a Red Sox game:



I've always like Kelly Clarkson and now I like her even more.

And thanks to Very Short List for this oddly moving and simply odd little film that puts a balloon into famous movie scenes. I don’t know why I was compelled to watch all six-plus minutes but I couldn’t stop.

Labels: art, flotsam, marriage, pop culture, press releases, shopping, television

At what point does one feel grown up?

Driving to dinner at a shmancy restaurant last night, I realized I was feeling some anxiety over the prospect of valet parking.

It’s not just because I would be turning my 14-year-old jalopy over to a valet parker accustomed to Mercedes, Jags and Beemers. That is its own special humiliation.

But I actually found myself worrying about doing it “right.” Wondering if I would seem like an impostor when the valet opened my door and when, later, I slipped him a tip.

Not that I care what a valet parker thinks of me. It's not that. It's just that I shake the feeling that I'm a callow kid trying to act grown-up.

Of course, I 100% look like a middle-aged lady. I get ma’am-ed everywhere I go. But while everyone else looks at me and sees a seasoned old broad, in my head, I’m just a little knucklehead trying to keep up with grown-up life. It’s weird.

Maybe it’s the life I’ve chosen to lead—childless, working at home alone, still rocking out too late some nights. Perhaps if I had to engage with the corporate world more often, the inner and outer mes would be better aligned.

I guess this is a callback to the column I wrote a zillion years ago for Salon about going back to school. (Ah, such a heartbreak—my editor on this column commissioned a series about going back to school in middle age but then immediately changed jobs and the new editor wouldn’t give me the time of day. She must have known I was just a dumb-ass kid pretending to be a professional writer.)

I guess feeling young is better than feeling old, but at what point, I wonder, will I actually feel my age—in a good way? Sometimes I get tired of feeling like a dumb-ass kid. I’d like to feel like a dumb-ass adult for a change.

Labels: midlife, personal growth

I was excited to see this essay by my friend and fellow blogger Ruth turn up on The New York Times' most e-mailed list. That’s a bfd, ya know. Fame, fortune, dates with George Clooney are sure to follow.

In fact, she even heard from a Hollywood producer. I’ll say no more, but I’m proud of her. (Or whatever is appropriate to say here—it’s not like I invented her or anything.) I’m also plum (plumb?) tore up with envy.

Envy, as you know, is my deadly sin of choice. Well, not choice, exactly. It’s the sin I can’t seem to shake. I’m the Dame Edna of Dallas.

My envy is conflicted, of course, since Ruth’s witty essay is about having cancer. So while I would like the accolades she is receiving, I’d really prefer to take a different route. I’m pretty sure Ruth feels the same way.

She’s being very magnanimous about it, too. “You’re funny too,” she assured me. “You just need a fatal disease.”

I know, we shouldn’t even joke about stuff like that. But since Ruth’s essay is about laughing her way through cancer (however bitter the laughter), I give us a pass.

Nevertheless, I want to think of something appalling to joke about so I too can date George Clooney. (Since we all know he’s not going to marry Ruth or anything. He’s not the marrying kind. Besides, she already has a famous husband. Really. His research about the benefits of self-disclosure is standard in psychology textbooks. He's a personal hero since the research essentially validates what I do best--writing about myself.)

The only disease I have is Dr. Phil, whose rumored divorce is bringing more people to this blog than my wit has ever managed. He’s more popular, even, than crossdressers in saris. Is there a cure for Dr. Phil?

Labels: blogging, writing

I worked out for 40 minutes. It was a pissant workout and I just barely broke a sweat, but something is better than nothing, right. RIGHT?

I also finally threw away the bad watermelon that's been sitting on the kitchen counter looking unappetizing since I cut into it Sunday and decided it wasn't worth eating. I threw out one half when I went out to the garage to turn the a/c on, I threw out the other half a couple of hours later, when I returned to the garage to work out. So it took two days and two hours, but it's done.

Now I will shower.

All the things I could be and should be doing:

Revising my novel. I put a couple of hours into it yesterday but it’s not exactly whizzing along and I’m not sure the revisions are improving anything.

Working out. I’m averaging every other day, maybe. I managed a big 20 minutes on Sunday. If I push myself to do twice that much, I feel like an Olympian. The air-conditioner is running in the garage right now to cool it down and I’m suited up. The hard part is showing up. I keep telling myself that something is better than nothing but nothing is a whole lot easier. I haven’t been to a yoga class in weeks.

Working. I actually have a lot of work lined up. I eke out an assignment or so a day but it’s not easy.

Gardening. I’m not much of a gardener, to understate the case, but I do get out there with pruning shears and tidy things up from time to time. But not now. Every day I pass a little ivy bed by the driveway that desperately needs a clean up. Every day I think about getting out there and snipping the straggly things down. It would take four minutes, max. Every day I forget all about it.

Sewing. On Sunday, I started making a skirt that should take about three hours. I’m managing about one seam a day.

Going to the supermarket. Poor Tom. It’s always up to him. I hate going to the supermarket. I don’t know why. We’re running out of everything we can’t buy at Costco and I can’t seem to care. I’ll just eat whatever is around until the cupboards are bare.

Putting away my laundry. I finished doing my laundry days ago. It’s still in the basket in the bedroom. I just rummage around in there for clean underwear every day and leave the rest of it sitting.

So what am I doing with my time these days? Jackshit.

Help.

Labels: frustration

Is it just me or is everyone quiet these days?

I seem not to be bursting with information and opinions I feel compelled to share. I suspect all bloggers reach a point like this, especially those of us who rely on blather over information. Considering how long I’ve been yammering at y’all, I’ve managed to last a long time before hitting a wall.

I’ve been looking back at some old posts. Wow, I sure had a lot to say. Impressive. These days I can barely compile a good head of flotsam. What’s to become of me?

Of course, I’m not hearing much of anything from anyone else, either. My email is a total dead zone. I suppose I can again blame midsummer malaise. We were promised a cool front today in Dallas but that never materialized. It rained for a few minutes and now the air is like a warm, mildewed washcloth. Who can think in such a climate?

I got nuthin’, people. Absolutely nuthin’. Let me think and rummage through my email and links collections and maybe tomorrow I will once again sparkle with wit and wisdom. Maybe.

I'm open to suggestions of subjects on which you would like me to pontificate. Anything I can update?

I'm probably not meditating enough.

Labels: blogging